Christmas in Carrick

And here's a less-depressing Christmas song. It's nothing like what I'm doing right now, but it is one of my favorites from Golden Bough. Maybe that's because of all the food and drink they sing about!

The album calls this song "Christmas Comes But Once a Year," but a little googling led me to find the original title as I give it in the post's heading.

Here are the lyrics:

"And what have you done?"

So this is Christmas
And what have you done?
Another year over
And a new one just begun

I'm pretty sure I first heard this song on Christmas Day. It was sometime in the mid-1970's, at my parents' house, and Brother had been given an album which included it. At any rate, that's the image that pops into my head whenever I hear it ... the living room, the tree, the lights, and the stereo system. (Gosh, remember stereo systems?)

The other thing that I always hear is that question: "And what have you done?" Does everyone else find that challenge depressing, or is it just me? On the whole I think my answer is, "Not much." It makes me see why people are so eager to make New Year's Resolutions. Of course, I don't even do that: after watching Father go on so many diets that he swore with great fanfare would make him thin, ... and then watching him go off them again after two weeks with no visible change of girth, ... I figure it is better simply to fail quietly than to fail after calling a lot of attention to yourself. (No, it never really occurred to me to treat success as one of the options. Why do you ask?)

I'm not sure I have much more to say about this. But I'm sitting home alone, watching out my window as the weather lurches dramatically from stormy to calm and back to stormy again. It's Christmas, but without any of the usual Christmas-stuff going on. So here: have a song. 

Incidentally, I had a thought this morning. When John and Yoko sang this song, their slogan (referring to the Vietnam War) was, "War is over if you want it." That sentiment probably sounded idealistic to many, but in fact the events proved it to be remarkably practical. Because in general there is always one quick and certain way to end any war: Let the other guys win! And as long as your commitment to peace is stronger than your commitment to victory, that avenue is open and available. Sure enough, it worked in Vietnam.

Here are the lyrics:

Golden Bough in concert

OK, here's something different. The Celtic folk band Golden Bough, in concert.

I didn't attend in-person, but I did get a link to watch it live-streamed.

There were a few hiccups and glitches, but they are still recognizable.

They are still a delight to listen to.

One warning: you have to advance the video past the 16:00 mark (that's 16 minutes!) before you get anything. But after that it should be fine. Leave me a note if it's not.

I can't get Blogger to put up a window, but here is the link. 

Another song for the road

A few days ago I brought the story of Ma Schmidt up to the point where she died. I don't remember quite when I wrote that part. It must have been less than a week, because I posted this one six days ago, and that was before I wrote the last few about her.

I keep thinking I "should" write some of the other posts I've been thinking about from that time, and maybe I will. I'll start with this one because it's easy.

You remember back in March I wrote about why I find country music good to listen to for long road trips. So I scanned for Country stations on the road up to see the Schmidts again, and on the road home. Most of the songs I heard were songs I had heard before—good enough to keep me awake, but nothing I felt I had to remember for later. Or they were songs that I hadn't heard before, and that I forgot again right away.

But there was one that caught my attention. I'm not sure if it hooked any of my special topics, or if it's just that the tune is compelling and the beat is relentless. But it's all of that, for sure. Apparently it's also famous, so maybe you've already heard of it. The song is "Austin," by Dasha.

P.S.: I just realized that Dasha defines her style as #cuntry, and yes it is spelled like that. I don't know what to make of that, but here's an article about it.   

Hide your crazy

The drive from here to the Schmidts' farm is a long one. It takes pretty much a solid day. And it can get boring. So to beguile the time (and keep from falling asleep) I turn on the radio.

I don't have a list of favorite stations, because I normally don't listen to the radio unless I'm driving long distances. On the other hand, through trial and error I've found that the most reliable style of music for keeping me awake is Country.

Normally I wouldn't think of myself as a Country music fan, but for this specific purpose it's very useful. The beat is usually strong, and the tunes are usually catchy; so it engages my nervous system and keeps me awake. That's what I'm looking for on long drives.

Also the sentiments are pretty straightforward. Nothing is layered. Everything is on the surface. So I don't have to work too hard or think too deeply to follow it. Since a good bit of my attention is focused on the road and the other cars, that's a good thing.

The day I drove to the Schmidts—that would have been Wednesday, March 5, for those keeping track at home—I heard a song that piqued way too much of my interest. I couldn't make out all the lyrics, but I could tell that the spirit behind the song … the (presumably fictional) character who was singing it … was exactly the kind of irrational and over-dramatic high-maintenance woman that I have found so attractive over the years. Oh, I know women like these are bad for me. I know they are dangerous and crazy. So is alcohol, but that doesn't stop me drinking it. The good part is that I'm old and past it, so I'm no longer in the market for a new romantic partner. But my taste was always a little self-destructive.

