There was a reason for this
I am sitting in a pub known as The Feathers. It's situated in the Great Yarmouth, England suburb of Gorleston, a place I had called home for nearly a year.That particular day I am in a funk and in an emotional impasse. Soon my wife of the day and I are slated to return to Canada. My emotional angst stems from the fact I do not want to go back. I do not want to rejoin my life as it was. For a number of reasons, including some of which I am not proud, I do not want to rejoin my marriage on the other side of the Atlantic.
I sit quietly nursing my pint of Norwich Castle Bitter and somebody strides over to the jukebox (they had those back in 1981). He inserts a coin and hits his selection. It's Gerry Rafferty's almost agonizingly (for me) poignant piece Baker Street. The saxophone riffs in that song devastate me if I am in a down mood. It also captures so much of what I have been feeling about giving "up the booze and the one-night-stands, and maybe settling down in some quiet little town and forgetting about everything."
Ultimately I did go back to my own little town, and my dog Murphy who inspired me to return more than anything or anyone. I was finding it painfully sad in terms of what had happened to the hopes and dreams of a marriage and a lifestyle. So, dutifully I guess, I went back.
But, ever afterwards a hearing of Baker Street takes me back to that rainy afternoon in a Gorleston pub.
Life is so very much better now, but the pathos still hits.
Life's like that.
Enjoy the music.
Labels: Moments musical
posted by Ian Lidster at
1:16 PM
13 Comments:
Have an awesome weekend Ian.
Music can do that to me too. And life is so hard sometimes. The choices we make, the things we need vs. desire to do.
::Sighs::
We play that track quite often these days because I recently downloaded a lot of oldie classics. That saxaphone makes the track -and it was apparently added at the last minute.
Did you know thatGR has disappeared? Apparently he checked himself out of a drying-out unit last August and has not been seen since.
p.s. - I recently played an old Joni Mitchell track from Blue and - quite out of the blue - burst into tears. I didn't even associate it with a past love or anything like that - it was just memories of youth.
Music can have an amazing impact on us. I like the way you tell stories.
Great song. I have this track on a CD, City to City.
Like French Fancy, I also read about him disappearing. It appears he didn't give up the booze, far from it.
Dear FF and Dumdad. I also read that a friend had ferreted GR out and that he had been in rehab but was decamped afterwards to Kenya or some such. Hope so. Eric Clapgon came back, after all. Also, if he didn't give up the booze, did he give up the one-night-stands. Maybe not.
Lyrics can be so evocative. There are more songs than I can count that take me back to a particular time and event.
I love that song too, it has a very haunting melody. If I'm ever in Great Yarmouth, I shall look out for this pub and think of you.
I don't have a pub memory like the one in Great Yarmouth in my past. But I do have a song that, unbidden, takes me to a painful and regretted place in my past. Blue Rodeo's, "Lost Together". He was married. I was lonely and stupid. Nuff said.
V.
Funny the power songs have to take you back.
I love the fact that Billy Connolly played the banjo with Gerry way back when, before they both became famous.
That song haunts me too. A rainy night in Wellington, NZ when a was but a stripling of sixteen... (no, not a stripper, I said stripling)
I love the fact that Billy Connolly played the banjo with Gerry way back when, before they both became famous.
That song haunts me too. A rainy night in Wellington, NZ when a was but a stripling of sixteen... (no, not a stripper, I said stripling)
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