#223) "Dandelion Seeds" by July - July was a short-lived British band that never charted in either the UK or the States. They were only active for a year or two in the late 60s, before the various members went on to other things that, as far as I can tell, were also pretty forgettable.
Listening to "Dandelion Seeds", it's not too surprising that July didn't exactly take the world by storm. Not because the song is no good, it's actually pretty great, but because it's so psychedelic and "trippy" as to almost - at least viewed from today's perspective - come across as a caricature. The name of the song alone would seem to confirm this.
But in 1968, it wasn't a caricature, it was just something new that was happening, something revolutionary and boundary pushing. Its problem was that, as a piece of pop music, it probably was never ready for - or worthy of - prime time. It's not polished, not dramatic in any way, and it doesn't cast a wide net, doesn't grab any of the totems normally associated with the times - there's no evident concern over the war in Vietnam or political strife around the world, nothing about burning draft cards or bras or race riots leaving a permanent mark on society. There's certainly a desire, it would seem, to "turn on, tune in and drop out", but no acknowledgement of that Tim Leary phrase being a rallying cry for a generation.
It's sort of a song that time forgot, but at this point, nearly fifty years later, it's historically
significant. In fact, I'd go so far as to suggest "Dandelion Seeds"
might just be the singularity that was "acid rock" in the late 1960s.
There is a potent "of the moment" quality to this song. Here we have just a person, or two people, or a group, on a single afternoon, somewhere, anywhere, expanding their minds. Whether or not they should have been doing it with chemicals is not the point. They simply were, or thought they were, in a precipitous time in American history that saw everything - social constructs and mores and philosophies - being challenged, and all those challenges holding great promise (before it was revealed that in the end, only consumerism and corporatism seem to matter). It certainly could have been swinging London where these dandelion seeds were being spread, or New York or LA, any of the places one might expect, but it also could have been (and probably was) going on in every little town in-between: a college campus in La Crosse, Wisconsin, say, on a frigid Monday night in the dead of winter, or a one room apartment above a main street barbershop in Stanton, Nebraska on a warm afternoon in May when the sky was full of broken clouds drifting eastward, or a park in Eugene, Oregon, on a gloomy Saturday evening threatening rain off the Pacific.
"Dandelion Seeds" captures and re-broadcasts that short but potent period of time when everything was changing amidst great anticipation, and while it may not be as polished or as dramatic as "White Rabbit", for me at least, its rawness makes it far more interesting to listen to, and kind of impossible not to.
"High above the trees, looking down on leaves, birds fly by my side / People look up hopelessly, at dandelion seeds..."
#224) "Same Old Lang Syne" by Dan Fogelberg - I've had a rule when it comes to compiling this playlist that, for the most part, I've abided by: if I make the decision to include a particular song, put it on "the list", it stays there. I don't rethink its inclusion, even if it's an odd or embarrassing choice, some musical dirty little secret, or something that - on paper, at least - doesn't seem to fit on a road trip mix. My vigilance has resulted in a playlist that is nothing if not eclectic.
I've probably come closer to taking "Same Old Lang Syne" off "the list" than just about any other song. I placed it about a year ago, after hearing it for the first time in a LONG time and thinking (gripped by a little burst of nostalgia), man, this song really meant something to me once.
That is true enough. When I was nineteen, at that age when we all like to think our life is a movie, I was really moved by the story-teller aspect of this song, and the sentimentality that drips off each note. I mean, come on, the chance meeting of an old flame in a grocery store on Christmas Eve...romantic? You betcha! Straight from the Nora Ephron playbook, baby (and I don't mean that in a disparaging way). I imagined myself being in this situation eventually, one day, and moreover, I thought I knew who the girl was I would happen upon in that grocery store. I think I may have known what grocery store it would be, too...which, take it for what you will, no longer exists.
But lately I've been thinking: you know , this song is actually pretty cringe-worthy. Those drops of sentimentality are really just a sticky substance that gets all over everything, leaves stains on fingers and clothing alike, and doesn't really smell all that great. Not to mention, it's really no secret that prolonged exposure can be detrimental to one's emotional health.
In other words, the older I get, the more perverse and dysfunctional "looking back" becomes. Out of sight, out of mind. There is no past, there is only the present, which matters most of all, and the future, which is constantly changing. I can't say I always feel like that...I still do have moments of reflection, when I look back on people I once knew and the times we shared, and indeed, wonder where all that time has gone. But I do it far less now than I did when I was nineteen. And when a song comes along that weaponizes sentimentality with the clear intention of turning it into melancholia, like this one does, I don't get moved. If anything, I bristle.
That being said, I'm keeping "Same Old Lang Syne" on this list, because, well, first of all, not two weeks ago I included "Aubrey" by Bread on this list (you can't get any more sickeningly melancholic than that), but also because I think, sort of like "Dandelion Seeds", it is a compellingly ground-level, organic portrait of an intimately personal moment, one that many of us do find ourselves in at some point. We love, we lose, we long. The circumstances might be different, the names of the towns and bars and street corners where it all plays out never the same from heart to heart, but I'd be willing to bet the sax solo at the end, as the "snow turns into rain", probably sounds the same for all of us the world over...in swinging London, New York, LA, and every little town in-between.
I'd bet it's happening right now. This very moment.
"Just for a moment I was back in school, and felt that old familiar pain..."
