Take a straight and stronger course to the corner of your life.

Happy New Yes.



Send an instant karma to me.

Give me light.

Peace on Earth today and every day.

Let's hope it's a good one.

I wrapped it up and sent it

Dream of the Eighties.

And I always wanted my hair to look like Andrew's girlfriend-who-took-George's-heart-last-Christmas' hair.



I love this song, which has become a refreshingly grim fixture in the Yuletide tune canon, but not this much.

Today's Shuffle: What is really what

A brief one, a head-clearing walk around the block (twice) to take in bare trees and holiday lights.

Yim Yames, All Things Must Pass Tribute To
Cocteau Twins, A Kissed Out Red Floatboat Blue Bell Knoll
David Bowie, Queen Bitch Hunky Dory
Digable Planets, Examination of What Reachin' (A New Refutation of Time and Space)

 

You gotta let it, gotta let it grow

"Make your own dream.

That's the Beatles' story, isn't it? That's Yoko's story, that's what I'm saying now. Produce your own dream. If you want to save Peru, go save Peru. It's quite possible to do anything, but not to put it on the leaders and the parking meters. Don't expect Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan or John Lennon or Yoko Ono or Bob Dylan or Jesus Christ to come and do it for you. You have to do it yourself.

That's what the great masters and mistresses have been saying ever since time began. They can point the way, leave signposts and little instructions in various books that are now called holy and worshipped for the cover of the book and not for what it says, but the instructions are all there for all to see, have always been and always will be.

There's nothing new under the sun. All the roads lead to Rome. And people cannot provide it for you. I can't wake you up. You can wake you up. I can't cure you. You can cure you."

John Lennon, 1980

This strange illusion takes over me

Oh, how often this Manhattan Transfer record spun on the turntable and pulsed out of those mod cone/barrel speakers in the living room! I loved it, of course, because I was a child. But even then I could tell that this track was something more sophisticated than a novelty disco platter. The spoken parts and piercing space-sounds are cheesy, sure, but, man! when that chorus kicks in and you hear the harmonies? Come on. It feels/sounds like what a city skyline looks like. At least it did to me.

And does now--or maybe that's because I'm looking out of a window at a skyline right now. Post-twilight, but under the city's amber sky.




No, this ain't no "Disco Duck."

By the way, I am some five hours into Quest's "Mai Love" playlist and it's still going strong.

I asked the faithful light

Bad news is everywhere. But at least the moon and Patti Labelle's whoop are constant, and good. Her improvisation about the loss of body parts starting around the 4:20 mark is riffing par fonky excellence.



Until today, I had no idea she/Labelle covered this song, nor of the album's existence. So this is a bright spot today. Thanks to the inimitable Questlove and his "Mai's Salon" playlist.

It would be cool to see the moon tonight. I doubt that will come to pass, but at least we know it's still up there.

Today's Shuffle (Evening Edition): You must fly closer to the sea

I thought about simplicity today, in terms of letting go of everything that is not needed. Worn-out but still admired shoes. Faded papers. Flat pillows. Old, unloving thoughts. 

Then I heard Sinead's a capella koan, which I probably haven't heard in a couple of decades.

No other words needed. 

Sinead O'Connor, I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got 
Nneka, Africans Concrete Jungle
George Harrison, Beware of Darkness All Things Must Pass
Willie Nelson, One in a Row One Hell of a Ride
Rufus Wainwright, Go Or Go Ahead Want One
David Bowie, Five Years Stage 
David Bowie, A New Career in a New Town Low
Matthew Sweet, Divine Intervention Girlfriend
Depeche Mode, Halo Violator
Angie Stone, 20 Dollars Mahogany Soul

Low sun.

Been thinking about this one quite often over the last week, on the sunny days. It shines, and it's even warm in the rays, but its path is low, almost like the sun is a marble rolling around the side of a bowl, instead of arcing high (I didn't study physics in school).



The light, though, is still golden, and lovely, even if it's shining across, not down.

Today's Shuffle: The door always must be left unlocked

God, just when I was about to replace my old iPod with the new one that's been in its packaging for over a year, it gives me a good commute shuffle, good thoughts under blue skies.

Improbably, it's worked its ish out and cranked on for most of this year. 

So I should document this one, though brief, wide as the November sky.


