It's Different For Girls - Joe Jackson and an Unlikely Friendship

by editor Michele Catalano

Liz was one of my concert buddies in the 70s, during my high school years. We weren’t exactly friends; we had a close mutual friend, which caused us to be in close proximity all the time. We tolerated each other, I guess. But when it came to music, we had very similar tastes, and we both had a desire to see as many live shows as we could.

Joe Jackson’s Look Sharp! came out in early 1979. Liz and I both took to it immediately, while our mutual friend Mary remained firmly entrenched in her Pink Floyd fandom. We bought the record and talked about it so much that Mary didn’t want to hear it anymore. Liz and I formed a bond; a tennous bond, formed solely through music. We annoyed each other in little ways. Liz thought I smoked too much pot and was a bad influence on Mary in that respect. I thought Liz was too much of a rule follower to ever be fun. We’d had close moments before, gushing over the Ramones or the Police in Mary’s finished basement, but this was different. We were obsessed with Look Sharp!, obsessed with Joe Jackson. So when a show was announced at the Calderone Concert Hall in Hempstead, we jumped at the chance even though that meant spending time alone together, without Mary as our buffer. I knew it would be worth it.

The first song I fell in love with from Look Sharp! wasn’t the single, “Is She Really Going Out with Him?” It was the fast-paced “Got the Time” that really set me off. Something about it felt primal, urgent. It was speaking to me, telling me not only that there was so much more out there beyond the Zeppelin and Springsteen music I was absorbed in, there was music in between those two that I hadn’t yet explored. I bought Look Sharp! without hesitation, knowing it was going to take me somewhere new.

Liz and Mary joined me for the first listen, which annoyed me a bit. When I would buy an album back then–and for the most part I still do this–I liked to be by myself on first listen. First takes deserved headphones, silence, thoughtfulness. With both of them in my tiny room with me, I felt like my space was being violated, but I lacked the words to tell my friends to go home diplomatically.

It didn’t matter. It just didn’t matter who was in the room with me when I listened to “One More Time” or when it glided into “Sunday Papers”–a song even my mother would come to enjoy–or when the melancholy of “Is She Really Going Out with Him?” hit, and I wanted so badly to stop the record, to start it over and inhale deep and let the groove dictate my breaths. I wanted to kick out Mary and Liz.

They finally left after two listens. Liz was enthralled, Mary went back to her Grateful Dead records. I listened to Look Sharp! a half dozen times that night, taking it in the way it was meant for me to take it in: alone.

Liz and I got tickets for the Calderone show. It was just a ten minute drive from our neighborhood. I couldn’t believe our luck that Joe Jackson would play a small-ish theater on Long Island. Halfway through an energetic, perfect set, I turned to Liz and said, “He’s going to be playing arenas soon.” She nodded solemnly. We had a little bonding moment there, not gonna lie. We connected in a small way over Joe Jackson, and it felt good.

That was August. Our Joe Jackson fandom had reached a fever pitch, and it seemed like we would ride the wave until it crashed and a new artist came along to grab our attention. And this might have happened if not for the fact that Joe Jackson put out another album in October, just months after Look Sharp! was released. I’m the Man is historically known as a partner record to Look Sharp! I went into thinking it was going to be just as powerful and punk and sensible. Of course, it was.

This time I was able to listen alone. Liz wanted to come over, but I was grounded and couldn’t have company. She sounded disappointed, and I reminded myself that we didn’t even like each other. “On the Radio” was just what I wanted to hear in an opener. Fast paced, kinda punk, sneering lyrics. Liz would like this, I thought. I got through “Geraldine and John” and “Kinda Kute” and decided that I’m the Man was as good as Look Sharp!

And then I listened to “It’s Different for Girls.” With its plaintive emotion and a refrain of “You’re all the same,” it struck me in a way that made me lift up the needle and put it down again at the start of the song. Once again, I thought Liz would like this. Liz would love this. I did something I never did, unless I needed a ride to school: I called her. She heard “It’s Different For Girls” on the radio and thought about calling to see if I had gotten to it. We talked about the song, and the rest of the album, which her brother had already bought. We ended up being on the phone for a good half hour, talking about school and our crushes and what other good music was out there. We bonded–finally–over Joe Jackson.

I eventually got around to listening to the rest of the album. The title track and “Friday” were favorites, but “It’s Different For Girls” was the most important. Liz and I never had another phone conversation after that. We drifted through the rest of senior year in our regular roles as Mary’s friends, but every time Joe Jackson came on the radio when we were together, we’d remember the Calderone, remember “It’s Different For Girls,” and give a silent nod to each other.

Joe Jackson eventually did play Madison Square Garden. I saw him there in 1984 on the Body & Soul tour. I thought about my prediction, and I thought about Liz, whom I hadn’t talked to since our 1980 graduation. I wondered if she was out in the audience somewhere, and when he played “It’s Different For Girls,” I gave her a silent nod, just in case.

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