Post Toastee — a wild, spiraling cry from a brilliant soul standing at the edge of his own fire
There are songs that entertain, songs that impress, and then there are songs like “Post Toastee” — pieces of music that feel almost too raw, too honest, too close to the bone to exist in the public world. Recorded by Tommy Bolin for his 1976 album Private Eyes, this track stands as one of the last unfiltered windows into a young musician wrestling with his own shadows. The album itself reached only modest attention and did not chart highly, yet “Post Toastee” has survived far beyond its commercial moment because it carries the unmistakable burn of truth.
From the first riffs, the song erupts with Bolin’s signature blend of funk, rock, and jazz — a daring fusion that set him apart from everyone else of his generation. But beneath the swagger of the guitar lies something far more fragile: a warning, perhaps even a confession. Bolin wrote “Post Toastee” as a message about addiction, the dizzy thrill and the deadly descent, all wrapped in metaphors sharp enough to cut. He had seen what substance abuse could do; he had felt its lure, its chaos, its quiet destruction. And instead of hiding from it, he poured it into this song with startling clarity.
Listening to it now, with the hindsight of history, the lyrics hit even harder. Bolin sings of the unreachable high, the spiraling loss of control, the slipping of one’s own identity — themes that feel painfully prophetic. There is urgency in his voice, not theatrical, but deeply human, as if he were trying to talk himself back from a precipice even as he danced on its edge. The energy of the track — fierce, restless, beautifully uncontained — mirrors the very struggle it describes.
For those who followed Bolin’s meteoric rise through bands like Zephyr, James Gang, and Deep Purple, Private Eyes felt like a declaration of independence. Here was a musician free to explore every corner of his creativity, unbound by the expectations of rock stardom. “Post Toastee,” one of the album’s longest and most ambitious tracks, captured the fullness of that freedom: long instrumental stretches, fearless improvisation, and a lyrical depth that revealed more than he ever admitted in interviews.
Yet for all its brilliance, the song is also steeped in an unshakable sense of fragility. It’s the kind of track that leaves you silent afterward — not because it’s sad, but because it feels like reading someone’s diary on the night before a storm. There’s a trembling beauty in that honesty, the way Bolin lays bare the exhilaration and danger of the life he was living.
For listeners who remember the 1970s rock world — the highs, the risks, the electricity of being young while the world was changing — “Post Toastee” becomes not just a song but a time capsule. It captures the dizzy mixture of brilliance and recklessness that defined that era: musicians pushing boundaries, breaking rules, and sometimes losing themselves along the way. Bolin was all of that — a prodigy, a renegade, a dreamer — and this track preserves him exactly as he was: bright, burning, and far too fleeting.
There is a haunting irony in knowing that “Post Toastee” was one of the last songs he performed live before his passing later that same year. When you listen to it now, it’s impossible not to hear the echoes of a life lived fast, fearlessly, and perhaps too close to the fire. The track stands today not only as a musical triumph but also as a quiet testimony — a reminder that behind every dazzling talent is a soul wrestling with its own weight.
And maybe that’s why the song lingers so powerfully. Because in its whirlwind of riffs and warnings, joy and danger, brilliance and vulnerability, Tommy Bolin left behind a piece of himself — unguarded, unvarnished, unforgettable.