http:\/\/www.largeheartedboy.com<\/a>, I clicked through to the homepage.\u00c2\u00a0 Whereupon I found out that Shawn Colvin had a new live album.<\/p>\nWhen I clicked to download it, I was linked to Amazon, where I learned that it wasn’t going to be released until…June 23rd.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s WEEKS off.\u00c2\u00a0 No, it’s today.\u00c2\u00a0 But, high on chocolate I thought it was still the first week of the month and decided to see if I could download the album from RapidShare.\u00c2\u00a0 Not wanting to e-mail a friend at Nonesuch and wait upon delivery.\u00c2\u00a0 We live in the age of instant.\u00c2\u00a0 And coming up empty, with a little more research, I ended up on AOL, listening to a stream of an album I didn’t even know existed five minutes before, but contained some of my favorite tunes of the last two decades.<\/p>\n
Records used to be my best friend.\u00c2\u00a0 They were my training wheels for love.\u00c2\u00a0 Everything I learned about sex was from movies, everything I learned about intimacy was from records.\u00c2\u00a0 And intimacy comes first.\u00c2\u00a0 You’ve got to know someone before you can truly have a relationship.\u00c2\u00a0 How do you start?\u00c2\u00a0 Books tell you to compliment them, tell them you like what they’re wearing, how they’ve styled their hair.\u00c2\u00a0 But records told me to put forth my personality, to reach out with some inner truth.\u00c2\u00a0 If I conveyed who I truly was, I had a chance I’d get an honest response.<\/p>\n
Some records are sold by the machine.\u00c2\u00a0 Radio and the press tell you to buy them.\u00c2\u00a0 Their covers scream out at the store.\u00c2\u00a0 There are people like this, who shop all day for clothing, even alter their looks with plastic surgery to attract the opposite sex…\u00c2\u00a0 I always thought who I was would be enough.\u00c2\u00a0 If only I could get someone to play me.<\/p>\n
Home is where I want to be<\/span><\/p>\nThe Internet is the greatest invention of my lifetime.\u00c2\u00a0 Because it allowed me to be home, but a part of it.\u00c2\u00a0 The universe.\u00c2\u00a0 The action.\u00c2\u00a0 Prior to its invention, the explosion of 1995, when everybody got a computer and got online, I was lonely, home alone.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what happens when you’re left.\u00c2\u00a0 By your wife, your father and your money.\u00c2\u00a0 You become a prisoner of TV.\u00c2\u00a0 I knew all the sitcoms, never missed an episode of Letterman.\u00c2\u00a0 I had the contents of conversation, just no one to conduct it with.\u00c2\u00a0 But not only did the Internet give me willing listeners, along with an audience came invitations, outside my abode.<\/p>\n
I was shaky.\u00c2\u00a0 I still am.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s scary.\u00c2\u00a0 But the essence of life comes from being out, interacting with humans, having enough confidence to give your personality a whirl and see if it attracts any takers.<\/p>\n
I am just an animal looking for a home<\/span><\/p>\nSome people rely on their families.\u00c2\u00a0 Their parents or their siblings.\u00c2\u00a0 I think that’s why some people create their own broods, to have a private posse, who will always pay attention, who will always listen.\u00c2\u00a0 But I’m a limit-tester.\u00c2\u00a0 I don’t like to play it safe.\u00c2\u00a0 I want to reach for the stars.<\/p>\n
But I got sick of doing it alone.<\/p>\n
So you end up with an ache.\u00c2\u00a0 Which cripples you.\u00c2\u00a0 In my case, for years.<\/p>\n
Leave your house.\u00c2\u00a0 The walking wounded are all around you.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re just putting on a happy face.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re trying to look like winners to attract winners.\u00c2\u00a0 But like that Steely Dan song said, I want a name when I lose.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m much more interested in the bruised and battered than seamless perfection.<\/p>\n
In the depths of my despair one album made a difference, got me through.\u00c2\u00a0 And that’s Shawn Colvin’s "Steady On".<\/p>\n
But if you went to the show, you heard covers interspersed with the original material.\u00c2\u00a0 One of those was Talking Heads’ "Naive Melody (This Must Be The Place)".<\/p>\n
It sounded nothing like the original.\u00c2\u00a0 I didn’t even recognize it, even though I owned the Heads’ album upon which it originally appeared.\u00c2\u00a0 Shawn made it her own.\u00c2\u00a0 And in making it her own, she made it all of ours.\u00c2\u00a0 Great music belongs to the populace, not the creator.\u00c2\u00a0 We own it not by buying it, but by listening to it, having it deposited deep inside of us.<\/p>\n
Eventually Shawn did a rendition on her 1994 album "Cover Girl".\u00c2\u00a0 But the live take was tweaked in the studio, with strings.\u00c2\u00a0 And, in the process, lost its essence.<\/p>\n
Now, years later, it reappears, in naked form.<\/p>\n
And you’re standing here beside me<\/span>
I love the passing of time<\/span><\/p>\nI’m lonely no longer.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve got love, I’ve got companionship.<\/p>\n
But as much as I love being part of a team, I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t say I loved having you.\u00c2\u00a0 When I hit send and I reach tens of thousands of people, when they care what I have to say, whether they agree or not, I feel I’m a member…of the human race.<\/p>\n
Never for money<\/span>
Always for love<\/span>
Cover up and say goodnight…say goodnight<\/span><\/p>\nActually, there’s not much money involved.\u00c2\u00a0 But I’m not gonna shill anything, promote or hype anything for a paycheck.\u00c2\u00a0 Because that would sully the mission.\u00c2\u00a0 It would be dishonest.\u00c2\u00a0 I’d be disrespecting all those records of yore, that made me who I am.<\/p>\n
They were not artifacts to be digested and discarded.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve got each and every vinyl album I ever bought.\u00c2\u00a0 To get rid of one would be like abandoning one of the children I never had.<\/p>\n
All I’ve got is this music.\u00c2\u00a0 These experiences.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve got nothing against possessions, but they don’t keep you warm at night.\u00c2\u00a0 And music will.<\/p>\n
Click on the last track: ‘Live’ by Shawn Colvin<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’m immune to mainstream hype. When you e-mail me about your show, your project, I just delete it. And I’m not alone. We stumble upon information now.\u00c2\u00a0 We start with our trusted resources and see where they lead. I follow Thomas Meyer on Twitter.\u00c2\u00a0 Not because I love Sonos, which I do, I use it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-music"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-wX","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2043"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2043\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2044,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2043\/revisions\/2044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}