The first two Nylons cassettes I owned were an import of their debut and Rockapella, at the time their most recent (this was 1989). I had this slim, Art Deco cassette player, and I used to stick in the debut, play to the end of Side A, then Side B, then stick in Rockapella, play that through, stick the debut back in...
I was thirteen. And I was obsessed. Some things just...catch hold of you sometimes, particularly when you're thirteen.
I can still picture the scene of the first time I heard "Up on the Roof." I remember where I was sitting, what I was looking at, how I misheard the lyrics at first and thought he was saying "Darling, you can't share it all with me"--a brave and different sentiment in a love song. I was disappointed to find it was all just a mistake on my part. Later--later the song dug in deep. They all did. Perhaps it was because I was listening to them 20, maybe 30 times a day. I know every note of them now, the intake of every breath.
It was important not to buy all the albums at once; I wanted always to have another to add to my collection. So it was months before I was back at the record store, flipping back and forth between One Size Fits All and Happy Together. Which to buy? Ultimately I was scared of the first because there was a song on it called "Prince of Darkness." In their mid-period had The Nylons gone through a heavy metal/devil-worshipping phase?
Taking Happy Together home, besides vague newly-bought-album unease (Will it be good? Will I like it? Or will I listen once and realize I spent all that allowance money on trash?), I had a more specific concern. The names following the title track weren't that names of The Nylons I knew. "Gary Bonner/Alan Gordon"--had others been in the group in 1987? Such was my complete ignorance of the music biz--I had no idea these names might belong to the songwriters. So three delights awaited me when I pressed "play" that first time. First, after an anxious few opening notes, I heard Arnold's rumbling bass kick in, and I knew these were "my" Nylons. Second, I knew (and already liked) the song! I heard it all the time on Golden Grahams commercials! And finally--it was a beautiful album all the way through. No waste of money here--this was more like an investment.