Train in the Distance

Two tremendous friends, (who’ve never met by the by), have put songs in my head the last couple of mornings. This late deafened babe says THANK YOU!

This morning’s tune is Paul Simon’s Think Too Much from Hearts and Bones. That, inexplicably, is not one his better reviewed albums but it truly is brill. It’s a bauble, a sweet bijoux of a collection next to the grand magnificence of Graceland and Rhythm of the Saints. Smaller scale wonderfulness.

Hearts and Bones came out in 1983. I was 25 and in the midst of the post Nf2 diagnosis and Big Op/colossal romance loss/job crash maelstrom.

It was a hard, busy time. Everything was overwhelmingly much too much but then Mister Simon came out with this brain balm of a record.

Think Too Much (there’re two songs by this name: Think Too Much A and then Think Too Much B. OF COURSE!)

I had a childhood that was mercifully brief
I grew up in a state of disbelief
I started to think too much
When I was twelve going on thirteen
Me and girls from St. Augustine
Up in the mezzanine
Thinking about God

Song About The Moon

If you want to write a song about the moon
Walk along the craters in the afternoon
When the shadows are deep and the light is alien
And gravity leaps like a knife off the pavement
And you want to write a song about the moon
You want to write a spiritual tune
Na na na na na na
Yeah yeah yeah
Presto, a song about the moon

Jesus, I love this man!

Cars Are Cars

The Late Great Johnny Ace

I christened a long ago co-worker Johnny Ace. Yeah, Carl looked a little like Johnny but more, every time I saw him, the tune played on my interior jukebox. Neat trick, huh? Carl had some magic, oh yes he did.

The rolling, flowing, chimerical poetry of Rene And Georgette Magritte with Their Dog After The War puts the painter Silvano Braido Pittore (scroll down just a touch for his work) in mind. I’m quite certain that I could blissfully abide and thrive within one of his fantastically surreal worlds.

René and Georgette Magritte

With their dog after the war

Returned to their hotel suite

And they unlocked the door
Easily losing their evening clothes

They dance by the light of the moon

To the Penguins

The Moonglows

The Orioles

And The Five Satins

In Silvano’s universes I still have hearing. Right now I’m kicking back on the bluff of one of his floating mountains, listening to Richard Tee play his radiantly beautiful interpretation of Bridge Over Troubled Waters.

Train in the Distance


Everybody loves the sound of a train in the distance

Everybody thinks it’s true
What is the point of this story?

What information pertains

The thought that life could be better

Is woven indelibly

Into our hearts

And our brains