Being Good Isn't Always Easy: Cool

Something I wrote almost a year ago now is this: "As I get older I find myself facing more and more of the emotionally complicated moments of life.

These experiences have led me to believe that, when I do occasionally get a break from complicated concerns, I should spend that time experiencing things I find to be simple, beautiful, and good. With people I find to be beautiful and good. (But never simple.)"

And, man. Time is moving so fast and so slow for me. On the one hand, I feel that the me-of-ten-months-ago had seen NOTHING of "emotionally complicated moments", bah! On the other, I know she had, and this world-weariness in the me-of-today is only its own form of immaturity.

Regardless, I stand by what I said. And ever more so.

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To me this song is a neatly wrapped package of sexy coolness, like the highest-end ice cream cake you can imagine.

The song: Dusty Springfield, "Son of a Preacher Man"; 1968

It was Dusty's last Top 10 hit for nearly twenty years; her next one, "What Have I Done To Deserve This?" I posted on my blog, a long time ago. I also featured her song "What Do You Do When Love Dies?" when someone broke into my apartment and, for a few days, it was the only song I wanted to hear. (And I still don't exactly know why.)

Long story short, I truly love Dusty Springfield and I often find myself turning to her when I want to feel settled in my emotions rather than distressed by them -- when I want, in other words, to be okay with having feelings.

This is a VERY valuable function of music, in my mind. I mean, maybe one of the most valuable.

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I also have to say, on the subject of experiencing things that are simple and beautiful and good with people who are beautiful and good:

I miss a friend who used to live in Ann Arbor and has since moved to Ukraine. When she lived here, there were a few late nights when one or both of us felt restless. So she'd pick me up in her car, which I will affectionally call a "jalopy", and we'd make a trip to Meijer.

Like all establishments that are open 24 hours, Meijer has a special character late at night. It also has air-conditioning, a good thing in a Michigan summer. We'd browse the DVD aisle and sometimes I'd buy something impulsively (my vast collection of romantic comedies can attest to this). Or maybe the makeup section. Or maybe the baked goods.

The point was, we were together and we were not where we didn't want to be. One of these nights, driving back, my friend put on the Pulp Fiction soundtrack and she skipped it forward to this song. Windows down, very late and very warm, we zipped down Packard Rd turning this song up and singing along -- which is a very hard thing to do if you care about sounding good, which fortunately we did not.

I had already loved this song but now I'll love it even more, because it is inextricably linked to a moment. That's another one of my favorite things that music can do.

Yrs,

AW

inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com

Just Turn Around Now: In Plain Sight

I enjoy being able to truly listen to a song that I have heard a billion times, and to hear it for what it is, if it is a great song. It's not something I can always do though, more like a magic-eye puzzle where the picture pops in and out depending on how I angle my head.

Anyway, I enjoy doing this and I also really enjoy, when I can, doing this with other people. Like pop music group therapy. Perhaps this is my mission in life.

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This is a song that is highly associated with cheesiness, but I don't think it's in itself a cheesy song.


The song: Gloria Gaynor, "I Will Survive"; 1978

This song was not set up to be a hit, but became one due to the sheer force of its nature. Originally released as the B-side to a cover of a Righteous Brothers song (hello 1978), it was more popular with DJs than the A-side -- a factoid that I cannot help but love. Unusually for a disco song at the time, Gloria Gaynor had no backup singers and her voice was left at its natural register, not pitched up.

These things I learned from reading the Wikipedia article about "I Will Survive". What I know for myself is that this song is a universal anthem of self-respect, an underrated theme in pop music and culture. I also know that this song is one of a very few that is recognizable to the great majority of the population within about 5 seconds of it starting. I think it is, truly, a great song.

And I love this video with the dancer on her skates who just spins and spins. Is that what self-respect is, disco pants and a spotlight on an empty floor? Seems like it could be, to me.

Yrs,
AW

inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com

Just A Little Close To Me: Figuring

Hello. There seems to be something in the air about Fleetwood Mac today.

I appreciate this because I've been thinking recently about how dearly I love Fleetwood Mac and how this love seems to be -- like my things about Motown and Morrissey and my attraction to the scent of bay rum -- one of those things in myself that is a signpost, a marker of something that I am.

As I am still kind of experiencing a quarter-life crisis, I find these markers valuable because they give me something to hang on to. But because I also eventually want to leave my quarter-life crisis, I am moved to try to understand this in terms beyond myself.

The Motown thing is about the fascination of glamour and style and collaboration, not to mention the endlessly (to me) interesting idea of singing about sad things in a happy way. The Morrissey thing is about productive self-absorption, and about being open with your esoteric sources of inspiration. Bay rum just smells like goodness. And Fleetwood Mac is a group that uses high skill to make interesting, yet accessible, things.

All of these boil down even further to a word I first used on this blog on March 4, 2012 and not often since then, a value I increasingly pursue in pop music and in life: authenticity. I felt afraid to use it the first time around because it seemed, I don't know, maybe self-evident? Maybe taking on something I didn't know if I wanted to or was ready to take on?

It's a slippery thing, but I think it may be the most important thing. The last time I wrote about Fleetwood Mac I said, "This blog is about relationships." I still think that's true, but I also think deeper down this blog is about authenticity: not only songs that exemplify it, but my own search for it -- stumblingly, and over time.

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The song: Fleetwood Mac, "Never Forget"; 1979

"Never Forget" is interesting to me because it is off the 1979 album Tusk, their majorly ballsy follow-up to mega-hit Rumours. Nobody really liked Tusk at the time but now I think everyone probably loves it, just because it is very hard not to love. As an album, it's a little strange and off-kilter. The songs don't seem to be in the right order. And you're not really quite sure what it's about, thematically, at least not in the same way you are sure that Rumours is about love and its dissolution. (Maybe Tusk is about the dissolved pieces.)

And it ends with this song, written and sung by Christine McVie who may be the least appreciated member of the band (including by me). At her best, her contribution to Fleetwood Mac is this fatal sweetness, a sweetness that seems too much to be real. In this song, "the stars must be my friends to shine for me" and "just remember that love is gold" sometimes stick in my throat because, like it or not, I am still a product of my time and my time just does NOT get down with that kind of un-self-conscious dreaminess. (I wish it did, though. I read recently on some strange person's Internet blog [no, not this one] that soon we'll all become more comfortable with mysticism and move away from the obsession with logic, science, and reason. He offered no evidence for this naturally, but I believe it wholeheartedly because I want to.)

But whenever this song comes on, a little burble comes up in my heart and I feel like I should look up at the sky just to see what's going on out there. This is a decision I never regret.

Yrs,
AW

inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com

And Women Make Mistakes Too: "New Year's Resolution"

As I mentioned in my last post, I'm a little sad that I didn't have more time to focus on Christmas music here when it was seasonally appropriate. There's so much to say! I don't know what any of it is yet, but I guess now I have most of a year to figure it out.

HOWEVER: I do have one more seasonal card up my sleeve. And oh, it's a good one. Get ready.


The song: Carla Thomas and Otis Redding, "New Year's Resolution"; 1967

From King and Queen, Otis Redding's last studio album, and one of my current (and recurrent) favorites. A song like this could easily be cheesy or gimmick-y, but this one really does it for me. Maybe because in my interpretation, it's not actually New Year's at all. It's March or something, and they're just wanting to start over somehow. I like that. I do that sometimes. And why not? A new year can start any time you want it to.

Here's to this one.

Yrs,
AW

inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com