Holiday iPod Shuffle

My Christmas was lovely. New baby Pearl. And another pregnant sister. And Melody is pregnant too. So we will have two new babies in our family come spring, so Pearl will have company in the Infant Brigade, and it’s all very exciting as well as extremely Irish. On December 26, there was a mass said for my dad at the Catholic Center (where I used to go to meetings in college of the Catholic group I was involved in). They have mass there every day and so the day after Christmas it was a small hearty group, everyone keeping their coats on because it was chilly. Our whole family was there, with Lucy and William and Pearl, and then dear family friends Barry and Joanne came and also the Hodges were there. So it was beautiful. And Father Mack (whom I love, up there in his priestly robes, with Converse sneakers underneath) did a wonderful job. Said some words about my dad, said some words about what this season means, birth, death, rebirth … and how we all are reflecting on those things as we miss our dad. It was amazing. Chatted with Father Mack afterwards, and we talked about the new Pope a little bit (we all love him), and then in the middle of that conversation William strolled up, held out his red fire truck and handed it to Father Mack, stating loudly, “It’s red.” Father Mack was like, “Wow! It totally is red!” The whole thing gave me a good feeling. And Brendan flew in on Christmas night at the last minute, so he could come to the mass and meet Pearl. Which went really well.

So what a treat that was. It was a wonderful couple of days. I got to hold Pearl for hours on end. She is a peaceful little thing, two weeks old. Sleeping for hours. And then waking up and looking around her with big curious eyeballs. I love her so much! And I am so thankful for my stability right now, because being as sick as I was can ruin beautiful moments, as they did last year at this time. I am grateful for my beautiful family. Siobhan cooked some amazing meals. Pat gave her a Red Sox maternity T-shirt for Christmas, and it says, above her belly: RED SOX FAN ON DECK. She was bustling in and out of the kitchen with her amazing dishes in hand, and that T-shirt on, and it just made me feel so happy. Of course Siobhan’s husband Ben is a White Sox fan, so they’ll have to see how THAT works out, and there were many jokes along those lines. I am just happy everyone is happy and healthy and that we were all together for my Dad’s mass.

And look what my Uncle Tony and Aunt Marianne sent me for Christmas.

An Elvis Gift Set, with plate, mug, two Christmas ornaments, and a pack of Elvis Hot Cocoa.

My life is complete. A lot of driving in the last four days.

Here is what Shuffle offered up for me.

Shuffle

“Love is a Bourgeois Construct” – Pet Shop Boys, single from their latest. Haunting. Driving. Great disco beat. Hard to believe he’s not around anymore.

“Song for the Asking” – Simon & Garfunkel. I adore them but sometimes I want to tell them to stuff it up their asses.

“Alternative to Love” – the wonderful, the gorgeous, the talented Brendan Benson.

“The March of Time” – the cast of Closer Than Ever, the insufferable yuppie thirtysomething of musicals with some awesome songs. Here is the quintessential Baby Boomer self-pity, presented with no apology. Still: excellent cast.

“Mr. Mustache” – Nirvana. Insane. Metal. Hard fast metal.

“Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” – The Beatles. It’s still almost scary. No. It is scary. And I still don’t know what it means, ultimately, and I hope I never figure it out.

“I Remember Yesterday” – Donna Summer’s disco/big band number. We all went to see Donna Summer in Chicago, we sat outside. It had rained. We sat on a blanket. She was a Diva of the first order. She sang her slam-dunk version of “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina”. Then she came out for her encore and …. sang it again. Mitchell glanced at me and said, flatly, “Twice, Donna?”

“Jesus Gave Me Water” – Sam Cooke and the Soul Stirrers. His first real hit. They played this live, and brought the house down. It swings.

“Money” – Alan Cumming, in his magnificent performance as the Emcee in the Roundabout revival of Cabaret, which I saw. I wrote about it, and Natasha Richardson, when she passed.

“Tomorrow Is a Latter Day” – the cast of The Book of Mormon, which I cannot believe I haven’t seen yet. Love the music.

“Night Time, My Time” – Sky Ferreira. Had never heard of her until her album showed up on a lot of Best Of the Year lists, so I gave her a shot, and I am in love with it. Apparently she was in some sort of war with her label (from what I gather), and she wrested the control back and then recorded this entire album in less than a month. It’s fanTAStic.

