Rolf Jensen said that the heroes of the 21st century would be storytellers. My favorite musicians are all great storytellers; Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Ray Davies, Robert Earl Keen, Tom Russell, Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash and John Prine; all tell terrific tales. Maybe the greatest of them all though is The Boss. I picked up a bootleg CD a while back in Greenwich Village (yes, I still buy the odd CD!). It was a recording of a concert Bruce gave on November 17, 1990 for the Christic Institute. On this CD he sang a song he wrote called, “The Wish.” I hadn’t heard it before. It’s a lovely song about sons, mothers, nostalgia, dreams and romance. There was a great line, as Bruce remembers dancing in the kitchen with his mom in the 60’s, “well it was me in my Beatle boots, you in pink curlers and matador pants.” And the song ends in the present day with Bruce “taking requests here in the kitchen and playing ‘The Wish’ for his mom.”
The other day I was in my kitchen in Grasmere with a bunch of mates and their wives from the old school days singing and dancing until 3:00am.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
