Life’s too short

Finally someone has written a song called ‘Life’s too short’, my own personal Older Than Elvis motto.

Actually they wrote it a long time ago. The record by the Lafayettes was apparently released in this country in 1962, when I was (I promise) a very small child. I finally discovered it last week courtesy of Brian Eno.

Someone at BBC4 decided that last Friday was going to be Brian Eno night. Eno has a reputation as a rock intellectual so I’m pleased to say that I learned three interesting things from the Arena documentary: 1. Brian Eno wrote the theme tune for Arena. 2. Suffolk looks very nice. 3. He loves this record.

I love it too. I also love the fact that some rock’n’rollers have subverted YouTube from a medium for sharing videos to a medium for sharing their record collections. You won’t find anything this good on Spotify.

Singles going steady

Maybe it’s a bit late for a new year resolution, but this year has been slow getting started. Something to do with the snow, I expect. So here’s mine: this year I will listen to more music.

There was a time when I would put on a record as soon as I got up; put on another as soon as I got home; spend all evening with the radio on. I don’t remember how it stopped. I think it was something to do with silence becoming more precious (see No Music Day). Losing silence was bad. But so was losing music. I think I want it back.