Left of the Dial: peak peterson

peak peterson

So this song comes on the radio yesterday.

"Who is this?" asks the boy, who always wants to know the name and artist of every song.

"It's..." I pause. "Huh."

I can't remember.

I know every lyric. I know how to play it on the guitar. My college band played it, and being the drummer, I was the one to kick it off, and set the tempo way too damn fast. (Also, I forgot that we changed the setlist and was supposed to be starting an entirely different song. Whoops.) I've been listening to Natalie Imbruglia's new cover of it for days on end now. If I could draw, I could probably storyboard the video, even without having seen it in years. (Or at least that was the case before I wrote this post.) I was outraged when it was used in a fast food commercial. I loved it when it was used in Valley Girl.

I know this song.

But I cannot think of the name of the artist.

The hit was so pervasive that it's not like this is some arcane bit of music trivia, like who was the first major rock artist to use Paiste cymbals or something. I can picture where the artist's catalog was located in the record store I worked at in high school. The band was the very definition of "one hit wonder." I'm working my way there...but no. I can't quite do it.

I'm crushed. How can this be happening? And it's not a temporary glitch: the song's nearly over and I still can't came up with the artists' name.

I can't believe this. This is the most

"Modern English!" I yell.

I breathe a sigh of relief. And then I simply sigh.

"This is it," I tell the Rose. "I have passed my peak. This is like peak oil, only it's me. We have hit peak Scott. This is the exact moment at which I have started my long inevitable decline. It's all downhill from here."

The Rose pats my knee. "Remember, Daddy," she says. "Once you've crested the mountain and start going down the other side? Well, a mountain looks beautiful from the other side of the peak, too."

I shall keep her.