…that night, David came home and watched his brother shoot up. It wasn’t David’s intent to watch Chris shoot up, he simply came home, walked into his brother’s bedroom and saw what he saw—the end of a rubber strap in his brother’s teeth, the needle breaking skin. In such a situation, what can a brother do? He can let it happen then send his brother away, to France, to…

II.

…broke up before naming the album. The album is an orphan: nameless, bandless, and with no true track listing. Some say it’s Alex’s solo album, and maybe they’re right. It’s a lost album, born of booze and pills, deemed uninteresting and unmarketable by all the labels who heard it. Deemed too grim, too disturbing until it was found and disseminated four years later by…

III.

…that Chris left Big Star because of the frustrating failure of #1 Record, which, despite positive reviews, was a commercial flop. Chris breaks down. There are fist fights, attacks, broken windows. When the dust settles, Chris is at Mid-South, psychiatric and rehab, and Big Star is…

IV.

…sings, “Jesus Christ was born today / Jesus Christ was born,” and it isn’t quite a Christmas song, and it isn’t quite southern religion, and nobody quite knows what to make of it, but there it is, smack dab between “Big Black Car” and…

…meets with Alex, wants to help his old friend fix the wrecked album that nobody wants to release. Maybe a new running order, brighter production, a few swapped-out songs. Chris and Alex also talk about maybe collaborating together, again, but…

VI.

…is sixteen, he records “The Letter” with The Boxtops. In 1967, the song becomes a massive hit around the world. See him lip-synch on Up Beat, that tambourine, heartthrob thigh-slap. See his sly smile, acknowledging the absurdity of the non-performance. See that sultry-eyed, pout-sing of angular face—more twenty-six than sixteen—framed by waves of brown hair. In the eyes of the marketplace, this is his peak. A few years later, Alex leaves The Boxtops and meets Chris at Ardent, in Memphis, who…

VII.

“…night I tell myself
‘I am the cosmos, I am the wind.’
But that don’t get you back…”

VIII.

…convinces the members of Big Star, excluding Chris, to reunite for a convention of music critics. Richard Melzer introduces the band: “Well, puke on ya momma’s pussy! Here’s Big Star!” And the critics adore them. And Big Star is reborn. When the band goes to work on what will become Radio City, there are songs that belonged to Chris, they are absorbed...

IX.

...unfortunate, and jarring use of “holocaust” as an adjective, as if that word somehow hadn’t been imbued with horrific connotations by the weight of history. He sings, “You’re a wasted face, you’re a sad-eyed lie / You’re a…”

...the time David flies Chris to Europe, he has already recorded “I am the Cosmos” and “You and Your Sister,” the latter of which includes contributions from Alex on backing vocals. Most of the rest of what will eventually become Chris’s posthumous solo album, I Am the Cosmos is recorded on this trip, at the Chateau D'Herouville in France. Maybe Chris knew that, back home, back across the Atlantic, Alex, too, was recording new songs, that, too, wouldn’t be…

XI.

…records songs obliterated on whiskey and Mandrax then comes back to the studio in the middle of the night to fuck with what he’s recorded. His girlfriend is a senior in high school. She helps write, records some vocals, most of which are long gone. Sometimes the couple’s fights turn physical. One night, they are found…

XII.

…songs are a mix of sad-sack, songs of unrequited love, sad-sack breakup songs, sad-sack songs about depression, and not-so-sad-sack songs about spiritual salvation. “Look up, look up,” Chris sings, “He’s the light.” Chris sings, “Waiting to love you / Waiting to…”

XIII.

…there was the tour that prefaced the recording of Big Star’s third album, the East Coast tour where the gigs that weren’t cancelled were barely attended, and Alex…

XIV.

…of accidents happen within a mile of one’s home or…

XV.

...a big year for fans of Big Star, as it saw the release of an alleged, “intended” version of the album, now called Third/Sisters Lovers, as well as the release of Chris Bell’s I Am the Cosmos, two albums, lost and failed, tentative and parallel, drowned in the murk of whatever foul hex hung over Big Star and Alex and Chris until market forces and time allowed

XVI.

…the “album’s” release, Chris wraps his Triumph TR-6 …

XVII.

…sings, “Get me out of here / I hate it here.” On “I Am the Cosmos,” Chris sings, “I’d really like to see you again.” On “Big Black Car,” Alex sings, “Driving in my big black car / Nothing can go wrong.” On “There Was a Light,” Chris sings…

—James Brubaker