“A young woman is dead. I don’t care. You probably don’t care. The police don’t care. The papers don’t care. The punks for the most part don’t care. The only people that care are (I suppose) her parents and (I’m almost certain) the boy accused of murdering her.”–Lester Bangs, on Nancy Spungen’s murder
Best I can come up with for Lupercalia is the intersection of music and love, by way of my five favorite couples, that touch on slightly variegated nuances of romance, when it melts with the music business (an intersection of twin forces, Dumbo!).
Nothing is contrived, I just thought of the first five that came to me naturally (from Aphrodite’s wand of whimsy), “Like the circles that you find, in the windmills of your mind.” Correct me if I’m wrong, but each couple projects an argument as to why the muse of music begets love, and conversely, love conjures forth the sweet sound of music made in heaven.
1. JOHN LENNON AND YOKO ONO
2. JOHNNY CASH AND JUNE CARTER
3. SONNY AND CHER
4. CAPTAIN AND TENNILLE
Romance and the 1970s merge together convincingly with the campy pop duo of Captain (Daryl Dragon) and Tennille (Cathryn Antoinette “Toni” Tennille). You might remember some of their mega hits, such as Love Will Keep Us Together, Muskrat Love, or Do That to Me One More Time. The Captain (the Rick Wakeman of the duo) manned the multiple electric keyboard duties, while Tennille handled the vocals, PR, and twinkled the ivories of her piano.
5. SID AND NANCY
Didn’t even know he’d done it. Nancy was a foul-mouthed groupie in punk circles and Sid was a washed-up bass player of Sex Pistols fame, but did things ‘His Way.’ The stormy punk-romance is nicely portrayed in a 1986 British biopic, Sid and Nancy. So ends our story of music and romance, that comes in many shapes and sizes, but tragedy oft’ knocks on your droopy door when mischievous Cupid shoots his poisonous arrow pass your crooked eye-glasses. Better scram!