The song was "Mama’s Broken Heart," by Miranda Lambert. When I finally googled the lyrics (after getting home again) I found that the song is mostly about the girl fighting with her mother, because her mother wants her to be restrained and lady-like. And while I may find the ideal of "ladyhood" a little artificial, I've got good things to say (from the perspective of practicality and prudence) about self-restraint.

But I also understand the desire to bundle up all that self-restraint into a big bag, and set it alight. Make a bonfire of it all to light up the sky. Good thing I'm not looking for a new girlfriend.

Here's the song:

P.S.: Actually the video is tamer than I expected. She never breaks anything, and she never sets fire to anything. I half-expected her to flip the dining table, or at least to throw her plate of food through the window or across the room. But she never does anything like that. Her Mama's training has sunk deep enough that she's too much of a "lady" to wreck her surroundings with savage abandon.

Maybe my expectations were set by someone with a lot more "crazy" to hide. Or a lot more passion. Or maybe just plain destructive rage. I'm thinking of this post, of course. But any of the posts tagged "Wife loses it" will do just as well.  

  

Hosea and Marie's soundtrack: a meme

Usually it takes me a while to think of the music that fits a certain relationship. I didn't post a soundtrack meme for Wife and me until 2009, the year we separated our finances and I began the process of pulling away from her in earnest. I didn't post a soundtrack meme for D and me until 2014, after the affair was well over. I didn't post a soundtrack meme for my father until 2015, the year he died.

Now you could argue that I've had plenty of time to think about a soundtrack for my relationship with Marie. I met her 36 years ago. But I've already mentioned that I normally don't think of my life in terms of songs. So it would be believable if I hadn't really thought this through yet.

Only this one is a slam-dunk. I'll explain why in a few minutes, after I get one other song out of the way -- a more normal one.

See, actually I want to give you two songs. The first one came to me last night as I was typing my "Year 1" post about Marie. I don't remember if I knew it back then, but it characterizes nicely the social isolation I felt at the time.

Before I forget, let me start off quoting a paragraph of rules: 

The Rules:
Write a post about the soundtrack of your life. Please include somewhere in the body of the meme "This was started by Kyra (last refuge of the lonely housewife)"... I want to google to see how far and wide this meme travels.  

Anyway, this is how I lived my life back when I was in college. Not completely -- I dearly wanted something better -- but I was afraid to go look for it.

"I Am a Rock" by Simon and Garfunkel

A winter’s day
In a deep and dark December
I am alone
Gazing from my window
To the streets below
On a freshly fallen, silent shroud of snow
I am a rock
I am an island

I’ve built walls
A fortress, steep and mighty
That none may penetrate
I have no need of friendship
Friendship causes pain.
It’s laughter and it’s loving I disdain.
I am a rock
I am an island

Don’t talk of love
Well, I’ve heard the words before
It’s sleeping in my memory
And I won’t disturb the slumber
Of feelings that have died
If I never loved, I never would have cried
I am a rock
I am an island

I have my books
And my poetry to protect me
I am shielded in my armor
Hiding in my room
Safe within my womb
I touch no one and no one touches me
I am a rock
I am an island

And a rock feels no pain
And an island never cries
__________

But that's only the first song, and not the important one. The second is the one I called a "slam-dunk" choice.

Why a slam-dunk? Because this time I don't have to think of a song after the fact to characterize the emotions of the time. This time it's a piece of music we listened to there and then. And Marie loved it above all the things of this world.

When she first got to college, Marie knew nothing -- or almost nothing -- about classical music. But Scarlett loved classical music and played it quite a bit. So did Schmidt, as Marie and I got to know him. So it was through Scarlett and Schmidt that Marie learned to enjoy classical music ... and particularly to love Beethoven ... and above all Beethoven's other works, the Seventh Symphony in A Major ... and above all other works of man or God, the Allegretto, the Second Movement.

We would sit in Schmidt's dorm room -- or Scarlett's, but more and more we went to Schmidt for this sort of thing -- and he would put on his recording of Josef Krips conducting the London Symphony Orchestra. Marie would close her eyes and relax. As the Second Movement started, her face would melt into a beatific smile as if she were listening to angels. And when we left to go our respective ways, she was happy and renewed, no matter what life had been throwing at her.

