The Killing Moon, the Great Inflation, and little old me

Twice this last week I heard Echo and the Bunnymen's "The Killing Moon" playing in the background. Once at my coworking space, once when Mary, Graham and I were picking up banh me at Kokyu out near where 54 hits Fayetteville Rd (worth visiting if you never have, more of a lunch than dinner spot typically). I had not known that this song had risen to be something of a Halloween anthem, but I get it and support it. I was happy to see that the official music video has 57 million views on YouTube, which is not chopped liver.

Of all the post-punk bands to arise out of Britain in the late 70s-early 80s, Echo and the Bunnymen were the one that I identified with most, despite the silliness of their name. From the beginning, Ian McCulloch's voice that just struck a chord in me. "Stars are Stars," from Crocodiles, was probably the first song I learned to sing along with on the guitar and largely guided my (limited) guitar sensibility going forward (hint: it's all minor chords except the G, but that's a pretty standard mix).

Meanwhile, back in the present, I've been listening to Mark Higgins's uncatchily-named but thoroughly-researched Investing in US Financial History in the car for some weeks now. One interesting thing I've learned from it is that economists refer to the period of 1965-1982 as "The Great Inflation." The astute amongst you will recognize that my entire childhood and adolescence were lived within this period and that it comes to an end not just when Volker tamed inflation by raising interest rates up to a point of maximal pain, but when Michael hit the shot (and Fred Brown passed the ball to Worthy) which finally let Dean Smith bring the NCAA title home to Chapel Hill. Amongst the happiest nights of my life.

Despite all the inflation and the disruption of the oil embargo and Vietnam and Watergate, I remember my childhood as largely a happy time. The MAGA types look back to the 50s, but the 70s honestly seemed OK to me. We played soccer and got pizza, subs and egg rolls and drove Japanese cars before our country cousins did, so we thought we were cool. My family traveled across the country, to New York a couple of times. We went to the beach. Ranzino dunked on Culbreth.

And yet, there was a melancholy beneath the surface that led me to the minor chords and tragic voices. My parents' marriage was falling apart in front of my eyes, much as I sought to deny it. There were those brutal years between the final losses to Marquette (76-77) and Indiana (80-81) when Carolina lost in the first round of the NCAAs, and it weighed heavily on my soul. Somewhere in there Steve Sandler showed up down at the bottom of our hill with Sex Pistols and Dead Kennedys records. When I heard them, I flipped a switch and transitioned from Barry Manilow and Christmas Rapping to punk and post-punk as if it were as natural a transition as the arrival of pubic hair.

Anyhow, lots to reflect on. I need to ask my mom about the Great Inflation and how it felt to be a young parent then. My guess is that she was just fighting other battles: with my dad, her dad, becoming a small businesswoman in a South not used to them, and so on.