Disclaimer: Any resemblance to events real or imagined is purely intentional.

When I heard the song again for the first time, the Music surrounded me and pulled me into a vortex of time and memory. I watched layers of my life peel back until there was nothing left of my loft, nothing left of Flagstaff — and nothing left of the pain of being stalked. I was standing on the railroad bridge looking out over the Arkansas River. Somewhere a radio was playing:

Girl-I'm living in the middle of a mystery

I felt Tulsa on my skin and breathed Tulsa into my lungs. There’s nothing else like late September on Riverside Drive. Reality filtered through a twilight haze… I looked out over the River, and suddenly everything slipped. I fell hard against the creosote lattice, cutting my lip a little. That’s when I knew. Instinct told me that this wasn’t a memory; this was real. I understood that if I turned back now, I could stop a lifetime of pain. I could make at least one thing right.

Maybe I was mistaken-maybe I got it wrong

This isn’t the song I remember. This isn’t how it goes. One line. One phrase. One chorus. Why this version? Why now? If only I could reach across the water and touch Phil’s hand. Then, I’d know for sure. Damn but Tulsa looks harmless and inviting when you’re surrounded by water and listening to an Ian Hunter song that doesn’t exist.

1983 was horrible. I was only two years out from my head injury and I couldn’t read or even hear properly. I certainly couldn’t process Music. The things I did process and internalize were phrases, like: "You’ll never write again" and "You might be able to read but with talking books." But somehow one line made it through the aphasic fog --

I spent years scanning the ‘net for it. Nothing. Nada. Zip. And suddenly this summer, a hit on Cdnow. Why now?

If I concentrate very hard, I can almost picture the LP sitting in the bins at StarShip Records and Tapes. I have to concentrate, because in my life, that LP was never there — it never existed.

I looked out over the River and into a 1983 that never was. And that’s when it really hit me. I could walk out of this life and into that one. Boy, wouldn’t everybody be surprised? Me at twenty with all the memory and experience of me at 38. I could live inside the alternate cut.

How rare is that?

But the repercussions are too great. In real life, one doesn’t get do overs. One doesn’t get to live both versions. One is either one or the other. I’m the slow cut -- the one in the boat.

Phil, I’m so sorry. I could have done. I could have stopped it before it started and you never ever would have known. That was the night you played the Open Door. It was the first time I saw you play. That was the night I knew that you feel about Music the way I do about Words. I watched as the Music came and transformed that shitty little coffee house…I should have danced. Why the hell didn’t I dance? But I didn’t. I just stared like the aphasic idiot I was. And one cut diverged from the other….

And again I walked away. I knew and I walked away.

I’ve never been a coward. But I knew to walk away from that fight — brain damaged and foggy, I knew. I knew better than to dance. Writing it makes it Real, but dancing is the only way I know to fight. And when I dance, I don’t lose. I can hold back tornados and schizophrenics and time itself if I want to. And I’ve always known when not to…

Standing on that bridge overlooking the Arkansas River, I understood. I understand that the alternate cut, while beautiful, was so rare as to not be played… But not so rare as to not exist. It’s the alternate cuts that make life worth living.

I can’t prove it, but I know it’s true. And deep down, you suspect it is, too. All of the Good Ones Are Taken didn’t exist except in my aphasic memory of a video that wasn’t ever made… The one with the boat… the one of the song nobody else remembered… Until last night… until I played you track 12, disc 2…

Time is fluid on my side of the bridge.

Rock On.

All of the Good Ones are Taken ©1982. (Uh huh. Yeah. Right.) Words and Music by Ian Hunter