She even said once, a year or two later, that the Seventh Symphony may well have saved her life. During most of her sophomore year she was sick with a bug that just wouldn't go away. And the muscles of her back tightened up in knots that none of her friends could massage away. So she had begun to despair of the possibility of pleasure in life, and from this she began to question "If pleasure is impossible, why go on living?" But she never went so far as suicide ... because one ineffable pleasure remained to her unsullied by any of the dross of the world. If she could enjoy nothing else, she could still listen to Beethoven. And that was enough reason to go on living.

Ever after -- from her freshman year (my sophomore year) to the present day -- I have found those two, Marie and the music, inextricable in my memory. If I think of Marie, I hear the Second Movement in the back of my mind. And if I hear the Second Movement, I always think of Marie.

In fact, I think of her at one moment, in one scene. There was a huge public rhododendron test garden just across the street from campus, and it was unlocked at night. Many is the time when I -- with or without friends -- would have to get out of my room late at night, and would go walking through the gardens. So when I hear the Second Movement what I see in my mind is Marie, standing in the moonlight in front of one of those huge rhododendrons, breathing in the scent and smiling up at the stars.

It has been 36 years. If the image is still that strong for me today, I assume I will be seeing it -- whenever I hear that music -- till I die. I guess I could do worse.

Anyway, here is the music, the voice of angels, the soundtrack for all my memories of Marie.

Second Movement of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony

Soundtrack meme: Father

Until his recent illness, my Dad has always been the life of the party. People who met him for the first time always called him "charming". (Meanwhile they always called my mother "serene" ... so much so that she once threatened to run amok if anybody else ever called her serene. Didn't stop them.) Whenever there was a conversation going on within earshot -- between anyone, about anything -- my father invited himself into the middle of it and ended up dominating it. You can probably tell where I inherit my tendency to talk too much.

The thing is that this can be charming at first, but it wears on you. After a while you start to wish he would go away, or at least shut up when he doesn't know anything about the topic at hand. He doesn't, though. He's not good at those things. And he can't tell when his input has become wearying. Moreover, he reacts very badly if you try to tell him so. Either he contradicts you and offers to prove his point, or he decides that you hate him personally for some inexplicable reason ... probably because you are a malevolent asshole who should be written off as a permanent enemy. Welcome to narcissism.

Anyway, it occurred to me a couple days ago that in some respects this song is perfect for him. Not in all respects, of course: it's written about a woman, for example, and she flashes a lot more money and fashion than my father ever had at his command. But the spotlight? The front page? Oh yeah.

Like all good caricature it exaggerates. But like all good caricature it captures an essential truth unforgettably. 

Before I forget, let me start off quoting a paragraph of rules:

The Rules:
Write a post about the soundtrack of your life. Please include somewhere in the body of the meme "This was started by Kyra (last refuge of the lonely housewife)"... I want to google to see how far and wide this meme travels.

"Big Shot" by Billy Joel

Well you went uptown riding in your limousine
With your fine Park Avenue clothes
You had the Dom Perignon in your hand
And the spoon up your nose
And when you wake up in the morning
With your head on fire
And your eyes too bloody to see
Go on and cry in your coffee
But don't come bitchin' to me

Because you had to be a big shot, didn't you
You had to open up your mouth
You had to be a big shot, didn't you
All your friends were so knocked out
You had to have the last word, last night
You know what everything's about
You had to have a white hot spotlight
You had to be a big shot last night

They were all impressed with your Halston dress
And the people that you knew at Elaine's
And the story of your latest success
Kept 'em so entertained
Aw but now you just can't remember
All the things you said
And you're not sure you want to know
I'll give you one hint, honey
You sure did put on a show

Yes, yes, you had to be a big shot, didn't you
You had to prove it to the crowd
You had to be a big shot, didn't you
All your friends were so knocked out
You had to have the last word, last night
You're so much fun to be around
You had to have the front page, bold type
You had to be a big shot last night

Well, it's no big sin to stick your two cents in
If you know when to leave it alone
But you went over the line
You couldn't see it was time to go home
No, no, no, no, no, no, you had to be a big shot, didn't you
You had to open up your mouth
You had to be a big shot, didn't you
All your friends were so knocked out
You had to have the last word, last night
So much fun to be around
You had to have a white hot spot light
You had to be a big shot last night

Hosea and D's soundtrack: a meme

Almost five years ago -- dear God, was it really five years ago? -- I posted a "soundtrack" of my life with Wife, as part of a meme started by Kyra Edwards.  And even at the time, I kind of wondered, "What about after Wife?"  But I didn't really have the perspective to answer that question.

