january 21

got a letter from a thrush "Come and see me compose," he said.  So I went. Still in a particular frame of mind, I pulled out one of two tapes Sir John sent me back in the day and gave it a listen; he included some pretty timeless stuff that has matured well with age. (Including the Cutler above.) Ah, to still be communicating with the secondhand interpreter known as music. The effort is still made, although with us old folk it isn't always received as clearly. So you speak louder: Individual songs aren't meant to give a message, but the effort of making a tape for a person still carries currency with those who really understand music. Mix tapes are gold -- someone took the time to assemble multiple songs and make sure they all fit; they wrote each song, each artist down -- while tapes of whole albums are more like silver. They hedge their bets; they're not so time-intensive, and yet they say: I thought of you, and I thought of you while making this, and I think of you as I hand it over. The B-side is free-form, like talking in your sleep.