Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue
I swear this story is true.
Go back in time with me to 1986. I was living in Mountain View, California with Jim, Dad and my buddy Tom Ryback who drove across the country to stay with us because he was young and wanted to do something like that. Another buddy, Scott Weiser was just down the street at the Naval Base.
A whole bunch of single guys from Buffalo in a sunny location in the summer. We were bound and determined to meet a lot of those California girls.
We kept screwing it up though. We enjoyed beer and tequila a lot too. We'd hit the bar determined to meet a beauty and wind up sitting at the bar laughing, drinking and laughing some more.
No regrets.
One night Tom dragged me to a new thing - a Karaoke bar. I'd never been to one.
I haven't returned either.
I'm not sure if you know this about me or not but I'm a Springsteen fan.
Tom tried his best to get me to go up and sing a Bruce song. It took him about ten beers to talk me into it.
Yet that night there were two people working as a host of the event. Their job was to sing songs if there were no volunteers. One was a male guy who took a real shine to Tom. I'm not saying the guy was gay, but we were awfully close to San Francisco. Neither us cared anyway if the guy was gay or not.
He was just singing in a bar.
The girl who was the second singer for the evening sorta' liked me.
"You have the darkest brown eyes I've ever seen," she said.
She was a cute girl. I know this is crazy, but I remember her name - Donna Lewis.
Anyway there was a break in the action and Donna went to the microphone.
"This is for brown eyes," she said. She then broke into Don't it Make My Brown Eyes Blue.
At the same time she was singing Tom's buddy was working on him. When Donna finished singing the male singer grabbed the microphone.
"Tom and Cliff are going to sing Born to Run."
I didn't have time to get out of it. Tom and I grabbed a microphone and proceeded to absolutely crucify the song. The twenty or so people in the crowd did not clap, or boo.
Instead they sat there with their mouths agape.
When the song ended I told Tom to grab us a beer.
"I'm broke," he said.
I was broke too. We were too young for credit cards.
"Now what?" I asked.
"You have to ask Donna out," Tom said.
I was skeptical.
"Let's just get out of here," I said.
I headed for the door. Tom followed close behind, chiding me to grow a pair.
(This is the part of the story where it gets weird).
Just before we arrived at the car something floated at me through the air. I grabbed it. It was a ten-dollar bill. Tom was also lunging. There was cash floating at us. We ended up with over $40.
Not kidding.
"You gotta' ask her out."
We headed back into the bar.
I worked up the nerve to ask Donna to come over to our apartment complex. Jim was going to cook for us the next day.
It certainly would be nice to say that a love blossomed.
Of course it didn't.
Halfway through dinner Donna reached across the table to grab a roll. Evidently she got too close to the gravy because Jim grabbed her hand and dunked it into the gravy bowl.
I never saw her again, and all of this comes to mind because the song came up on my I-pod the other day. My beautiful wife turned to me with a pained look on her face.
"This is a good song," I said.
"No, it isn't," she replied.
"A girl sang this to me once," I said. "At a bar."
My beautiful wife just frowned.
"She must have been something," she said.
(Be mindful...this is coming from the woman who married me).
One last thing just to tie up the story.
They made a tape of our rendition of Born to Run. We popped it into the tape player in the car. Two lines in Tom popped it out of the player.
He threw it out the car window and it drifted away on the wind.
Don't it Make My Brown Eyes Blue.
Go back in time with me to 1986. I was living in Mountain View, California with Jim, Dad and my buddy Tom Ryback who drove across the country to stay with us because he was young and wanted to do something like that. Another buddy, Scott Weiser was just down the street at the Naval Base.
A whole bunch of single guys from Buffalo in a sunny location in the summer. We were bound and determined to meet a lot of those California girls.
We kept screwing it up though. We enjoyed beer and tequila a lot too. We'd hit the bar determined to meet a beauty and wind up sitting at the bar laughing, drinking and laughing some more.
No regrets.
One night Tom dragged me to a new thing - a Karaoke bar. I'd never been to one.
I haven't returned either.
I'm not sure if you know this about me or not but I'm a Springsteen fan.
Tom tried his best to get me to go up and sing a Bruce song. It took him about ten beers to talk me into it.
Yet that night there were two people working as a host of the event. Their job was to sing songs if there were no volunteers. One was a male guy who took a real shine to Tom. I'm not saying the guy was gay, but we were awfully close to San Francisco. Neither us cared anyway if the guy was gay or not.
He was just singing in a bar.
The girl who was the second singer for the evening sorta' liked me.
"You have the darkest brown eyes I've ever seen," she said.
She was a cute girl. I know this is crazy, but I remember her name - Donna Lewis.
Anyway there was a break in the action and Donna went to the microphone.
"This is for brown eyes," she said. She then broke into Don't it Make My Brown Eyes Blue.
At the same time she was singing Tom's buddy was working on him. When Donna finished singing the male singer grabbed the microphone.
"Tom and Cliff are going to sing Born to Run."
I didn't have time to get out of it. Tom and I grabbed a microphone and proceeded to absolutely crucify the song. The twenty or so people in the crowd did not clap, or boo.
Instead they sat there with their mouths agape.
When the song ended I told Tom to grab us a beer.
"I'm broke," he said.
I was broke too. We were too young for credit cards.
"Now what?" I asked.
"You have to ask Donna out," Tom said.
I was skeptical.
"Let's just get out of here," I said.
I headed for the door. Tom followed close behind, chiding me to grow a pair.
(This is the part of the story where it gets weird).
Just before we arrived at the car something floated at me through the air. I grabbed it. It was a ten-dollar bill. Tom was also lunging. There was cash floating at us. We ended up with over $40.
Not kidding.
"You gotta' ask her out."
We headed back into the bar.
I worked up the nerve to ask Donna to come over to our apartment complex. Jim was going to cook for us the next day.
It certainly would be nice to say that a love blossomed.
Of course it didn't.
Halfway through dinner Donna reached across the table to grab a roll. Evidently she got too close to the gravy because Jim grabbed her hand and dunked it into the gravy bowl.
I never saw her again, and all of this comes to mind because the song came up on my I-pod the other day. My beautiful wife turned to me with a pained look on her face.
"This is a good song," I said.
"No, it isn't," she replied.
"A girl sang this to me once," I said. "At a bar."
My beautiful wife just frowned.
"She must have been something," she said.
(Be mindful...this is coming from the woman who married me).
One last thing just to tie up the story.
They made a tape of our rendition of Born to Run. We popped it into the tape player in the car. Two lines in Tom popped it out of the player.
He threw it out the car window and it drifted away on the wind.
Don't it Make My Brown Eyes Blue.
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