Filed away in a life-chapter entitled “Things Happen for a Reason” is a young girl of nineteen who bought two tickets to see Peter Murphy play live somewhere in Hollywood, the venue now long forgotten. She had plans with a good friend of hers, a boy she knew from High School who loved music the way she did, but who she never had wanted to kiss, nor had he ever wished to kiss her.
She let him hold the tickets for them and the night of the show she played songs like this one as she got ready (this one on repeat, if I remember correctly). The boy she had never wanted to kiss took the tickets she bought for them and took a boy he wanted to kiss instead, calling her as he was walking out the door to tell her of his plan with no apology, no “I hope you understand.”
The girl was understandably upset and hurt because she may never have wanted to kiss this boy, but she wanted to be his friend, and she most certainly had wanted to see and hear music with him, music they both loved, together. She most certainly had wanted to hear Peter Murphy sing this song live.
“Cuts You Up” by Peter Murphy
365 Days of Music – Day 3 – January 3, 2023
“You pour yourself over me,
like the sun through the blinds.”
A different friend came to her emotional rescue, capturing her and taking her off into the night to see a showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. She had not seen it since she was in High School, going on Friday nights with her theater class, or with her best friend who lived down the street from her. The girl had just met this friend. They’d met in a different theater class, this time in college. They sat towards the front and laughed and sang and shouted along, and the girl nearly forgot the concert going on elsewhere that she was supposed to be at with the boy she had never wanted to kiss.
There that night at the movies before the lights went down the girl saw a boy in a hat. It was the kind of hat that band boys from Duran Duran wore (the girl’s forever favorite band). He had beautiful brown eyes and a half-way-crooked kind of grin that brought a blush to her cheeks when he smiled at her. She saw him again later when she went into the nearby late-night diner with her new friend.
The boy in the hat spotted her immediately and walked her way, that crooked smile turned up to full blast, and a voice deep and crisp that sounded like music. It sounded warm, like a familiar, favorite song. The boy asked the girl and her new friend to join him at his table that he was sharing with his friends. The girl and her friend said yes, and for the whole rest of the night the girl and the boy talked about music and movies, and all those late night things that unforgettable conversations are made of.
When it was time to go the boy asked the girl if he could see her again, and as she said “yes”. As the girl drove away she thought to herself – now this is a boy I really want to kiss someday.
“Cuts You Up” by Peter Murphy is Track 7 off of the 1989 Album, Deep, Murphy’s 3rd Solo Album. The Song was released as a Single in 1990 by Beggars Banquet Records. It became Murphy’s most successful release, topping the Billboard Modern Rock Charts, as well as charting on the Hot 1– and Mainstream Rock Tracks Charts. (from Wikipedia)
