{"id":2719,"date":"2010-03-09T11:33:22","date_gmt":"2010-03-09T19:33:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/?p=2719"},"modified":"2010-03-09T11:33:22","modified_gmt":"2010-03-09T19:33:22","slug":"all-i-want-to-be-is-by-your-side","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/2010\/03\/09\/all-i-want-to-be-is-by-your-side\/","title":{"rendered":"All I Want To Be (Is By Your Side)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Do what you do, don’t bring me down<\/span><\/p>\n

I was driving down the San Diego Freeway, sun in my face, the interior of my car still cold from sitting outside overnight, listening to Deep Tracks.<\/p>\n

They played that Manassas track "Right Now"…\u00c2\u00a0 This is the quintessential Stills, not the debut which got all the hoopla.\u00c2\u00a0 Buy this double album.<\/p>\n

Then "Dig A Pony".\u00c2\u00a0 "Let It Be" will never be a throwaway for me because of "I’ve Got A Feeling", but I can’t imagine being a deejay and selecting "Dig A Pony" to play on the radio.\u00c2\u00a0 I thought of switching the channel.\u00c2\u00a0 But I ended up zoning out and enjoying it.<\/p>\n

You know how driving is.\u00c2\u00a0 You’re going along at 70, checked out, almost asleep.\u00c2\u00a0 But somehow, your synapses fire and get you to brake, swerve, in case something untoward occurs.\u00c2\u00a0 Ah, the human body, what a machine.\u00c2\u00a0 Not built by Toyota, but GM.\u00c2\u00a0 Works great when you buy it, it’s just as you get older it starts falling apart.\u00c2\u00a0 The mind says yes, but the limbs say no.<\/p>\n

But I’m still functioning.\u00c2\u00a0 Old age has not yet caught up with me.\u00c2\u00a0 And I hear something…\u00c2\u00a0 It’s an intro.\u00c2\u00a0 A couple of strums of an electric guitar, a whistle and a few drumbeats.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m drawn in, like they’re giving away a million dollars in the dashboard.\u00c2\u00a0 But this is better than money, this is quite clearly "All I Want To Be (Is By Your Side)".<\/p>\n

We played these records so much we know every nuance.\u00c2\u00a0 We can name them BEFORE the tune begins.\u00c2\u00a0 But then Mike Kellie hits the drums and Peter Frampton begins to wail.<\/p>\n

Yes, I looked it up.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve still got my original 1972 vinyl album.\u00c2\u00a0 I bought it because I was so impressed with Peter at the Fillmore East, on Humble Pie’s farewell tour (at least with Peter).\u00c2\u00a0 I saw it in a bin in London.\u00c2\u00a0 But didn’t buy it until I got back to the U.S. that fall.\u00c2\u00a0 And I seemed to be the only one.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, other people bought "Wind Of Change", but I didn’t know them.\u00c2\u00a0 There was no Facebook, no social networking.\u00c2\u00a0 We didn’t find other fans of the band until we went to the gig.<\/p>\n

At first my favorite was the opener, "Fig Tree Bay", slow and enticing.<\/p>\n

I didn’t understand the cover of "Jumping Jack Flash".\u00c2\u00a0 It seemed superfluous, especially since Frampton had no problem writing his own material.<\/p>\n

But it was the second side opus that entranced me, that made me a fan.<\/p>\n

Yes, "All I Want To Be (Is By Your Side)" opens side two.\u00c2\u00a0 The second side opener was never the single.\u00c2\u00a0 Unless an album contained two.\u00c2\u00a0 It was always a statement.\u00c2\u00a0 Of where the artist was coming from.\u00c2\u00a0 The first side opener was for the label, the manager, the second side opener was for the artist.<\/p>\n

"All I Want To Be (Is By Your Side)" is six minutes and twenty five seconds long.\u00c2\u00a0 But it plays like 3:30.\u00c2\u00a0 It starts with the verses, then drifts into instrumental territory and builds and builds.\u00c2\u00a0 Kind of like "Layla", if the second half of that Clapton classic wasn’t blissed out.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, both halves of "All I Want To Be (Is By Your Side)" definitely hung together, were of a piece.\u00c2\u00a0 As if you went to dinner with someone and found yourself drifting in a boat down a river thereafter.\u00c2\u00a0 There might not be tangerine trees and marmalade skies, but the feeling of euphoria was the same.<\/p>\n

And I’m listening to "All I Want To Be (Is By Your Side)" in the car just now and I hear something, that I’ve never noticed before. The way the guitar notes have this funny way of sticking together, they’re not separate, they’re fluid, not drops, but an endless pour with staccato elements.\u00c2\u00a0 The track is almost forty years old, yet brand new.<\/p>\n

And then it starts accelerating towards the end.\u00c2\u00a0 That ride on the river is going to end.\u00c2\u00a0 We’re going to tie up the boat.\u00c2\u00a0 Please no, NO!\u00c2\u00a0 But Frampton and his buddies are not done, for the final thirty seconds they flourish, like your love winking at you before she walks up the dock and evaporates.<\/p>\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Do what you do, don’t bring me down I was driving down the San Diego Freeway, sun in my face, the interior of my car still cold from sitting outside overnight, listening to Deep Tracks. They played that Manassas track "Right Now"…\u00c2\u00a0 This is the quintessential Stills, not the debut which got all the hoopla.\u00c2\u00a0 […]<\/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-2719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-music"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-HR","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2719","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=2719"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2719\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2720,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2719\/revisions\/2720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}