Degrees of musical separation
Sunday, June 3rd, 2007I’m not known for my taste in music. It’s pretty limited. And lame, according to many.
I admire the heck out of guys like Jason who listen to and appreciate a million different kinds of music.
When I was a teenager, I had a long-running thing with Billy Joel. I’d lay awake in bed at night listening to his albums over and over. I had to get up to manually move the needle back to the beginning, but it was worth it. On my senior year trip to New York, I hunted down a DJ copy of his first ever album, Cold Spring Harbor. It was hard to get, I heard, because it had been recorded at the wrong speed and Joel had pulled it off the shelves. I now see I can get a remixed version for $5.47.
I had to break it off with Billy after Uptown Girl.
After that I bounced around a bit: Tom Waits, Neil Diamond, Al Jarreau, Neil Young.
Then along came Dave Matthews, and we’ve been together ever since.
When The Blog That Jane Likes posted Dave covering Down By the River, I thought I’d died and gone to the-heaven-for-musical-orgasms. But you know what? Dave can’t do Neil. He almost, well, this is hard for me to say: He almost ruined the song for me. Forever. He can’t do Neil. But then, really, who can?
Recently my oldest daughter has become more interested in listening to music. I want her to be exposed to talented, hard-working female musicians, so before you could say Slumber Party Girls I raced out to buy her some appropriate CDs.
And you know what I found? A young, piano-playing, song-writing girl with a beautiful, powerful voice and lyrics to match.
And song #3 on Alexa Ray Joel’s EP Sketches? A simple, powerful cover of Neil Young’s Don’t Let It Bring You Down.
Kids these days.
