Somebody I was very close to once but had a huge falling out due to her betraying me in almost Biblical epic manner, and I didn’t speak to her for decades, died yesterday.
This isn’t a diary, it is a quasi-rock fanzine.
But when you write a lot you tend to reveal more of yourelf than you might want and you also turn to writing for solace in what Helen Bach would tell me was a range of emotions including “Love hate fear regret anger”.
And when you write a blog about music, and even when you don’t, you turn to music. The late woman’s faves included Jim Reeves “He’ll Have To Go” (a sad song with the reply left floating in space and about adultery for an adulterous) -she liked “Distant Drums” as well.
She was also a Presley fan and “Just Tell Her Jim Said Hello” -the first song I learnt on guitar, could make her cry.
But she had naff taste in music so fuck her and move on to what I use for mourning. Carole King’s “Home Again” -“I won’t be happy till I see you alone again, till I’m home again and feeling right” is a mourning song for me. My dad died in 73 and Tapestry was big in Lebanon at the time and all of Tapestry has a sadness it doesn’t actually own.
Van Morrison always nails complicated emotions though I am sure why his late 70s Wavelength is a mourning album for me. “Lost dreams and found dreams in America” but in 79, a year after it was released, I was stuck in Beirut watching a country fall about.
Between the Buttons -released when I was what? Ten? Is an end of youth album for me (the English version of course). And Venus And Mars reminds me of a girl I loved and who I spent a summer listening to this album with. “Listen To What The Man Said” has a fringe of regret when I hear it (though I still wish McCartney would rewrite the lyric to the first verse).
As for this loss? Well, right now I’m listening to dance but mostly for your sake and I blew off Summer Jam .
So good I’m home remembering before it fell apart. Mourning? I always wondered about whether Bright Eyes title was a pun, I’m Wide Awake, It’s Mourning… makes sense right?
God damn make me cry.