#361) "Rich Girl" by Hall and Oates - Ahh, blue-eyed soul with a little bit of that sublime Philadelphia sound thrown in...or is it that sublime Philadelphia sound with a little blue-eyed soul thrown in?
Either way, it's sublime. Maybe this is one of those situations where labels have no meaning (and really, should they ever...?), but they're kind of hard to avoid. In true "Philadelphia sound" style, "Rich Girl" is a richly-textured blend of production and vocal prowess, so what's not to love, no matter what you call it? When the strings and horns spiral upwards and climax in the spaces above the clouds and all the voices sing as one, nothing less than a sense of utter daylight is produced, a headspace where it's always either Saturday evening or Sunday afternoon and everything is just fine, even if it isn't.
"Rich Girl" may be from the "blue-eyed soul" camp, but is no less worthy for this. No less exhilarating. Solid is solid, no matter the color or creed.
"You can rely on the old man's money, you can rely on the old man's money..."
#362) "Times of Your Life" by Paul Anka - This is one of those songs that - by now - only shows up on the "old time" radio station nobody listens to anymore, the one with the "beautiful music" format, wholesome beacon to the most recent geriatric crowd, a station whose hey day was when Bush 41 was president (and maybe even earlier), broadcasting at 25,000 watts from a lonely corner of the FM (or worse, AM) dial, right on the edge of town there, at that intersection where, say, Sycamore Road meets up with County Trunk H.
There it sits, in a world that no longer really needs it, a world where everyone can be his own dee jay and listen to whatever he wants whenever he wants to, just running out the clock until its license expires with minimal staff: a nice lady named Kay, let's say, working the front desk, who knits the majority of her work day away, and ol' Bucky, the engineer, never around but always on call, and maybe one other person, a Skip or a Don perhaps, who was there in the old days, when the station was more relevant than it is today, and now finds himself finishing out his career doing sales, traffic, and production for the few commercials that need to be done. The station has no live on-air talent whatsoever, just a musical cavalcade of moldy oldies beamed in via satellite, broken up four times an hour by a computer-generated voice burbling, "It's 62 degrees at ... 8:45."
Following that auditory sedative, also known as the station ident, you're likely to hear "Times of Your Life" by Paul Anka, a song perfectly suited to the Kodak commercial it appeared in back in the 1970s. This might be called, "blue-eyed marshmallow fluff", but I've always enjoyed it. In a different way, or for different reasons perhaps, it also generates its own daylight as it plays. Maybe it's later in the day, maybe the sun's beginning to set, shadows growing long, and it's possible everything might not be okay, so you better start taking a look at the things around you and deciding what really matters.
Man, it's really true, the older I get, the more so many of these songs start making sense in a way they never did (could) before.
"Good morning, yesterday / You wake up and time has slipped away..."
