Tuesday, November 21, 2017

Couldn't Sleep

I’m awake at 3.30am. As I glanced over at my watch, I really wished it had been later. 5am, perhaps.

I’d been dreaming about Dusty Springfield recording sessions. Hours of Dusty singing like a black lady. Endless questions about how black she really sounded. Endless listening to tape play back of her voice, as she stood in the recording booth very patiently. Endless recording studios, always filled with people. Big wide brimmed hats, flared jeans. Everyone smoking. The heat of LA and their afternoons where the shadows threaten to stretch to forever. The cold of winter, in crammed London recording studios setup in bluestone warehouses. Wide piazzas of Italy, sun drenched as if in honey. Hot and dank New Orleans, giant rubber plants and mangroves, eating fried donuts dusted with icing sugar. Strong coffee. Always coffee. All with a soul soundtrack playing relentlessly over the top.

What? Ah? Er? The bedroom was dark. Oh, its early. It was no good, I was awake.

I made coffee and rolled two joints. I sat out the back and found that a shelved album from 1971 was released a couple of years ago, making it her final album. It is called Faithful and it is not available on iTunes. Bummer. But I did find that a rarities album of Reputation, which includes four previously unreleased songs from that recording session. It is available on iTunes, and as I don’t have the album, Reputation, at all, I want it.

I came in and made a second coffee to go with my second joint.

I listen to the four extra Dusty tracks, and I can kind of see why the tracks weren’t included in the first place. Pity. But a 12 inch cut of In Private. Oh, even that is very 80s.

4.50am. I sat outside, listening to Reputation. Do I, actually, like this album? It’s very dated. Would I play it again once my current appreciation of Dusty dies down? Like, day light. $19.99. Dusty’s talent has to make up for the very 1980s arrangements. I would only listen to this, essentially 1990s dross, again for very few artists. He voice has to shine, to get me through it.

It is nice sitting outside in a warm summery kind of, almost, evening. Apex Gang home invasions withstanding. It has crossed my mind. Anyone could walk up with me in my own private LED screen bubble bliss, Dusty Springfield singing. Surely, nobody would get assaulted listening to Dusty Springfield, Black Sabbath, maybe. Oasis? (Just because of the angry one, punch him) I’ve got another joint to smoke before I get the scared-of-the-dark and scurry back inside.

5am. Well, I might as well smoke it and get back inside. 2 hours before I see anybody.

“I’ve been arrest by you, take me in.” I love this.

I want my third coffee, is that bad? I must goggle coffee drinking.

I don’t think I would listen to Reputation, much. But it is an important part of her anthology.

Oh, I could imagine listening to this in ten years, perhaps, and thinking, you know, that wasn’t a bad record. I loved it when it first came out.

Oh god, we have a house guest at the moment, a nice French lad. He was a friend of a friend. He must think I am the strange old man who is always sitting on the couch with his laptop, day and night.

I have been going for walks, which I will do again in 4 hours, I expect. An hours walk, everyday, it must be doing me good. Not that it is fixing my fat stomach. I am the BlobberMonster, at the moment, I can feel it around my stomach.

I must think about riding my bike. I can walk when I am stoned, easy peasy, it is kind of relaxing, really it is. But riding a bike, no that wouldn’t be smart.

I think it is a no to Reputation. Strictly an iTunes favourite. Apple Music, if I want to listen to it again, I think.

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