I was cozied up on the sofa, two chunky cats crushing my legs, all of us watching in awe as a mortician did the unthinkable — infusing a vinyl pressing of Santo & Johnny’s haunting tune, “Sleep Walk,” with the cremated remains of his late wife (whom he’d just murdered with an axe).
When he finished his task, effectively hiding the evidence of his crime (or so he thought), the ashes sparked across the vinyl grooves like debris from a post-mortem explosion.
The scene — which unfolded on a recent episode of Natasha Lyonne’s “Columbo”-inspired detective-goof, “Poker Face” — made me wonder: What other fantastic oddities have been stored within the physical confines of an album?
And then I remembered her…
Everybody, meet “Josie.”
When I first slid Josie from the sleeve of my used copy of Pink Floyd’s “The Wall,” I’d already owned the record for several years.
I was living with three roommates in Somerville, Massachusetts, in a house where rain frequently entered through a gaping hole in the ceiling above the stairs.
The pandemic had hit, and we were all stuck inside, unemployed, placing a lobster pot under the leak until it filled. We wore bandanas over our faces when leaving to retrieve groceries (and hulking green handles of Tanqueray). We played dangerously competitive games of Codenames, chugged G&Ts, passed burning spliffs, and took turns banging on an electric drum kit as records spun and spun.
Half-drunk, we wedged Josie’s photo into the edge of a hanging mirror that faced the pull-out couch and the two wicker club chairs we now lived in. As the days disappeared, Josie’s face quickly became the one we saw most.
Her smile was complex. Devious — like Jake Gyllenhaal’s possessed smirk in “Donnie Darko” — but present, and oddly comforting.
Over the next two years, as time crawled toward normal, I’d sometimes question what was really behind those eyes: A tempestuous stare from an otherwise innocent-looking young lass, off on a day-trip in a lush summer field (the back of the photo reads Kodak: JUN 79), wearing a baby-blue sundress, devouring the camera’s attention — and likely the attention of whoever’s finger was on the trigger (Who took the photo?).
The blurred rural background only enhanced Josie’s crystal clear intensity.
When we all eventually moved out of that creaky-leaky house, I took Josie with me to New York, sliding her image back inside “The Wall.” Sad to say, I fully forgot about her until a few weeks ago, when I started to think of story ideas for this very blog.
My record collection is full of past lives. Typically in the form of initials or full names jotted down in pen or marker. Some are punched out on a label maker, some belong to my own family members.
One time, my friend Dylan sent me a small treasure trove of photos he’d recovered from a disposable camera we’d used a decade before, as rip-roaring drunk 18-year-olds out on the town in Montreal. The images were stuffed into a copy of the Fleetwood Mac record “Penguin” that Dylan found at a thrift store — a time capsule within a time capsule within a time capsule(!)
But Josie is different.
Her presence demands something more than continued preservation. She deserves action: a quest!
To uncover the story behind this remnant, I’ll need YOUR HELP, Dear Reader, in discovering the answers to these simple questions:
WHO THE F*** IS SHE?
WHERE IS SHE NOW?
AND, MOST IMPORTANTLY, WHAT DOES SHE THINK OF THE ALBUM?
It occurs to me now that Josie’s photo was tucked into this particular record for a reason.
“The Wall” — Pink Floyd’s 11th studio record — landed in the U.S. in November 1979 (only months before Josie’s photo was developed). I like to think the album held a special place in her heart, and/or the heart of the photographer (a lover, perhaps?).
And, interestingly, the record embodies a quest.
Pink Floyd’s bleak, paranoid, epic rock-opera masterpiece takes on a tortured “rock and roll refugee” named Pink, whose traumas have slowly closed him off from life behind a conceptual brick wall. As Pink becomes imprisoned, he’s striving for answers, for company, for love, for direction, for escape.
Within “The Wall”’s killer track list, Pink remains desperate for self-realization. This is an album packed with questions. Pleading curiosities that one muddled soul yearns to transform into answers.
Here is every one of Pink’s questions, as sung by Roger Waters and David Gilmour (in order by song):
Tell me is something eluding you, sunshine? Is this not what you expected to see? Daddy, what’d ya leave behind for me? Mother do you think they'll drop the bomb? Mother do you think they'll like this song? Mother do you think they'll try to break my balls? Mother should I build the wall? Did you see the frightened ones? Did you hear the falling bombs? What shall we use / To fill the empty spaces / Where we used to talk? How shall I fill / The final places?How can I complete the wall? Will some cold woman in this desert land / Make me feel like a real man? Would you like to call the cops? Do you think it's time I stopped? Why are you running away? How could you treat me this way? Can you help me? Is there anybody out there?Is there anybody out there? Is there anybody out there? Is there anybody out there? What has become of you? Does anybody else here / Feel the way I do? Hello? Is there anybody in there? Is there anyone at home? Am I too old, is it too late? Have I been guilty all this time? Why’d he ever have to leave me? “Isn’t this where…”
To me, these questions surround a story of a guy who wants to live but keeps sinking in on himself. While Pink’s mind-numbing mass of inquiries may not have saved him in the end, it showcases an effort to combat the brutal weight of isolation.
In relation to the Josie situation, I find these two lines, right at the top of the record, to be the most fitting:
If you wanna find out what's behind these cold eyes
You'll just have to claw your way through this disguise.
Right now, Josie’s fate inside this record makes me feel as if she’s entombed, stranded alone in the deceptive cement of one brief moment. Well, let’s help her escape from this sonic limbo, and hear what came next.
If you’re down to investigate, please share any clues to Josie’s whereabouts. She’s probably in her early seventies by now. If we track her down, my plan is to reach out and conduct an interview about 1979, the photo, what this album meant to her, and see where it goes from there
(Thanks in advance for all the late nights and the countless hours of work you’re about to put in so we can find this hopefully-alive lady and ask her if she still digs Pink Floyd. Your undying devotion, and the sacrifices you’ll make for the well-being of The JamJar community will not go unnoticed.)
P.S.
I named her Josie randomly and then threw on the album “Aja” by Steely Dan, on which they sing:
We're gonna break out the hats and hooters
When Josie comes home
She's the pride of the neighborhood
She's the raw flame
The live wire
She prays like a Roman
With her eyes on fire
I so remember this picture. It was always such a mystery! It would be great to find out who she really is!!