prematurely grey

There’s a LOT going on with this SOTD–a lot. First of all, I was so happy and excited when driving to Auto Zone yesterday and John A. was going through the birthday list and landed on Gordon Lightfoot. Gordon Lightfoot turned 67 yesterday–happy birthday, Gordon.Why was I so happy? Well, I’m really starting to think that there might be some kind of intelligent design to my listening pleasure and this SOTD practice. The happiness was the possibility that my longing for “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” combined with my patience in waiting for it, might have actually been rewarded.

Why, you may ask, was I longing for “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald?” Good question. I have been longing to hear “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” since November 10th, when John A. reminded us that it was the 30th anniversary of the actual wreck. I was hoping to hear the song that day, so it would be SOTD, and I could write about it. But there we go right for the slippery slope of my personal agency in the entire SOTD endeavor. If I want to hear it, can it be a Song of the Day? Can I will the radio to play what I want? Could we ever allow something played in the random change up function of iTunes a SOTD, or does the fact that it’s already in my possession kind of negate it? By that token, does me turning on the radio do something? Should SOTD be forced to its original state of childhood innocence, when all my SOTDs came from passing cars and guys on delivery bikes pedalling to tiny transistors full of salsa throughout the Upper East Side?

As if to save me from pondering these questions, I didn’t hear “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” on the anniversary of the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. For a week, it was kind, out of ear, out of mind. But then, on Wednesday, when I was driving around delivering things to the school (why do I drive to that school so often, and why, today, when I have made an arrangement for someone else to drive to that school and deliver the girls on the doorstep, am I contemplating driving over there for pick up anyway?), I heard the tail end of Brian Beck’s infamous Coffee Break Concert on KGSR at 10:30. Gordon Lightfoot’s “Sundown”–just the last minute. Then Brian announced that he’d played “If You Could Read My Mind,” which may be my favorite Gordon Lightfoot song (as if I really have a favorite Gordon Lightfoot song–the idea has never crossed my mind until now–or maybe once on a very long drive).

I wondered if a song could be the SOTD even if I didn’t hear it, if it was just on my mind. That was during the “Bruce Springsteen Fantasy SOTD” period earlier this week. I hadn’t really heard “She’s the One;” I just obsessed about it as the perfect SOTD. Anyway, I’d heard “Not Fade Away” earlier that morning and knew that it was in fact SOTD, so the point was pretty much moot, even though I thought about it constantly.

So, when driving on my favorite road in Austin in search of an antifreeze solution, the news of Gordon’s 67th was really cause for celebration. I pulled into the Auto Zone parking lot and listened. It has to be the gloomiest song I’ve ever owned on 45. Yes, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” belongs to that very special and select group of songs that I bought in the fall of 1976 that formed my first true record collection. I’d bought Wings at the Speed of Sound the previous spring, the first album I bought with my own money, but these fall of 7th grade singles, well, they said something about who I was. I was the girl who’d buy “Rock’n Me” before everyone else jumped on the Steve Miller bandwagon with “Fly Like an Eagle.” That “The Theme from “S.W.A.T.” was a great family favorite. That it was good there was an elevator shaft between our living room and the apartment next door.

Here’s the reason I’ve really been hoping “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” could be SOTD: I want to make my friend Ruth laugh. I hope she laughed the second she heard “the big lake they call Gitchee Gumee” in her head. I hope she laughs because this is the most idiotic song that was a pop hit of our shared NYC radio youths. Hard as it is to believe, she reads this craziness and comments on it occasionally. Other than Chris, I think she’s the only person who’s read it more than once. Ruth loaned me all the Time-Life Sounds of the Seventies CDs recently. She calls me whenever she hears insanely bad music from our youth.

Why would two over-extended, newly middle-aged women call each other about bad songs on the radio?

Because we have no choice.

So this SOTD goes out to you, Ruth. It’s a sign that good things come to those who wait, to keep in there, even when you want to bail out, that dirges can be hits, that Gordon Lightfoot has made it 67 years, that we should stay off Lake Superior in November, and that listening to the radio has its rewards, despite the doubts it raises song after shitty song.