Art posted here previously was Breathe With Me, oil on canvas, 2017, by artist Preston M. Smith.
I’m fascinated by Smith’s work that (I think) I found for the first time today. I connected with so many of his paintings and their titles. This one felt like the right match for today’s song challenge, “a song that you never get tired of.” For me, that song is Dennis Wilson’s “Forever,” from the Beach Boys’ Sunflower album in 1970. This was a lesser-known gem Beach Boys fans and followers loved for a long time. It found a new audience when it was sung by an actor on a popular TV show in the 1990s. While considered a sweet love song, there’s a sadness woven through it within the context of Dennis’s passionate, glorious, and tumultuous life and early death.
I’ve never got tired of stating how I coped with covid lockdowns, aka solitary confinement: supporting the record shop by buying up records and CDs before they went bye, bye. My pile of records I call a collection has approximately quadrupled. I found lots of used but mainly in good conditions UK Now that’s what I call Music. These are double LP record sets, flat with no raised lip on the outside edge and for some reason 1 mm thick. They might or might not behave nicely on stacking records on the changer. Sometimes they behave, they go one at a time; sometimes 2 or more plop down; sometimes they just fall whenever, sandwiching the tone arm betwixt and carving out a song or two. All of this, I was reminded of I was when I played the last track of NOW UK 012 2A.
All of that side was acceptable after a good record cleaning, except that exact last track. Either someone in the UK had a record plop down onto the tonearm on that track, or a heavy or tight tonearm on a changer played “nothing’s gonna change my love for you” on repeat at the 7″ size setting all night long. Only the left channel is scratched continuously for that exact track! If this was the perfect studio recording on a CD, I would still play it, but the aged warn sound adds magic and brings forward the desire to play it 3 or 4 more times. I think about past night outs with the likes of Jason, Mikey, Sam, Damon, et al, sometimes just a movie out, sometimes a game night, sometimes making out of nothing at all, sometimes just sneaking out to 7-11 for snacks, etc.
Your comment about how the age and wear adds magic is why I really, really miss the records I lost in the flood. Some people must have the perfect sound, but the snap, crackle, and pop on old albums is just a reminder of all the times and places you’ve been with them. Magic, indeed.