8:36

W and I, early on in these seven years committed, found instant common ground with our love of music. It's been a wonderful generational crossover of sharing. She's made me many playlists of songs not that new, but new to me. I've still not worn out their welcome, listening as often as I do. I've in turn introduced her not to the artists of my generation so much, but to the depth of the stories they tell and footprints they left us. She readily agrees that my parents' Great American Songbook as well as my Era's richness, have had no rivals since.

As much as I love Don McLean’s Vincent, which W shared last evening in a private social media group, it’s his American Pie that makes me turn mushy from the nostalgia. 

It was 1972 when the song skyrocketed and I was on a short trip to Europe with someone who would become a future mistake. Driving a rental, we were in Belgium on the way to Paris, and we picked up a hitchhiker. She asked us to take a very short detour to her house in Brussels for her to pick up a few extra things, lunch offered in exchange. Just writing this paragraph feels like a jarring slap in the face; how different our countries are today, how little peace & love prevail. 

I still have a photo, a slide actually, that I took with the heavy camera I had lugged along with my backpack. The shot is of this young girl's elderly neighbor who had dozed off in a garden chair set among sparse but peaceful greenery shared by the small homes.  If I’m remembering accurately, there was a rose bush. Maybe more than one. Maybe pink.

I don’t remember anything about the lunch except our very long conversation explaining the very long song, American Pie. The US Billboard hit had also made it to Europe and this young girl was gaga over it. We totally blew her mind (you might say) explaining all we knew about the true meanings of the creative and powerful lyrics which have since been clarified by McLean himself. Lyrics of a personal nature to him and his faith, about musical leaders and a cultural revolution, they continue to be dissected by fans today. Forever chilling whatever their meaning: 
Bad news on the doorstep, When the jester sang for the king and queen, Helter Skelter in a summer swelter, The marching band refused to yield,  A generation lost in space, I met a girl who sang the blues, I went down to the sacred store, The lovers cried and the poets dreamed, And the three men I admire most... 

McLean told of the times as grandly as Dylan and Joni did, artists W now knows well, and tho she can’t have nostalgia for them as I do, she digs them (you might also say).  Not American Pie tho, somehow for her, there was a day that song died. 

They were singin', bye-bye, Miss American Pie
Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry
Them good ol'boys were drinkin' whiskey and rye
Singin', "This'll be the day that I die"