David Bowie, The Stars (Are Out Tonight) The Next Day
Wilco, Muzzle of Bees A Ghost Is Born
Pixies, All Over the World Bossanova
Howard Jones, What Is Love Human's Lib
Beastie Boys, Finger Lickin' Good Check Your Head
Rufus & Chaka Khan, Once You Get Started
Nirvana, Scentless Apprentice In Utero
Common, Track 9  Electric Circus
Jimmy Cliff, My Lucky Day This Is Crucial Reggae
Mandy Patinkin, Finishing the Hat Sunday in the Park with George Original Cast Recording

To whisper love I used to know

I appreciate the Fleetwood Mac comparisons, sure, and this scratches my prog itch, but it's the sound of katydids whispering (fullly voiced around the 5:20 mark) that got me glued to this 1976 track from these English rock/folk/prog-ers.




Seems like this album diverges from their original, harder sound, brought to the world's attention when they opened for Deep Purple. I've dipped into early 70s Wishbone briefly and find it's closer to the Allman Brothers than this '76 stuff is to the Mac. Wah-wah, guitars.

I'll take nighttime summer bug chatter over that any day.

All I want is to have my peace of mind

How does Boston, of all people, know how to say what I feel? (And, as always, my Internet radio guru Zenith knows what I need to close my eyes and slip away.)



Last night the great phone chat I had with my gurl and former-but-really-still creative collaborator KVA laid out exactly what whats-his-name is saying.

I should show more respect and name the guy. How he made this song, his music, is what I am jamming on.

Tom Scholz was an engineer at Polaroid during the day and music-tech whiz and one-man band by night, who had fallen in love with rock music while at MIT. He whittled away at creating his own sound down in the basement, and was pretty much in it for the process. "I actually expected total failure."

Not what happened. 

Run your own race, and let the results be the results.

It will never be the same again

It's an afterthought kind of song, but I love it anyway.

Maybe it's today

I was happy to see Anthonie Tonnon, who's touring the U.S. from his home base of Auckland, New Zealand, perform twice this week once in front of less than a dozen people in a record shop, and the next night in a hip, crowded bar. It doesn't matter where it is -- he puts on a show. The performance thought-out yet spontaneous, practiced but not pretentious. He works the crowd, he works in the crowd. He takes risks, whether confronted with 10 self-conscious people with street noise filtering in, or in front of 75 swilling handmade gin cocktails.

It was inspiring to me to see structure and spontaneity in performance, and trust in the audience's best intentions.

And the musical chops match the in-real-life confidence.



And I was happy to meet him, too. He's a nice, direct and unaffected fellow who seems sort of ageless. He looks quite young, but is much more mature than his polite and polished exterior.

You are the light.

I've become sort of obsessed with this 1977 live/studio hybrid album from Santana, Moonflower. It's a cornucopia of what made pre-"Smooth" Santana great, including his cover of the Zombies' "She's Not There," a live version of "Black Magic Woman," and a veritable shit-ton of timbales. And Carlos' outsized solos grinding to almost-ear-splitting peaks.

This track brought me to the album -- well, good ol' Internet radio did, actually, as usual.



This one--the whole album, really--fit with the lower-angled, late summer light of the afternoon. I washed a formidable stack of dishes, swept and mopped, too, probably, while listening to this album, windows wide open. The house smells a certain way when it's a certain temperature, and feels a certain way when the sun is where it is. The homeness of home is verdant in those moments.

I catalogued this with the lifetime of other of sublime late afternoon sun-angle smells and feelings I've collected.

Love is a flower.

Touching the hearts of those who feel

I miss it already.

Everything's gonna come around

Reading the coverage of a special visit this week is nudging little connections that might not be there otherwise. Maybe there's hope for this ol' world to get its act together, at least if this guy thinks there's some.

So the message here hit me.



Or it's that having to work doggedly at the computer lately seems to flow when accompanied by then-there-were-three Genesis.

I dunno, I think this one from 1983 has a feel of both the old, theatrical, Gabriel Genesis and the impending "Invisible Touch-ah!" Genesis. Weird oogly synths and Phil's falsetto.

Did I just connect the Pope and Genesis? Sure.

Remember how the stars stole the night away?

Whenever I hear it, I always remember how this felt. 

