Tag: riley

Button Sunday

I am immersed in all things Beatles right now–especially the music–as I write the final chapters of A COVENTRY WEDDING. (Did you already know that title? Or is this the first time I’ve mentioned it? It’s my editor’s choice, and I didn’t find out until recently. It’s a good thing he told me, as it made me realize I needed to put a wedding in the book. Good to know, right?)

The above button, when I spotted it online, reminded me of when I bought this album.

When I was in college, I became aware that there was a gap in my familiarity with Beatles music. I knew all the early songs–not that I was born then, of course, my being only 35 now, and all–and I knew all The Breakup Approacheth music (which remains as wonderful to me as it was the first time I heard it–probably also before I was even born, ahem). I was writing a paper one afternoon, alone in our old house on Twelfth Avenue in Tuscaloosa, when a song came on the radio. I fell instantly in love with the song and its singer, so I called the radio station and asked about it.

“You’re kidding me, right?” the DJ asked. “You don’t know whose song that was?”

“No,” I said.

“It’s a BEATLES SONG. It’s ‘Here, There and Everywhere.’ How can you not know that?”

Grateful that my friend Riley would never, ever know that I didn’t know that, I said, “Okay, so who was singing it? Because that wasn’t the Beatles. I’d have recognized the Beatles. And there were no female Beatles.”

“That was Emmylou Harris.”

“Who’s Emmylou Harris?”

DJ: (longsuffering sigh)

So the first time I could scrape together some money, I bought this album:

thereby beginning my decades-long admiration for Emmylou Harris. And later, when I was no longer an impoverished college student but an impoverished teacher, I bought the Beatles’ Love Songs album so I could have both versions. “Here, There and Everywhere” remains one of my favorite songs, and you can bet it will be mentioned in A COVENTRY WEDDING.

You can make me (and Riley) happy and listen to the original on YouTube.

Previous posts about Riley:

October 14, 2007
December 27, 2006
June 24, 2006
December 8, 2005
September 30, 2005

Out of the Blue

A reviewer (almost all positive) who scolds us for too much Pet Shop Boy-ness in WHEN YOU DON’T SEE ME cracks me up. One of the good things about being a little further down the writing road and having Tim for a writing partner is that most criticism no longer wigs me out and if it does, he snaps me back to sanity. This time, however, I laughed even without Tim’s rational perspective. I can’t complain. The first reviews are for the most part very good (thank you, reviewers), and the reader mail that’s coming in ROCKS. Thank you to everyone who reads our books and writes us about them.

As you may have gathered from other posts, the Beatles are the theme band for my second Coventry book. I’m not only saturating my environment with Beatles music when I write, but the Beatles mean something to my character, too. (I wonder if I’ll get Beatle-bashed in a review some day?) Back when thirty-five was only some vague, meaningless number in the far-distant future, my friend Riley gave me George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass, but I have been turntable-free for several years so I haven’t been able to listen to it.

Today, while writing, I really needed to hear a song from it, so I splurged and bought/downloaded the whole freaking album (all the original stuff plus whatever was added upon its thirtieth anniversary re-release) online. I am in GEORGE HARRISON HEAVEN. I only wish Riley were hanging out with me right now so we could listen to all these songs together, like the old days, while sandalwood and nag champa scent the air.

These flower child moments are ephemeral, however, as I was reminded when I had to divide up chicken necks for the dogs and EW, Rhonda, it happened to me, too. Tom tried to get me to take a photo, and I hope the Interwebs thank me for restraining myself. Rex’ll be enjoying chicken head sometime next week…

Previous posts about Riley:

December 27, 2006
June 24, 2006
December 8, 2005
September 30, 2005

Waxing Rhapsodic

For several days now, Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” has been a constant refrain playing through my head. In hopes of ridding myself of this earworm–even though it’s a good one–here’s one of my few posts that actually reveals personal information about my past. I’m sure I’ll only leave it up for a day or two before I become horrified and make it private and inaccessible.

One thing about Tom and me having no kids… There’s no captive audience for our longass boring stories. And you are free, too–you can save yourself by not reading:

George Gershwin and Me

Riley and me

Riley and I started being friends when I was 14. Several shared interests brought us together, among them The Hobbit, that we both thought of ourselves as writers, and our love of music. In Riley’s case, he actually was a musician who could play any instrument he picked up. He didn’t have the greatest singing voice in the world, but that was okay, because after all, didn’t we love Bob Dylan?
Continue reading “Riley and me”