I heard "Starship Trooper" on XM today.

Funny, if "Roundabout" comes on the radio, I can’t push the button fast enough.  Then again, I always liked "The Yes Album" better than "Fragile".  But, even though I bought them all through the execrable live album, I have to admit the band became full of themselves, stretched out too long.  Am I the only Yeshead who actually likes "90215"?  But whenever I hear "Heart Of The Sunrise", I’m enraptured.  We always love the songs that were never singles, rarely on the radio, best.

I’ve been having epiphanies this week.  Or maybe flashbacks.  I’m hearing songs and they’re taking me AWAY!

Like Tuesday night.  Greg Gillispie was doing a Jimmy Page tribute set on Deep Tracks.  After all, it was the guitarist’s birthday.  Did you know that Mr. Zeppelin played on Billy Joe Royal’s "Down In The Boondocks"?  I almost fired up my computer to write about the memories, of 1965.  But it was long after midnight.  They say it’s all about the morning zoo?  I still maintain the best radio happens long after dark.

Then last night I was in the mountains and I heard a cover of "Darling Be Home Soon".  I flashed back to getting into college, listening to Joe Cocker’s brilliant rendition, even better than the Lovin’ Spoonful original, before celebrating by skiing the Chute at Mad River Glen.

And then today, in the midst of "Sunflower Cat" from Hornsby’s Summer 2007 Noisemakers set, he segues into "It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A  Train To Cry".  Fire it up, right after 5:30 in, Bruce plays a "California Love" intro, speaking of Dre, and then he sings…

Well, I ride on a mail train, baby,
Can’t buy a thrill

My excuse is I like "Bringing It All Back Home" better.  But to be honest, I always avoided listening to early Dylan, until after his supposed motorcycle accident, when his sound changed, and I became enraptured.  When I bought "New Morning".

"New Morning" is SO good.  I’m so glad Dylan wrote about it.  From the title track to the last track, my old favorite, "Father Of Night", to my second favorite Dylan song, "Sign On The Window".

Build me a cabin in Utah,
Marry me a wife, catch rainbow trout,
Have a bunch of kids who call me ‘Pa,’
That must be what it’s all about,
That must be what it’s all about.

You’ve got to know, everybody thought Dylan had the answers, that he was wiser than all the politicians, they wanted him to tell them which way the wind blew.  And when they stopped paying attention, he did.  There’s more wisdom in the above lines than the ultimate "It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)".  It’s only about reproduction, it’s only about family.  Achievement pales in comparison.  Family life, that’s what it’s all about.

But that’s all to say "It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry" was new to me when I heard it on "Super Session".

Conventional wisdom is it’s all about side one.  But I always preferred side two.  Sure, I loved "Season Of The Witch", but it didn’t take long for me to switch my allegiance to the phaser of "You Don’t Love Me" and Harvey Brooks’ ethereal "Harvey’s Tune".  But the track that made me realize that "Super Session" was more than the extended FM staple "Season Of The Witch" was "It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry", when I dropped the needle on the record in the rec room downstairs at the Tucker Hill Lodge, in Waitsfield, Vermont.

Actually, it was on that same trip that my dentist turned me on to Yes.  I loved their take of "Every Little Thing".

And Kooper and Stills’ take of "It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry" is so different from Dylan’s.  It’s a jaunt as opposed to a lope.  I love it so much that I love hearing ANY version of the song these days.

And speaking of hearing songs these days…  I’m finishing dinner last night, listening to my XM boombox as I read the paper, and I hear KANSAS!

We hate Kansas, RIGHT?  If we hear "Dust In The Wind" we kill sensitive women and wimpy guys, RIGHT?  Don’t we want to stop carrying on if that wayward son comes into our peripheral vision?  Then why did this hackneyed song that is in my DNA because I had to suffer through it on the radio ad infinitum back in the day SOUND SO GOOD?

I don’t want to completely reevaluate, but if you can throw off your aspersions, if you can listen anew, if you can leave your biases behind, if you can pretend this is the only song you’ve got on a desert isle and listen with fresh ears…

He had a thousand ideas, you might have heard his name

Well, this isn’t the part that sounded so damn good.  It was the minute plus intro, that sounded like a dance of the sugar plum fairies.

But the verses weren’t so bad.  This many years removed, the sing-songy quality wasn’t offensive, but hypnotic.

But what put the track over the top was…when it broke down almost three minutes in and the synth horns started playing like a pageant at a medieval castle.  Thereafter, I was along for the ride with the keyboards.

In this new era, where it’s all about ME!  Thirty years removed from that decade Tom Wolfe gave the appellation to.  When no one cares what you’re listening to.  When it’s not about being in, but satisfied.  I can admit that Kansas’ "Portrait (He Knew)", even though prog rock created on the wrong side of the pond, is GOOD!