#329) "So Far Away" by Carole King - How lovely is this song? Really....just how lovely? Like a fire crackling or the night whispering or a really good cup of coffee just waiting for you to lift it up to your needy and grateful lips for that soul-feeding first sip in the bright morning sunshine....er, something like that.
I discovered "So Far Away" when I was in high school, when it - like I - was less than 20 years old. I was in the throes of a fairly potent singer/songwriter phase at the time, and big on remembering the 1970s not for the awkwardly troubled and anxious times they were, but simply as I remembered experiencing them as a young kid, which involved less trouble and anxiety, more late morning sunshine illuminating the woods behind our house, where all I had to do was play Army (and the only threat was wood ticks), while my parents sat around drinking coffee and talking about interesting stuff, selling books for a living.
Admittedly, my memories of that time are a bit rose-colored, but they're not completely off base or fabricated. AM Gold was always playing in the background, leaking from some tiny radio somewhere, and "So Far Away" (along with other "woodsy" [in my mind] music from the likes of The Carpenters, James Taylor, Barry Manilow...) has always represented the calm, almost primitive beauty I enjoyed when I was still very young, for which (although I didn't realize it at the time, and wish I had), I was very lucky.
So the song has always held a deeply personal significance for me, but nowadays, I also think its timing was historically significant: released in 1971, at the tail end of an era of social upheaval, which gave rise to a winsome restlessness, that would in turn imbue popular culture for the next ten years, Carole King offers a different tack for her generation at the trailhead of the 1970s, and in a way (although this may or may not have been her intent), foreshadowed what was to become of the modern American family: not physically far away, necessarily, but emotionally and psychologically distant, perfect strangers living and raising children under one roof, strained circumstances that led her generation to its soaring divorce rate. The lyrics could be considered a metaphor, really: doesn't anybody stay in one place, anymore?, King sings.
From about 1970 on, they didn't as much, even in (or especially in) their hearts and minds.
"One more song about moving along the highway / Can't say much of anything that's new..."
#330) "Laura" by Billy Joel - I've said it before (I've said lots of things more than once on this page, I've come to realize), but I feel it bears repeating: Billy Joel gets a bad rap, skewered by music purists for being too slick, too polished, and for this, inauthentic, lacking a certain critical rawness in the whole smoky, gritty, street-wise thing that was a recurring theme of his music/image, at least early on.
But to me, that's always meant that he's just too damn good. A masterful songwriter and performer, Billy Joel identified as the piano man, but he really could have gotten away with calling himself the music man. Seriously, if Michael Jackson was the king of pop, and Howard Stern is the king of all media, then Billy Joel gets my nomination for the king of all music. He's one of those artists who sees music - the notes, the chords, their harmonious mesh with rhythm - in multiple dimensions, multiple colors, and was able to forge a seemingly effortless presentation by pairing beyond-handy chops on multiple instruments with not just a rock solid understanding of, but an innovative approach to, the songwriting process. His album The Nylon Curtain (1982) is a perfect example of his experimental side, and "Laura", a clear homage to the Beatles that nevertheless stands on its own, is front and center.
And speaking my truth, I, like doubtless every man at some point in his life, knew a few girls like Laura back in my day. Just sayin'...;-)
"Here I am, feeling like a fucking fool...."