“Little Cream Soda” – The White Stripes. Maybe my favorite one on Icky Thump. Grinding. Great hook.

“Sugar Mama” – John Lee Hooker. Why is sugar Mama giving this poor man such a hard time? Come back to him, girl, he needs you.

“Watershed” (live) – Indigo Girls. This song is too powerful and too wrapped up in associations for me to listen to. And last year, fall day, walking to meet with the director interested in the script, set up by my agent, with the Guy texting me supportive loving comments as I crossed town, suddenly this song came on the iPod. And like a whoosh of wings, the song opened up into a whole new meaning. I actually HEARD it differently. I felt like I had come through a very dark tunnel. I was on my way to meet this director but I actually stopped on the sidewalk for a second, punched in the solar plexus. I have had “other” associations with this song for almost 20 years now. Painful, a love I had to let go of. It nearly did me in. And now … that might have dissolved? And maybe the paradigm shift is real? And then there came another “you’re awesome!!” text from the Guy. But now we’re back to our regular scheduled programming, and what I felt that day was an illusion, and the song snapped back into its old associations in a flash.

“Oops … I Did It Again!” – Britney Spears. Oh, Brit-Brit, be a bit more careful next time!

“I’m Yours” – Elvis, a sweet ballad with a country-plodding beat, recorded in 1961. It was included on the grippingly titled album Pot Luck. Then, a couple years later it was released as a single, which goes in the WTF RCA? column. The song is old-fashioned and sweet with a spoken bridge. Elvis is beautiful.

“Boys ‘Round Here” – Blake Shelton. So dumb and so entertaining. I like him.

“Cry Me a River” – Michael Buble. Talk about dumb and entertaining. This is over-the-top. A fun and dramatic arrangement, like it’s meant to be sung by Darth Vader or something surrounded by his storm troopers.

“Friendship” – the awesome Tenacious D. I love how all they do is sing about themselves.

“It’s Not Over Til It’s Over and Done” – Bleu. Yeah. I wrote about this song recently. I still have a crush.

“I Feel So Bad” – Elvis Presley. His style is so distinct it’s amazing it didn’t become a parody very early on. When he does parody himself, and he is almost doing so here, you know he’s in on the joke. He’s giving it. “Here. This is me. This is who I am.”

“Cancer” – My Chemical Romance. I have no idea what is happening here. It’s over-the-top.

“As Long As He Needs Me” – the delicious Doris Day. This is gorgeous and sad and heartfelt.

“Botch-A-Me” – Rosemary Clooney. Swinging. Fun. Nuts.

“White Boys” – from the Broadway revival of Hair. “White boys are so pretty – they’re like Chinese silk …” I agree, girl.

“Greenbacks” – Ray Charles. We just had a big conversation about Ray Charles at Christmas. Ben saw him twice, once with a predominantly black audience and one with a predominantly white audience and it was like night and day. The love for him was there equally but one audience listened silently and politely, and the other one was loud and raucous. And Brendan contributed the stories about Ray’s commands to his drummers – how slow they had to go on some of his songs and how challenging that was to some of the drummers. If the drummer tried to push the pace, Ray would get pissed. He wanted this shit SLOW. And he meant SLOW.

“Distracted” – L.E.O. An ELO “inspired” band, made up of Bleu and Mike Viola, two of my favorite guys. Great album.

“While My Guitar Gently Weeps” – this is from one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame concerts, a performance I treasure. It’s Tom Petty, Steve Winwood, Jeff Lynne, and then Prince comes on with a red hat for the guitar solo. SHOWMEN. IT’S NUTS. IT’S EPIC.

“No Remorse” – Metallica. Listen to Kirk go in that opening. Jeez. It seems that the thing about Metallica that sets them apart (or one of the things) is how FAST they are. It’s music that obliterates thought. It’s too fast to catch your breath.

“The Prince” – Metallica. See comment above. Can they go any faster? You want to scream, “SLOW DOWN. GIVE ME A SECOND TO CATCH MY BREATH.” Metallica says as one, “NO.”

“You’re Gonna Lose That Girl” – The Beatles. What I love here is the taunting nature of the melody. It’s quite distinct and also tells the whole story, even more than the lyrics do. It’s great because there are only so many love situations anyone can sing about. There aren’t 5,000 stories in Love, there are about 10. Here, there is a rivalry, and one person looking on and commenting on what he sees, and how said dude is “gonna lose that girl”, and he deserves to lose her because he’s a jerk, and Nyah-nyah-nyah listen to that melody. Great stuff.

