So you have your ‘favourite tunes’ and your ‘best album everrrrr!s’ and presume that the way the bass lines syncopate with the drums, or the effect of the harmonies, or the magnificence of the musical score… blah, blah, blah. You assume that if you really LOVE a song, its because there’s something intrinsic about that specific piece of music that is unique. And its true. But what’s also unique is the ‘other things’. The environment in which you first/most/sometimes heard it. The person you heard it with. Or the associations you make with it. Those are the things which elevate a mere ‘brilliant’ song to something from the Gods. Other than perhaps Adele’s ‘someone like you’ which starts in heaven and goes ever north with every play.

California Dreamin’ (you can add the ‘g’ if you wish, I don’t care) by the Mamas and Papas is one of my all time faves. It is still as brilliant as ever. Simple. Tuneful. Fab harmonies and if you watch the old videos on YouTube, amazing hair styles. But to me it is all about the Kennedy assassination. That’s what instantly springs to mind when I hear it. Which is rather odd as Kennedy died 4 years before the song was aired and did so in Texas, rather than California. But other than those 2 little details, its rather spooky! Don’t‘cha think? And I was too young to actually remember my own, personal ‘Kennedy moment’, but everyone remembers exactly what they were doing when they first heard California Dreamin.

I liked Simon & Garfunkel. Didn’t lurve them, as I now do, because my older brother was Mr Rock. Serious ROCK! Hard fucking rock. Metal. Only in music are rock and metal the same thing, in science there’s a different interpretation. But the bruv poisoned me away from anything involving acoustic guitars. Harmonies were not allowed unless performed by matching Stratocasters played through fuzz-boxes. But my appreciation of S&G grew, as it should do. As it has to for anyone into the amazing voice of Art Garfunkel singing the words of the best lyricist ever. And the harmonies. Yet the first song that grabbed me by the testicles and ripped them upwards, via my heart, through to my entire central nervous system, was Paul Simon’s ‘solo’ track, Mother & Child Reunion. Because of the music? Basic reggae-esque riff? The words? Or because I went on a ‘dream date’ with Diane, when I was about 15 and me and everyone else was madly in love with her. I pulled out all the stops and we went to Petticoat Lane on a Sunday morning. I was always a bit flash. Every third stall seemed to be selling records and every single one of them was playing that song. And I was given false hope on that strange and mournful day. That girls would be as fab as they looked. We lasted about 3 weeks. A ‘serious relationship’ when you’re 15. And that song was the glue that (almost) held us together.

More tracks to follow. Refuse to succumb to more tales of civil liberty deprivation and restrictions of daily life.

Really Happy Thursday

A xxxx