Last Century Interlude

And on a mission over china
The lady opens up her arms

If you're driving into the city one morning, and the sun is coming up and illuminating buildings and traffic at an angle, and the too-aggressive young men in their pressed blue shirts are perched at the corner next to the girl with the heels and bluejeans, gazing up in sunglasses waiting for the light at the crosswalk to get to work, and you're switching lanes, going past this at a good clip and feeling a little bit thoughtful -

- then a good song to have playing on the CD that moment is "Sweethearts" from Camper Van Beethoven's Key Lime Pie, with it's interplay of fiddle and pedal-steel guitar and sepia-toned imagery of World War Two and it's aftermath, a masterpiece of midtempo alt-rock from the previous century when the Cold War loomed large.

My little brothers discovered this album, and some of the other precious gems from this era, and for me it was some consolation to see the enduring appeal. Few people make music quite this consistently this good anymore. And yet corrupt corporations keep serving up warmed-over crap.