Musical Memories

Today is apparently Gordon Lightfoot's 71st birthday. He's one of those artists that I always forget about, but there is something in his Summertime Dream album that just puts me in the best mood. It's moody. It's upbeat. It's a little twangy, a little nautical. I love it.

I used to sit in the basement, in a big faux leather recliner, listening to my parents' records and writing. The lighting was terrible, either because I was relying upon the sunlight from the narrow egress windows near the ceiling or because I had turned on one lone lamp, orange-shaded with fringe. It really was the perfect mate to the pop-scratch of the records, that ancient green chair and my 15-year-old's sense of the dramatic. I think I had an Anne Shirleyian "What the Writer Should Look Like While Practicing Her Craft" image in my head, and I was determined to live it.

I still find myself doing this from time to time, and it amuses the heck out of me when I realize it.
I can't listen to "Summertime Dream" or "Protocol" and not remember exactly what it feels like to be 15 and dreaming of authordom...and Gargoyles.

So thank you, Mr. Lightfoot, for always bringing me back to this point.

Here's "Summertime Dream". Watch the band sing the "shaaa-hup"s lookin' like frogs. It's awesome.