Not that industrial rock (if that’s that term) album that turned up a while back, but a different arrangement (not sure about that word either) of a song I really thought I knew. It’s like that slowed-down “Born in the USA”—you hear the song all over again for the first time. Pretty excellent. And? Back when Waylon died, this was when we all still had answering machines with actual little micro-cassettes in them. Mine that day was stuffed full, everybody calling to ask was I all right; I’d spent a chunk of the nineties chasing Waylon around. Which is to say: after high school, I liked to fantasize that, given a different set of circumstances, I could be the one up there, with my name tooled into my guitar strap. Never mind musical ability, dues, all that. We were both from West Texas. Waylon was proof of a bigger world out there, proof you could go there, but take who you were with you. I kind of suspect that’s a big part of falling in love with music. It gives you space to dream. It gives license, and voice—and melody—to your secret dreams, that you probably wouldn’t even admit to out loud. That’s what Waylon was for me. Anyway, didn’t mean to be saying all that. Just meant to show this:
