If you’re unaware of Tim Hardin I think you’re in for a treat. Despite the fact that he died in 1980 of a heroin overdose, he left a legacy of a small number of excellent tunes. If you know him at all, it’s likely through his If I Were A Carpenter, which to me is just okay. Not his best by a long shot. I’m going to play a few others for you that I think you may enjoy much more.
Tim Hardin was born in Eugene, Oregon, in 1941. He dropped out of high school at 18 and joined The Marines as a “military advisor” (whatever that means). It’s believed that it was there he discovered heroin. Heroin took him from us, far too early, 1980.
A handsome young man, he was one of the few live performers I’ve ever seen who could mesmerize this hard rocker by simply singing while playing an acoustic guitar. He may have had a bass player with him; I don’t remember. He wouldn’t have needed one. I saw him in a small club called La Cave in Cleveland, Ohio, in (or near) 1967 while I was in, or about to go to university.
Maybe it’s the heroin, but if Hardin excels at anything, it is sad songs. Take, for example, Misty Roses, which is sad even though it’s a love song!:
How about this one which has a title about as sad as a title can possibly be, It’ll Never Happen Again. No video on this one. Click here for audio courtesy of Grooveshark.
Many of his songs are about troubled relationships, such as Reason To Believe, about a relationship presumably plagued by infidelity:
The song I’ll leave you with rather ironically sums up Hardin’s sad life and death. It’s Red Balloon, and here is the first verse, after which I’ll give you another Grooveshark link to the song itself:
Bought myself a red balloon,
Got a blue surprise,
Hidden in the red balloon,
A pinning of my eyes,
It took the lovelight from my eyes,
Blue, blue surprise.
You see, Red Balloon is about heroin, often sold in small rubber balloons. The redness of the balloon is not relevant, I think. It’s just there for the purpose of contrasting with the more meaningful “blue surprise.” The surprise could be several things: his addiction itself, the effect of his addiction on his career and relationships, the depression resulting from his inability to escape its grasp.
The “pinning of my eyes” refers to the constriction of the pupil as a result of the heroin. (Another interpretation may be dead stare of a person dead of an overdose, their eyes “pinned” on the distance, in which case he’s anticipating his own death.)
“It took the lovelight from my eyes” also could mean many things. Heroin took over the role of lover in his life, depriving his wife and child of the love and attention he knew they deserved. Another way of reading the line is that the drug gave him a dead stare, devoid of love. It might also mean that as his addiction alienated him from his wife and others, he stopped feeling the light of their love.