“(I’m Your) Hoochie Coochie Man” – Muddy Waters. You can look at the history of 20th century culture and see it all in this song, this sound.

“Tornado” – Dale Hawkins. Sexpot. Of course I think of Kim’s great piece. I love him. Dirty.

“The Beautiful People” – no, not Marilyn Manson, although that is sampled here. This is Christina Aguilera from Burlesque. It’s pretty great.

“I’m Checking Out” – Meryl Streep, the closing song in Postcards From the Edge. It is my favorite performance of hers. “Instant gratification takes too long.” “Lana? Joan? These are the options?”

“Future Love Paradise” – Seal. Beautiful. I only have the one album.

“Baker Baker” – Tori Amos. I love her AND she drives me batty. I saw her play at the Park West before Little Earthquakes came out, right before her stardom hit. Just her and her piano on the stage. It was a great show. I love this one.

“Bicycle Race” – Queen. If you want to ride your bicycle, then I think you should stop talking about it and just do it.

“Underneath” – Alanis Morissette. Talk about a mix of loving and being driven BATTY. What can I say: I’m in for the long haul with this gal.

“Voodoo” – Black Sabbath. Oh hell yeah. Impossible to not reach for the dial to turn it to “11” when this one comes on. Just re-read Lester Bangs’ piece on Black Sabbath which I find fascinating, especially its exploration of Catholic themes.

“I’ve Got This Friend” – The Civil Wars. What a wonderful album, a wonderful duo. Apparently they broke up and now they’re back together and have a new album? I am out of the loop. I have enough to handle keeping track of my own screening schedule, I can’t keep them on my radar too. But the blend of their voices is just perfect.

“Dude Looks Like a Lady” – Aerosmith. Speak for yourself, bro.

“Cry, Cry, Cry” – Johnny Cash. Classic. We talked about him over Christmas too. I was talking about that documentary I reviewed for Ebert. We talked about the Folsom Prison concert. The beat of this, the underlying beat, is that “rhythm of the tracks” that Keith Richards talks about. Speaking of Keith Richards, this photo was posted on Facebook today. It must be shared.

“33” – Sinéad O’Connor, from her strange and somewhat repetitive Theology album. She’s another nutter, and she’s another one I’m in with for the long haul. I even suffered through her reggae album.

“Free Fallin'” – Tom Petty. “She’s a good girl, she’s crazy about Elvis, loves horses, and her boyfriend too …” A whole person comes to life there. I love this song.

“Bad News From Home” – the great Randy Newman. He came up over Christmas, too. Boy, we talked about music a lot.

“All That I Am” – Elvis Presley. A soft gentle number, with twirly Spanish-esque guitar in the background.

“The Parting Glass” – Sinéad O’Connor. I was so excited when she came out with an album of traditional Irish music. Worth the wait. Surprised it hadn’t happened earlier. I cannot sing this song without welling up with tears.

“I’m Easy” – Brendan Benson. He writes pop hits. Clear Beatles influence. I adore him. Check him out!

“Even Flow” – Pearl Jam. Boy, listening to them brings me back to such a specific time/place/era in my life. I suppose if you’re around my age you have a similar experience.

“Everybody Hurts” – Blake Jenner, from Glee, covering the REM song, with a beautiful harp accompanying him. I am not an REM fan, and wasn’t during their heyday. I think they announced recently that they broke up and my response was: “You haven’t already? I haven’t thought about you all in 20 years.” They just didn’t do it for me. And so it’s nice to hear a cover of it, a different sound, a prettier voice, like Jenner’s here. It’s beautiful. Makes the song seem new, which it NEEDS.

“King of the Road” – Rufus Wainwright and Teddy Thompson. Awesome. This is from the Brokeback Mountain soundtrack. Teddy Thompson appeared in the concert for Kate McGarrigle (Rufus’ mother), commemorated in Lian Lunson’s gorgeous concert film, Sing Me the Songs That Say I Love You.

“I Want to Go Home” – Lenny Kravitz. An anthem. How much do I love him.

“I’m Gonna Walk Dem Golden Stairs” – Elvis Presley. So sincere, so full of heart and spirit. I very well may love Jesus-Freak Elvis the best.

