12 Step Program, part two, chapter forty-one
Whatever happened to B ob Jansen?

Toward the end, people would ask me, you’ve sung 12 Step Program a thousand times; don’t you ever get sick of it?
I’d pause for a minute as if thinking about it but I already knew the answer.
No. It’s different every time. The band might play it slowly on one occasion, maybe too fast on another. I might stress one line, slide over another, hold a note, clip another, repeat a phrase.
Some lines are more meaningful to me at different times. Sometimes there is clarity; I actually know why I had to write the song. Each time I sing it, I think I understand it better. It might have started out as just an idea, but experience sometimes imitates art. Suddenly it all becomes real.
There are times that I understand myself better, sometimes I do things onstage when singing the song I’d never do in regular life. I know I’m not outgoing, but I become a different person onstage. More extroverted
Besides, I owe it to what fans I have to sing 12 Step Program. The fans made it a hit, It’s why they came to the show; it allowed me to do what I do. Did. They expect it and I don’t want to let them down. There’s a kind of communication that happens between me and them. I get off on it. That, to me, is special.
I also like that idea that some people know exactly what I’m singing about. They might be living through it. They relate to a 12 step program. By extension, they relate to me, just as I seem to relate to them. I enjoy watching the crowd dance, hearing them sing along. I’ve never failed to be impressed by the sing along response. It’s not as if there is one word, tequila or Gloria, but 12 lines in the choruses. Twelve! And the singers know them all.
Then, too, the venue is different every night, large stage, small stage; it affects what you do, how you do it. Might be a small place that’s overcrowded but the communication is stronger. Might be a large space in which you have to project, sing to the back row far away.
When I started my new life, I stopped singing 12 Step Program for a few years. I had to. This was part of fashioning a new identity. It was kind of like cleaning the palette.
I invented a past that didn’t mention singing or songwriting. I sang privately, in the shower or while listening in my car to the radio. Lately, I’ve been leading singalongs at care homes. I still wrote songs occasionally, but never developed them or went in a studio. Didn’t see the point as that was no longer who I was. You can’t turn off creativity, though, so over time I had an album’s worth of songs. Nobody was interested.
As far as the public that knew of me was concerned, I was Bob Jansen, the one hit wonder who wrote 12 Step Program and who hasn’t been seen since 1982. Assumed to be dead.
At first I was offended. The Hi-Steppers or Steppers released three studio albums, a phoney live album and a 12 inch single, occasionally described as an EP. We released many singles that maybe weren’t as big as 12 Step Program, but we weren’t a one hit wonder.
It bothered me that 12 Step was the first song I ever wrote. It was simple musically but relevant lyrically. I guess it had a naivete and a boisterousness we couldn’t capture in the subsequent records. Maybe the other records were too smart, too calculating. I guess you need an element of stupidity, stupidity might be an essential aspect of pop and rock.
When punk came along in 76, The Hi-Steppers had a short rebirth as a progenitor of 60s garage-rock, often lumped in with The Standells and Shadows Of Knight. That’s when the “one it wonder” epithet really set in. I didn’t mind as more and more bands started doing 12 Step Program and it kind of became a minor cause. Barb was getting all the money – maybe a million bucks by now – but the band was getting the credibility it never had.
We weren’t alone. In L.A. in 1967, there might have been a stream of hits by The Byrds, Turtles and Paul Revere And The Raiders. Even Buffalo Springfield had a few after For What It’s Worth. Then, there is The Leaves’ Hey Joe, Electric Prunes’ I Had Too Much To Dream, The Seeds’ Pushing Too Hard, Standells’ Dirty Water, Music Machine’s Talk Talk. All made several albums and singles but are known for one primary, memorable record. If that makes them one hit wonders, The Hi-Steppers is in good company.
I came to terms with being written off as a one hit wonder when I realized many bands or songwriters would have been happy to have written one song that had as much impact as12 Step Program