Today I’ve got the 80’s in my head. There are saxophone solos floating in there, just so I’m absolutely clear. I’ll put a quarter in for “A Night Like This”. Now, a sax solo isn’t the kind of instrumentation that the band is known for. But this is still vintage Cure. A Head on the Door had bigger hits and bigger anthems than “A Night Like This”. But for me, this is the one track that captured the times while also serving as a foreshadowing to Disintegration, the most important era for the band.
“Say goodbye on a night like this. If it's the last thing we ever do. You never looked as lost as this. Sometimes it doesn't even look like you. It goes dark. It goes darker still. Please stay, but I watch you like I'm made of stone as you walk away.”
It’s not like I see a ton of live shows. But the quarantine has definitely made me miss live music immensely. I miss seeing bands like The National where you get lost in the music that you love. From Terminal 5 to the Beacon to Barclays, I’ve seen those guys bring it with every new album release. But I’ll still always like the older, underrated stuff the most. “Looking for Astronauts”. “Conversation 16”. “Squalor Victoria”. “England”. And “Afraid of Everyone”.
“With my kid on my shoulders I try, not to hurt anybody I like. But I don't have the drugs to sort. I don't have the drugs to sort it out.”
Hands down, “Sir Duke” is one of the most memorable musical tributes. Basie. Glenn Miller. Louis Armstrong. Ella. And, of course, Duke Ellington. Few songs celebrate music so admirably and unpretentiously. It’s pure love for the music. Pure love for the sounds that have shaped us. In many ways, it’s the same thing that drove me to start Mental Jukebox. In quarantine, we look for new indoor diversions. Some of us are learning new skills. New hobbies. For me, I’m just taking two things I already love and smashing them together. Music and words.
“Music is a world within itself. With a language we all understand.”
I first discovered Mogli a few years ago when I saw “Expedition Happiness", a documentary about Mogli and her boyfriend traveling across North America in a refurbished school bus. The movie was ok, but the soundtrack was stellar. I probably played this one 4 or 5 times today. Just enough tempo to keep me from falling asleep, but not too much to distract me from getting my work done.
“You cover the road holes before I stumble. Lead me through those fields of traps. The road ahead it starts to crumble. You build bridges over gaps.”
Time to put my first quarter into my mental jukebox. Maybe this is too obvious of a pick in the thick of this pandemic. But who isn’t going a little insane right about now. I’m trying to hold it all together, but I’m also slowly realizing it’s okay to not exactly have it all together these days. The flaws remind us that we’re only human. And there’s liberation in that.
“I remember when I lost my mind. There was something so pleasant about that place. Even your emotions have an echo in so much space.”
