the swell seven: volume ten

brought to you by john denver out of roswell, new mexico.

i know. i said i wasn't going to be doing one of those flashback thingies again. and that i would never disgrace picky's pages with country music.

well, technically, he's classified, at least as barnes & noble's music section is concerned, as pop/rock. i can concede that this is wrong. john denver, lover of all things coloradoan should not be placed in another other section than that there country section, but alas, i don't run the show, now do i? some idiot who's probably never listened to any of john denver's tunes in all his life decided he looked more like an easy-listening bloke. he don't have that there twang and hick look going about him, so he must be like the mamas and the papas and simon and garfunkel, so we'll say he's rock. wrong.

but whatever. that would only tackle one of the things. there's that other. about them there flashbacks.

a decade or so ago ... okay, fine. more than a decade or so ago, we would've been just returned from our trip to colorado and getting ready for a spring semester.

we would've been irritated that school was starting back up, relieved to back in a warmer climate (me and dad) or irritated that we couldn't have stayed longer in the cooler one (the boys and mom).

the best vacation we'd taken there was the one we'd taken two months before he died. everybody loved everbody. everybody had fun. everybody did what they wanted to do. they did not fight. they did not complain. it was NICE. that perfect family trip. the idyllic one that you think will never, ever happen. especially when you've got the spawn of jabba and the wicked queen riding in the same car with you.

so any time i think of colorado, of the cabin, of my mother's family, i recall the times we rode with her in my grandmother's car listening to her music -- helen reddy, ann murray, the carpenters, george strait, randy travis, clint black, garth brooks. my grandmother's musical collection was, shall we say, narrow. eight tracks, folks. do you even remember what those are?

so yeah, driving the ninety minutes or so from her house in grand junction to her cabin in basalt, we would listen to country ... country ... and more country.

but amazingly enough, it never bothered me. i actually liked getting to know my grandmother through her likes.

my grandmother who's been gone now for sixteen years, i think.

and i am so rambling right now. don't even remember what i was going to type for that previous bit.

the seven are thus:

annie's song
the cowboy and the lady
leaving on a jet plane
perhaps love
some days are diamonds

sunshine on my shoulders

san francisco mabel joy

the last isn't denver's. it's mickey newbury's. but i learned of it from denver, and of the versions i've heard, his is best.

no. there's no rocky mountain high on there. nor is there country road take me home. both of which are fine songs. but these are the ones i liked singing along with as a child while we made that ninety mile trek to the river. well most of'm. i suppose i'd've been more inclined to sing country road over perhaps love. but it's pretty. i like it better. so there.

wanna hear (some) of'm? get to the bottom of picky.