Cool breeze, birdsong, hot tea at hand, the Sunday paper in front of my face, my love beside me, the cats purring at our feet, a weary world halted at our door and outside our window, a hint of jasmine and the susurration of bamboo leaves. I don’t know if there’s such a thing as perfection, but this is close enough. And so I decided to play Mastodon (one other heavy M, Metallica is currently passe in my world of sound) – you know, just to shake things up a bit. Well, my baby left me and the cats followed her out into the garden, the door to which was shut more firmly than was required – I could hear that even above the mayhem that Troy Sanders and his boys were unleashing. Nah, not an experiment resulting in all-round happiness.

This selection is not the norm at home on a Sunday morning, definitely not on a morning such as this. So I put the paper down and thought up quite a list of ‘Sunday morning’ songs. And from that I just picked 4 songs randomly (ok, I cheated a bit). Don’t ask me why 4. If you come by here regularly, you should’ve realized by now that I’m given to whimsey.

Lyrically the Norah Jones song ‘Good Morning’ from her latest is far from a happy song but I’m not much into lyrics anyway. I primarily react to the music, the lyrics are a happy bonus if they’re good. The sound here has the easy, almost lazy tone that I’ve got used to from Jones. But on this one there’s something more. Each time I hear it, I feel like I’m listening to an LP – there’s just that bit of scratchiness redolent of an era gone by which adds a shot of charm to it.

Louis Armstrong’s ‘What A Wonderful World’ is my lights-out song. Never mind my views on our world but if I can go out to that song, feeling deeply every bit of it, then I’d have gone away with no bitterness. Enough said.

I mentioned earlier that lyrics are secondary to my enjoyment of music. However, they turn into a bonus when I listen to Sting. There are a lot of people out there who derive much pleasure in running his music down but I think he’s one of the cleverest artistes and wordsmiths in the world of popular Western music. And I think a lot of his critics have a problem with that – too clever by half is a comment I read often about him. Where I come from, clever is good and so I enjoy a good deal of his music (mind you, there’s a good deal I find unappealing too). ‘Heavy Cloud No Rain’ from Ten Summoner’s Tales (see that bit about clever?) is just right as we keep an earnest eye on the skies here every day for the much delayed rains to arrive.

I asked my baby if there’d be some way
She said she’d save her love for a rainy day
I look in the sky but I look in vain
Heavy cloud but no rain

I do not know if Len had any other hit but ‘Steal My Sunshine’ rode the airways quite a lot in the very late ‘90s. Now, I’ve seen my friends – even the grim ones – get this smile, you know the goofy, tripped out kind when they’d hear this song. I’ve never caught my own reflection when this song plays but I can imagine it. Not a pretty picture at all, but that doesn’t detract from the fun quotient of this song. Happiness.

On A Cool Sunday Morning.mp3