So this will be the new Monday gig around these parts: an occasionally serious, more often comical dissertation on music that strikes a particular chord with me. (See what I did there? Strikes a particular chord. This is why music will be featured on Mondays. Frankly, I expect more of myself later in the week.)
Music, to me, is essential to the creative process, never mind that what I mostly create is unduly strident arguments about the relative worth of bands, to the point that I become highly annoyed if anyone disagrees with me. This happened yesterday on Facebook, when a friend posed the question of who should be blamed for Jefferson Airplane’s sad slide into dreck as Starship. I was prepared to de-friend him and possibly key his car if he persisted with laying blame at the feet of Paul Kantner. Luckily for both of us, he did not.
But today’s post is not about Jefferson Airplane/Jefferson Starship/Starship. No, it’s about a much more inconsequential band: Collective Soul, and specifically the song “The World I Know.” See below:
Subtle, no?
When this song came out, nearly 16 years ago, I was living in Anchorage, Alaska, and scarcely took notice of it. I was mired deep in my bedrock musical predilections, notably R.E.M., Frank Black (and the Pixies, natch), etc.
But in recent weeks, because I’m eternally slow to pick up coolness, I’ve been toying around with Pandora radio, building customized stations that span the mellow-gold 1970s music that filled my childhood, the alternative rock I gravitated to in the 1980s, the grunge of the 1990s and whatever the hell I’m listening to these days (a weird amalgamation of rock artifacts and suggestions from much more musically inclined friends). And across all of those stations, the one song that keeps showing up as a DNA-confirmed relative is this one. It’s maddening. Not as maddening as the almost-as-perpetual appearance of Lionel Richie, but close. Dammit!
So, anyway, there you have it: Collective Soul is the type-O blood of my musical life.
The week’s gotta get better, right?
*****
Today marks the start of a new posting schedule. Check it, bleed:
Monday: Once More, With Feeling
Tuesday: Progress Report (what I’m working on)
Wednesday: Another Page (books that were influential for me — believe me, it won’t all be egghead stuff)
Thursday: Grab Bag (whatever I feel like doing)
Friday: The Word (the writing exercise I launched last week)
I’ll be taking Saturdays and Sundays off, like a regular Joe.
Lessee, that makes two actual defriendings and 47,688 near-defriendings, by my count.