A couple of weeks ago, I heard a song on KBCO that I had to look up when I got home: Nick Drake, "One of These Things First."
I had heard of him sketchily before, confusing him with Nick Cage--of whom I was also fond, for years, without cause other than his appearing in my beloved "Wings of Desire"--learning that my less but still beloved "Life in a Northern Town" was dedicated to him, and, I think, hearing Lucy recommend him.
Then I looked him up on iTunes. Kind of Cat Stevens-y, kind of Leonard Cohen-y: simple melodies, gentle lyrics, minimal instruments, mournful. I figured that KBCO had played that song not because he was however influential but because it appeared on the soundtrack to "Garden State" (I repegged that movie to the top of my Netflix queue).
Yesterday I listened to a lot of Cat Stevens, including "If You Want to Sing Out," which had not been available on iTunes previously and which I had had only on my worn-out Footsteps in the Dark cassette or sung by Ruth Gordon in "Harold and Maude." Today I listened to Nick Cage, Leonard Cohen, and Nick Drake.
He's been dead for 30 years but since he's new to me he counts as new music, to which I listen all too little of. If my newest successes have been Nick Drake and Beth Orton, who should I listen to next?
Two 3.6-mile city rides. This morning was just below my comfort level, in the low 20s; this afternoon was perfect, in the mid 40s.
Okay. I know I live in the past in many ways, most recently evidentally, musically, and iTunes has enabled my WayBackitude more than might be good for me. I have an '80s nostalgia playlist that begins with "My Sharona" (1979, but who's counting) and ends with "Justify My Love."
I happily paid $0.99 for "Boys of Summer" and howled with glee when iTunes produced "I Ran" and, later, glommed onto Flock of Seagulls' "Space Age Love Song" in the background at the bar in the very beginning of "Monster" and remembered that as my preferred song from that album. And I will happily pay the same $0.99 if iTunes ever offers Corey Hart's "Sunglasses at Night" or Icicle Works' "Whisper to a Scream." Those are nostalgic songs.
A lot of '80s music I never stopped listening to at all. Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush, and the Waterboys figure prominently, of course, and I discovered Cat Stevens in 1986 as well. Some stuff I'm getting now, though, I wonder about. Do I buy it only to restore my catalog, my painstakingly recorded, radio to low-end cassette, full of background noises like my dog suddendly snorfling or my mother yelling, catalog of AOR and New Wave songs? Those cassettes I recorded over at college, and if Oliver's Army was ever legible above the generations of illegality, I missed it. Or would I have kept listening to certain of this music if cassette were a more durable medium, or if I had spent money on CDs rather than on student loans? No question I had to have "Voices Carry," especially since Aimee Mann has justified my love, speaking of, more recently. ITunes has recently provided me with Songs to Learn and Sing, and I am pretty sure that I still love each one, and that that is okay.
But I am a little worried that if I bought English Beat or the Cult, I would actually listen to them regularly and not on a nostalgia loop. Would that be okay, or would that just be pathe?