Whenever I hear Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes” I’m reminded of the worst concert I’ve ever been to and how much I hate that fucking song.

The year was 1987. I was a junior in high school and had just found my first girlfriend. Her name was Cathy. She was beautiful, smart, and one year older than me, which automatically made me cool. We’d been dating all semester, and the end of the school year was coming, which coincided with the start of the summer concert series in and around Cleveland. Cathy was adamant about seeing Peter Gabriel in concert and had already bought tickets for us to see him at the biggest outdoor venue in northeastern Ohio, a place called Blossom Music Center.

I was far from a Peter Gabriel fan. But Cathy was my girlfriend; she was giving me sex for the first time in my life, so I had no choice but to go. And let me make this clear: in 1987, Peter Gabriel was God. “In Your Eyes” was all over the radio. Everyone loved that song. It was the law in suburban Cleveland. Mr. Gabriel ruled, and his concert was to be the biggest of the series at Blossom Music Center.

After driving over an hour to Blossom and parking in a huge gravel lot, there was only one thing left to do: drink. By the time the concert was about to start, I had consumed three cans of warm Milwaukee’s Best, a couple of shots of rot-gut tequila, a few chunks of watermelon that had been soaking in one hundred proof vodka for hours, a thermos cup full of Boones Farm, and half a bottle of Bartles & Jaymes Premium Peach Flavored Wine Cooler. I was a mess.

It was a beautiful night for a concert. Cathy and I found the perfect open space on the huge, plush lawn: dead center, but way in the back where it was dark so we could have our privacy. And just as the opening strains of “Red Rain” played, Cathy and I rolled ourselves up tight in a quilt and got down to some seriously heavy petting. Suddenly Cathy stopped and said, “I’ll be right back.” In a flash she was gone.

So I waited.

And waited.

After what seemed like forever Cathy still hadn’t returned.

I untangled myself from the quilt and forced myself upright. I stumbled over the lawn, tripped over people, stepped on their hands, spilled their overpriced beers, screaming Cathy’s name (to which the crowd responded “shut up, fag!”). Finally, just as I was about to give up and pass out where I was standing, I saw her. Talking to another guy. A million drunken thoughts ran through my head, the most coherent one being “that filthy whore!”

I ran up them and pushed the guy to the ground. “Hey, asshole, that’s my girlfriend! I love her. Leave her the fuck alone, douchebag!” I screamed. (Well, that was what I said in my head. Out of my mouth came something like “Blah grrh jss fmpt hurrd plng, douchebag!”)

The guy got up and ran away. Cathy grabbed me by my shoulders and spun me around. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I retorted. “You’re supposed to be my girlfriend and you’re cheating on me. You’re a slut!”

“I was not cheating on you!” Cathy yelled. “I was trying to score some weed from that guy. It was going to be a surprise. We were going to smoke some pot before we made love tonight. Asshole!”

With tears in her eyes, she turned and ran back to our spot on the lawn.

I stood there, stunned. Finally I walked over to a lone willow tree by the side of the concert hall and plopped down underneath it. And promptly sat in a huge pile of someone’s puke. As if on cue, Mr. Gabriel started to sing “In Your Eyes.”

“In your eyes/The light the heat/In your eyes/I’m complete.”

I sat there in that pile of puke until the concert ended. Then I found Cathy and we drove back to Cleveland in total silence. We broke up three days later. To this day, I still can’t hear that song, and it’s everywhere – on radio when they have an eighties flashback weekend, at wedding receptions, and whenever Say Anything is on cable. I fucking hate “In Your Eyes.” But “Shock the Monkey” is the jam!