I heard "Starship Trooper" on XM today.<\/p>\n
Funny, if "Roundabout" comes on the radio, I can’t push the button fast enough.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, I always liked "The Yes Album" better than "Fragile".\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 Am I the only Yeshead who actually likes "90215"?\u00c2\u00a0 But whenever I hear "Heart Of The Sunrise", I’m enraptured.\u00c2\u00a0 We always love the songs that were never singles, rarely on the radio, best.<\/p>\n
I’ve been having epiphanies this week.\u00c2\u00a0 Or maybe flashbacks.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m hearing songs and they’re taking me AWAY!<\/p>\n
Like Tuesday night.\u00c2\u00a0 Greg Gillispie was doing a Jimmy Page tribute set on Deep Tracks.\u00c2\u00a0 After all, it was the guitarist’s birthday.\u00c2\u00a0 Did you know that Mr. Zeppelin played on Billy Joe Royal’s "Down In The Boondocks"?\u00c2\u00a0 I almost fired up my computer to write about the memories, of 1965.\u00c2\u00a0 But it was long after midnight.\u00c2\u00a0 They say it’s all about the morning zoo?\u00c2\u00a0 I still maintain the best radio happens long after dark.<\/p>\n
Then last night I was in the mountains and I heard a cover of "Darling Be Home Soon".\u00c2\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
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\u00c2\u00a0 Train To Cry".\u00c2\u00a0 Fire it up, right after 5:30 in, Bruce plays a "California Love" intro, speaking of Dre, and then he sings…<\/p>\n
Well, I ride on a mail train, baby, My excuse is I like "Bringing It All Back Home" better.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 When I bought "New Morning".<\/p>\n "New Morning" is SO good.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m so glad Dylan wrote about it.\u00c2\u00a0 From the title track to the last track, my old favorite, "Father Of Night", to my second favorite Dylan song, "Sign On The Window".<\/p>\n Build me a cabin in Utah, 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.\u00c2\u00a0 And when they stopped paying attention, he did.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s more wisdom in the above lines than the ultimate "It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)".\u00c2\u00a0 It’s only about reproduction, it’s only about family.\u00c2\u00a0 Achievement pales in comparison.\u00c2\u00a0 Family life, that’s what it’s all about.<\/p>\n 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".<\/p>\n Conventional wisdom is it’s all about side one.\u00c2\u00a0 But I always preferred side two.\u00c2\u00a0 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".\u00c2\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n Actually, it was on that same trip that my dentist turned me on to Yes.\u00c2\u00a0 I loved their take of "Every Little Thing".<\/p>\n And Kooper and Stills’ take of "It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry" is so different from Dylan’s.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s a jaunt as opposed to a lope.\u00c2\u00a0 I love it so much that I love hearing ANY version of the song these days.<\/p>\n And speaking of hearing songs these days…\u00c2\u00a0 I’m finishing dinner last night, listening to my XM boombox as I read the paper, and I hear KANSAS!<\/p>\n We hate Kansas, RIGHT?\u00c2\u00a0 If we hear "Dust In The Wind" we kill sensitive women and wimpy guys, RIGHT?\u00c2\u00a0 Don’t we want to stop carrying on if that wayward son comes into our peripheral vision?\u00c2\u00a0 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?<\/p>\n 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…<\/p>\n He had a thousand ideas, you might have heard his name<\/em><\/p>\n Well, this isn’t the part that sounded so damn good.\u00c2\u00a0 It was the minute plus intro, that sounded like a dance of the sugar plum fairies.<\/p>\n But the verses weren’t so bad.\u00c2\u00a0 This many years removed, the sing-songy quality wasn’t offensive, but hypnotic.<\/p>\n 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.\u00c2\u00a0 Thereafter, I was along for the ride with the keyboards.<\/p>\n In this new era, where it’s all about ME!\u00c2\u00a0 Thirty years removed from that decade Tom Wolfe gave the appellation to.\u00c2\u00a0 When no one cares what you’re listening to.\u00c2\u00a0 When it’s not about being in, but satisfied.\u00c2\u00a0 I can admit that Kansas’ "Portrait (He Knew)", even though prog rock created on the wrong side of the pond, is GOOD!<\/p>\n <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I heard "Starship Trooper" on XM today. 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Can’t buy a thrill<\/em><\/p>\n
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.<\/em><\/p>\n