The Ruined Rooms of the High Life
Fox Den
Hippie Town, USA
Pat Klinck
Past the Swollen Outroads of Empire
Bedford, VA
10/18/12
PK-
The only lasting and final danger is this contentment. And Smokestack Lightning is thee finest rock&roll song ever written. I don’t remember where I was the first time I heard it. It was like I always heard it. Sumlin just bending the flat third and then the 7 for the whole song. The bass thumping 5, 7 DOWN on the 1. That drummer is just swinging his way through history. It’s the beat, brother. The beat is the road that Wolf is just struttin & prancin around on. Gettin’ unruly.
Why don’t you hear me cryin?
Wolf was the real deal. Punkrock&black and new to town with a .38 and a record contract. Punk rockers ain’t got nothin’ on these guys, Pat. Nothin.
I remember dancing to Smokestack Lightning with Kira Rose. A true&rare flower, that one. We were drinking Budweiser and swingin. I was in cutoffs with a broken nose. The summer and my time in South Philly was coming to a rueful close. Aho. After New Year’s Eve 07 I’d be white knuckling it in the slower-lower with a carton of Marlboro 27s until springtime. But we dreamed for a little while there, and I’ll never forget it.
Here in the Land of Little-to-No Consequence the summer is over but the girls are still pretty and the music is still traditional and the beer is still cold. Whomever handed this down I thank him. Life just gets better. Next time I run into Kira Rose and they’re playing Smokestack Lightning on a jukebox of eternity somewhere, with the endless bottles of booze in the next room, the summer won’t end and we’ll win.
May the winter cleave from us all that we don’t need. Bring the fire, bring the change. It’s back to the dayshift with plumbers in the yard and William Parker’s Old Tears blasting romance wide and cutting down nostalgia-that silly, dreaming bitch. Salmon&black eyed peas are the key to the sublime&ordinary existence that was taken from us in youth, when were out on the bad road without radio.
Life’s too short to suffer without music.
Yr Brother James
Hippie Town, USA
Reblogged this on Going for the Throat and commented:
Send me your address and I’ll send you a letter. Letter Day, every Friday down here at the Office. #goforthepost