SOUNDTRACK: THE SMITH WESTERNS-“3AM Spiritual” (2013).
This album is currently streaming on NPR. It is a sweet acoustic pop album with elements of retro electric guitar sounds. It has lots of elements that I recognize (name any folkie power pop band and you can hear them in here). But the biggest element here is The Beatles–later period Beatles–especially on the instrumental break of this song.
It opens with jangly guitars and a falsetto vocal (with lots of ah ha has at the end of the verses). There’s a soft keyboard and some wooooah yeashs. So far so good.
At the two-minute mark the song gets much bigger–the “whoa yeahs” get louder and there’s a guitar break which lasts for a few measures and which seems like the song will be ending (it is a power pop song after all). But the chord changes and the song stops and the pizzicato piano comes in. And it’s followed by that fuzzed out classic rock guitar solo sound. All of which is brief enough to keep the listener guessing while the song swings back into some Whoa Yeahs until it ends.
It’s a simple pop song, but it has enough going on to not be completely obvious.
[READ: April 21, 2013] “The Judge’s Will”
I read this awhile back and never posted on it. So here it is.
This is the story of a judge and the women in his life. He has survived a second heart attack but knows he is not long for the world. The judge is married, but he has been keeping a woman on the side for twenty-five years. And she is concerned for her future–he has always taken care of her but she has no legal rights. He has ensured that she will be okay in his will, but he is afraid that his wife and son will cause trouble when the time came.
His wife Binny did not react at all when he told her of his multi-decade infidelity–she acted like it was idle gossip. But she did share the news with her son Yasi. They knew the judge wouldn’t leave everything to the other woman. The judge is rather surprised by this reaction and indeed, it proves to be false.
When the judge went back to the hospital, he called on Yasi and asked him to bring things to the other woman. Which he did–although he says he left as soon as he could. When the judge returns home, he asks Yasi to bring the other woman, Phul, to their house. Binny was upset, but accepted the news. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 