But it's really not about nostalgia. It's an aid to help you climb to a peak of happiness, way up in the blue sky, every -- single -- time   it plays.

YOW!

Turn it Up: Come on you painter, you piper, you prisoner

Needed a mind-alterer right about now.

Today's Shuffle: See our marvellous leaders quiver

What if we joined together and said we'd had enough with all the bullshit? We need a union against those trying to divide us in the socio-political realm, not just/solely employment.


If we spent the energy absorbing ludicrous sideshows on perceiving and acting against the insidious ways these circus acts divide us.

Also, I'm sick of working to work.




To put it more hopefully, it's the other side of the "Imagine" coin.

Who is to say you'll be livin' in sadness

All I want to do is listen to Ernie Isley guitar solos and look at the sky and the leaves before they both go away, for the first harbinger of the Great Losses of autumn is my nasal and bronchial passages gone haywire.

They call it fall for a reason.

I just don't want this to go away. Please?

At least Ernie will stick around. I can even revisit the context of it all.

I'll give you one hint, honey, you sure did put on a show

Crying in my coffee because I won't be seeing the Angry Young Man live tonight. 



At least I can try to kick it at karaoke again, like I did a few summers ago.

Hell you talmbout

Say their names.

I'm pretty tough, but the wind is rough

This not-Steely Dan is perfect for August. Or for my next drive down the PCH -- not west on Sunset to the sea, but right beside it.



Lyrically, though, the track is suited for feeling badly in a beautiful place, which I don't, and won't. Those places (dunes, waves) bring me back to center.

Musically, well, let the man speak for himself:



Such beauty and venom, all in one place. The Dan. (and not-Dan).

Retire the fences

Want to stop thinking so much? Listen to this.



First encounter: end credits of this.

On Repeat: kissed the girls and made them high

You can have your "Rosanna" and "Africa," I want pudding pie.(I'll take any pie, thank you, right now)




Fine. Alright. I like Toto. I like Toto. I like Toto, which emerged in 1978 when, as a current reviewer points out, "their sheer competence was an affront." Sure, they're smooth, almost a little too smooth. But Steely Dan was smooth and Steely Dan was competent times hundreds, but Steely Dan were assholes who documented what went on in the limo after the party that was the 70s.

So you got Steely Dan without the cynicism and angularity (angular banjos?). You got echoes (fore-echoes) of Tears For Fears big, bright sound coupled with a soulful female voice. You got groove. Hells bells, within the same year as this single came out, a cover recorded by Charme, an R&B group that I can't find a single particle of wiki on, and sung by Luther "Panties-Off" Vandross (as in, "Luther on, panties off.").



You don't get more groove than that -- unless you also write a hit pop/disco/R&B track that scored high in a year that also gave us "I Will Survive," "Le Freak" and "Hot Stuff" (and, okay, "YMCA").



See? You never know what you'll find inside of a pie.

Bring back all of those happy days.

If anyone could sell an aerobics workout disguised as hot, new moves straight out of Danceteria, it's you, babe.



I liked this first single from her debut eponymous album (released today in 1983) best, even though "Lucky Star" was drilled the desire for fingerless lace gloves into my brain during babysitting stints. And, in what I just realized is branding, ca. 1983, she's wearing the same outfit in the "Lucky Star" video, just with fingerless lace gloves?

"Holiday" wins, and not just because the aerobics-sans-highcut-leotard video is performed in front of a live Dutch Masters painting.

It's really one of her best songs, one of the few from that debut that she didn't write herself. Plus, that piano riff at the end -- is this the last non-synth instrument played on a Madonna track until "Don't Tell Me?"

I love remembering first hearing this song, thinking she was another Shannon or the like, and realizing, no--now, this is someone completely different than anyone else at the time. She's not British, she's not black. She's (going to be) timeless. And the song, too. To wit:

I should heed my doctor's warning

Wait, wait- what key is it in?

When it's all mixed up

An album--a group (or solo act, depending on the album)--I've returned and responded to for decades and will continue to. Balm for everything. I'll be asking for this in my dotage, to be sure.

But why, oh why, when they tour, is it sporadic and not here?

Still, I have these beloved albums that never grow old to me, and feet to hit the pavement as I listen to them, and a brain to process it all, so who needs a live "bringing-back-the-retro-hits" show?

