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Quoting Benjamin

On what he was doing during the three years it took to make The Lace: “Horsing around. I went to Hawaii for two weeks and stayed for three months.” — from “Benjamin Orr: The Cars’ Mr. Casual Steps Out” by Rob Tannenbaum, Musician Magazine, March 1987

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8 thoughts on “Quoting Benjamin”

  1. He may have been a disciplined musician, and took his role seriously, but he had a free spirit side to him that wouldn’t be tied to time. Go with the flow! That was true freedom. It was like the story told by the guy who performed with him in the Orr band in Vermont. After their performance they just took off for days, Fishing, horseback riding etc. I wonder if he mentioned to Edita that he was going to be home late?. 🙂

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  2. But we know he was also working on his house during that time, since he was “tired of stepping over things”, right?😉 Regardless, he deserved that time off after so many years of playing clubs in the early days before the Cars, as well as all that touring after each Cars album was released! There’s nothing like time off 😊🥳. Glad he enjoyed it!! May his soul Rest In Peace on this All Soul’s Day 🙏.

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    1. I agree, please give him a break! Plus, I believe the Ben shyness/insecurity thing probably was part of this, in that he really wanted to do it, but was terrified or stressed about it at the same time. And I believe that he had lost confidence somewhat over the years. Why ??? – It was very interesting hearing the lovely tribute from his former bandmate from The Grasshoppers, or the other early group (who Donna featured during the recent fabulous but oh so sad 20 year anniversary of Ben’s death) who said Ben was always full of ideas and composing and organising stuff, a real leader – what happened later to make him lack confidence, and have to build-up to doing The Lace. Or maybe he was just enjoying diving with the turtles.

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      1. It was rude of me not to go back and get the name of Ben’s friend, it was Joey Kurilec and their band was The Mixed Emotions. Joey’s recollections were wonderful, he seems to be a lovely man, and certainly a loyal friend to Ben. xx

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      2. Yes I agree something really affected his confidence. I think he still had it in him it was just a matter of feeling all those things at the same time. I do remember someone who worked with him on his unreleased second solo album, unfortunately I can’t remember his name, also said Ben always had something interesting and creative going on. I think Benjamin was a very creative person, but lost confidence and it took him years to get back to a situation where he started to feel it again. I’ve said before and it’s just an idea, but I do wonder if Benjamin may have suffered some form of depression. Certain things do sort of match. Not all forms go the extreme of being suicidal some are less extreme but more chronic.

        Or it could have simply been a loss of confidence, for whatever reason that was.

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  3. Yes, I also remember those comments around the second solo album time, and I agree with you that he was almost certainly suffering depression then, and it probably started when he was still with Diane. She said, in Joe Milligan’s book, that he changed after the call re The Cars disbanding, “Ben went into somewhat of a downward spiral for a while”, and later Judith said there were times when he just didn’t talk for days. All so sad, and I think the bad years continued to the mid nighties, he looks so downcast in so many photographs from then. This supremely talented and beautiful man deserved so much more recognition and far greater world-wide fame, and he knew it – he had given so much for so long – for it to peter-out must have been an agony.
    But to finish more positively, how wonderful for him, that with Edita, he got his beloved son, seemingly the joy of his life.

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