And I Am (not) Telling You, or, It's a Think Piece

There's this song. It has a kind of simple, effervescent quality, and an lovely inertia that makes it feel proper to start it over as soon as it finishes. One listen turns into two or three, sometimes more. It's a song you want to fill up the last leg of your walk home. And to start you off again the next morning.

So this song occupied a good space of time in my life at the beginning of last year. Partially for the above reasons, and partially because lyrically it was somewhat fitting for things going on in my life. A little bit of musical zeitgeist, if you will. Maybe a little bit of spell-casting, too. Or not.

And then it was kind of over. In part, I stopped listening to it because I picked up other CD's; the usual stuff. Moreso, the extra meaning and circumstance I'd attached to the song had, in retrospect, begun to prevent me from enjoying it.

I think I stumbled upon it again last fall, shortly before moving back to America. Again, one listen turned into multiple. But this time it was a sort of purging and reclaiming - I walked around enjoying the tune once again.

And all that sappy stuff. But, anyway, I like the idea or feeling of having a relationship with a piece of music. Much like a person - there are times when you don't want to see anyone else, and then times when you want to see anyone but. Some songs feel like the biggest, most intimate truth, then suddenly feel like a lie. And then feel like maybe the secret wasn't ever really for you, but it's a good secret nonetheless.

Me and this song, we hang out for a while every few months. I still think the song is beautiful, and worthy of perpetual rewind (I've listened about five times as I type this). But now it just makes me think of all the things that have a little over a year. And all the things that could happen in the next year or so.

It's not Hudson, by the way. Or Holliday. I'm not that corny.

Free, Baby

Lately, I find myself longing for more collaborative effort.  
No, I'm not lonely.  
I don't mean it in some sort of creepy euphemistic way.  
I've been listening to this recording of a Stevie Wonder concert from 1973 or 1974.  Likely the latter; a show in London, though I have a ton of conflicting information.  Anyway, Steve and the band are largely restrained during their run through a handful of at-the-time new songs - for a group as solid as Wonderlove, it's strange that they can find no better way to end most of the songs than to have Stevie do a schmaltzy little piano coda.  Nonetheless, these are all songs that are now classics (the bulk are from Innervisions), and it's a beautiful thing to hear documentation of Stevie as band leader.  During some of the longer takes, he alternately guides the bass player, chastises the drummer for failing to catch and mimic his beatbox break, and edges the whole group into an operatic version of "You Are the Sunshine of My Life."
However, the moments I really dig are those which probably fall somewhere between the rehearsed and spirit of the collective groove, so to speak.  When the audience (and the backup singers) finally get the reprise chant right during "Living For the City."  The double-time bridge in "Superwoman" - to die for.  And the bulk of "To Know You Is To Love You" is sublime.  A little more straightforward and poppy in its original incarnation (Syreeta album track, 1972), Steve and the band stretch out here - he starts off by walking Reggie McBride through a straight up Willie Weeks bass line, and lets Michael Sembello (before he was a Maniac he was a Wonderlover) do his thing.  But when the backup vocalists kick in - loveliness.  When they start riffing halfway through, it's as if Stevie had secretly foreseen the whole mid to late 70's Parliament/Brides of Funkenstein connection (in fact listen to George and co.'s 1976 "Getting To Know You" for a very similar vibe).
So, it's all got me in the mood for good collaborative effort.  I'm not trying to sing backup for somebody or anything (in fact I've been spending the last couple of days politely trying to turn down another invitation to be the lead singer of somebody's punk band), but I'm down with DJing in pairs, building beats via email, and people helping me with Photoshop.  Et (tu, Peter) Cetera.
Anyway, an excuse to pass this on:

To Know You Is To Love You