Then a couple weeks ago, just before the boys went off to their various schools, I was watching a movie with them and suddenly it became crystal-clear to me what has to have been my soundtrack with D.  I don't know about Debbie yet, ... but for D it is totally obvious.

First, as before, let me start off quoting a paragraph of rules:

The Rules:
Write a post about the soundtrack of your life. Please include somewhere in the body of the meme "This was started by Kyra (last refuge of the lonely housewife)"... I want to google to see how far and wide this meme travels.

And the song?  Well maybe there could have been several, but one overshadowed the whole relationship ... had to, in many ways.  I just had to back up before I had the perspective to see it.

It's "Mrs. Robinson".

Not that I was a virgin when we got together, of course.  But in many ways I felt naive, and like the junior partner.  Many times she was clearly frustrated with my not understanding the basic logistical necessities of our affair.  (Much like Mrs. Robinson asking Benjamin, "Did you get us a room?")  And when I had trouble making up a lie to cover this or that she had no patience with me whatsoever; she assumed that my saying I "couldn't" tell this or that lie meant I didn't want to.  She demanded a lot of my attention and was brusque or dismissive if she didn't get it.  I don't know ... somehow it just seemed right.

__________

Mrs. Robinson

And here’s to you, Mrs. Robinson
Jesus loves you more than you will know, wo wo wo
God bless you please, Mrs. Robinson
Heaven holds a place for those who pray, hey hey hey
Hey hey hey

We’d like to know a little bit about you for our files
We’d like to help you learn to help yourself
Look around you, all you see are sympathetic eyes
Stroll around the grounds until you feel at home

And here’s to you, Mrs. Robinson
Jesus loves you more than you will know, wo wo wo
God bless you please, Mrs. Robinson
Heaven holds a place for those who pray, hey hey hey
Hey hey hey

Hide it in a hiding place where no one ever goes
Put it in your pantry with your cupcakes
It’s a little secret, just the Robinsons’ affair
Most of all, you’ve got to hide it from the kids

Coo coo ca-choo, Mrs. Robinson
Jesus loves you more than you will know, wo wo wo
God bless you please, Mrs. Robinson
Heaven holds a place for those who pray, hey hey hey
Hey hey hey

Sitting on a sofa on a Sunday afternoon
Going to the candidates’ depate
Laugh about it, shout about it
When you’ve got to choose
Every way you look at it you lose

Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?
A nation turns its lonely eyes to you, wo wo wo
What’s that you say, Mrs. Robinson
‘Joltin Joe’ has left and gone away, hey hey hey
Hey hey hey

Judy Blue Eyes -- posted at last

Recently I came across an e-mail I wrote to D back in 2011, just after coming back from a Judy Collins concert.  I don't know why I didn't post it here then, but I didn't.  Anyway, I've posted it now.  I back-dated the post to the day I wrote the e-mail, but here is a link dated today (when I'm actually doing the work) to send you back to it.

http://hoseasblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/judy-blue-eyes.html

Rock concert

Sunday night I took the boys to a rock concert.  It was four hours long: Don Felder (formerly of the Eagles) opened, then Styx performed, and then Foreigner.  We were way up in the nosebleed seats.  The concert was loud, it ran late, and it was a lot of fun.  Two thirds of the way through, during the changeover from Styx to Foreigner, Son 2 said to me, "I don't know how much you paid for these tickets – but whatever it was, it was worth it."

 

I told him, "Actually I sold you into indentured servitude to pay for them."

 

He answered, "That's fine – it's still worth it."

 

By the very end, … well, I think they still enjoyed it but actually their feelings were a little more nuanced.  The audience had gotten steadily louder with each new performer, singing along when they knew the words and shrieking or squealing when they didn't, so that it was actually pretty hard to hear what Foreigner was singing.  (I murmured to Son 1, who was sitting next to me, "This is why the Beatles stopped touring.")  Also the boys knew most of the songs Don Felder sang, and a large fraction of the songs Styx sang, but not a lot of the songs Foreigner sang (other than "Cold as Ice" and maybe one or two others) … so they couldn't let memory fill in the gaps on those songs where the audience outshouted the performers.

 

Why did the audience get steadily louder?  I assume there were three reasons.  First, as the concert went on they just got more and more into it.  This is pretty basic.  Second, the concession stands were doing a brisk business in beer and wine all throughout the concert; so as it got later, the audience got steadily drunker and less inhibited.  Third, when Don Felder started singing we were still in daylight; by the time Styx wrapped up and was replaced by Foreigner, we were sitting in the dark of night.  That too helped to uninhibit the audience.

 

The boys don't drink – they are too young and on the whole they are pretty strait-laced – so they were critical of the audience for getting so toasted.  But they did allow that there were some advantages to nightfall.  A couple of rows in front of us was a young couple who spent most of the concert (when they weren't getting more beer) on their feet dancing … only their "dancing" seemed mostly to involve a good bit of caressing or groping each other's bodies.  I was amused by them, and I didn't realize that they made the boys uncomfortable; but later, when we discussed it, the boys told me that one good part about the coming of the dark was that they could no longer see these two.

 

I did try to explain – again, this discussion was all afterwards – "Guys, it's a rock concert. This kind of thing is normal."  Son 1 asked, "How many rock concerts have you been to, Dad?"  I admitted that I wasn't quite sure but the number was pretty small; but I added that these were things everybody knew.  Rock music was born as an ecstatic experience; the thing that differentiated it so starkly from so much of what went before was the raw and direct way it intoxicated the listener, just exactly like booze or pot or sex.  That's why so many moralists condemned it, for heaven's sake.  I reminded the boys that girls at Woodstock would take off their clothes and dance naked.  Not that I was there, of course.  I was just a kid during the Woodstock Concert.  And as for the boys, the Summer of Love is farther in the past on their calendars than the Reichstag Fire is on mine.  It is clearly, for them, a thing of legend.  But I was trying to make a point.

 

That so many in the crowd were aging hippies contributed to one other factor that made the boys nervous.  We were well into Foreigner's set when the woman on the other side of me – she must have been at least my age and probably older – grabbed my shoulder for support, leaned over, and shouted to me (there was no other way to make herself heard), "WOULD IT BOTHER YOU IF I LIT UP A JOINT? I'VE GOT TWO HIDDEN IN MY BRA."  What was I going to say?  "No"?  Come on, … it's a rock concert.  Of course I told her that was fine.  Then she asked "WHAT ABOUT YOUR BOYS?"  In retrospect I'm not sure if she was asking "Would they mind?" or "Do they want any?" but I told her not to worry about it.  So she did.  Everybody was standing and joining in the song (or at least the noise), so she sat down in the dark using the bodies all around her as a windbreak and fiddled with her lighter.  Several times, of course: it's a rare joint that lights on the first try.  I wasn't really watching her so I'm not sure quite when she got it lit … I think she handed it to her daughter … and then suddenly I felt her tug sharply three times on my sleeve to sit down and she offered it to me.

 

Of course she did.  That's what you do with pot … you hand it around.  It's just common courtesy.  And what did I want to do?  I had a fraction of a second to decide.  So I figured … gosh, it's been a long, long time since I had any of that.  Well over thirty years.  I'm not working in defense, or in any other industry where random drug testing is a credible threat.  So sure, hell , why not?  I had no intention of letting myself get fucked up, but I also knew that one or two puffs wouldn't do that.  So I sat down, took a puff, and handed it back to her.  I had another a few minutes later, and then that was it.  I figured I'd stop at two, and in any event she didn't offer more: she later said she had handed it to somebody else who never gave it back.  So much for common courtesy.

 

The boys didn't say anything about it directly, but I think I may have shocked them.  Actually when I took my second puff Son 1 chided me, "Hey, remember you've got to drive home."  Clearly he has never tried pot on his own or he would realize that two puffs, for someone my size, doesn't mean much.  And in all honesty I was never very good at sealing my mouth around a joint the right way to keep the smoke from escaping, so my two puffs probably got me almost none of the actual drug.  But yes, all that having been said, I think in fact they were shocked.  And we didn't have much time to discuss it, at any rate not in a natural way.  I suppose I could have jumped on the topic when we drove home but that would have sounded awfully defensive … and they would have been entitled to wonder, "What's he so defensive about? It must be worse than he's letting on."  The next morning, though, I had to go to work while they slept in; and that evening I drove them to stay with Wife for the week.  I suppose I'll have to look for a chance next week to bring the subject up in a natural way and talk about it. 

 

For whatever it is worth, they don't appear to have a really good sense for alcohol either, in the sense of understanding what the effect is of this or that amount.  There's a line of thought that would suggest this is a defect in their education; but on the other hand it's a little hard to persuade most people that the prudent and effective use of intoxicants is a valuable subject in which to educate youth.  I don't quite know where to go with this.

 

It's a little odd to think this, but in some ways I think they may be more conservative than I am even though I'm the one in his fifties who holds down a boring job while they are both teenagers.  I'll have to mull that for a while.

 

 

What is money for?