You've got something about you that I want around me

I'm a sucker for the soaring and otherworldly sounds of Gary Wright. This track is the logical advancement of what he established in "Dream Weaver" and "My Love Is Alive"-- you can hear that the equipment is more state-of-the-art than the tracks of 1975's The Dream Weaver.

Buddy of and collaborator with George Harrison, playing keys on Harrison's solo albums and pursuing a deep interest in India and spirituality with him. No surprise that relationship evolved into logging miles in Ringo's All-Starr Band.

Once in training to be a doctor, Gary assembles songs with the same kind of delicate precision that you find in a surgeon. He found his way around the early Korgs and Rolands, and even pioneered use of the keytar (see below).

And he could still get down.

Gary Wright is resoundingly under-praised, in my book.

As usual, I prefer the deep-cut, non-hit, that first reintroduction of which prompts the delightful realization, "I probably haven't heard this since it was on the radio in 198x!"

Yesterday's Shuffle: Well, you can have all you ask for, though it's not what you want

Heard during commute, whilst attempting to reconcile the resuming weekday requirements with slight, pink clouds of impulses and ocean dreams in the sky.

What you do 9 - 5 doesn't have to be you.

Just for one day

I remember.



I think. Actually, I remember all of this:



It's funny, though. That means almost nothing to me now.

And Bowie is...everything. Sharp, on target, on message, unifying, electrifying. And I didn't realize that until I saw it (again?) within the mesmerizing final room of the MCA show.

Also of note within these two: the Union of the Huge High-Low Backup Singer Shirts.

But this... sheer raise-funds, festival-busting perfection. Set the standard, really. And prepped me for dorm-room poster-level worship just a few years later, shifting from multiple, be-makeuped mullets to just...one love.



Still, Bowie wins. I mean:

And before my friends find out I'll be on the road

I don't care if it's not Friday. It's time to send my feet to the ocean.

I guess it's just what I must do

Nearly blind and mush-brained from all-day data project, I suddenly realize this is the greatest song ever.



What else to expect from the Brits who proclaimed they regarded "compositions as an extension of logic, inspiration and luck?"

Open the door.

As a child, I thought that Paul was referring to "Phil and Dawn," some of the pairs of neighbors that he was asking to be allowed to come into the house. For some lemonade or something. I saw them all lined up in my mind's eye, as this bleated out of the car radio.

Today's Shuffle: Show me what I love, and who I'm supposed to be

It ain't no "Bastards of Young"* -- Johnny takes a lot of words and a lot less poetry to say the same thing ("Just look at all the washed out Hippie dreams")-- but Summer-of-1995 nostalgia reached up and tugged on the edge of my skirt when I heard this on the iPod this morning.

I had no idea how much things would change after that summer. Not a clue.



Anyway, watching this video...it got me today. I'm sure if I saw it then I was all, oh, nice, look how we've been  c o m m o d i f i e d   for the Goo's  m a j o r   l a b e l  release, those are models, blah blah blah, but now I just simply miss the freedom to stand in front of humans grinding on electronic musical equipment and shake one's long, long hair.

And to wear any kind of shoes I wanted to.

*I swear to God, I did not know until this minute that there was a(n official) video made for this song. God. God.

If you put your mind to it you can surely do it

Master songwriter, Chicago son.

I feel a tropical vacation this year

Funny, I always thought that this was the novelty song.



But the band of many names, under yet another name, backed Steve Martin's "condo made of stone-a."

But I heard this track all of a sudden a few nights ago and was instantly delighted.

Maybe it was the chronological proximity to another weightless rum-drink daydream--the last Billboard Number One of the 70s, naturally--that draws/drew me to it (and, re: that video - who knew that an Apple programmer moonlighted as a pop star?).

I also wonder if Jimmy Buffett ever called since The Dirt Band lifted the opening of "Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes."

No; it must be the rum that has me drop everything and turn up for these three. And I am booking my summer beach vacation travel today.

Is maybe some love

Yesterday, approximately 7:45 pm:

Still wandering through the night

If Warren was still around, he'd surely be close to the sign-off, if not the last musical guest, for Dave.



