Labor of Love

These days music only comes at me by accident -- i.e what's played at work, or what's encountered in the greater public as I shuttle from one venue of commerce to the next. What I've noted: Forever 21 plays consumer oriented dance traxx so jacked on feel-good mojo that customers don't seem to notice the hour long stalemate lines snaking through the store. Both Angelica Kitchen and Lakeside (Bar) have no shame when it comes to over-playing Nashville Skyline (see me: situated on a dirty floor in Tivoli, NY, first semester, 2007) -- and in terms of Subway troubadours, cultural assumptions are disregarded so long as your voice is flattered by the booming echo of tunnels (see elderly Jamaican man seated on his amp, belting heartbreaking rendition of Sheryl Crowe's OH WAIT I mean Cat Steven's "The First Cut is the Deepest" on the F train.)

And another thing. One of the best AND worst things about this accidental mode of hearing music: The experience of hearing a song that you don't quite recognize, but wish that you did. This predicament is so great because it always grants new, immediate purpose -- time seems to hovers til' the song's case is solved (see ELF"s Quest for Euphoria,) but can also be a real drag, the worst because sometimes, amidst errands and everything else, you forget or warp the sacred lyrical bits you swore you’d remember - your only clues - only to find yourself, cluelessness propelled, the only one to blame.

Recently, I was lucky. Last Sunday I walked into Fifth Avenue Record and Tape, searching for cassettes to send home (admittedly: Los Lobos, Suzanne Vega, They Might Be Giants.)



The guy in the store was the kind I so often hope to see in passing - wild hair, big glasses, plain colored and respectable clothing - a typical victim of my domestic fantasies -- (in my quiet brain we meet by chance, he thinks I'm remarkably smart, meanwhile proving himself hilarious and humble -- too much to ask?)

ANYWAYS, no one else was in the store except him and his friend, that is the two of them, and the sweetest, sweetest songs playing clear and loud.

This is the line that stuck, from the song that stuck, as I tried desperately to cling on to some vital bit: " I been workin' for you, doin' all i can, but work all the time doesn't make me a man."

Here, I could perform some lyrical surgery I suppose, but really, I don’t have anything to say. Except that I remembered the words, and by the time I got home still did -- miraculous! Next, Google helped me to track down William Bell - who knew! - the same original voice (and writer?) of "You Don't Miss Your Water" – another mystery favorite.



Oh, beautiful song that I newly love! Oh, guitar sound that I lack the vocabulary to describe! Thank you for finding me. My next dilemma: Locating the other songs on that guy’s tape, the two that sandwiched this one.

Are you there God? It's me, NAH NAH NAH.