stevesunusual…music and more

Surely from an antsy time, and the pinhole at the top shows I had this hanging up somewhere for “inspiration.”

Twitching

like a finger

on the trigger

of a gun —

This is one of those lost songs from my radio childhood rediscovered in the mid- to late 90s, and what a song. Simon & Garfunkel reunited and not with just some tepid retread, but a fresh kind of song, despite and because of “dirty breezes” and “the dead and dying.” It’s one of my favorite Paul Simon lyrics and Art’s presence on the song adds that nostalgic return to their youth referred to in the song, plus the usual fibrous vocal punch.

There was a period of listening to S&G albums, with my masterpiece being Bookends. Their ability to see and depict age were incredible despite these being from their callow days. An amazing achievement for only five studio albums (only four that anyone’s heard of). One of the few things I’ve written mentioning a family member was a rewrite of one of their lyrics. A bit embarrassing, the product, but at the time it was satisfying, and I was in New York, so…

As for the sentiment on the Post-it, I didn’t have an intense feeling toward my hometown and its people and trappings expressed in this song, although there is always an ambivalence, especially for someone like me who has steadily spent so much time there long after high school graduation.

It was more just an eagerness to break out and do my thing at odds with my job when I scribbled this down. If I’d known then what I know now, I might have scrapped this Post-it rather than the job, but c’est la vie, guerre, &c.