The boys are staying with me this week, and saw a listing for a rock concert that will be coming to town.

Do you want to go? 

Of course, Dad, what kind of a question is that?  But it's probably sold out already ... it's just three weeks away.

Well, let me check it out.

Turns out there were a few seats left.  Not many, but I got three together up in the nosebleed section.  This also meant rearranging the custody schedule with Wife just a bit, but she seemed willing to go for it.

But I found myself thinking ... isn't it a little strange that I am buying these, when in so many other ways I try to economize?  Is it just to pamper the boys?  Well maybe, but then I haven't gotten an Internet connection in my apartment yet; and I've restricted going out to eat to maybe once a week, even if they aren't all that thrilled with the stuff I cook.  (It depends on the night.)  So it's not just pampering them .... 

What it is instead is that for a while now I have been formulating a list in my own mind of what money is for.  Some parts of this list reach back years, I think ... or at any rate I don't remember how far back I started thinking along these lines.  Anyway, it goes something like this.

Money is for spending on things you need and things you want.  Another way to describe these two categories is "Things you buy because you are forced to" (the realm of Necessity) and "Things you buy because you want to" (the realm of Value). 

Now, there's no joy in being forced to something out of bitter necessity; so for that reason, I'm willing to do whatever I've gotta do but I'd rather not do more than that.  I'll spend on Necessities, but I'd really rather economize on them whenever possible.

But being surrounded by things of value does bring joy: that's more or less the definition of the word value.  So I'm happy to spend on Values, subject only to a little basic prudence that remembers to save for bigger long-term Values rather than squandering everything on smaller short-term Values.  But if it is possible to squeeze a bit of both out of the same budget, ... then let's go for it.

What do these categories contain, in my way of thinking?

Necessities:

• shelter
• clothing
• transportation
• food (most of the time)
• medical care

And so I rent a tiny apartment, I drive a twenty-six-year-old car, my shirts are all fraying at the cuffs, and I comparison shop for peanut butter and beans.

Values:

• education
• art (includes the plastic arts, the performing arts, and occasionally food)
• travel

And so I gladly pay for the boys' private educations; I buy paintings, and go to concerts and movies and live theater; I took Son 2 to Peru last February; ... and so on.

Looked at this way, it makes perfect sense.  I'm not even terribly unclear about these priorities in my own mind.  As I say, I've been thinking along these lines for a long time.  (It should be obvious that this is not at all the way Wife thinks about the same topic.)

But I do realize that most people who travel the world, or buy original art, or send their kids to expensive private schools ... most of these people don't have old, rusting cars and shirts with frayed cuffs.  So it may be a minority perspective ....

Double concert

I went to a concert last night.  I don't have a lot of time to write you about it because I have to leave soon to collect the boys from Wife's place so they can spend the next week with me.  But maybe just a couple lines.

Actually it was a double concert.  The first hour was given over to a group called the Indigo Girls.  I'm sure everybody else has heard of them long since.  Me, I'm pretty sure I had heard the name but I didn't know any of the music.  (There's an argument that I need to get out more.)  Now I liked it -- the songs were melodically complex and interesting, and the energy was good.  I couldn't make out most of the lyrics, but I liked the music.  I also noticed that many of the couples in the audience were both women, so I deduced (what I confirmed this morning by checking the Wikipedia page) that the Indigo Girls must have a large presence in the lesbian community.  Anyway, as I say it was new and pleasant.

But if you think about it, there was something just a little strange in the line-up.  Here, after all, is a Grammy-winning band with 14 published albums.  They have been in the music business for decades.  And yet in effect they were playing as a warm-up band.  Does that strike you as odd?

It did me, but only at the most theoretical level.  Practically, for this particular concert in the here and now, it made total sense.  Because the second artist was Joan Baez.

There is no possible way for me to give an objective review of a Joan Baez concert.  Fifty years ago, when I was an infant or a small child, my parents would put her records on to play when I got upset, ... to soothe me.  I've been in love with her voice my whole life.  So of course I enjoyed the concert.  I'd pay to listen to her sing the Yellow Pages.

There were a few old favorites -- including at least two Bob Dylan covers that I could identify -- but most of her songs were new, or at any rate new to me.  (See my remarks above about needing to get out more.)  There were a couple of technical hiccups: while one of them was being unsnarled she kept us from getting bored by playing a recording (on her phone) of her dog howling along to her vocalization exercises.  And there were a couple of times that she dropped a line and had to hum or catch up.  Also she had trouble hitting high notes consistently; at least twice she had to drop an octave in the middle of a note because she couldn't sustain it.

