It's too late to change events

Something comforting about this song to me today, beyond that it reminds me of any ordinary day during my summer stay in France, drinking hot chocolate in the morning out of a big bowl while pop radio blared overhead in the windowless self.



I think 1990 is becoming another musical It Year for me. Something to think about, especially these moments these days when all I wanna do is go back, not forward.

I know how hard is not to be younger

Here's what happens when you stand around the kitchen at 1:30 am with the radio that soothes the cat when she's home alone is still tuned to MeTV FM: a pioneer emerges. You don't hear about the first folks who went someplace, you hear about the grizzled, insane prospectors and the Donner Party, and such. The Wright Brothers, not Lawrence Hargrave, right? We know of the adders-on, not the builders, like Tom Rush.

This made my heart ache in the small, dark hours of the night.



And now, I need to go call my mother.

And the people have the power to redeem the work of fools

Overlooking none, hopin´ life gets better for the world

Do what you know's good for you

Here we go. Soul music with soul -- which Prince heard and featured in one of his last albums, though it was first heard as a stream as fast, after events in Baltimore, as you can say "Ohio."

I hope she comes out with a full-length something this year.

And it don't make sense not to keep on pushing

And I'll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it

Doesn't seem like reality but it's here right in front of me

A recent good find, thanks to friendly and beneficent--and, ultimately, human-originated--web algorithms.



Also, some sun would be nice right about now.

I'm back

Hanging on to hope.

I've posted about this song before, but some five years ago, it was about a moment, not the song. Shuffle got me that December night, and the moon.

I guess those are two things that are and have been constant over the last five years: music being moving, and the moon, too. 

They probably will continue to be, as the new year begins. George's music will be. When you think about it, he had every reason in the world to continue to write merry pop songs about love and longing after 1985-87. He was pretty, the songs were pretty. But there was something deeper going on under that face and physique, something that the later leather-jacketed, all-model videos and exploding jukeboxes couldn't cover up. A thoughtful, timeless soul who got well down into the thorns of relationships and love and sought to remind us of having faith in yourself.

I'd put this song on par with any 70s Lennon ills-of-the-earth shouter.

I wouldn't have listened to it the last few days of this exceptional year, had he not passed. But he did, and here I am, and here it is.

I'll keep looking for the moon in the trees, and hoping.



These are the days of the open hand
They will not be the last
Look around now
These are the days of the beggars and the choosers

This is the year of the hungry man
Whose place is in the past
Hand in hand with ignorance
And legitimate excuses

The rich declare themselves poor
And most of us are not sure
If we have too much
But we'll take our chances
Because god's stopped keeping score
I guess somewhere along the way
He must have let us all out to play
Turned his back and all god's children
Crept out the back door

And it's hard to love, there's so much to hate
Hanging on to hope
When there is no hope to speak of
And the wounded skies above say it's much too late
Well maybe we should all be praying for time

These are the days of the empty hand
Oh you hold on to what you can
And charity is a coat you wear twice a year

This is the year of the guilty man
Your television takes a stand
And you find that what was over there is over here

So you scream from behind your door
Say "what's mine is mine and not yours"
I may have too much but i'll take my chances
Because god's stopped keeping score
And you cling to the things they sold you
Did you cover your eyes when they told you

That he can't come back
Because he has no children to come back for

It's hard to love there's so much to hate
Hanging on to hope when there is no hope to speak of
And the wounded skies above say it's much too late
So maybe we should all be praying for time