"Way Back Home" Junior Walker and the All Stars- The Ultimate Jr. Walker & The All Stars

I lived almost seven years of my life in various parts of the south. Did I like it? Sometimes. Was it a different world that did possess myriad of great things? You bet. I'll tell you though, as a Catholic from the north, the Civil War is still going on in some of those deep southern parts. I can't imagine just how terrible it was to have much darker skin down there back in the day, and even now. Dealing with such a problem on a daily basis can do one of two things to a man, chisel him to a hardened, bitter person or provide an education on how bad things can really get and learn not to worry about the little trials in life.

Junior Walker's first line "Oh, there's good and bad things about the South, boy Oh, and some leave a bitter taste In my mouth, now." Speaks to those darker issues within the South's psyche. Junior digresses to much more pleasant issues.

Remember how excited you used to be to wear shorts for the first time? The first time of the season you hear the ice man's truck meandering through the blocks of your neighborhood, fireflies, trips to the beach, meeting up with you friends and causing a little trouble by playing manhunt in the neighbors yard? Then as the summer progressed and it got hotter and hotter, Little League would be over and almost daily your parents would drive you down to the beach where you'd exhaust yourself in the sun and sand until the sun set and the fireworks would break open the sky until you'd pass out from exhaustion? Towards the end of summer you'd get this sinking feeling in your stomach because you knew school was right around the corner, you'd dread Labor Day and wonder why everyone would have picnics and party because it was not cause for celebration, rather it was a wake for the summer?

We all remember it, and even a little black boy from the south in the fifties has remarkable memories of the summer. In hearing this song one can help but open up the drawer and look to see if the shorts are there, waiting to be released, and while the times had now as an adult in the summer are slightly different there's still that magic that comes from the smells of fresh cut grass, the burning of your skin in August sun and the dread that develops every Sunday when its time for school again.

"Handle With Care" Traveling Wilburys-Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1

Bob Dylan's home studio in Malibu has certainly had some music history echo through its walls, but on one particular day a bunch of musicians came together, just some friends, no big deal. George Harrison, Roy Orbison and Jeff Lynne, you know just a few of the boys. Turns out George left his guitar at his house and made a run back for it, he returned with the axe and another random; Tom Petty. They came together to add some back up to George's song B side of "This is Love", just a B side that no one would listen to in the long run. However the studio deemed that the song "Handle With Care" was simply too good to be released as a B side to a single. With that the band was born, their first album of which this track appeared on was part of the soundtrack to my childhood.

My Dad would play it over and over in the car, I loved it. I loved how in one of the songs "Tweeter and the Monkey Man" there were curses and I could sing them without getting yelled at. I loved on the track "Dirty World" that I knew (well kinda) what they were singing about and that I could sing it because Dad probably didn't think I knew what it was about (in retrospect I'm sure he did but kept that unspoken: "I know you know, you know I know you know, lets not admit it and keep things the way the should be."

Throughout college I mostly forgot about the album and even afterwards it remained in the case for years, unplayed and untouched. But one day I discovered it again and started playing it in the car, around that time I met a woman to take the passenger seat next to me. To my surprise she loved it and we'd drive around town either in her or my car singing the tracks with the windows down. Before we had met I was hurting pretty bad inside, loneliness was dragging me down and a bad start at a new job at work had me feeling much shorter than my six foot three inches. For what I would eventually find out, she was hurting in a lot of ways herself. And I remember her singing Roy's refrain I'm so tired of being lonely, I still have some love to give...while she looked up, her head slightly cocked and tilted to the sky. It sounded as true as anything I have ever heard and could tell that she couldn't look at me because the confidence to ask that question to my face was just not there. But I knew what she was asking and answered as anyone who is sitting there looking at such a beautiful looking, heartfelt, adorable woman could only answer.

I haven't been writing much on this blog lately, in truth it has been such a hard past few months of personal problems, money problems, computer problems...and just about everything that could go wrong has. But today this song came on at random while I was in the shower and I started singing. It's been years since I've sung in the shower when before those years it was a daily event. While singing I contemplated why I haven't and didn't like what I was seeing, until I saw once again her singing in the car driving around town. Man, it was pure poetry on a thousand different levels and its been in my head ever since. Christmas time is either the very most worst time of year or the most joyous. For the past four years my Christmas has been the worst, this year was gonna be five in a row with this one taking the cake for the most evil of the five. But, I don't know, it might just be looking up.