But her voice itself -- ahhh, her voice was strong and clear and as beautiful as ever.  I had no trouble making out any of her lyrics.  Sometimes she had several people backing her up on piano, drums, bass, and accordion; other times it was just her and her guitar ... and the microphone and the spotlight.  I suppose it's a good thing that I wept only a couple of times and not all the way through the concert.  That could have been distracting.

Then after her set was done there was a third set, where the Indigo Girls came out and they all sang together.  Joan sang their songs; they sang her songs; they traded parts back and forth in an easy flow and hand-off.  And all of a sudden it was time for "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down", and the lights came up and it was over.  I realized that I wanted some dinner, and that it was late, and that I was cold.  (It was an outdoor concert.)  Time to go home, get a bite to eat, and go to bed.  Long past time, really.

But I could have sat there all night if she had kept singing.    

Judy Blue-Eyes

I originally wrote what follows as an e-mail to D back in 2011.  (I am writing this in late August of 2014.)  Why didn't I post it here too?  I have no idea.  I should have.  Anyway, I'm rectifying the omission now.  I have back-dated this post to the day it was written, but I will put a link in for the day I'm actually posting it as well.

It's after 10:30 at night, and I just got back from a concert downtown.  Judy Collins was in town for the night. 

What do I say?  Her voice is no longer the voice of a young woman (she is now 71) ... but it is sure and clear and she still has perfect control over it.  There were little glitches here and there: the microphones didn't stay where they were put, and at one point (in the middle of her second song) she completely lost her way and had to ask her pianist for the next line.  Her warm-up act didn't arrive, so she agreed to do two sets herself (although the second one seemed shorter than the first).  

But she owned the theater, and all of us.  Her talk between songs was probably a routine for her, but it came across as disarmingly fresh reminiscences, with mild humor at her own expense.  At one point she said that she is working on a memoir, but that she and the publisher keep disagreeing over the title.  He wants her to call it My Life and Music.  She wants to call it Judy Blue Eyes: Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll, and the Music That Changed a Generation.  She turned to the audience and asked, "Which title do you think would sell more copies?"  [We all laughed.]   

Sometimes her reminiscences (e.g., of growing up listening to her father rehearse songs for his radio show) would walk into Rodgers & Hammerstein songs that she would sing a capella for a stanza or two and then drop in the middle to go back to her story.  There were songs from her most recent album, that probably nobody there had heard before.  Certainly I hadn't.  (Her first encore was one of these, a song about Paul Gaugin.)  And there were pieces everybody knew: some to guitar, some to piano ... some, again, a capella.  Sometimes these were done in a classic way that was instantly recognizable -- for example, "Send in the Clowns."  But then her very last encore started with a tune I had never heard and lyrics I had never heard, something about birds fluttering past windowpanes and around houses, and about the time I was wondering where this was going she dropped an octave without warning and launched into "Somewhere ... over the rainbow ...."

I do admit that for the first two or three songs, right at the beginning of the first set, I was thinking "This is really cool, that I am here in person listening to a legend" ... but the music didn't feel particularly legendary.  She was just a singer with a really good voice.  But the cumulative effect grows on you.  I kept wishing D had the seat next to mine, so that the romantic mood wouldn't have to go to waste ....

Looking ahead to the days after the concert ... I wrote all this to D and then asked her if she even liked Judy Collins.  She replied that oh yes, of course she remembered Judy Collins ... she was the nice safe folk singer for people who weren't political enough to deal with Joan Baez.  I let it go at the time, but it was the kind of gentle put-down that she was shockingly good at.  And in the end, it was part of what contributed to my deciding I'd be better off without her.  But this night I was dancing on air, intoxicated with music and love ....

Hosea and Wife's soundtrack: a meme

I read this meme over at Kyra's blog months and months ago, and I thought, "That's really cool but I could never do that. I don't know enough music." And it's true that I don't listen to music nearly as often as almost everyone around me, so my repertoire of songs to draw from is smaller than most people's. Nor do I think of my life in terms of a soundtrack, typically. But the idea never quite went away, and I found myself chewing it over. And in the end, I came up with three songs that I thought could express the arc of our relationship. We have been together for over a quarter century, after all, so the tenor of the relationship -- and then marriage -- has changed with time. And there are some aspects of that change that get reflected in these three songs.

Of course I should emphasize the words "some aspects." Obviously there are many sides to any long-term relationship, and these could be reflected in a lot of different songs. There were times when the boys were young that you might have said our relationship was characterized by "Baby Beluga," but I don't think that is quite the kind of song that Kyra had in mind in this meme.

