Finding Joy in New Day Rising

by editor Michele Catalano

In order to understand my relationship with New Day Rising, you need to know my 1984/85. I was 22, working in a record store, dating a coworker who had swept me off my feet. I was just coming off the best year of my life (shout out 1983) and was doing my damndest to continue on that path. I was succeeding. I’d carved out a little slice of the good life for myself. I mean, I was 22. I was barely thinking of my future, immersed fully in the present, living my best life.

I was in search of never ending joy. A long, brutal relationship was ending just as I started working at Record World. By the time my six month anniversary at the job rolled around, I had discarded my garbage relationship, started another, and was promoted (head cashier!). I was happy. I was fulfilled. I was living a completely self-centered life, as 22 year olds are wont to do. And man, was I having fun.

The guy I was dating (who would later become my first husband and father of my children) was really good at keeping up with new music. He worked down in the basement of Record World a lot, unloading deliveries, slapping stickers on albums, putting them in sleeves. He knew what records came in before anyone, and would set aside any album that looked interesting to him, or that he’d been told to check out.

January 1985 was cold. Colder than your normal New York January. Temperatures hovered around 0 degrees, often dipping down into the negative. When I wasn’t working, I was holed up in my parents’ house, listening to music and keeping warm. I left the house only to go to Record World or to my boyfriend’s house, where we would listen to music and keep warm. It was a good era for me, and I was always looking for ways to express the joy I was feeling. Enter Hüsker Dü.

On one of those days when we were just trying to keep warm on our off day from the record store, my boyfriend said he had a surprise for me in the form of a record; he was sure it was something I would absolutely love. He had previously introduced me to what is now my all time favorite record, so I trusted his judgment. He was, after all, dating me.

I grabbed the cover as he put the record on. Inside there was a sleeve with all the albums SST had for sale. I was looking that over when he dropped the needle down on the title track. I looked at the lyric sheet and laughed when I saw the words to the first song. The second the drums started I knew it was going to be good. And then the guitar. And then the vocals. Over and over again. New day rising, new day rising, new day rising.

It was perfect. It felt, if not empowering, then certainly invigorating. I had the sudden urge to go do something. I don’t know what. Just something.

As the album went on there was more of the same relentless, driving music. Each pounding rhythm, each screech of the guitar, every word sung, it all hit me with a discordant joy. New Day Rising woke something in me. Every song brought with it a swell of resurgence, and of the need to feel everything deeply. I wanted to put on headphones and dance around the house but my boyfriend was sharing this listen with me. I forgot he was there for a minute, I got so engrossed in the music.

Songs like “I Apologize” and “Book About UFOs” with their jangly rhythms and hooky choruses and underlying sense of urgency caught me off guard and I was immediately sucked into their vortex. I did not want to be saved. I swam around in that vortex for forty minutes and when I emerged I was filled with something, some feeling. Was that joy?

I took my boyfriend’s record home; it was fine, he didn’t seem to be into it as much as I was. I braved the cold and drove home where I could listen to New Day Rising in my favorite record-listening way: headphones on, lying on my bed, no one else around.

I didn’t want to be disturbed. I wanted to do a solo shot with this album, because that’s how it felt to me. It’s joy felt private and personal, a letter written just to me, marked personal and confidential. I had a shift at the record store starting at 5pm. I called in sick. I had things to do, and it was just too damn cold to go out. I settled in with my headphones and Bob Mould, Grant Hart, and Greg Norton. They were telling me something.

By my third listen, I figured it out. This was a record about unmitigated joy. Not lyrically, words didn’t matter in that exact moment. The sheer exuberance of the music, the power of it, the surge of joy I felt while listening all pointed to one thing. I had to spread this joy.

I took out my pack of blank Maxell cassettes. I made three copies of New Day Rising. One for my car; one for Andy in the cassette department who was obsessed with Madonna but for some reason I thought he would really like this; one for my boyfriend because he wasn’t getting his record back.

I listened to the title track every morning until it just became part of my routine. I listened at home. I listened in the car. And at work, when it was my turn with “now playing” power, I put on New Day Rising. To me, this was the sound of joy. It was the sound of letting go of everything bad, pushing it out of your body with each note, each lyric, just breathing it out and letting it sail away in a triumphant release. It is the sound of being weightless and free and unencumbered. I felt nothing short of exhilaration as I sang along to “The Girl Who Lives on Heaven Hill” or “Plans I Make.” Mostly, the album warmed me. On those frigid days of the deep northeast freeze, I was dancing around my room and feeling deeply warmed by Hüsker Dü.

The record pictured above is the original vinyl I “borrowed” from my then boyfriend, my now ex-husband. We still talk. I think about telling him I still have it, but I wouldn’t want for him to ask for it back. This well worn copy is my joy, and my joy alone.

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