Jet Plane in a Rocking Chair - Richard & Linda Thompson

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For awhile I had a notion that Richard and Linda Thompson’s music would change my life. I hadn’t heard any of their songs, but I liked the idea of them. I knew they had been married and then divorced, that they were in the male/female vocals/folk-rock genre I seem to fall for a little too easily, and that some of my favourite bands had covered their songs. When I bought their classic album "I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight", the guy working cash at Soundscapes nodded his head in approval. I felt redeemed. So, when I finally actually listened to them and realized that they were not going to change my life, I was disapointed. My opinions of their songs are inconsistent: when I like them, I love them, and when I don’t, I can barely tolerate them.

I realize that I approach most music the way I approached Richard & Linda Thompson: I am always looking for songs that will change my life. I’m not so demanding of people (life would be too exhausting) nor do I expect so much from literature (I figure that even if the books I read are bad, I can at least learn something about how to write a book or how not to write a book). But I like my music to be transcendental, sublime, otherwordly. Not that the music I love is any of those things to anyone else, but I do know that there are some songs that I feel a little too rapturous about, and I’d like to figure out why.

So, here is a Richard & Linda Thompson song that I love, wildly. It’s kind of unhinged and mad - it’s live and you get the feeling that they could mess it up any second. They’re both shouting, the lyrics as whole don’t make much sense, but it’s a song of resolution. It’s the way they sing, I’ll change this heart of mine this time. I listened to this song most in February, the hardest part of of winter, driving to and from work, feeling a little unhinged and mad myself, and the buoyancy of this song was strong.

I offer it up as one of the first songs on this blog, for its resolve, for its erraticness, and, ultimately, its loveliness. On the first few listens I also misheard the phrase “cross fingers and head for home” as “crossed fingers and headphones”, which I realized made for a decent music blog title. So there you go.