Reading & Listening

Music for the Masses, Depeche Mode's sixth studio album, might be my favorite Mode album of all time. It's hard to choose one, but MFTM just might get the nod. And besides, I have four copies of it.

It was released in the fall of 1987, one month into my sophomore year of high school. I can remember huddling under my blankets listening to a bootleg Maxell cassette tape recording of it.

Sometimes things happened in my life that made me listen to one particular song more than another. And that winter of 1987, I had "The Things You Said" constantly playing in my dark bedroom at night.

The song begins with Mode's singer/songwriter Martin Gore singing, "I heard it from my friends about the things you said."

And my goodness did the tears run down my cheeks when I'd hear that line. High school girls can be cruel, mean even. One minute they're your friend and the next, they're stabbing you in the back and gossiping about you.

What gets less attention is that high school boys do the same things. That winter, I turned down the advances of a boy. He was a senior and very good looking. I really liked him but he'd made it clear he wanted to sleep with me. And I did not want to sleep with him, even when he'd tell me all the typical things high school boys say to try to get you to feel sorry for them.

And so, to save his reputation, and, I think, to get back at me, he went and told lots of people that he'd slept with me. I was shocked and absolutely outraged. So when Martin sang:

"I get so carried away
You brought me down to earth
I thought we had something special
Now I know what it's worth"

I could feel those words completely.

Looking back, I think I was even more upset that some of the girls who were supposed to be my friends believed him and not me and chose to spread the rumor behind my back.

I never forgot that experience, never forgot what it was like to have someone say something about me that wasn't true.

And today, when I least expected it, that memory comes creeping back into my present, and I remember the song: