Cleo Comes Alive!

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Yesterday's featured guest on World Cafe was Peter Frampton, the man behind what has always struck me as one of the most mysteriously successful albums of all time. Frampton Comes Alive!, released in 1976, is a platinum record six times over, and apparently remains the fourth best-selling live recording of all time. And why, exactly? Well, there are a few potent tracks, including the timeless, 'Baby, I Love your Way.' There's that memorable, if kitschy, voice synthesizer. And then there was the $7.98 price tag - a real steal for a double album. And finally, if you trust Wayne, from Wayne's World, there was the fact that Wayne Campbell alludes to the album's popularity by saying, "If you lived in the suburbs you were issued it. It came in the mail with samples of Tide."

But on live radio, the aging Frampton was actually very modest and disarming. The interview was pleasant, and involved some interesting moments - such as when Frampton was asked how he approaches a song - like 'Baby, I Love your Way' - that he is expected to play every single time he goes on stage. "If you've got to do a number over and over again," he said, "I really get off on hearing what my band do to it. And when I look out and see the audience, it just triggers a memory... and I really enjoy just scanning the crowd and seeing how they enjoy it."

Cleo, riding in the back seat, seemed less interested in Frampton's answer than in a board book featuring images of kittens. But I wanted to think that she understood, on some level, the basic essence of the issue: the pairing of music and repetition. As we move through the house now, Cleo often points vigorously to certain items along our course. It's a relatively consistent roster of items - a small battery-operated fortune-telling machine; the stereo; the medicine cabinet doors; the smoke alarm - although it does gradually grow every week or so, expanding to include a new fetish object. And so we make our way from room to room like a superstitious athlete who feels compelled to touch a coaches' bald head, or a plaque in Yankee Stadium.

Or like a musician, I suppose, whose crowd will be disappointed if a certain standard isn't played. Cleo may seem, to the casual eye, superstitious, or obsessive. But perhaps she sees herself more like Frampton, enjoying an enjoyment that she feels she is spreading. And it's true, I now realize: I'm happy if she's happy.