I woke up today and it was 38.2 degrees outside, 58.4 degrees in my house. Time to turn on the heat. Time to get ready for fall. Yesterday my iPhone shuffled me to Joni Mitchell’s “Urge for Going”. which is the right song for this time of year. It is about as great as a song can be. And Tom Rush’s version, from his legendary album “The Circle Game”, is about a great as a performance can be.
Here is “When a Man Loves a Woman” sung (pretty well) by someone in the Chinese version of “The Voice”:
OK, fine, but there will never be anything like the original:
Hearkening back to our discussions of first person vs. third person: notice how the song starts out in the third person, and then abruptly changes into the first person, and suddenly becomes infinitely more powerful. Percy isn’t talking in generalities now; he is talking about himself. And therefore he’s talking about each of us.
RIP.
Richard Bowker 