TIME AND LOVE

My eldest gave me a record player for Christmas.  Which I am loving for a lot of reasons.  At some point, I gave him all of my vinyl - and all of my father's vinyl.   Which I am going to get back soon - even though I am not going to go up into his friend Ant's attic to search through all of the hundreds of albums he has stored up there.

In the meantime, I have one album, which is a great album to have if you only have one.  Laura Nyro's New York Tendaberry  Originally released in 1969 - I remember spending hours and hours listening to it, so rich with sound and her vocals soaring through them - like one crazily vocal bird or an entire murmuration.

The lyrics of Time and Love...I am reminded of what a touchstone they have always been for me.  Both then, and hearing them again, now.  A panacea to what we are going through, for sure.

So winter froze the river

And winter birds don't sing

So winter makes you shiver

So time is gonna bring you spring

Time and love

Everybody

Time and love,

Nothing cures like

Time and love

Don't let the devil fool you

Here comes a dove

Nothing cures like Time and love

you been runnin', you been ramblin',

And you don't know what to do

A holy golden wager says

That love will see you through

Time and love

So Jesus was an angel

And mankind broke his wing

But Jesus gave his lifeline

So sacred bells could sing

Time and love

Early on I was able to see her twice in Detroit.  Once at the University of Detroit, in the Memorial Union - which I remember as a gym.  She and her piano were on risers and we sat in the round - I was very, very close to her piano.  It was remarkable.  The other time was at Masonic Temple, also a great venue - but more traditional.

I've missed the rhythm of how an album is set up.  I've missed the kind of focus it requires...and I've even missed having to get up and turn it over.


Happy 2020 to us all.

Those nights when you long to be Ireland

Between the Jigs and the Reels

Between a jig and a reel
what is there?
Only one beat
escaped from a ribcage.

Tunes are migratory
and fly from heart to heart
intimating
that there's a pattern
to life's pulls and draws.

Because what matters to us most
can seldom be told in words
the heart's moods are better charted
in its own language -

the rhythm of Cooley's accordion
which could open a heart of stone,
John Doherty's dark reels
and the tune that the sea taught him,
the high parts of the road and the underworlds
which only music and love can brave
to bring us back to our senses
and on beyond.

Moya Cannon