I remember it as if were yesterday ... A majestic fall afternoon in 1970 ... Brilliant blue sky, a patina of golden sunshine across the land ... but I was in a funk, blue and down. I had just pulled into the graveled driveway of the mobile home my dad owned on North Avenue in Athens when a song on the radio reached out to me, "I'm your Captain."

I sat there in an old green-metallic Plymouth listening. The plaintive lyrics suited my mood. The song tells the tale of a captain of a ship who faces a mutiny. Unsure where life was about to take me, I needed a captain all right. We've all had a certain melody with lyrics that seemed written for us cross our path. It makes a connection we never forget. Well that's how it was for me that day.

Grand Funk Railroad recorded "I'm Your Captain (Closer To Home)." The song runs 10 minutes and ends with soaring chords from the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra that give it an epic feeling. The song was a big hit despite the fact that critics didn't like it. (Critics, you know, are folks who can't do much of anything, so they pronounce themselves experts at something.")

"I'm Your Captain" is considered a classic rock song today, one especially popular with Vietnam veterans. Some veterans said the "closer to home" lyrics gave them something to think about as they did their best to stay alive in Nam and, in fact, make it home. Others believe the lyrics address drug addiction. Either way, one thing's for sure; it's a song of the 1970s, that decade of drugs, war, and rebellion.

Fast forward to November 1973. After teaching one year in Lincolnton, I'm back in Athens studying for a masters degree and working as a ticket agent for Southeastern Stages. Another song by Grand Funk Railroad comes across the old jukebox in the station lobby, "We're An American Band." The guys at the station felt the song was okay, especially since Grand Funk Railroad was from Atlanta.

Deep inside, I didn't like "We're An American Band" because I thought it took a shot at the fine British bands forming the British Invasion. Turns out that wasn't the case at all. Thirty-one years later, I got the story behind the song and more straight from the horse's mouth. Life can be surprising and for sure illuminating.

Flash forward to 2004. I'm interviewing Don Brewer of Grand Funk Railroad for the Three Rivers Music Festival here in Columbia. I knew Brewer wrote "We're An American Band," so I asked him what the song was about.

"A lot of people thought I wrote that song in response to the British invasion. But it really wasn't," he said. "We were going through a huge lawsuit with former manager Terry Knight, and we were on the road supporting an album called Phoenix. It was a very heavy transition period for the band."

Brewer paused. I sensed he was about to share some unvarnished truth. I teach my Journalism students that when interviewing people it's wise to keep your mouth shut and let the subject do the talking. I took my own advice and listened. I was eager to get some insight into the life of a rock and roller.

Viewed from afar, the life of a rocker seems idyllic, but all one has to do is dredge up all the rock musicians who died young or suffered the afflictions fame and affluence bring to know better. Drug addiction, lawsuits, and tragedy pave the road to stardom for many rock bands, and the roster of musicians in Rock 'n Roll heaven runs long ... Elvis, John Lennon, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Duane Allman, Marvin Gaye, Freddie Mercury, Ronnie Van Zant and so many others, with Michael Jackson now crashing the party.

Brewer continued ... "Our new manager, Andy Cavaleri, said 'What are you guys gonna do next? The Phoenix album isn't exactly killing people.' Cavaleri kept saying 'Write songs about what you do. You're out here on the road touring America,' and that's when I heard "We're An American Band" in my head

Brewer drew back the curtain a bit further. "We were going from a three-piece to a four-piece band, radio was changing and becoming more commercial. Prior to that time, we'd been pretty much an underground, album-oriented band and everything was beginning to be three and four minutes long. We had to start making some changes."

He paused again, then continued, confessional ... "People think from the outside, 'Gee you've had a great life (the life of a rocker). I look back on it and it's been very tumultuous. There have been a lot of ups and downs, and the downs always last years longer than the ups do. So I look on it as being a very tumultuous life, but I'm very thankful and happy I've been able to do what I wanted to do which is play music."

Brewer told me he still gets butterflies in my stomach before a show. He said he still gets butterflies every time he sings the opening line to "Some Kind Of Wonderful."

"The audience knows every word of the song," added Brewer. "There's nothing like it."

Brewer added one more thing about Grand Funk Railroad's big break and its Georgia connection. "We came to the Byron, Georgia, as a totally unknown band, and we got on the show as a favor to a friend. We didn't make it in Michigan. We had to leave Michigan to make it. The Atlanta Pop festival was one of our first shows." And that's how the bus station boys and me came to think of Grand Funk Railroad as a Georgia band.

Before my interview recording Brewer ended, he sang a few bars of "We're An American Band" to me over the phone. My own one-man rock show ... For a long time I couldn't bring myself to delete that interview, but I did.

Now whenever I hear the song, I remember what Don Brewer said about the down times ... "downs always last years longer than the ups do." He knows that for sure. Rockers, like us, put their pants on one leg at a time. They, too, have down times, trends change and their popularity ebbs and flows, but the only thing to do is keep moving forward. Better times are generally down the road somewhere, for rockers, for you, for all of us.

Email Tom with feedback and ideas for new columns. tompol @earthlink.net