This is not part of my book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1). Probably should have been.
An infinite number of tracks can each be THE greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns. Today, this is THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE!
THE RUBINOOS: Wouldn't It Be Nice
Written by James Gangwer and Tommy Dunbar
Produced by Gary Phillips, Glen Kolotkin, and Matthew King Kaufman
From the album The Rubinoos, Beserkley Records, 1977
All hope abandon ye who enter here
How can a crowded, chaotic hallway seem so empty? The tumult is palpable, its air heavy with sweat and hormones, its loudest rah-rah-sss-boom-bahs seeking to engulf and drown the square pegs alienated by its clamor. People, people, everywhere, and not a stop to think.
In the middle of it all, he stood alone, quietly shutting his locker, willing himself into an anonymity he wasn't sure he wanted, but still a camouflage he was too intimidated to relinquish. Shuffle. Jostle. Ridicule. Scorn. If it were a movie, a paper airplane would sail his way and lodge itself--painfully--in his ear.
But it wasn't a movie. It wasn't even real life. It was high school.
(And please don't tell me high school is real life. Surely our lives can aspire to something better than that.)
And he sees her. Again, as he sees her every day. The sight of her face restores an ember of the hope he was supposed to have abandoned. He thinks she's pretty. She thinks he's pretty. They connect in a way the tumult all around them cannot comprehend. They draw closer to each other. And she whispers in his ear:
Could you come over tonight? Nobody's home, nobody except me.
Are his eyes closed or open? Is this real? Can it be real? That is not for us to say.
But wouldn't it be nice?
I was 17 when I discovered the music of the Rubinoos. It was 1977, and I was nearing the end of my sentence to high school. The also-young members of the Rubinoos were on the radio with a cover of the Tommy James and the Shondells hit "I Think We're Alone Now." The Rubinoos' version just missed the Top 40 (# 45), so I may or may not have heard it on Syracuse's WOLF-AM. But I heard it, somewhere. I thought it compared well with my cherished memory of the Shondells.
I'm not sure if this cover of "I Think We're Alone Now" would have been enough to transform me so quickly into a Rubinoos fan. Perhaps not by itself, but there were other factors in play. I read about the Rubinoos in Phonograph Record Magazine. I saw them on American Bandstand. They were only a few years older than I was--maybe in their early twenties?--so they projected YOUTH!! in a way most other acts could not.
Yeah. I was a fan, pretty much immediately. Rubinoos Forever!
And regardless of whether or not I heard the Rubinoos on AM radio, I know that I did hear them--perhaps incongruously--on FM in '77. Utica's WOUR-FM--The Rock Of Central New York--was a progressive station in the best sense, open to new things, new vistas. In this rough time frame, WOUR introduced me to the music of Graham Parker, Nick Lowe, and Greg Kihn, played LP tracks by the Kinks, Michael Nesmith, Joan Baez, and the J. Geils Band, and, in the summer of 1977, WOUR gave me my first listen to the Sex Pistols. WOUR could be as laid-back and mellow as the next guy. But clearly, they could also be much, much more.
Now, the Rubinoos were a proudly and avowedly pop combo. They were famously booed at '70s shows for covering the likes of the Partridge Family, and they reacted to the crowd's disdain by performing a freakin' Pepsi jingle. The Rubinoos were punk in every way except their sound and image. They were as cool as uncool could be.
And, one presumes, not cool enough for hipper heads at many (most?) progressive FM radio stations. I'm sure that WOUR wasn't the only exception, the only album-oriented rock station to understand the Rubinoos, to get it. But in MY area code, WOUR was the one that got it. Rubinoos on progressive FM? Damn straight, man.
WOUR played "Wouldn't It Be Nice," a track on the Rubinoos' eponymous debut LP in '77. It wasn't a Beach Boys cover, but an original, co-written by Rubes guitarist Tommy Dunbar (with James Gangwer). It shared some wish-for-bliss DNA with the Beach Boys song of the same title, and it shared a lot of earnest teen lust with the Tommy James gem that the Rubinoos covered for their ticket into the Billboard Hot 100.
Like "I Think We're Alone Now," the Rubinoos' "Wouldn't It Be Nice" employs an implied innocence to sweeten its driving urge for passion. Heavy petting sounds, if you will. The Shondells and Rubinoos songs are more discreet than, say, the horniest hits of the Raspberries, and far, far less blunt than the Knack's subsequent "My Sharona" and "Good Girls Don't." But the fact remains that's these are all songs about the joy of sex.
Or maybe the presumed joy of sex. Within the Beach Boys, Shondells, and Rubinoos tracks, the delight and anticipation approach a (roughly) age-appropriate rite of passage. Could you come over tonight?
With apologies to Janis Ian, I learned the truth at 17. I bought the Rubinoos' first album that summer, and picked up the second LP Back To The Drawing Board when it was released in 1979. Unrelated to that, this boy met girls who thought I was pretty. They acted accordingly.
I thought that was pretty nice.
1977 was a crucible year. I discovered the Ramones and the Runaways, Blondie and Television. I started dating, and I slipped the shackles of high school. The Rubinoos were an integral part of the soundtrack of this boy becoming...well, whatever it was I was going to become. "I Think We're Alone Now." "Rock 'n' Roll Is Dead." "As Long As I'm With You." "I Never Thought It Would Happen." "Nothing A Little Love Won't Cure." "1-2-3 Forever." "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend." "Wouldn't It Be Nice." More. The Rubinoos broke up. They came back. They're still as cool as anything ever.
I've wanted to see the Rubinoos in concert since I was 17. Science suggests that was a very, very long time ago. They're playing in Rochester tonight and, in the words of another cooler-than-cool rockin' pop combo, it's not hard, not far to reach.
And I'm still 17 when I feel like being 17.
The sturm und drang of high-school hallways receded into the rubble of what no longer mattered (if they ever mattered in the first place). The boy and the girl looked into each other's eyes, as so many other boys and girls, and boys and boys, and girls and girls had done likewise over a span of always. Hands joined. Maybe lips met. Plans were made, plans with varying dates, dates with varying plans, but plans with one big, urgent thing in common:
TONIGHT!
I think we're alone now. Wouldn't it be nice to be together tonight? The boys and the girls believe this to be true. Let the chaos get its own girl. Tonight can't wait another minute. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls: The Rubinoos.
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My new book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) is now available for order; you can see details here. My 2023 book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones is also still available, courtesy of the good folks at Rare Bird Books.
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