3:33⅓ - Average White Band - Pick Up The Pieces

Man I love this song. It reminds of the movie Swingers. It reminds me of driving around St. Paul age 16 with Martin Devaney and Kevin Hunt' in his mother’s Plymouth Acclaim doing some air saxophone and quoting deep throw away lines from the movie. What a different chapter, what a different life, but man what memories. I’m married. Martin’s married. Kevin’s getting married a week from tomorrow. I remember us wondering what life would be like when we were grown up. I remember us talking about how strange it would be to be at a bar together. I remember the next fifteen years, when it was almost strange to find us together not at a bar or a venue. And now we are grown. Some coffeeshops. Some houses, some parks. Sometimes with kids, sometimes not. But you toss this song on and I’m 16, not knowing all the things that would go better than I could possibly imagine, and not knowing all the things that would be go worse than I could possibly fathom. One time I found some old footage of Heiruspecs on Youtube and I was in the van with Dessa. I shared it with her and she said something simple “all of you so young, no idea how things would turn out”. Such a mixed bag right? A bag significantly more mixed with good, with bad, with the real stuff of life, breakups, disease, eviction, arguments, drug problems, drinking problems, family problems. There’s a clarity to being sixteen. I know there’s a complication, but there’s a clarity too. When I was sixteen this song was the jam. THE JAM. Barely a second place in mind until we found out about Tower of Power. Enjoy that clarity, enjoy that jam.