When Tamara and I got together we spent a lot of time just talking and listening to records.  Records as in vinyl.  The other day we saw some beautiful re-issued suitcase record players.  The kind that littered schools and kids’ bedrooms and were discounted as garbage rather than appreciated for their clever designs and post-industrial use of materials.  They made us both miss vinyl, even though I don’t want to get up and flip the record every twenty minutes, it was just a nice nostalgia to share.

But our copy of Blue by Joni Mitchell was epic.  When I hear the album streamed through the house digitally my ears sense that something is amiss. My ears are searching for the pops and noise of the vinyl and the cool young familiarity of it all.  But it isn’t there.  From first track to the last, Blue was such an experience.  The song River has always been a favorite.  It still weirds me out that the song is cast as a Christmas song because of the lines, “It’s coming on Christmas, They’re cutting down trees, putting up holly and singing songs of joy and peace.  Oh I wish I had a River I could skate away on”.  Sure, the trappings of the holiday are there to set a stage but the song is about a failure to uphold love.  It is a mournful, romantic song.  But I love this song and so I am willing to play along if it gets to count as one more feather in my Christmas cap this season.

If life had a pause button I would totally rebuild this song and work it out in a key better suited to my voice.  There are some cringe-worthy bits and pieces of pitch, timing, and sloppy recording skills, but it was a lot of fun to make.  I actually recorded it at the beginning of the month but I have finally had to dip into my stash of extra recordings since I haven’t had time to sit around and yodel about lately.

River


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