A curious summer. The weather is peculiar and I keep thinking about Summer Camp in Wisconsin, about four thousand years ago give or take some naughts. A time for shooting, cook-outs, marshmallows toasted over a twig fire (which I can’t stand), canoeing, sailing, Gene Fleck’s Meadow Inn Bar, Chevrolets and cheerleaders, which I very much could, notwithstanding that heartbreakingly, every one of them is probably a grandmother now. Which isn’t much of a Springsteen song title, let’s face it.
Well I gotta get a new pack of Rennies Got me a lot of acid reflux these days too Takes so long to bend and tie-up my shoelaces now Gotta do what nobody else will ever do. But I still remember summer camp-outs Still recall softball bleachers and the flag I can still see her smiling in the dashboard light Back when almost everybody had a fag. Bruce Springsteen: Prob'ly A Grandma Now.
Maybe I shouldn’t quit the day job. But while I don’t still remember driving in my brother’s car, (her body tanned and wet down by the reservoir, each night on those banks I’d lie awake and hold her close just to feel each breath she’d take….. Damn, but I loved that car) I do still love Swing music, something that’s done the opposite of fading away over the years.
It almost started with Glenn Miller, thinking back, but before that I heard a tune I’ve never forgotten, Cole Porter’s Begin the Beguine, the most flying down to Rio song you could wish for. I have no idea why I liked this music aged thirteen. I liked what passed for normal music back then, or some of it, anyway. I still think ELO, Genesis, Godley and Creme and Roxy Music were sublime, from that time.
Maybe though, it was these two. Love it though I do, I can’t listen to Benny Goodman’s song without thinking of a cartoon cat dressing up to catch a mouse before getting smacked in the head with a ten-ton weight. Maybe it’s just me.
