Ambushed by unexpected emotion

I was just listening to Tempest again because of the new Dylan song. I always liked the title track fine but never found it particularly meaningful or moving, but today I was hit hard by "The watchman he lay dreaming/ the damage had been done/ he dreamed the Titanic was sinking/ and he tried to tell someone."

listening to late period Pizzicato Five and maybe it’s just the whole “haven’t heard these great great tunes in 10+ years” thing working its magic but... I get such strong feelings from this stuff. Maki Nomiya is such a fabulous vocalist, especially when she really belts it out. This P5 thing.. Something about the mixture of the Bacharach-y (?) chords with her assured delivery, on top of the sometimes cartoonishly bright PARTY DOWN vibes, it’s a really powerful righteous message of fabulousness, like just kicking down the door of self-flagellation and letting yourself be glamorous and awesome in your own personal way in everyday life. It’s all about her singing, though for me, it totally seals the deal. Why the hell I’ve never bothered to check out her solo career is a tragic mystery. I know, “get a blog”.

!!!

Now Playing Wheatus - Teenage Dirtbag wheatus

— BBC Radio 3 🎵 #NowPlaying Bot (@BBCR3MusicBot) December 24, 2021

AMBUSHED!

oh yeah!!!

How could I have forgotten about this stone cold classic thread!?!
Reminds me I want to read this recent book---intro'd here on Fresh Air:
In his new book, 'Music is History,' Roots co-founder Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson moves year-by-year through his life, writing about memories and turning points, and the songs he was listening to at the time.Terri Gross plays the hits, incl. "Freddie's Dead"'s vamp: when it first goes up on the last note is just when he burned his leg on the radiator---says he had scars into his teens, and you can hear his intake of breath when it makes that little change---talks about the good associations too---stream or download: pr.org/2021/10/12/1045272890/questlove-on-the-soundtrack-of-his-life
(The interview where he talks about Summer of Soul is also cool, duh)

This one I posted about on the Bootleg Series thread got to me:
This latest issue of xpost enewsletter Flaggin' Down The Double Ees, which always includes downloads of Dylan shows, old and new (free: a couple times a month, paid: more), also tells the story, via various sources, of Dylan half-assing "Dark Eyes," then getting it together w Patti Smith, and then---well, it's a lovely story indeed, I think, even though haven't yet checked the linked musical results https://dylanlive.substack.com/p/dark-eyes

Especially what she says about it---

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFXsJ49CIt8 my mother hasn't died yet but this hit me hard because my mother is in the process of dying and this came up coincidentally

Don't do this to me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Moz6XOAKK5U

XP I'm sorry to hear this Jonathan. Best wishes to you

My sympathies, Jonathan.

Not quite tears, but certainly chills.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FC3y9llDXuM

https://steidl.de/Books/Gas-Stop-0317385059.html

Gas Stop by David Freund

This is a four-volume set of books featuring photos of gas stations made in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and I am moved to tears just about every time I look through it.

A couple of years ago my (now 8-year-old) child heard Maroon 5's "Memories" somewhere, and liked it, and asked to play it a lot. I don't like Maroon 5 or this song (though I do like Pachelbel's canon). My child added it to one of his playlists. Some time passed, and when it popped up on his playlist again he said he couldn't listen to it because it reminded him of one of our cats who had died in the interim. So now when I hear this song that I really don't like in the grocery store or wherever, it makes me well up a little.

I found out in my facebook feed that a guy who went to the same law school as me (ten years after me, didn't know him) died of cancer. He was given his diploma early. His girlfriend, a magazine writer, made a wedding for them a few weeks before he died (I'm p sure when she knew he was dying). This story is turning me into a weepy mess. I don't think I've cried at anything for at least months.

https://www.vogue.com/slideshow/ashley-reese-and-rob-stengel-wedding

sorry, she did know he was dying, it says that

delighted to say that the effect documented nearly twenty-three years at start of thread still operates: i remain (mildly) dirtbag-pilled wheatus-ambush-wise 😭😭😭

enough time elapsed to make it unexpected again