Thursday, June 16, 2005

Staccato Signals of Constant Information

. . . a loose affiliation of millionaires and billionaires and baby.

This is a quote from Paul Simon's "The Boy in the Bubble" which is the first track off of his Graceland album. I've re-discovered it recently, which brought back some fantastic memories - man, did I ever love that album when it first came out - haven't listened to it in years, but just hearing the first track again lets me know I'll likely be enjoying the whole thing again several times.
These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long distance call
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all
The way we look to a distant constellation
That's dying in a corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don't cry, baby don't cry
Don't cry

I've recently been enjoying listening to some old cassette tapes of mine while driving alone in my truck. The most recent tape is Paul Simon's Graceland on side A and David Wilcox's The Best of David Wilcox on side B. Strange that I recorded two such different albums onto the same tape? (Yes, albums, as in vinyl and which came in a nice large cardboard sleeve, similar shape to a CD but much larger and all the better to enjoy the beautiful artwork on the cover) It's not all that strange for me. I've always enjoyed a somewhat eclectic taste in music. The dozens of mixed tapes I recorded are evidence of a diverse selection of music, although I can't say that I ever created a mixed tape using Tchaikovsky back to back with Iron Maiden, but I have been guilty of following "El Paso" by Marty Robbins with "I'm An Adult Now" by The Pursuit of Happiness.

When I got home from work last night I was still singing "The Bearcat" by David Wilcox and Alexander had a laugh when I picked him up and started bopping around singing . . .

I went to the zoo, just the other week
Saw the kangaroo, had a talk with the chimpanzee
He said: "Hey brother, if you want a thing that's hip, do the
Bearcat!"

(you can listen to this song if you go to http://davidwilcoxrocks.com)


Alexander got a real kick out of it. Of course, he's really into the Baby Einstein DVD World Animals right now, so that might be part of it, what with the talk about different animals, or maybe it was just the fun bopping movements - I'm sure it couldn't possibly have been my singing voice which I'm pretty sure he'll grow up to be embarassed of. What I need to do is get back in practice with my guitar (haven't played or practiced regularly for well over a year now), go out and buy a few David Wilcox songbooks and learn some of his songs - then maybe Alexander will have fun listening to me spew out some of his stuff.

No comments: