Air Supply's 'Lost in love' reminds him of the first time (and one of the few times ever) he saw his mother get upset in public. They were at an unnamed department store, and his mother allowed his sister and him to watch the televisions in the electronics department while she shopped. This was a big opportunity for them, since they were permitted only to watch certain PBS shows at home.It is unclear how Private Lessons, in all its R rated glory, was playing on one of the televisions in the electronics department of this unnamed department store. The store probably had cable to enhance the television pictures in their electronics department; maybe an enterprising member of the team had added a subscription movie channel to the cable service. (Then again, VCRs were just emerging; maybe it was a tape?) At any rate, the movie was playing in a less trafficked aisle of the department, which his sister and he promptly found.
They settled in on the floor in front of this television just in time for the series of seduction scenes, culminating when Sylvia Kristel, the voluptuous French housekeeper, takes young Eric Brown to bed for the first time. It's quite the soft core extravaganza, with a couple good looks at Ms. Kristel's bare breasts. Above the soft focus and the slow camera pans over silk sheets, the Air Supply classic plays, realizing erotic potential the soft rock song couldn't have known it possessed. (At least, up until the point Ms. Kristel fakes her death right there in bed as part of the plot with the chauffeur...)
Apparently his mother arrived back in the electronics department just in time for a nipple shot. The next thing he knew, she was shrieking at the electronics sales associate she had cornered. He doesn't remember exactly, but it must have ended badly. There may even have been participation from upper levels of store management.
While Air Supply is the subject, he wonders to this day how two men trading couplets (and harmonies) describing a love so consuming they can't find their way out of it reached number three on the pop charts. Sure, they followed with 'Every woman in the world' to throw us off the scent; we know it was just Graham and Russell, alone in the recording booth, maybe some candles...
