This Is This

I’m tired these days. Just the last two weeks ago - typical black dog stuff. What makes it worse is that it’s now summer and that shouldn’t happen. It’s probably because it has rained just about every day for the last two weeks.

To use a phrase from my friend Guy, it feels like not only am I on a blind date with Destiny, it looks like she just ordered the lobster.

I have had so many senior moments over the last few days that I’m starting accept that as a temporary norm, referring to my periods of clarity as “junior moments”.

As it to make things better these days (and by the way, it often does) I got my hands of a lot of new music. There’s something about a wireless network and a new laptop that makes you want to buy some songs. And when you’re thirty five, you’ve found a niche in your musical tastes, and it’s a reminder that it’s a thin line between a groove and a rut.

Be that as it may, there’s a lot of music I missed out on growing up that have since become classics, but I never bought them because they were always on the radio.

Last week I was watching My Name Is Earl, the greatest show on TV, and they played Steve Miller’s Take The Money And Run. Now I was never a big fan, but I’m thinking: “I could listen to a little Steve Miller.”

I’d always dismissed it as to simple, he’s not a great singer, he has rhymes like:

They headed down to, ooh, old El Paso.
Thats where they ran into a great big hassle.
Billy Joe shot a man while robbing his castle.
Bobbie Sue took the money and run.

Let’s not break that down, but you know what I’d say, right? 

Also, I think it’s “ran“. But anyway.

I was listening to a lot of jazz when I was a kid because my dad and his brothers gave me a love for that and Everton Football Club. But if you’re going to dismiss rock and roll on the basis of simplicity then you need close looking at.

So I got some Steve Miller and I bought Lynyrd Skynyrd, because southern rock’s always stirred my gumbo in ways I can’t explain. Then I got a big pile of J J Cale and topped it off with The Band.

I’ll bring some of these out eventually in the Weekend Song, the tunes of which can be broken down into three main categories:

1. New Stuff

2. Old Stuff

3. Stuff You Might Not Have Heard

Some of the New Stuff might fall under SYMNHH, but I doubt it because as you may have picked up, I’m thirty five and I have bought some Steve Miller.

So yeah, have a great day - there’s every chance you’ll know more at the end of it than you did this morning.

Remember that there’s nothing wrong with growing old. It’s the priviledge of experience and that’s yours alone.

Best wishes to you,

Cliff

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 26th, 2007 at 7:27 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed, or you can skip to the end and leave a comment yourself.