OF A GOLDEN AGE

music is one of the things i can always use to ground myself when stress steals my gravity away. today i made a playlist of upbeat songs (“get rhythm” by johnny cash, “country song” by pure prairie league, “19th nervous breakdown” by the rolling stones, “it ain’t me babe” by the turtles, and so on), put it on loud, and jumped around a little. my math class ended today; i handed in eighteen pages of papers yesterday; and my work at this point has dramatically tapered off — it was time for something both distracting and mentally cleansing.

a friend of mine is making mix cds for people based on prompts they gave him. mine was an anne lamott quote, which is, of course, an enormous surprise. (that is a joke because if i were any religion it would be lamottism.) another friend chose “songs to steal by,” which we were brainstorming tonight. he sent me a goofy latin-flavored cover of “drive my car,” and mentioned in passing the stevie wonder cover of “we can work it out.”

BACK UP. that song is not only one of my favorite songs of all time but definitely, without question, my favorite cover. stevie wonder pumps so much feeling into the music — especially for a song that is already so heartfelt! — that i want to work it out.

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