Summer Jukebox Tune #16....Calling Cards

EndlessSummerFinallyEnding
SisterActVille

Please note....Busy week...Thus, poli-blogging will be light for awhile...


Almost five years ago now, my two kids and I embarked on a 52 week long project we called 'Our Busking Year'.

It mostly consisted of us popping up at parks and various and sundry out of the way places to play our instruments and sing.

Like, say...This.

And then our oldest kid went away to school far away and became a real pro at the thing in subway stations and on downtown street corners in Montreal.

And at the same time our youngest kid became a dancer.

So, over the last couple of years I started playing on my own again, down in the basement.

But instead of just playing for myself and my four walls, I got some help from from some of you all and started making little lo-fi, slightly off-key recordings that have now been listened to over 900,000 times.

In fact, the listens outpace the page views around here by about two-to-one.

And no, I'm not making that up.

Anyway...

Our oldest kid is going to school back at home now.

And so she does her pro-thing mostly on downtown Lotusland's streets these days.

Sometimes I even play with her. And while I'm pretty sure my presence cuts into her earnings, I have passed the halfway point toward my new/old telecaster that I have my eye on.

But, more often these days, what with this endless summer that just may end on Monday and all, our oldest kid now goes out with the youngest kid so they can do their two things together.

It's a real honest-to-goddess 'Sister Act', with Bigger E doing the singing and strumming while littler e. puts down her hunk of TConnorsian plywood and makes like the Ms. Bojangles that she has become.

And I'm telling you, it's truly amazing with kids.

I mean, even when they are so close they can't help but to move away as they grow up and start doing their own thing.

Which, of course, is pretty much as it should be.

But still, I'm pretty sure that if you really try you can always be with them, in spirit at least, even when you are not right there in the thick of things.

****

Look.

Anybody who says Neko Case (including Neko Case herself ) is not a musical genius is flat out crazy.

For all kinds of reasons, that include way more than just the singing.

'Calling Cards' is a short little story song from her last album that could be about just about anything.

It turns out, however, that Ms. Case wrote the song about something very specific.

Specifically, it's a song about how she always keeps all her various and assorted sundry bandmates and musical collaborators in her heart no matter where she is and what she is doing.

Sound like something I was talking about up above?

Here's my version, sharped the way she does it and everything (which was a big stretch for me), but what the heckfire...





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And I'm telling you....If I hear one more braindead report, question or comment about how there is a big rift among teachers after an 86-14 ratification vote...Well...I'm going to start screaming Proclaimers songs at the top of my lungs...Or some such thing.
And, yes, that is a reference to the Scottish 55-45 thing...

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