All the songs I haven't heard

What a difference 24 hours can make. This morning it's only 59° (15° C) with low fog-like cloud cover and just enough wind to keep the trees jostling their limbs like the impatient foot tapping of people waiting at a crowded DMV office. Yesterday forecast a high in the upper 80’s for today, now the forecast calls for a high of 77° (25°C). Top down again this morning, but only because I'm like the dog who just wants his nose in the breeze when the car is in motion.

One of the tasks this blog serves is to capture the random playlists shuffled up from my music collection.  While that collection is a wide-ranging jumble of genres gathered over many years of musical fascination even these random shuffles of tunes bring only music I already know. So it's good to find ways to continue discovering new musicians and music.

That importance was reinforced to me just last night as Melissa and I pulled up Iris Dement's When My Morning Comes Around just to listen to it again after one of us referenced it in a conversation we were having. I have to thank our local independent public radio station (KSER 90.7 FM) for this "discovery" a number of years ago. Having been raised on a steady diet of Country & Western music growing up I confess that there isn't a lot of it in my own music collection, that particular itch having been well scratched before I reached adulthood. Had KSER not included her tune The Way I Should in their eclectic music stream that morning I probably would never have come across her.

Album Cover, Amazon.com

The first time I heard her voice, both simultaneously powerful and fragile, and the beautiful lyrics she weaves into her very compelling melodies I knew I had to hear more.  When My Morning Comes Around remains one of my favorite tunes by her or any other artist.  Garrison Keillor is quoted as saying of it, "I heard this sung at a memorial service and even people who didn't intend to cry, cried when they heard it."

The song starts out:

When my mornin' comes around, no one else will be there

so I won't have to worry about what I'm supposed to say

and I alone will know that I climbed that great big mountain 

andthat's all that will matter when my mornin' comes around 

When my mornin' comes around, I will look back on this valley

at these sidewalks and alleys where I lingered for so long

and this place where I now live will burn to ash and cinder

like some ghost I won't remember

When my mornin' comes around

You can listen to a solo acoustic live performance of the song here, but do try and listen to the recorded version (the album at iTunes: The Way I Should) because the additional instrumentation is very, very beautiful.

When I hear this song and think I might never have heard it had I not allowed myself to wander outside my normal listening experience I wonder what else I am missing.  All those songs I have never heard, all those musicians and lyric poets undiscovered (by me).  There is clearly much still to look forward to finding.

Today's Playlist:

 - Ron Adfif Trio: A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square
 - Perla Batalla: Famous Blue Raincoat
 - Sigur Rós: Samskeyti (Live)
 - Cake: Where Would I Be
 - Tingstad & Rumbel: Empire Builder
 - Fountains of Wayne: Killermont Street
 - Nils Krogh: All I Want