Musical thoughts
- There was a time when I thought Pablo Cruise could do no wrong. Even at the time (1978), I couldn’t understand that feeling.
- It seems odd to hear Squirrel Nut Zippers’ “Hell” blaring from inside a shoe repair shop: “In the afterlife, you could be headed for the serious strife.” Now the D and the A and the M and the N and the A and the T and the I-O-N.
- It is autumn (okay, it will be autumn . . . it was 90 degrees here today), and in the autumn, without fail, my musical thoughts turn to The Left Banke (yes, the “Walk Away Renee” guys) and The Zombies (“A Rose for Emily” and “Time of the Season”). Since about 1980, I have always listened to these albums over and over again in the fall. (In fact, they have occupied the same cassette tape, and I always give them to other people as a matched set.) The other weird thing that comes to me in the fall? A craving for toast. There is no other season during which I think, “Hey, think I’ll make myself up a piece of toast.” Harpsichord pop music and toast.
- My 12-year-old’s interest in popular music is growing exponentially. It’s the same age I was when I became captivated by music, but I always thought it was just coincident with finally having a real radio of my own (as opposed to a tiny transistor with an earpiece, the extremely uncool predecessor of the earbud) (sounds great in mono!). Perhaps it’s the age. In any event, she is absorbing our music and picking up her own, and I suspect she’s figured out there are stations that aren’t Radio Disney, but we’re probably not supposed to know that yet. We were listening to a disc the other night and she popped up, “Blondie?” She was close, too. And we were watching Aimee Mann’s great DVD from St. Ann’s Warehouse, and to my amazement (because I didn’t think she was really paying that much attention there in the back seat of the car all this time), she sang along to every word.
- She’s playing some Disney movie music on her violin, and wanted to have some of the original songs so she could hear how they sounded. iTunes to the rescue. But now I’m listening to these songs, and my god are they awful . . . this is Aladdin and Little Mermaid stuff, hideous Poseidon Adventure style ballads that never said no to a big cymbal. Zoiks. Gotta go clean my ears out with some Sex Pistols.