“Last Night” – The Troggs. Love them so much, but I’ll let Lester Bangs take over. He says it better than I ever could.

“Everything” – Alanis Morissette. Her lyrics, man, sometimes you want to tell her to keep it simple and make the freakin’ syllables match the melody!! But I love this song!

“Dream On” – Neil Patrick Harris and Matthew Morrison, from Glee. A notorious duet, not quite successful. It can’t touch the original, but it’s very interesting. I love this song best when Eminem sampled it on The Eminem Show in “Sing For the Moment” – it launched the song into a whole new space.

“Finale” – from the new Broadway revival of Anything Goes, starring Sutton Foster. I haven’t seen it (saw the other revival, years ago, with Patti Lupone: it was awesome. I love this show.)

“Shoo Shoo Baby” – Tony Burgos & His Swing Shift Orchestra. A swinging lindy-hop beat.

“The Long Way Around” – Dixie Chicks. Chick can sing. I’m not crazy about the implications in the song that settling down in your home town means you are “following” – it’s a little self-righteous – but it’s a good song.

“See You Soon Baboon” – Dale Hawkins. I love how out of his mind he is. The whole thing starts with a crazy baboon call, indicative of the swamp-freak sexy energy he unleashes in every song.

“So What” – Pink. Talk about a “nyah nyah nyah” melody. She does that a lot, playing up her bratty side, and I love her bratty side. This is a great rock song. Her voice is my favorite one out there right now.

“I Would Die 4 U” – Prince. In many ways, Prince WAS high school and college. I lost my virginity to a Prince song. You know. It’s to that level. I am sure I am not alone in that because the man was everywhere. I love him.

“In the Ghetto” – Elvis Presley, from the phenomenal That’s the Way It Is album. This is live.

“Do You Hear What I Hear” – from one of the Glee Christmas albums. This is one of my favorite Christmas carols, and has that magic/awe-struck feeling to it about the Christmas story. This version starts small and then gets huge. I like it.

“This Is the New Year” – the Glee cast, covering the song by A Great Big World, a band I am not familiar with. I love the beat here, and the choir back-up arrangement. It’s exciting.

“Maybe This Time” – Kristin Chenoweth, on Glee. I mentioned my feelings about her version of this song here. She doesn’t get it.

“Reason With Me” – Sinéad O’Connor, from her 2012 album, which I absolutely love. I’ve hung in there with her through her dark years of experimentation (which were not entirely unfruitful). But this album is both fresh as well as a return to form. Personal, angry, self-aware.

“Volvo Driving Soccer Mom” – Everclear. So mean, so funny. I’ve written about Everclear before and what they have meant to me. I won’t bore you further. They’ve got me through some rough times.

“I Only Want to Be With You” – Dusty Springfield. This comes on and I am happy.

“Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” – Tchaikovsky, from the Nutcracker. Magical.

“I Wanna Be Loved” – Ricky Nelson. Sexy as hell. Same energy/sound as “Fever”.

And look at James Burton there! So psyched I saw him recently.

“Soft Winds” – Dinah Washington. What a voice. What a feeling she brings into the room.

“I’m Only Sleeping” – The Beatles. I love how there’s no lead-in. It starts with their voices. Startling. Bold.

“Birthday” – The Beatles. I love it when they scream. Hot.

“Butterfly” – Crazy Town. Remember the year when this song was everywhere? It’s still kind of everywhere. And now when I hear it all I can think of is Celebrity Rehab.

“Old Man” – Randy Newman. Sometimes his stuff is too sad for me. I have to be careful when I listen to him.

“Love’s In Need of Love Today” – Stevie Wonder, in the America: A Tribute to Heroes fundraiser that went live days after 9/11. Emotional, and this is so so beautiful.

“My Happiness” – Elvis, his demo tape, 1953. Oh, Elvis. Teenager. Slicked hair and full of dreams. The hesitant strumming of his guitar is so touching. Because it doesn’t matter. I mean, this is not the Elvis who would explode a mere year later. But success like his would not be about brilliant musicianship. It was about personality. There was a void in the culture, and he knew it (in an inchoate way), and when the opportunity came to pour himself into that void, filling up as much of it as he could, he said “Yes”. The best guitar player in the world couldn’t have done that. It had to be him.

