This Is This

…an adventure in buying singles I love and should already own and don’t.

7. Joni Mitchell - Coyote
Shouldn’t work but does, again. Also Jaco Pastorius on bass.

8. Canned Heat - Going Up The Country
If only for the lines: “I’m going I’m going where the water tastes like wine./I’m going where the water tastes like wine./ We can jump in the water, stay drunk all the time.” Flutes in blues. More of it. Roland Kirk’ll tell you. Listen to his Sackful Of Soul.

9. The Band - Up On Cripple Creek
One of the great live bands. You must love Levon Helm’s voice. I want to buy me a big old house and an ill-fitting suit when I hear this one.

10. Pink Floyd- Learning to Fly
I’m not a huge fan of The/Pink (delete as applicable) Floyd. From the trite early stuff to the pompous later tracks (nb: call them “tracks” instead of songs, man), but this is a good one. Even if it does sound like someone’s sliding metal filing cabinets round in the background. Dave Gilmour and Nick Drake: Posh boys singing their hearts out. “Fatal attraction that’s holding me fahhst/How can I escape this irristible grahhsp”. You can almost hear the blinis.

11. The Shirelles - Will You Love Me Tomorrow
It’s only once an era is really over that you can measure greatness.
Heart of Glass - New Wave
Dancing Queen - Disco
Foggy Mountain Breakdown - Bluegrass
Ornithology - Bebop jazz
and this
the most perfect song in its field.

12. Springsteen - Hungry Heart
For all of Monday’s reasons*, and also a great opening line “Got a wife and kids in Baltimore, Jack/I went out for a ride and I never went back.” It’s kind of the opening line of the guy on a barstool who swings it round and says.

13. A Small Victory - Faith No More
Thick guitars, thicker irony and spoken vocals over hard drums.

14. Cindi Lauper - True Colours
The greatest vocal performance of the 80’s. And I’m including Kenny Loggins.

15. Donald Fagen - IGY (International Geophysical Year)
Every time this comes on the radio, it reminds me of a snapshot of me. I’m standing on a railing in a crowd in Penn’s Landing in Philadelphia. It’s summer and I’m nine years old with the east coast humidy accentuating my 1970’s polyester clothing. I must have heard this song a hundred times since, but it was playing that afternoon and every time hear the nasal twines, minor ninths, synth pitch bends and mellodeon, I’m right back there next to the Schuykill River.

“On that train of graphite and glitter
Under sea by rail
Ninety minutes from New York to Paris
Well by ‘76, we’ll be A-OK.”

——-

And I’ve still got 13 pounds left.

*For All Of Monday’s Reason’s is a nice title.

Also on This Is This
The Wild Wild West Wing - Josh, Toby, CJ and Jed swap their suits for stetsons in a ten-gallon rootin’ tootin’ six-gun shootin’ adventure.
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