Introduction

Introduction: A Rock'n'Roll Science Fiction

This is what you might call a "rock'n'roll science fiction" piece. This is, from the outset, a misnomer in that it has nothing to do with the "science" aspect of science fiction, but everything to do with the speculative nature of it. This is not about rock'n'roll musicians meeting with aliens or experiencing time travel (in the usual sense, anyway), but about alternate history, alternate timeline—a what-if story that imagines another possibility, another road taken, for a popular band facing one of the worst crises a band can face: the death of a crucial member at a time when the group's career was just beginning to flag, and at a time when the commercial world of rock itself was going through the jolting polar shift that punk and new wave were beginning to give it.

So though this piece steers clear of "science", it is fully and completely a work of fiction. I repeat this obvious fact for a few reasons. For one, the characters in this are real people, most of them still living, and facing the challenges that only a music career in the 21st century can offer. I have made a fiction of their very real lives, and have taken liberties in presenting their personal aspects based only on what I have read in articles and interviews—meaning, only the public and presented sides of their lives. The risk in doing this—in writing this piece of entertainment that is based on, yet departs from, reality—is that someone might confuse my imagined versions of the band members with their real-life counterparts. A bigger risk is that, in using such an emotionally charged situation as the jumping-off point for a story, feelings could be hurt or bad memories dredged up. It's my sincere wish that enough time has passed for all parties involved for this not to happen, and I've tried my level best to be as respectful as possible—without avoiding unpleasant details, some real, some not—to take the characters and situation with the seriousness they deserve.

Why such a story as "Intercession"?

I had a dream about it in 1979, when I was still in high school, and a devoted fan of Chicago. The death of Terry Kath was stunning and sad, as everyone knows, and as a fan of Chicago, I wondered what would happen next. My subconscious led me into a dream in which the band had been working on its most ambitious effort yet, a triple album that would restore their status as a force to be reckoned with—only to be scuttled by Terry's death. The dream presented the album as a troubled one—stories in the press of Kath beginning a solo album and possibly readying himself to leaved the band must have influenced me—and I saw the album cover art, the famed Chicago logo, as carved into a marble slab like a tombstone.

I awoke from the dream wishing that there were such an album, and began to transcribe what I could remember in a spiral-notebook journal. In the waking world, Chicago was making a genuine effort to rise from the dead, with a new guitarist, a new attitude, and an album that looked entirely different than anything that came before from them. The new music was refreshing, and I was glad that Chicago would not be over. But somewhere in my subconscious, I was mourning—that the type of band Chicago had been up to that point was undoubtedly gone forever. In my dream, I was struggling to capture one more piece of that band.

Theme and variation has always been a fascination with me, and Chicago's history certainly fed that fascination. From the Transit Authority era, through the stadium rock period, the Donnie Dacus years, a rejuvenation via David Foster, Stone of Sisyphus, and the ever-evolving version of the band as it is today, the Chicago story as it happened in real life is interesting to me in that it asks the questions: how can one thing become another? How can something add or subtract ingredients and still be called the same thing? Is it the same thing, or not? It might seem frivolous to make such serious conjecture about a rock band, but that dream came to me in the late Seventies, when I was still young enough to be so serious about such things—and considering how serious the rock press was at the time, I certainly wasn't alone in doing so. But in thinking about Chicago and how it can transform, change, disappear, rise from the dead—the questions raised could apply to anything. Yourself. Your family. Your country. Art, history, politics. Changes happens to everything and everyone. And when it does, what of us stays? What is gone? Can we call ourselves the same people, after a lifetime of experience? We can, and we can't, because both are true.

The original high school version of this story—which I didn't finish then—got lost over many years and many moves. But somehow, I couldn't quite forget it, or the feeling that the dream left me with. I decided to rescue it from my memory, and write it down with what I hope is a better rendering, from a more adult perspective.

I haven't bought every Chicago album in subsequent years, and there have been times where I've let them go from my playlist as my tastes ebb and flow over the years. Yet, I do keep coming back to them, and marvel that they are still going. I'm glad that they treated themselves to a project like Stone of Sisyphus, which in a way reminded me of what Intercession was supposed to be: music by the band, for the band, with the wish that an audience would follow along. I hope the band allows themselves such a luxury again some day. As they have their own record label, and internet releasing being what it is, I don't see why they wouldn't.

So: read on, and enjoy if you will. "Intercession" was written out of love and appreciation, and my hope is that it will keep you entertained for a little while, perhaps think about the winding changes you've seen in your own life, and maybe even to put onto your stereo whatever you consider the best of Chicago to be, and listen to it.