“What’d I Say” – Jerry Lee Lewis, in Sun Studio. He’s ablaze with great balls of fire.

“Amy” – Green Day, from ¡Dos!, one of the three albums they just released all at the same time, almost. One of their sweet numbers.

“Roi” – The Breeders. I still miss them.

“Season of the Witch” – Donovan. My parents had some of his albums and we used to listen to them when we were kids. He scared me a little bit. I sensed something, something grown-up and disturbing, something I didn’t get, because I was 7. But it was there. This song scared me.

“Phoenix from the Flames” – Robbie Williams. He is the best thing going right now. He is “having it all”. His latest swing album is fantastic. I can’t get enough of him and lucky for me he is prolific. This is one of my favorites of his songs. The phoenix is an important symbol to me, and once, during a bout with a fever of 103, I got one tattooed on my back – it was something I had doodled in my journal because I was so hot with the fever, and I liked the drawing. This was before everybody and their grandmother had a tattoo. The tattoo artist was so surprised to see me in his shop that he almost hesitated before doing what I wanted. But he complied with my request and I have never regretted it. Here it is, in a super-dramatic moment from a head-shot photo shoot about 10, 12 years ago, something like that. Tattoos were still a novelty then (on women, anyway) and the photographer was excited I had one.

“The Lamb’s Book of Life” – Sinéad O’Connor. I guess I like her best when she’s furious and Irish. Like here.

“Feelin’ Good” – Little Jr. Parker. Ferocious. A Sun Records artist, recorded in that damn room that got that damn sound that changed the whole damn world. More “rhythm of the tracks” here.

“Gone, Gone, Gone” – the irreplaceable Everly Brothers. Who is better than them??

“Jonathan” – Sarah Donner. She is so special.

“Shorty the Barber” – Charlie Burse. Again, with that raw fresh Sun Records sound. Rough. Real.

“Cad É Sin Don Té Sin” – The Cassidys. Come to think of it, except for Sinéad, the Irish troops have not really been represented in this Shuffle. Welcome, Micks!

“I Don’t Want to Lose You” – Jackie Wilson. What a showman, what a voice. One of the biggest influences on Elvis: if you’ve listened to the Million Dollar Quartet recording then you know that Elvis takes almost 10 minutes of everyone’s time raving about Jackie Wilson’s performance of “Don’t Be Cruel”, which then became Elvis’ version of the song. He made adjustments to his tone, his phrasing, his rhythm, based on what Wilson brought to the song.

“I Hear a Sweet Voice Calling” – speaking of the Million Dollar Quartet. This is Elvis and Carl Perkins trying to work out a version, with starts, stops, and lots of laughter.

“Tremolo” – the great Bleu, whom I covered in-depth here.

“My Old Friend the Blues” – The Proclaimers. Boy, I haven’t thought of them in a while. I love this album, Sunshine on Leith.

“All Over Again” – Johnny Cash. Hot. This is what authenticity sounds like. And need I point out the “rhythm of the tracks” again? He’s got that everywhere, he’s always on the move.

“Song for the Deaf” – Queens of the Stone Age. Boy, I loved this album. I couldn’t get past it for a good three, four months.

“Anna (Go to Him)” – The Beatles. Here they are, covering the single by Arthur Alexander. John Lennon sings the shit out of this one. And love the little up-the-scales riff on the guitar, supporting the lyrics.

“Congo River” – The Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makem. Hey, Irish! I’ve missed you guys!

“I Should Have Known Better” – The Beatles. From A Hard Day’s Night. “And I do … hey hey hey … and I do.” It’s still exciting and I can’t explain why. I’ve heard it 1,000 times, and it still excites.

“I’ll Come Running Back to You” – Sam Cooke. He really was the perfect pop star. Such a smoothie, everything feels easy no matter what he attempted. His voice is so romantic.

“Rock Me” – Liz Phair. I love this song, about dating a younger man. Very funny lyrics. “I’ll bet you your last cigarette you won’t regret my time …”

“Breakout” – Foo Fighters. This is one of my favorites of their songs.

“Crimson and Clover” – Dolly Parton, covering Joan Jett, and it’s perfect. That whole album is perfect. She makes you re-think all of these classic songs, she owns them so completely.

“Some Girls” – Madonna. From her latest album which is pretty great.

“Supernova” – Liz Phair. I dated someone like this guy. We all should have at least one of them in our rear view mirror.

