Illegal Foreign Object

🎶”Do you remember, 21st night of September?

Love was changing the minds of pretenders

While chasing the clouds away”🎶

As far as poetic depth is concerned, this lyric rates a decent-sized hole in the road to Playa Potrero. Leaves of Grass it ain’t, but show me a single bit of Whitman’s writing that gallops over a Verdine White bass line with the same style and flair. 

I’ll wait.

See, you can’t.

Besides, people confuse “deep” with “impossible to read” all the time. There’s an art to succinctly summing up one’s summonings, and “feel” will always mean more to me than anything else where art is concerned. With that said, I’m a lieutenant colonel in the “hubcap diamond star halo” literary army, so what do I know?

🎶”Our hearts were ringing

In the key that our souls were singing

As we danced in the night

Remember

How the stars stole the night away”🎶

“Our hearts were ringing in the key that our souls were singing.” That’s such a beautiful line. Simple and effective, like a hammer to a nail. It’s a lyric that says a million things in just twelve words.

It’ll sound corny, but love really is it. Being loved, being in love, loving friends and family, loving a pet, loving yourself, it’s just so goddamn special when you take a second to think about it. The weight of love — it’s such a heavy, fulfilling thing.

I told you it’d sound corny, but I’m decades removed from worrying much about how I’m perceived. A heart on my sleeve is the only life for me (yo-ho-ho and a pint of Brass Monkey).

Earth, Wind & Fire’s “September” debuted in 1978 on the band’s greatest hits album, The Best of Earth, Wind & Fire, Vol. 1. A few of the songs on the album conjure great memories from my youth. “Got To Get You Into My Life”, a Beatles cover that was originally an “ode to pot” according to Paul McCartney, and “Shining Star” take me back to my autograph-snagging days in Arlington Stadium. I’d spend all day chasing down signatures from or moments with any ballplayer willing to give me a bit of his time, including personal favorites Kirby Puckett, George Brett, and Dave Henderson. The summer sun didn’t hit like it does in my forties.

Fun fact about the “Ba-dee-ya” part of “September”: co-writer Allee Willis hated it and begged Maurice White to rewrite it. “I just said, ‘What the fuck does ‘ba-dee-ya’ mean?’ And he essentially said, ‘Who the fuck cares?’ I learned my greatest lesson ever in songwriting from him, which was never let the lyric get in the way of the groove.” Almost ten years later, the System‘s synthpop gods David Frank and Mic Murphy took the lesson to heart.

Does the numerical synchronicity of the day make today any more significant than, say, tomorrow? Not really, no. I could’ve posted this on any other day of the year, and it wouldn’t have changed the vibe (or the groove, as it were). But I didn’t (and since you’re reading this, it guarantees that you and I were here for at least part of today). With none of us guaranteed tomorrow until, well, tomorrow, I figure that makes it significant all by itself, no?

Track List:

1. Got To Get You Into My Life 10/10
2. Fantasy 10/10
3. Can’t Hide Love 10/10
4. Love Music 10/10
5. Getaway 9/10
6. That’s The Way Of The World 9/10
7. September 10/10
8. Shining Star 10/10
9. Reasons 8/10
10. Sing A Song 9/10

Grade: 95