Buck up…

Jesus, you’re such a sap.

So said an old buddy, whose opinion I hold in very high esteem, when I confessed that a new Christmassy tune and video by songwriter Ray Davies (you know, the Kinks, Swinging London, Lola and all that), Postcard from London (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZbLHTmmPGY) makes me tear up every time I watch it.  It’s a lovely tune.  Shamelessly nostalgic.

And here’s red Christmas-scarfed Ray teaming up with his still glamorous ex-paramour Chrissie Hynde, (Pretenders, et al) making like Bing Crosby crooning with special guest Dinah Shore or Rosemary Clooney on the set of some hokey old Christmas TV special while ancient black and white clips of long ago winter days in old London Town play in the background.  And here’s Ray affectionately flipping through old postcards from friends, his crooked smile angled across his face—he’s older now, like all of us—wistfully remembering things past, pining for a vanished age of innocence when our parents knew exactly what to do and we went sledding on Hampstead Heath.  Or that park district hill in Chicago.

I am a sap. And I suspect Ray is too.  I’m a sucker for melodies that are draped across vanished times and places sung by people I care about.  Or even by people I don’t really care about—like arias in certain operas—like the final trio in Der Rosenkavalier.  Holy smoke, the goosebumps and tears can start to flow.  And the completely sapless, thoroughly rational wife checks her watch—when will this be over?

And I secretly liked the Carpenters.  And ABBA.  Now it can be told.

Another thing. This novel of mine, still-in-progress, Pepperland.  Every time I read certain of parts of it—like the episode where  the old radical girlfriend Sooz reappears unexpectedly in a very strange place—it can happen then.  I get a little shaky. Certainly happened when I wrote it.

It’s a character defect, a flaw of mine.  I need to work on it.  Buck up.  Don’t be such a sap.  Sniff.

Tags: Chrissie Hynde, Kinks, London, Postcard from London, Ray Davies

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 9th, 2009 at 8:58 pm and is filed under Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.