Remembering “Never Give Up” by Boulevard

It was a morning to do some house cleaning, so I put on Stingray Music Remember the ‘80s for a little background music. As I wiped down an end table, this song came on that just started me moving.

Suddenly, I was taken back to a res room in Kelsey Hall in the Spring of 1988. That exact same song came on the radio and a friend of mine started moving to the music just like I was today.

I don’t know where that friend is, but the song in question is “Never Give Up” by Boulevard.

End of the hall
Part way through my first year of university, I made friends with some girls who lived on Fifth Kelsey, the all-girls floor in our hall. We lived on 10th Kelsey, so we already knew all the girls by sight. Actually we knew virtually everyone in Kelsey Hall by sight because, living at the top of the tower, we rode the elevator with everyone.

Over time, I spent more and more time on 5K and got to know more and more of the girls there.

There was one in particular who I clicked with. Her name was Seema Sharma but she also used the last name Aries. Her dad's name was Paul, just like mine. He worked, I believe in the oil patch, so Seema had lived in Calgary, but was from the United Arab Emirates. We could not have had two more different upbringings.

She lived at the end of the hall, and I used to go visit her regularly.

We talked about a lot of different things, most especially music. She loved Sting and U2, but more specifically, their lead singer Bono. She was the one who told me Bono’s real name was Paul Hewson. In fact, whenever she signed anything, be it a yearbook, mural, or letter, her signature was “Seema ‘Bono/Sting’ Aries Sharma’.”

That year, so the early part of 1988, U2 came out with “Rattle and Hum”, their much-anticipated follow-up album to “The Joshua Tree”. Seema described to me the elaborate ritual she underwent listening to “Rattle and Hum” for the first time, and their debut single “Desire”.

To me, she will always be the consummate U2 fan. Her name comes to mind whenever I hear U2 mentioned.

“Never Give Up”
One day, I went to visit her near the end of the school year. We may have already been done classes and were studying for finals.

That day, she had the radio playing. That was a bit unusual, because she usually liked to control the music. We were just chatting when the next song started on the radio.

Seema stood up and started singing the words, and dancing. It was a great song, with a cool intro.

The song was “Never Give Up” by Boulevard.

I may have heard it once or twice before, but after that I seemed to hear it all the time. It was big on the radio that first month I was home in the summer of 1988 too.

“Never Give Up” was part of their debut album “BLVD”. The single went all the way to number 23 on the Canadian charts. They had another great song on the radio called “Far from Over”, which peaked at number 26 on the Canadian charts. None of their songs charted in the States though.

I am also pretty sure I got to see them live in the Fall of 1988, when they opened for Boston at the Northlands Coliseum.

Parting thoughts
Seema came back to res the next year and, although I got busy in student leadership, still visited her and spent time on her floor. By then, the university had swapped Fifth and Tenth Kelsey, so she now lived on my floor from the year before and vice versa.

She didn’t come back in our third year, and I thought I would never see her again. Then, six years later, she came back to the University of Alberta to finish her degree. There were no more all-girls’ floors by that time, so she lived on one of the quiet floors. We renewed our friendship, and again I would go visit her.

At one point, she had picked up some stuff out of storage. There were some photos in there from our first year, seven years earlier, including one of a bunch of us singing at a party. We both remembered that moment well. The song playing was “Here I Go Again” by Whitesnake.

After that year ended, I never saw Seema again. I haven’t seen her to this day.

Yet, whenever I hear “Never Give Up”, I find myself moving to the music, thinking back to the Spring of 1988, and wondering what ever became of my old friend.