One Brick Short

Dan Fogelberg is dead.

For most of you under the age of, well, me, that may not mean much. Fogelberg, however, was musical genius with slick pop ballads, hard rockers, progressive rocky tunes and beautiful, if a bit complex melodies.

Another Auld Lang Syne, Leader of the Band, Power of Gold, Longer, Dancing Shoes ... The guy rocked out through the late 70s and early 80s. His hard rockers seldom made it to the radio but his ballads always did.

Fogelberg died at 56. I had no idea he was 56. Hell, I’ll be 50 soon and that means he was six years older than me and way ahead of me in so many ways.

I found about his death from an old friend who wrote me from New York City: What better way to spend a winter Sunday than a long walk in the snow.  On our way back home the snow turned into rain and seriously I thought of Dan Fogelberg’s lyrics to “Same Auld Lang Syne”….which reminded me I hadn’t listened to his music in years.  Since I obviously wasn’t going anywhere in the freezing rain I decided to spend the day baking and listening to my Fogelberg CDs – I literally listened to every one I have throughout the course of the day.

So when I sat down at my laptop about 7pm and saw on msn.com that he died this morning it was a little spooky but most of all sad.  How can you feel so sad about someone you never met?  It seems trite to say he was my favorite, that I loved every album, every song. It just doesn’t seem quite enough ...Now the music world offers us Gnarls Barkely, Pink, Busta Rhymes, Fergie, Justin Timberlake! Seriously, who are these people? Ugh! I am so old - I just learned from my 19 year old that Fergie is not part of the British royal family. I thought for sure she used to be married to Prince Andrew.

“Just for a moment I was back at school. I felt that old familiar pain. As I turned to make my way back home. The snow turned into rain.“ I remember those words well.

I saw some Fogelberg conpcerts when I lived in Colorado. One, with his band, hard rocked in Red Rocks and the other, an acoustic evening in Fort Collins made even an angry young journalist cry. He could write music well beyond I, IV, V, and his lyrics were poetry more akin to Paul Simon than Pink. He provided the soundtrack to a large portion of my life; the good, the bad and the ugly. That I haven’t listened to him as much in the past few years and haven’t bought a new album in some time, is less a reflection on him than a deterioration of my personality.

So here’s to you Mr. Fogelberg: We’ll drink a toast to innocence, we’ll drink a toast to now. And try to reach beyond our emptiness, though neither one knows how. We’ll drink a toast to innocent we’ll drink a toast to time, reliving in our eloquence, another auld lang syne.

Rest in Peace, Mr. Fogelberg, and thank you for living.