Can't You See

CAN'T YOU SEE, TOTAL

(July 1996)

Eighth grade summer at Summerbridge: it's halfway through the summer, and a group of the teachers are going off-campus to Burrito Express with a few random students, myself included. It was a warm, sunny day, surprising for July in San Francisco, but I remember walking down Washington to Divisadero and one of the seventh grade girls was singing Total's "Kissing You." Because of my R&B obsession at the time, I recognized the song through its butchered rendition. I'm not such a fan of "Kissing You" - I think it's pretty boring, actually, and since Total is on the lower half of '90s R&B girl groups (don't look at me that way, you know it's true. I mean, I like Total a LOT - hence the writing of this blog entry - but they more in line with MoKenStef and Brownstone, rather than TLC, En Vogue, or SWV), it's not vocally impressive really. But then, this girl began singing a butchered version of the song I later found out was "Can't You See," Total's first single.

It had been released the summer before that, before I listened to music on my own. I'm pretty sure I would have heard it then, but I was a year behind. It's a really good song, possibly Total's best song. It has a really great and simple bass line and a haunting quality to it, and I'm not sure I can describe why. I was annoyed, however, when twelve years later and I went to go see The Wackness that the main character, Luke Shapiro, attributes this song to The Notorious B.I.G. (who gives a trademark garble-mouthed intro) rather than to Total, not to mention that "Can't You See" was released in March of 1995, a few months after The Wackness takes place. It doesn't matter - the film uses the song in an amazing way, having it play in the background when Luke and Stephanie kiss for the first time in Central Park, and later on when Luke pulls a Billie Jean and dances on the sidewalk with the pavement lighting up underneath his feet.

Because I was so into that movie, I had the soundtrack. On my last day of working at Design Within Reach before I left for London, I had to take advantage of my discount in buying eyeglasses, and I needed new ones since I was going to London and my Rivers Cuomo glasses were/are kinda falling apart. I blasted "Can't You See" like four times as I drove Casey from Balboa Park Bart station, where she was parked, to West Portal, where the optometrist was. My big red glasses I bought cost me a pretty penny, but I was absolutely delighted with them. It was a hot August day, and as I slipped on those red glasses (which my mom hated initially, then came to begrudgingly accept; which Scott clearly recognized as a ploy to appear hip and fashionable in Europe; which I'm wearing at this very moment), I played the song loudly once again and drove home.