Friday, January 28, 2011

Gotta Put a Post Up, Preferably a Mood Enhancer

It's not like I often suffer writer's block, but today I have been preoccupied with the news from Egypt, and the nagging fear that the U.S. State Department will intervene in a spectacularly wrong-headed way. I think I need a mood enhancer... a breath of tropical warmth would do on a cold night, while the mountains of snow from yesterday's THUNDERSNOW!!!! harden into dirty gray hillocks. The song Sweet and Dandy by Toots and the Maytals never fails to raise a smile. The song, sweetly sung in patois, is a simple tale, of Ete and Johnson being gently chided for pre-wedding jitters by their families. A truncated version of the song was featured in the movie The Harder They Come. I'm embedding a version with the intro: My favorite thing about the song is its theme of ordinary people living life well, even though they're not wealthy. I remember talking to the server at a local coffee shop about music, and he ended up playing this on the stereo four times in a row. Luckily, the place wasn't crowded, because our singing along with the disc would have driven away the other customers.

3 comments:

  1. It's the authentic "Ob-La-Di ..." & a personal fave.

    I've managed to see Toots in the flesh twice, mostly 'cause, not being a superstar, he played sensible venues.

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  2. I've had something stuck in my edit for a few days, myself. It gets to the point where one thinks, "Should I even bother with it?"

    Maybe a song is the answer...
    ~

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  3. If the thundersnow don't get ya, the dirty hillocks will!

    It's the authentic "Ob-La-Di ..." & a personal fave.

    How could anyone not fall instantly in love with this song? Toots is an international treasure.

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