So, we left the story as I assessed the pros and cons of forgoing the big weekend drunk and buying the album, Astral Weeks, at the suggestion of Wild Eyed Fred, and as it turned out, he didn’t need to take a shit; he needed a cigarette.
I bought the album, scurried to The House, and….oh wait….you don’t know about The House…allow me to enlighten you.
The House was a “stately Wayne Manor,” white two-story frat house in Baton Rouge, La. The architecture wasn’t gothic, and there was no cave underneath the House…imagine a cave in south Louisiana…so maybe not “stately Wayne Manor.” But the inhabitants were every bit as looney as the weekly characters on the Batman TV show of the 60s. More on that in another post if I decide to break a couple of oaths about the secret room.
Most of the time there was a real hullabaloo in The House…swearing, poker playing, tall tale telling, tobacco chewing, guitar playing, beer swilling, and whatnot (studying for exams) but on Friday afternoons, right before TGIF and dinner, there was a bit of time when all was still.
I lived up on the second floor and in the fall, a little breeze would blow through the broken window of my room. Shafts of sunlight would illuminate the motes of dust that always seemed about since I hadn’t yet taken Dusting 101, and the breeze would send the motes swirling and dancing…about as perfect a listening environment as one would wish for in a Baton Rouge frat house.
Not really expecting much, I put the record on my Panasonic 8 Track-AM/FM stereo radio-turntable, picked up the album cover as is my want and bit one of the album cover corners. I know that’s weird, but that was my “mark.” I checked out the back of the cover and saw that the sides were not kosher: naming conventions weren’t followed…convention dictated that there was a “Side 1” and a “Side 2.” Here you had “In the Beginning” and “Afterwards.”
Munching on that album non-conformity hors d’oevre, the opening track started playing, and I heard, nay FELT, the opening bass line of the title track, “Astral Weeks.” With that Richard Davis bass line, it seemed that all the youthful cynicism that had accumulated and calcified over time turned to dust, blew away and joined those swirling, dancing motes.
There’s not much to say about that album that others have said more eloquently than I: the music, the musicians who backed up Van, the meanings of the songs and the recording sessions themselves. Regardless, I do want to share some thoughts on the track that meant the most to me, “Sweet Thing.”
Next Month’s Post: “Sweet Thing”
