Squirrel Elegy

This is fact, not fiction

I was walking. Up the sidewalk. About to cross the street.

Not a small street, but a busy thoroughfare. With four lanes of traffic speeding by.

I pressed the button at the crosswalk. Looked across to the park, oddly quiet first thing in the morning (in contrast to the paved hustle and bustle where four-wheeled modern dinosaurs burned through the remnants of the dinosaurs from millions of years earlier).

And a single squirrel ran from the park.

Ran from his home. From his family. From the soft grasses topped with dew.

And zoomed into the road. Pausing, armed with his wits and the crude arrogance of youth and speed.

I watched, fascinated. Caught up in his journey.

And saw the black SUV -- too close? Too far? Hard to say.

The squirrel did not see the SUV. But may have sensed it.

There was no swerving. No squeal of brakes. Just a single thump.

Rubber struck flesh and there was bouncing against concrete.

The squirrel stopped. The SUV did not.

And then, almost magically, there was no traffic. Nothing moving for hundreds of yards in either direction across four lanes of pavement.

Except for the squirrel. He was on his back, his eyes more confused than panicked. This was something he'd never imagined.

One paw twitched once, twice.

I couldn't look away. Then I saw his tail curl up quickly and uncurl slowly on the ground.

And everything was still. Including the squirrel.

Somehow, in that instant, I sensed that his family and his squirrel buddies had to know what I knew: he was gone. Somewhere else.

And as the traffic returned, the other cars were careful (much more careful than the SUV had been). They drove around the body, perhaps not realizing that squirrel was already gone.

Thank You Friends

In Honor of Record Store Day...

Quick news to warm the hearts of power pop lovers everywhere:

Omnivore Recordings is reissuing Big Star's Classic Third album on limited edition 180-gram vinyl. Only 2000 copies are available worldwide -- and you could win the record-geek's equivalent of a Golden Ticket because they're randomly inserting 5 original test pressings (courtesy of Big Star Jody Stephens) into the run. Go to your local record store tomorrow (April 16) to buy, buy, buy.

In celebration of the release (and of record geekdom in general), Plasticsoul's Steven Wilson (on guitar and lead vocals) and Clicks and Pops favorite Brandon Schott (on backing vocals, uke, and toy piano) have a wonderful gift for you: their gorgeous cover of Big Star's "Thank You Friends" -- recorded completely live to 4-track cassette in the living room of Brandon's then empty new house on May 10, 2010.

More info (and limited free downloads) here!

Moscow Girls Got Soul

A good song is a good song is a good song.

Over at Echoes in the Wind today, Whiteray dug through the Billboard charts from this week in 1969. Not so much the top of the charts (dominated by two songs from Hair, Glenn Campbell singing Jimmy Webb, Tommy Roe, the Temptations, the Zombies, and Blood Sweat & Tears), but the rest of the Hot 100.

Including an unlikely coulda-woulda-shoulda-been hit by Chubby Checker.

Certainly by 1969, it must have looked like Chubby Checker's best days were far behind him. Hell, even in his heyday, Checker seemed predestined to be a soon-to-be-forgotten novelty.

His stage name was a play on Fats Dominoe. In his first record, he imitated Alvin and the Chipmunks. And his signature song ("The Twist") was a dance-crazy novelty record.

A quick look at his career shows him going back to the same well over and over (with singles like "Let's Twist Again," "Twistin' USA," "Slow Twisting," "Twist It Up," and "Yo Twist"), then trying to "expand" his repertoire with other novelty dance songs ("Do the Freddy," "Dance the Mess Around," "Limbo Rock," "Pony Time," etc.).

By 1969, he was mostly forgotten in the U.S. (although he toured extensively throughout Europe).

Still, a good song is a good song is a good song.

And one of the signs of a good song is that you can rearrange it, put it into another style, and it's still a good song. Maybe it's an even better song in a different style because listeners bring with them the memory of the original, creating a hybrid experience when they hear a substantially reworked version.

And if there's one thing the Beatles knew well, it was good songs.

Whose idea was it to take the Chuck Berry-ish rocker "Back in the USSR" (with it's Beach Boys-inspired bridge) and rework it in a horn-fueled soul groove? Tom Sellers, who played in a pre-Oates band with Daryl Hall, arranged the song. And both Sellers and Hall played and sang on the record.

In a more just world, it would have been a hit and it might have given Chubby Checker the type of career rebirth Tina Turner enjoyed in the 1980s. But the record skimmed the bottom of the charts, peaked at number 82, then vanished.

And, up until this morning, I'd never heard it. Or even heard of it.

But now (with thanks to Whiteray and because a good song is a good song is a good song), here's Chubby Checker's comeback-that-never-was:

XTC Demos

Just a few songs for a Monday morning:

Your Truth, Our Lies

They barter your impunity

"There's stuff I'm not supposed to talk about," she said.

I know this. And she's said it before. And she knows I know.

And yet...

"But I'm dying to talk about it."

So I wait. Because either she'll tell me or she won't.

And I know well enough to know that she'll make up her own mind.

She starts to speak several times. Clears her throat. Plays with her hair.

Then stops.

I know what this is about. It's the company she keeps. And the horrible, horrible secrets they keep. The things they do for money.

"I worry," she says, "that I'm destroying my soul. At least I don't still believe in it. I know the difference between what they say and what's real."

She wants reassurance. Wants to know that she can still hold onto what's right even in a world where so much is wrong. A world where she has to pretend that the people doing the evil aren't so bad... just because they're in charge.

That's all she wants.

And I want to give her that reassurance. But I can't even give it to myself. And every time I try all I can hear is this:

Punk/Uke

It's the Scottish Accents, Really

History repeats itself...


...first as tragedy...


...then as farce.

Too Many Dreamers

What's Not to Love About This?

From the upcoming album Move Like This by the Cars (not to be confused with the New Cars):



and...



Is it just me or is it seeming a lot like 1985 in here? (In a good way...)