So great to hear this song again. It always makes me think of my dad. We shared this album at a time in life when we were sharing music, ideas, and laughter. He loved this song and played the album I gave him again and again. He made a tape and played it in his car. We would talk about the songs on the album. Does anyone do that any more? Long discussions about record albums. When the names of great songwriters are mentioned, many leave out Fred Neil. Wrote great hits for quite a few and if you listen to this version a few times you hear some magic...I love Nilsson's version but this one is very cool. A friend of a friend told me that Fred was notorious for taking his royalty checks and throwing parties for his friends until it was gone then he'd be broke till the next round of checks came in. I first heard this song from my boyfriend at the time, David. David had an entirely different musical taste from me. I was into Classical music, show tunes, and top 40 on the radio. I wasn't so interested in the acid rock and other genres that were evolving in the 60s. David knew of artists and musical styles I'd never been exposed to. The Youngbloods, Blues, Dylan, Cohen - and, of course, Fred Neil. David and I had a long relationship that was part magic, part lies and fairy dust and the other dusty heartbreaks that were part of life in the 60s and 70s. I wish him well, as I'm sure he does me, as we gave each others so many gifts in the course of our path together. One of the gifts is this song.
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"You have to go on and be crazy. Craziness is like heaven." Jimi Hendrix
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"To understand the world, you must first understand a place like Mississippi." William Faulkner +
[From my blog "Quidnunc" which is mostly a record of why I am the way I am]
