Rock and Roll - Velvet Underground 1970

In the winter of 1970 I was a seventeen year old senior on the South Shore of Boston. I had been accepted to a local university in my junior year. I didn't want to go to college, but the Draft was press ganging young men from all over America to fight the communists in Vietnam, so my choices were very limited, but I was in love with Janet, a beautiful brunette, who was a cheerleader in my hometown. She loved me too.

Her mother was divorced and saw a Chilean jazz pianist. They went out often to dances, concerts, and football games and most nights I came over after track practice with her mother's permission to study. We never did. Instead we made out on her living room couch, never going beyond third base. She was a good Catholic girl, saving herself for marriage. I was okay with that, since we went to the edge often.___

Never naked, but on the edge and even though I was an atheist I told myself I could wait. I was in love and marriage to Janet was a dream of a folk, and future together___

No Vietnam. College. Work. Marriage, children, a house with a lawn. It all seemed possible lost in the passion of teenagers blessed by youth___ Then one night we were listening to WBCN, the radio of the American Revolution. JJ Jackson was the late night DJ. He played soul, jazz, rock, folk, and this night he went deep, as our desire crossed boundaries set by the Church.

I touched her. She touched me. Some places we never touched before guided by innocent inhibition. We were in the Garden of Eden. Our future selec by our fevered panting, our blood aboil with lust, this was not sin, this was heaven___

Then JJ Jackson spoke___

"This is a live recording from the Velvet Underground. ROCK AND ROLL. This is us, dig it."____

At first I ignored his advice until Lou Reed sang, "Jennie said when she was just five years old

There was nothin' happenin' at all
Every time she puts on a radio
There was nothin' goin' down at all
Not at all
Then one fine mornin' she puts on a New York station
You know she don't believe what she heard at all
She started shakin' to that fine, fine music
You know her life was saved by rock 'n' roll."

Janet asked, " What's wrong?"

I had stopped fondling her breasts and grinding my pelvis into hers. Suddenly I understood that she and I were not over, but I once more was destined to leave my hometown with its three streetlights, no bars, Catholic Churches, temples, the suburban desolation and an abandoned chocolate mill. I was leaving it all and whispered the Janet, "I love this song "

"I do too."

We kissed and embraced and joined Lou Reed on the chorus.

"It was alright (it was alright)
Hey baby, you know it was alright (it was alright)"

We were no longer together forever only locked in eternity for the now and
"It was alright (it was alright)
Hey baby, you know it was alright (it was alright)."