From: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org (shindell-list-digest) To: shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Subject: shindell-list-digest V10 #170 Reply-To: shindell-list@smoe.org Sender: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk shindell-list-digest Thursday, November 12 2009 Volume 10 : Number 170 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [RS] FW: happiness ["Pete Jameson" ] [RS] before you go.... [Carol Love ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2009 14:27:44 -0500 From: "Pete Jameson" Subject: [RS] FW: happiness O.k., I'll admit it: I still love Are You Happy Now? And I'll give a few reasons. It was the gateway song for all things Shindell. I still remember the day. Monday, April 4, 1992, watching the Yankees home opener with the volume turned down so I could listen to WFUV (da Bronx). I had been fired from my job the previous Saturday and my emotions ran from WTF? to Hey, maybe this is my chance for liberation (it was a high pressure, high visibility, moderate pay gig). So, the dj plays AYHN and I think, Well, yeah, I am! This is true. The song stirred me from my solipsism and I had to call. Hey, what was that are you happy song you just played? And she said Isn't it great? I was hip to Suzanne Vega, Shawn Colvin, Bill Morrissey, etc., but Shindell? Nah. I told her my story and how the song had helped me to move forward. Two days later, a cassette of Sparrows Point arrived in the mail with a note from the jock. Thought you'd like to have this. Good luck. Wish I knew that woman's name. Fast forward a few years and a couple of kids later. Any time Bridey and I go to a RS show she lights up like an aurora when the happy song comes on. And my two teenage kids like it. Sort of. Well, they will like it again in 10 years or so. Bridey's also mad for Mary Magdalene, Kenworth, and Last Fare, by the way. And the sainted one is only a music fan because she knows I am mad about the Minnesingers. BTW his shows are a great date for people whose lives mirror those of the protagonists in The Weather. And every time I attend solo I seem to be a magnet for women who'll take me as a sorry excuse for their paramour on the guitar. Unrequited both ways happy to say. Go figure. Or maybe I'm just lost in reverie and my countenance reveals the yearnings of my soul. So, I have all his stuff, go whenever he's within 200 miles, and have chatted him up probably more times than he would have preferred, I still love hearing happy live. But I understand why, on a night when the sound was shite and the show was short, that you would want to hear something more esoteric. Like his cover of Haggard's Sing Me Back Home. Most of you know where to find it but sometimes I forget it's there on Reunion Hill as a vaporous track a few minutes after I'll Be Here in the Morning. Another exceptional cover by Richard the Burnisher. I once heard a Cry Cry Cry interview with David Dye of wxpn.org and world cafi fame in which Dar and Senor Shindell discussed their Buddhist dalliances. And they both admitted that they sucked at it. I've been trying my hand at some D.T. Suzuki of late and I'll say this about that which some like and others loathe. Breathe. Look for the answers and they rarely come. Stay busy with that which you love and the love will flow. To reflect and examine your inner self is a worthy enterprise. But happiness is as elusive as the morning mist and as imperceptible as color in the black of night. Once we consciously seek it we lose the path. Happy Now. Can't say when it will come again. Pedro in PA ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2009 20:28:35 -0500 From: Carol Love Subject: [RS] before you go.... Pete's deep Shindell thoughts, reminded me that lately I've just been Gobsmacked by the song, "Before You Go" It came up as a suggestion on iTunes, and of course I downloaded it. I had always thought it was a haunting and beautiful song (oh, how I love RS when the instrumentation is minimal...) but I had thought it was a lover to lover song. A couple of weeks ago I was listening to my iPod before I fell off to sleep and the lyrics SANK in!! This song is God speaking to Jesus before he sends him to Earth. (Thus explaining the song's placement on a Christmas Album!!) I was amazed at how spiritual it is -- and I could image it in any moderate Christian church service. Perhaps RS infused a little of his own feelings as his children are getting older, but it's definitely intended as a dialog between the Father and Son. So, while Richard may be a Buddhist, I don't think he's completely shed what he studied in seminary. I think "Before You Go" may be his most spiritual song ever. ...Carol ------------------------------ End of shindell-list-digest V10 #170 ************************************