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Happy Birthday, Luke!
What would it be like—I can only wonder—to be turning twenty today?
Here’s a fave from the Luke files.
***
If I didn’t have kids, would my ears be stuck, forever, on “repeat”?
Here’s something my younger son Luke, who just started college, played for me recently, after first pronouncing it, with quiet but absolute authority, the best thing this guy has done (already Luke’s learned that what’s important isn’t to be right; it’s to seem right).
Lupe Fiasco, “Hip Hop Saved My Life,” live, Los Angeles, 2008
(Originally posted 9/14/09.)
I could listen to this—just the drum track, even—all day.
Booker T. Jones with The Roots, “Everything Is Everything”
Live (recording studio), The Road From Memphis (5/11 release)
**********
lagniappe
reading table
spring peace—
after rain a gang war
garden sparrows
—Kobayashi Issa, 1795 (trans. David G. Lanoue)
(Want to improve your life immeasurably? For free? Without side effects? Sign up for Issa Haiku-a-Day. Your inbox never had it so good).
*****
Alcove
Is it possible that spring could be
once more approaching? We forget each time
what a mindless business it is, porous like sleep,
adrift on the horizon, refusing to take sides, “mugwump
of the final hour,” lest an agenda—horrors!—be imputed to it,
and the whole point of its being spring collapse
like a hole dug in sand. It’s breathy, though,
you have to say that for it.
And should further seasons coagulate
into years, like spilled, dried paint, why,
who’s to say we weren’t provident? We indeed
looked out for others as though they mattered, and they,
catching the spirit, came home with us, spent the night
in an alcove from which their breathing could be heard clearly.
But it’s not over yet. Terrible incidents happen
daily. That’s how we get around obstacles.
—John Ashbery (Planisphere [2009])
basement jukebox*
(an occasional series)
Fontella Bass, “Rescue Me” (1965)
Vodpod videos no longer available.*****
Tyrone Davis, “Can I Change My Mind” (1969)
Vodpod videos no longer available.*****
Otis Clay, “The Only Way Is Up” (1980)
Vodpod videos no longer available.*When I was a little boy, a big bright shiny jukebox lit up our basement. Daily it granted our wishes, communicated with just the touch of a finger, for “Wake Up, Little Susie” (Everly Brothers) and “The Battle of New Orleans” (Johnny Horton) and “(The Man Who Shot) Liberty Valance” (Gene Pitney). It taught me something I’ve never forgotten—music is magic.
four takes
“Everybody Needs Love” (Eddie Hinton)
Drive-By Truckers, live, Ashland, North Carolina, 2010
Vodpod videos no longer available.*****
Eddie Hinton, live, c. 1982
Vodpod videos no longer available.*****
Eddie Hinton, recording, 1982
Vodpod videos no longer available.*****
Drive-By Truckers, live (TV broadcast [Conan]), 3/8/11
Vodpod videos no longer available.**********
lagniappe
overheard
Sunday morning, on a plane from Chicago to Boston, a young girl in the row in front of me:
I just don’t get how air is bumpy.
***
Do people in Boston have accents?
Sometimes, when the world just seems too noisy, too busy, what you need is something that couldn’t be simpler.
Slim Harpo, “Rainin’ In My Heart” (1961)
Vodpod videos no longer available.four takes
“Rainy Night In Georgia” (Tony Joe White, 1962)
Brook Benton, 1970 (Billboard Soul Singles #1, Hot 100 #4)
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
Otis Rush, 1976 (rec. 1971)
Vodpod videos no longer available.(This track’s a mixed bag: he muffs the first line [dropping “the night” after “spend”] and the low notes are a stretch [at least in this key]; but the choruses are terrific, as is the bridge.)
***
Conway Twitty with Sam Moore, 1994
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
Tony Joe White, TV broadcast (Netherlands), 2006 (?)
Vodpod videos no longer available.what’s new
(an occasional series)
Have you heard the Lupe & John Legend?
—my 19-year-old son Luke
Lupe Fiasco (featuring John Legend), “Never Forget You” (2010)
Vodpod videos no longer available.Listening to music that means a lot to someone else gives you an opportunity nothing else does. You get to hear the world through their ears. This song, for instance, coming to my ears through my son Luke’s, makes me wonder: What’s it like to look back on your life, on all that’s come before, when you’re 19 years old?
The other night, near the end of his big show at Madison Square Garden,
after bringing his opening act back onstage, the little guy played this.
Prince & Cee Lo (Cee-Lo?) Green, “Crazy,” New York, 2/7/11
Vodpod videos no longer available.Like a lot of great music, this song first reached my ears (shortly after its release) through my younger son Luke, who, one day as I’m driving him across town to a friend’s house, says he has something to play me and slides this into the CD player, cranking the volume way up.
Today MCOTD celebrates its 500th post. When this started, I thought I might eventually run out of material. But what I’ve found is the opposite: the more you hear, the more there is to hear.
Percy Sledge, “When A Man Loves A Woman,” live (TV broadcast), c. 1966
Vodpod videos no longer available.
**********
lagniappe
reading table
Haiku
That was fast.
I mean life.—Ron Padgett
music clip of the day 