Rehearsal: The Epic Musical Saga

Please Be With Me (1974) - Eric Clapton

Please Be With Me, written by Charles Scott Boyer, performed by Eric Clapton

Rehearsal, the Series, begins in 1972 when two very different guitarists from very different backgrounds happen to meet in a dingy little bar in Greenville, Pennsylvania while one is playing with a "barely third rate" band and the other is hanging out with college buddies on a date that's barely a date.

That's only the prologue. The actual story begins in 1974 when Duncan O'Neil, a Scottish guitarist hiding from authorities by jumping to different states, playing with whatever band he can find and working whatever cash jobs come his way, accepts an invitation to visit from the "college kid" he met at Sam's two years before. At the end of the rope, he decides he has nothing to lose.

Evan Scott, now working as the manager of a gym, is entrenched in a band with three friends from New Hampshire now living in Massachusetts. His life-long friend Susie Brooks has moved with him from Eastern Pennsylvania where they grew up together, and lives across the hall in the same apartment building. She's a dance teacher struggling to make ends meet. Hooked to and dependent on Evan, who is five years older and her main stability, she's thrown when she meets Evan's friend. He's fully not what she expected and fully captivating between the way he plays that guitar, his stance, his "painted on" tee and jeans with holes in the knees, the long, dark hair, and ... that accent.

It doesn't take long to find out Duncan is a huge fan of Eric Clapton. She doesn't call herself a fan, but she likes some of his music, which captivates Duncan in return. There starts a very long story that includes plenty of family issues, from all band members, and a love triangle fueled by several kinds of passion.

Eric Clapton's LP 461 Ocean Boulevard was released in 1974, after four years of his fight against drug addiction. It's been said it's his best album. Duncan and Susie talk about it in the story, about their thoughts, using it also as a metaphor for restarting on their own new paths.

Please Be With Me is a love song of not only the heart, but of the soul and the mind, a celebration of a true connection with another. It's a metaphor of the burgeoning relationship that means far more than their initial physical reactions to each other.

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This entry is part of the 20th Birthday Celebration (Entry 1):

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