It shows in your shoes
WHENfirstIcame to New York, a friend of mine from Brooklyn said it was my boots that piqued her interest. She had seen me sing and had often sang along, liked the music, but said, ‘ That didn’t mean I liked you.’
It was when I stepped out from the Piano and walked by her table that she became interested in me as a person, because of my boots. They were unusual, she said, and that told her a lot about me.
It’s true that those boots were unusual; I had bought them in Germany about five years before. It was the year I turned professional as a musician, that sounds like some kind of graduation ceremony or something, but there was no great ballyhoo or ringing bells, I simply got into a band that played six nights a week, and paid me a week’s wages.
They were an English band based in Blackpool, I hitch-hiked to Bray for an audition in a large house that overlooked the sea, was almost 18, played Green Onions and sang Hey Jude at the piano.
Within three weeks I was crammed into a Volkswagen van with six mature musicians, on the road to Hamburg. They turned out to be a band full of hardened drinkers and takers of Dexedrine – the same drug my mother was on for weight loss. We were in the same club and drug circuit as the Beatles. I was a teetotaler at the time, a saintly position that can cause irritation to the afflicted.
When we went to Berlin in December, the pavements were covered in ice and it was impossible to gain traction on my Irish shoes. So I bought myself a pair of German winter boots with creviced soles. Faux leather was big in Germany at that time; short faux leather jackets were common on the Reeperbahn, and my boots were faux leather.
They rose up to the middle of my shins and had a strap that crossed the instep, two brass studs gave the appearance of holding them in place, purely an accouterment, but it was a touch that drew me in.
I ran out on the band when we were in Berlin, the saxophone player and myself had had enough of their drunken abuse, we wanted to go home for Christmas. Through the snow-covered fields and cities we sped, on a highly efficient locomotive, travelling through Cologne to Calais, and from there we ferried to England. The boots came with me, and stayed in my wardrobe all the way to America three and a half years later.
My Brooklyn friend seemed to see all this when she looked at my boots; they told a story. When she first brought it up I was taken aback, but then realised, that I was a bit of a shoe watcher myself.
On the New York Subway I would look around the crowded cars, and wonder the story of each life in view. Not much to learn from the facial expressions, or the clothes. People appeared to be in a trance, just waiting for the time to pass, so that they could get out of there and go to work.
But when I looked at their shoes, it was a different story. To spite their garb, the footwear allowed a glimpse of their zany side, where they had been, or how far they were willing to go.
Jobs inflict a dress code that we must adhere to, but flights of fancy are quietly allowed through our shoes. The hidden child still thrives there.
When I looked at their shoes, it was a different story. To spite their garb, the footwear allowed a glimpse of their zany side