Grateful Dead

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X-mas morning, all sitting around the dining room table for breakfast just so, including Grandma and Grandpa. This wan't, however, just any X-mas; it was 1969. Rascalion older brother decides he's going to put on his favorite new record album to serenade us when out from Dad's Bic-Venturis burst, "Gimme an F, gimme a U ..." "Where does the time go?"

1 off hand, Maybeline by Chuck Berry takes me back to my days drag racing my big ass, souped up 71 Buick Riveria for cash or pink slips. if that song comes on, I can't help but put the pedal to the metal. "But officer, Maybeline was on the radio" is no defense. mine was maroon, with a white interior. Maybeline was not on the afternoon that I totaled that car in a really bad wreck, which I was really, really lucky to walk away from. I ended up on someone's land, hitting a hundred year old stone wall. The wall won.

Cool thread for time trippin' and checking out the amazing power of songs to open memories buried deep as a compass may find a specific star in the scattered sky of moments. I don't know if it is self indulgent to reminisce and look at some long past scenes of another time as though through an innner television of different times, people and scenes. Or just to feel like it was if just for a few fleeting seconds that live in chords and notes in time and harmony of nostalgia. If a song can take you there to smile and relish a certain memory then sing it and smile and cry if it makes you. Got caught with a space gaze into another place when I heard The Stylistics sweet jam today on "I'm stone In Love With You"...what a voice...Cars were big and so were the '70's. Uh-Oh I'm back in a gas line...but jammin'! Also had to blast out "Luka" when I heard it this wekend. It is a great jam and Suzanne Vega's voice is mesmerizing... silk and strong to tackle the difficult subject matter of abuse and deliver it through a child's mind and voice, make a challenging point and rock out with this vulnerable strength is amazing. Took me back to the 80's and my old girfriend who I only wish the best for...but man, I never knew this song was so good 'til I turned it up loud...the bass and rhythm are amazing and the structure is tight with a loose break that they cinch perfectly. well, I love time travel and songs of the times that just take you right there if only for a fleeting moment is so cool...so I can't wait 'til the next trip. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Sun comes up blood red Wind yells among the stone All graceful instruments are known" Bobby Petersen ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Golden Road to Unlimited Devotion-summer of '67. I was not a Deadhead then, I was just a college student who'd tasted the joys of the Bay Area and was suffering mightily in SoCal. I still have the vinyl of the first album. I bought it from a friend of mine who didn't like it. It had me from the first notes and joyous yelp of "See that girl..." The Supremes, Someday We'll Be Together, single version with Johnny Bristol's vocals, late 1969: Stuck in grad school, missing my Bay Area friends, driving my folks green Impala down the Newport Freeway. Gretchen Wilson, Redneck Woman, summer 2004. THE song of the summer. And it's true, I ain't never been the Barbie doll type, either. Gnarls Barkley, Crazy, 2006. Sums up the year pretty well, actually. (Yesterday on Acoustic Sunrise I heard Shawn Colvin's version, which I'm gonna get from iTunes forthwith. I've been singing the darn thing ever since. I'm not that much of a Shawn Colvin fan, any more than I'm a fan of whatever genre Gnarls Barkley may belong to, but when a song's got it it's got it.)