“Milky White Way” – Elvis Presley. One of his best, ever. Gentle, yearning, hopeful, soft, sweet, and filled with feeling. He also changed the lyrics, from “I’m gonna tell my father howdy” to “I’m gonna tell my mother howdy”, a moving and personal choice, bringing the song to a different place, a place that had meaning for him, a young man who missed his Mama.

“Fuel” – Metallica, from S&M, their incredible concert with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra.

“Don’t Just Sit There” – Lucius. I just bought this one so I haven’t had a chance to absorb it. But it made it onto a bunch of “Best of 2013” lists so I felt the need to check it out. So far so good.

“Nothing Ordinary” – Lucius. Hey. Weird. Coincidence aside: this is pretty fantastic, dammit.

“We Are Young” – Fun. I bought this the last time I was in Memphis, because it came on the radio while I was driving through the frosty Mississippi landscape one early Sunday morning and it had this weirdly profound effect on me. I have no idea who any of these people are, but I love this song. It’s an anthem.

“The Drunkard’s Room” – the batshit-crazy and totally-awesome Louvin Brothers. From their unironically-titled album Satan is Real. I can’t get enough. Perfect harmonies. Elvis loved them, toured with them in the early days.

“The God That Failed” – Metallica. Head-banging must occur.

“I’ve Got a Dirty, Dirty Feeling” – Elvis Presley. Me too, pal. And it’s your fault.

“Louisiana 1927” – Randy Newman. Ouch. Like I said, have to be careful with this guy. If I’m feeling fragile, he cracks me apart even further. Doing okay now, but … you never know.

“Since I Fell For You” – Nina Simone. I’ve written before about her too, and in similar terms as I just discussed with Randy Newman. She is so freakin’ intense that sometimes I can’t take it, I choose to skip over her. I can’t listen to her passively. She demands involvement, which, of course, is why she is so great. But sometimes I just don’t feel like going there.

“Pills” – Bo Diddley. “A rock and roll nurse …” Hahahaha. The whole song is awesome. Best hospital visit ever.

“One Night” – Elvis Presley, from his 1968 NBC special. One of his oldies, and he had been forced to change the suggestive lyrics back in the day (the song really is about the morning-after a crazy night of sex and sin – and he changed the lyrics so that the “one night” in question was something hoped for, not something that had already gone done … so to speak). Here, he puts the dirty lyrics back in – some of them, the “earth stands still” line is still not there, it’s a mix of the two versions – and you can feel the triumph. The raised middle finger to those who tried to neuter him. It’s a lesson, though, because even with the changed lyrics, he couldn’t BE neutered. And watch him when he sings “I ain’t never did no wrong” – he fucking MEANS that.

“Dream a Little Dream” – Robbie Williams, on his awesome latest, with the best title ever: Swings Both Ways. This is a duet, with Lily Allen. Gorgeous.

“The Man I Love” – Billie Holiday. Live. Ouch.

“Strangers” – The Kinks. Let me take this opportunity to point you to the two pieces my cousin Liam wrote about The Kinks on my site.

“Stone Cold Crazy” – Metallica. Metallica covering Queen? I could not be happier. Really shows the mix of styles, the dovetail that was there organically in the music: Queen doing thrash metal, before thrash metal was even really a thing, and then Metallica covering it, and it sounds like an original Metallica tune.

“Hey Good Lookin'” – Hank Williams. You can’t “make” a star like him. He has to be born.

“Only Our Rivers Run Free” – The Irish Tenors. Oh, shut up, boys.

“How Can I Meet Her?” – The Everly Brothers. The harmonies, they are celestial and earthy at the same time. “She’s always puttin’ onnnnnn ……. airs.”

“My Way” – The Sex Pistols. One of the ballsiest covers ever?

“Heartbreak Hotel” – Elvis Presley. It still stops me in my tracks.

“But It’s Alright” – Huey Lewis & The News, from their really fun and nearly-forgotten album Four Chords and Several Years Ago. Coincidentally, I was in this video, dancing on the first level of the scaffold directly to Huey’s left. Ann Marie and I heard the call for extras on the radio and dropped everything we were doing to go participate. They did our hair 60s style, and it was a long-ass day but super fun, especially considering that Huey Lewis was my very first concert.

And that’s a good place to stop, although the Shuffle continues ad infinitum.