I saw that last interview happen in 2002, and Dave's remembrance, in which he remembered the music:

“The music itself was just exciting,” Letterman said. “It was just thundering and exciting and rhythmic and complicated. … It was not the kind of rock ‘n’ roll you’d hear much of. And then the lyrics … were so vivid. Each song was like watching a motion picture. He was a poet and a storyteller and a good friend of ours.”

e: The History of Warren Zevon on David Letterman | http://ultimateclassicrock.com/warren-zevon-on-david-letterman/?trackback=tsmclip

“The music itself was just exciting,” Letterman said. “It was just thundering and exciting and rhythmic and complicated. … It was not the kind of rock ‘n’ roll you’d hear much of. And then the lyrics … were so vivid. Each song was like watching a motion picture. He was a poet and a storyteller and a good friend of ours.”

Read More: The History of Warren Zevon on David Letterman | http://ultimateclassicrock.com/warren-zevon-on-david-letterman/?trackback=tsmclip

“The music itself was just exciting,” Letterman said. “It was just thundering and exciting and rhythmic and complicated. … It was not the kind of rock ‘n’ roll you’d hear much of. And then the lyrics … were so vivid. Each song was like watching a motion picture. He was a poet and a storyteller and a good friend of ours.”

Read More: The History of Warren Zevon on David Letterman | http://ultimateclassicrock.com/warren-zevon-on-david-letterman/?trackback=tsmclip

“The music itself was just exciting,” Letterman said. “It was just thundering and exciting and rhythmic and complicated. … It was not the kind of rock ‘n’ roll you’d hear much of. And then the lyrics … were so vivid. Each song was like watching a motion picture. He was a poet and a storyteller and a good friend of ours.”

Read More: The History of Warren Zevon on David Letterman | http://ultimateclassicrock.com/warren-zevon-on-david-letterman/?trackback=tsmclip

“The music itself was just exciting,” Letterman said. “It was just thundering and exciting and rhythmic and complicated. … It was not the kind of rock ‘n’ roll you’d hear much of. And then the lyrics … were so vivid. Each song was like watching a motion picture. He was a poet and a storyteller and a good friend of ours.”

Read More: The History of Warren Zevon on David Letterman | http://ultimateclassicrock.com/warren-zevon-on-david-letterman/?trackback=tsmclip

“The music itself was just exciting,” Letterman said. “It was just thundering and exciting and rhythmic and complicated. … It was not the kind of rock ‘n’ roll you’d hear much of. And then the lyrics … were so vivid. Each song was like watching a motion picture. He was a poet and a storyteller and a good friend of ours.”

Read More: The History of Warren Zevon on David Letterman | http://ultimateclassicrock.com/warren-zevon-on-david-letterman/?trackback=tsmclip

“The music itself was just exciting,” Letterman said. “It was just thundering and exciting and rhythmic and complicated. … It was not the kind of rock ‘n’ roll you’d hear much of. And then the lyrics … were so vivid. Each song was like watching a motion picture. He was a poet and a storyteller and a good friend of ours.”

Read More: The History of Warren Zevon on David Letterman | http://ultimateclassicrock.com/warren-zevon-on-david-letterman/?trackback=tsmclip

We're only living this instant

Elvis at his lyrically dense finest.

Your eyes won't believe what your mind can't conceive

I like B-music. What's B-music? You know what B-movies are. B-music's the also-ran, the didn't-quite-make-it, the one-hit-wonder or, in its most piquant form, never-was-gonna-make-it-but-they-followed-the-dream-anyway (aka Anvil).

I fell down a Spotify k-hole and found some sweet late-disco/early Quiet Storm B-music.

The Jones Girls had been plying their trade for most of the 70s. They were Detroit-born sisters, forged in gospel singing, discovered first by Curtis Mayfield and later, after backing Diana Ross on tour, re-discovered by Gamble and Huff. Stars aligned then, and though they didn't become stars, dancefloors pulsed in '81 with this track.



I'm aching to find a good 12- or 7-inch copy of it, and in this week's obsession with it I've figured out its A-list sonic cousin.



Chaka's track is clearly more sophisticated, and there's a good reason why there's a gulf way wider than the Mediterranean Sea that separates "Tunisia" from "Egypt." Chaka's single "Night" in Tunisia is a cover that came from the mind of an actual genius who's genetically incapable of creating something as rustic as the unnecessary Middle Eastern-sounding keyboard riff in "Nights Over Egypt."

