Contributed by guest blogger Lisa Mercurio
They taught us how to dance, but they also taught us how to move and more importantly, how to “feel,” which is why certain songs (call them nostalgia tracks, classic oldies, goodies, favorites or even your mother’s music!), are the real deal. Locked in my childhood or fantasizing about my teenage years? Maybe, but somehow, the “stuff,” I’m hearing these days doesn’t stick to me the way it used to. We spent endless hours listening to Sides A and B of Boz Scaggs, Silk Degrees.
Lowdown. Doing the “Lido Shuffle,” and dreaming to “Georgia,” we thought we were so hot that we were cool. Our bodies moved and we couldn’t get enough of it…just a couple of sixteen year old girls showing each other how to “line dance” and “freestyle,” and hopefully, imagining how to capture that slow dance at the prom….(just what would it be like dancing on the beach?) “Georgia….your Daddy was high the night he dreamed of you…” What was Boz thinking when he wrote that line? Did it matter? You bet. Play it again. And play it again. Boz Scaggs. What a name! Who knew? Where did he come from? But he had the rare ability to be soulful; to capture an original sound and rhythm, and to force us to dance and forget tomorrow’s breakouts and break ups all on one album. Imagine: 8 or 9 tracks and every one of them, a hit. Ear worms. Tunes that crawled in and lived on and on until you moved through them. I cannot remember the last time one artist made me dance and sing along, and, obsess about the words.
I’m grateful for those times, because if looking out my window cannot bring me back, the magic of the rhythm and the melody as they wrote it then, can still carry me away. “Why can’t you just get it through your head, it’s over, it’s over now…” Really? Well, maybe those days of dance and sun and friendships are over, but at least I know his “silk degrees” live forever in my heart.
Recommended:
Silk Degrees
Links:
Boz Scaggs