I’m a Psychedelic Furs fan. Not a crazy, over-the-top fanatic, but I really like the band. I first saw them in concert in the summer of 1987. They played the Bronco Bowl – rest in peace – and the reason I went was because The Call opened. I knew only a few songs by the Furs at the time, but I was really into The Call. (I’m certain I was one of two people in Texas at the time who knew of them.) By the end of the night, I was a convert.

When I moved back to Arlington in 1993, I was dirt poor and barely employed. But I made the bold purchase of the All of This and Nothing two-track at Half-Price Books for $2.99. The price tag is still on the plastic case, and this is still one of my most listened to audio cassettes.

I was so worked up about all those crazy lyrics and twisted word games that I used them in my sig file when the Internet was barely hatched. After initially dismissing “Pretty in Pink” just because of the John Hughes film, I learned to relove that song, listening to it over and over on those long drives to my graduate school during rush-hour traffic. I even somehow managed to get my university to issue “pinkboy” as my official university email ID. I’m not quite sure anyone ever realized that was in reference to a Psychedelic Furs songs….

When I was in Beijing in the summer of 1999, the opening lyrics to “Love My Way” summed up my experience at the disco:

There’s an army on the dance floor
It’s a fashion with a gun, my love

Everyday I excavate new meanings from these old songs. And I now have tickets to their concert tonight. They open for Devo and When in Rome at the Fair Park Band Shell. But after spending all morning reading about them online, looking through old photos, and listening to various versions and covers of their songs, I found out they cancelled their show in El Paso yesterday. Will they actually be here tonight?

Love my way, it’s a new road
I follow where my mind goes
So swallow
All your tears my love
And put on
Your new face
You can never win or lose
If you don’t
Run the race

Words to live by. Words to love by.