The Jones Girls can sing. But what they didn't have is access. The saying in the creative world is that you have to work with artists who are at least a little better than you so that your craft is raised. Access is based on timing, and the Girls' timing was not good, seeing as it was situated on the back-end of the (post-payola) Gamble and Huff juggernaut and given writers from the Philadelphia International stable that were maybe on the downslope of creating hit soul music.

After 1984, while Chaka found the third act of her career, The Jones Girls never got back on track.

Unequal songs, unequal careers, unequal access. But I (and probably only I) respond both songs with equal enjoyment, despite the unfair outcomes for the singers. But maybe they didn't want any more than that -- someone's ears being pleased at the sound of their song.

I best return my ears to simply listening before I embark on a master's-thesis rumination about the post-80s diminishing returns of Patrice Rushen.

As fine as she can be

It's not so simple as I try to wish

Random Play: Crushed my groove again

Now, it's distance and time that allows me to approach this track as an audiophile might. When it was contemporary, though, it was among a number of music videos I'd impatiently wait through in order to gawk at "The Reflex" one more time.

I could've sworn on a stack of shiny vintage car keys that this track as produced by same dude that produced ZZ Top--and not solely because it's firmly set in the world of fast vehicles and has a mid-Eighties video with a cast of a thousand extras.


Sammy Hagar - I Can't Drive 55 by jpdc11

No, I'm wrong, though Ted Templeman, unsurprisingly, did helm Van Halen records, and, very surprisingly, earlier recordings that are both ecstatic and smooth.

Which means the same dude that brought you "Hot For Teacher" also made "Tupelo Honey" happen.

I love the spectrum.

I didn't, however, love my dinner at the Red Rocker's restaurant in Cabo. He should stick to music.

I'm not a fugitive on the run

This PE track played on the 'pod as I ran three blocks in a minute to make it to join a phone meeting at work.

The irony was palpable with each step. At least it was ironic to me as I struggled to reach the cell that's not of my choosing to be on time for a meeting (a meeting! Already it's hopeless.) that I didn't want to attend nor that I truly care about.

It's not really a raw deal, but, man, what are we doing when we're not running toward something we chose without restriction or requirement?

Public Enemy - Black Steel In The Hour Of Chaos (1988) from Golden Era Videos on Vimeo.

You wrote the note.

This track serenaded me during wheels-down in a gray, rainy France in June all those years ago--not to visit, to live. As we coasted on the tarmac at CDG, that guitar riff barked out of foam-covered headphones and a worn TDK in my player, and the cascade of drums urged me from apprehension to exhilaration. I was gonna do it.

What, I didn't know. But I was. I had to. I was already there.

And, funny, I thought I didn't have this--and I had wanted it--but it is already here.

I choose me.

I know, you never intended to be in this world.
But you're in it all the same.
-Mary Oliver

Time got excited

Speaking of album openers (even though we weren't), the single drumbeat that kicks (ha) off the title track to the album that includes the hugely synthy and thrilling "Alive and Kicking" is ... I don't know what it is. It just works for me today.



It's also how the Minds' biggest--not greatest--Stateside hit starts. And they didn't even write it, though it was written with them in mind (ha).

[Ed. Note: listen to the demo embedded in the Spin article and tell me they weren't actually aiming for the Psych Furs and Richard Butler and not the Minds]

I was precisely in the target demographic, so, yeah, it worked. Consider me obsessed, and I probably viewed it not long after the 2/15/85 opening, and hit up The Record Bar straight after.

I also don't know if I'd agree with the subtitle "Poor Man's U2" for the band. Yes, they made epic, sweeping use-a-thesaurus-here songs, but these sprang, in my estimation, from straight from the heart ("I'd be with you/I dreaaaaam about you...I stay with you...tonight"), less filtered through the head. And embroidered with the keys and piano of Michael MacNeil, which don't cross between actual human hands plunking keys and chirps emitting from the turning of knobs. SM are synthy, but not Depeche Mode, for god's sake.

I'm glad The Breakfast Club pushed the Minds onto our shores, our record players, tape decks and for god's sake, into our minds.

The notes don't seem three decades old, though. Not at all.