Let me start off with the formal statement of rules, a paragraph which I have quoted from Kyra's posting in its entirety.

The Rules:
Write a post about the soundtrack of your life. Please include somewhere in the body of the meme "This was started by Kyra (last refuge of the lonely housewife)"... I want to google to see how far and wide this meme travels.

With that said, here are the three songs I can think of, as they line up with three different phases of my long involvement with Wife. I think it will be the most instructive if I list these in reverse-chronological order.
__________

So today, I have to say that I am pretty much fed up with ... well, almost everything. You've read me whining over and over in this vein. Musically, I think that's pretty well represented with this song:

"Get Over It" by the Eagles

I turn on the tube and what do I see?
A whole lotta people cryin' "Don't blame me."
They point their crooked little fingers at everybody else
Spend all their time feelin' sorry for themselves:
Victim of this, victim of that,
Your momma's too thin; your daddy's too fat --

Get over it!
Get over it!
All this whinin' and cryin' and pitchin' a fit
Get over it, get over it! 

You say you haven't been the same since you had your little crash
But you might feel better if I gave you some cash
The more I think about it, old Billy was right
Let's kill all the lawyers, kill 'em tonight
You don't want to work, you want to live like a king
But the big, bad world doesn't owe you a thing -- 

Get over it!
Get over it!
If you don't want to play, then you might as well split
Get over it, get over it! 

It's like going to confession every time I hear you speak
You're makin' the most of your losin' streak
Some call it sick, but I call it weak 

You drag it around like a ball and chain
You wallow in the guilt; you wallow in the pain
You wave it like a flag, you wear it like a crown
Got your mind in the gutter, bringin' everybody down
Complain about the present and blame it on the past
I'd like to find your inner child and kick its little ass 

Get over it!
Get over it!
All this bitchin' and moanin' and pitchin' a fit
Get over it, get over it! 

Get over it!
Get over it!
It's gotta stop sometime, so why don't you quit
Get over it, get over it!
__________

Of course, there were years and years before I got to the point of being fed up ... years when I rode Wife's emotional roller-coaster up and down, when I loved her deeply and passionately and then reeled from the pain of one of her tantrums, or betrayals. That time -- call it the earlier years of our marriage -- could probably be summed up this way:

"Stiletto" by Billy Joel   

She cuts you once, she cuts you twice
But still you believe
The wound is so fresh you can taste the blood
But you don't have strength to leave
You've been bought, you've been sold
You've been locked outside the door
But you stand there pleadin',
With your insides bleedin',
'Cause you deep down want some more

Then she says she wants forgiveness
It's such a clever masquerade
She's so good with her stiletto
You don't even see the blade

She cuts you hard, she cuts you deep,
She's got so much skill
She's so fascinating that you're still there waiting
When she comes back for the kill
You've been slashed in the face
You've been left there to bleed
You want to run away
But you know you're gonna stay
'Cause she gives you what you need

Then she says she wants affection
While she searches for the vein
She's so good with her stiletto
You don't really mind the pain

She cuts you out, she cuts you down
She carves up your life
But you won't do nothing
As she keeps on cutting
'Cause you know you love the knife
You've been bought, you've been sold
You've been locked outside the door
But you stand there pleadin'
With your insides bleedin'
'Cause you deep down want some more 

Then she says she needs affection
While she searches for the vein
She's so good with her stiletto,
You don't really mind the pain
__________

OK, well in that case it is fair to ask -- as several of you have -- why I ever married her in the first place? And of course the answer is that I didn't see it coming. Sure, I could tell Wife was going to be high-maintenance. But remember that long ago I did love her. Long ago, I did see something powerfully attractive in her. Long ago, before we were married, she looked like this:

"Witchy Woman" by the Eagles   

Raven hair and ruby lips
sparks fly from her finger tips
Echoed voices in the night
she's a restless spirit on an endless flight

woo hoo witchy woman, see how high she flies
woo hoo witchy woman she got the moon in her eye 

She held me spellbound in the night
dancing shadows and firelight
crazy laughter in another room
and she drove herself to madness with a silver spoon 

woo hoo witchy woman see how high she flies
woo hoo witchy woman she got the moon in her eye 

Well I know you want a lover,
let me tell your brother,
she's been sleeping in the Devil's bed.
And there's some rumors going round
someone's underground
she can rock you in the nighttime 'til your skin turns red 

woo hoo witchy woman see how high she flies
woo hoo witchy woman she got the moon in her eye

__________ 


 Good night, all ....