I'm aware that I haven't posted for a couple of weeks. This hasn't been because I haven't been listening to and appreciating music in the catholic manner that I've adopted for most of my life.
By 'catholic' I don't mean this ...
.... although I do love listening to Gregorian chants and various Latin hymns, but I mean 'catholic' in the dictionary meaning, not the catechismal one.
I like a wide range of music with appreciation being fluid through time and place. Every now and then I discover new music or rediscover 'old' music that has been meaningful to me and, guess what - it usually still is.
This evening, when searching for something else, I found Steve Marriott's (Small Faces) 'Afterglow Of Your Love' song (1968) which he wrote as a tribute to his wife Jenny Rylance. It's a beautiful song of time, place and sentiment and no doubt will have resonance with everyone who has a pulse.
For me, it immediately brought back time and place which, in 1968, was secondary school in the 5th form (5P) in the prefabs that were just behind (to the west) the science lab block. Readers of this and connected blogs will be aware that the writer of Richard (of RBB), a kind of music blog, got all confused about the locations of the various pre-fab classrooms around the science block. The 3P and 3G classrooms were to the east of the block and not beneath it. Beneath it was an open space and, no surprises here, a couple of staircases that provide access to the two science classrooms above.
Anyway, I digress.
I was a great fan of Small Faces then and still am although I hardly listen to the music now. When I do I'm always pleasantly surprised at and rewarded by the great lyrics and song structures. Inspired by listening to 'Afterglow Of Your Love' I then quickly found this, 'The Autumn Stone,' (1968) another Steve Marriott composition.
It's another lovely and lyrical love song like 'Afterglow' and you can read into it Marriott's infatuation with Jenny Rylance.
"I was nowhere
Till you changed my mind
Love is sent through being good to you
Then you were somewhere
Somewhere hard to find
Only what you always were, it's true
I'm looking for an open door
Where I can sit, and play in peace with you
Tomorrow changes
Fields of green today
Yesterday is dead, but not my memory
We were strangers
And then you came to stay
The sweetest spring dawn morning sings to me
So now I've found a living sound
That moves, that breathes and then makes love to me"
In 1968 and 1969 I was infatuated with a girl, Tina, and the song 'struck a chord' with me.
Ten years later I was infatuated with a woman and the song and the lyrics again fitted perfectly.
"I was nowhere
Till you changed my mind"
Twenty years later when I met The Old Girl the song and lyrics were again a match as fresh as if they'd been just written. Time and place and sentiment. Long may these things last.
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