My sister-in-law Genevieve says that playing music at home adds a welcome layer to life. I subscribe to this notion and like the challenge of trying to find the right record for the right moment. A Sunday afternoon has different needs from Friday hot chips, post-pub. The dramatic context is king.
5. Van Morrison — Tupelo Honey
A twilight album which is when I popped it on Saturday, as the golden light descended into our garden. Tupelo Honey especially delivers just before or just following dinner. Nothing with salad, mind you. Roast potatoes, and not simply because Van is Irish.
Not a wintery album but one for the onset of spring or to luxuriate in during gentle autumnal afternoons. It’s a record with which to celebrate quiet and profound happiness.
The title track is appropriately honeyed with its languid, comforting melody and peaceful lyrics and vocals. It always blankets our home with warmth and calm. My only concern is that Ross from the sitcom Friends thought it the most romantic song ever. However, if Phoebe had made this claim…
4. Steely Dan — greatest hits
Is there gas in the car?
Yes, there’s gas in the car
I think the people down the hall know who you are
How great is the paranoia in these lyrics? Sung with urgency by Donald Fagen, Kid Charlemagne could be the Dan’s best short story. Here they use snippets of dialogue and a sketched plot but allow the audience to imagine the cinematic rest. It’s ridiculously breezy and is at once so 1970s but also timeless, especially the revered guitar solo. I played the album late in the afternoon but anytime works, except for breakfast, probably. Confession: in our home I may be the only fan.
3. The Yardbirds — Shapes of Things
Dear old friend Stephen bought this with me in 1984 when we were teenagers ravenous for music that was old and, I can see now, somewhat cantankerous. Was it from Allans or The Muses? Putting it on last weekend I said to Claire with mock boastfulness, in wondering where seventeen-year-old me went, ‘How cool were we?’
Seventeen. You wished you were cool, despaired that you weren’t, when actually, in that innocent, sweet way you were too young to recognise, you really were.
A double album, the vinyl itself is transparent, and its blues music is raucous and clattering. I played it at lunchtime on Saturday before Claire gardened and I tended the lawns. It reminded Claire of the songs her brothers blasted through their Magill home and later performed as The Bodgies. I do like a wailing harmonica. Next time, I’ll put on a paisley shirt, all orange and purple.
At school, many around us — maybe including Claire — viewed For Your Love as particularly horrible although this is likely because of my tuneless warbling.
2. Comes A Time — Neil Young
All cosy hues and dappled sunshine, this is drowsy and lovely. A Christmas gift from Trev, Lotta Love is a standout. Both Nicolette Larson and Courtney Barnett did excellent versions. Even the up-tempo and energetic Motorcycle Mama is kinda sleepy on the couch. Although it’s not on this album, Harvest Moon was a song we played at our wedding, its soaring triumph a matrimonial blessing.
It’s a crude dichotomy, but Neil can seem either furious with the world or blissfully at peace with it. Sunday, just after lunch, well suits his high tenor and soothing acoustic strumming. Provided no neighbourhood lawn mowers interfere.
1. A Hard Day’s Night — The Beatles
It took seven years from the birthday on which Claire gifted it to me to finish reading The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann. Having finally conquered those demanding 720 pages, my next literary challenge is the definitive Paul McCartney biography. So, with Macca and his youth buzzing in my brain, I dropped the needle on this Wednesday.
Aside from the famous opening guitar chord of the title track, If I Fell is among their finest songs. Paul and John share Everly Brothers-like vocals, and eight-year-old me remembers being bewitched by it while watching their cartoon show. I maintain that the very best way to spend half an hour is listening to a Beatles record.
A Hard Day’s Night is the most effervescent of their albums. I played this as we had our dinner of whiting and tossed salad and I’m sure in the sixties neither foodstuff would ever have graced a Liverpudlian table.
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I only buy records from my past. The physical artefact holds the times and lives that are gone, and playing it offers a way of visiting our former selves. Spotify takes care of modern music, but without the physical connection. Holding an old record cover, examining its artwork, remembering where it came from, I can visit an innocent, younger self and say, ‘Nice to see you. You know, it’ll be alright.’