But these cuts I have / they need love to help them heal

It's funny: I had a dream last night that I was watching a George Michael concert, and every detail was clear, down to the production style (black and white, stark), costumes (freaky jacket covered in thin silver spines), choreography (contortionism, including a song sung from plank pose), and guests (Jody Watley). George performed "Bennie and the Jets."

Hours later, I've hauled out Dad's Elton Greatest Hits and spun it since I'm unexpectedly working on my sofa today, and "Bennie and the Jets" plays, followed by (and I knew this already, but still) "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me," which GM actually has covered live and beyond.

There are no coincidences? Of course my next navigation was here.

No, I am not that prescient.

But I did need to hear this song today. Oh, the cold chills when EJ sings

I can't find, oh the right romantic line
But see me once and see the way I feel
Don't discard me just because you think I mean you harm
But these cuts I have they need love to help them heal

There's no easy way out at all

 

The late 70s the way they should be heard. Easy listening, but shouldn't the easy come from George Harrison, who told us it don't come easy?

Sometimes I wanna wrap my coat around you

It may sound just like "Moonlight Mile," but I think I like it better than that more lauded track.

Succinct--and apropos. 

Oceans of diamonds always shine

California, I think about your gentle mornings when the snow cover has hardened the earth underneath it and the sun glares overhead anyway.

I haven't seen a crocus or a rosebud

Today's Shuffle: But if I'm faced with being replaced

My poor 6th generation iPod Classic is on its last legs. I have to charge it daily, it immediately expires and displays a frightening symbol on its screen if I skip too many songs or dare to play Solitaire on it. I've given it some palliative care, a couple of restores and charging only the the computer. But it's slowly slipping this vale of tears--and this barrel of laughs. Don't think my iPod is solely a conductor of woe and wistfulness. Much joy, much of it documented here where no one traveler goes, emerged from this flat, silver pocket bird.

Since I bought the iPod in 2009 after leaving my first 6th gen in a condo in Lido Key, Sarasota, Florida, it's crossed the continent to California multiple times, jogged along the Pacific and Atlantic, shot down to the Carolinas in a small jet and to Hawaii on a great, big one, joggled at my waistband on Kentucky subdivision roads and pockmarked Wicker Park/Ukie V/Bucktown streets, in half-marathons along the Lake and Tampa Bay, brought peace and comfort on planes, in the middle of a sleepless night, and each and every day trodding the same route on the Chicago grid and L. And, much of that time, Shuffling into undiscovered country.

But the Shuffle function has--well, it's not stopped functioning entirely, but it shuffles only the same small group of songs. It's true, I click up Shuffle only on train rides, during reading, having lately turned to podcasts for long treks and commutes.

This song has, oddly, turned up in that malfunction-created set, itself a stand-alone, random kind of track.

The kind of chunkily layered 80s track (1983, to be exact) that I still love beyond taste or reason. I mean, look at its chart peers. And I won't lie, I dig H&O.

Kind of perfect.



In September, I chased down and bought a brand new Classic upon the news that Apple was discontinuing its venerable and voluble and original iPod. It's sat in its sealed box since then, waiting to take over the job of distracting from and connecting me to the world and into daylight and nighttime dreams. I'm glad I made the purchase when I did.

Will I have a little ceremony for my old friend? Most likely, no. But I will keep it, and let it sleep, with its tired OS and frozen-in-time Shuffle set, and by sleep, I don't mean end.

I wish I was in Carrickfergus

Today's Shuffle: Free from the last

Funny how it takes approximately twenty years to figure out what something really means. That's a long time between leap and the net appearing. But as long as you actually lift your foot, you're good. You're all good.

I will say goodbye.

Dinner time circa 1981-83.

Happy birthday: Breathe through the years

This song hits me every time I hear it. 

The artist questions, and answers it. When it's time to leave, does he want to remember the 70s--his 70s? Do any of us--our 70s? We can have 70s that aren't in that decade, the "killing time" years. I had a few; they were probably in the mid-oughts.

We can let them go; they don't matter any more aside from what they might've forged or made fall away.

Breathe through the years.

Steamy like a winter storm

Sade's band melts the snow. But where are they now? Or, rather, when will we hear from them again?

Breezin'

Composed by Bobby Womack, performed by George Benson, original pressing record supplied by my dad.

Also, a good way to enter the next year.

So if you hear a sound