05 - The Sunlight Really Shows Your Age

So here's the idea.  Feature a song a day for every day of the most magnificent season of Autumn.  The songs are ones that capture the thoughts/ideas/images/feelings of the season for me.  It's my "Autumnal Playlist" if you will.

As the opening of the BBC show "The Mighty Boosh," says:

Come with us now on a journey through time and space...

Come back with me to a time before time.  At least for me.  Because I wasn't born in 1971 when this song debuted.

Song 05/Day 05

Today's Song: the classic Rod Stewart track, "Maggie May," off the album Every Picture Tells a Story.

This song came onto my radar in early 2007 when I saw the movie, Lords of Dogtown.  In the last few scenes we see Heath Ledger's character, Skip Engblom, working on a surfboard as the guitar intro (called Henry) plays over a radio...leading into the full song that Skip starts to sing along with.  There was something in that scene and the way the song worked into it that just capped off that movie for me.  I don't remember details from it, as I've only watched it that one time, but that song/scene stuck with me.  I downloaded the song shortly after the movie was over.

I don't know exactly why this song makes me think of Autumn.  Perhaps because in the movie, set in California, it was sunny and warm (which means Summer to me) and the sound of that intro which reminds me of the Christmas Carol "Good King Wenceslas," so the song must merges from Summer to Winter and voilà, Autumn!

I know that isn't the best reason.  Then again the lyrics do say:

It's late September and I really should be back at school

So there.

There is something to it, a kind of driven aimlessness, that makes me think of wandering through the woods and camping.  You know, with something on a little grill and tents, and your friend who is "that guy" with his guitar trying to mimic the opening notes.  Food, folks, and fun!

Now, the song is not about any of the above.  There is little interpretation needed for what the song is really about.  So we'll just leave that alone.  There is a wandering spirit to this song, with the lyrics, instrumentation, and just overall feel.  I'm pretty sure I'm a wandering soul myself.  And that wanderlust takes hold more than ever in Autumn.  (If you haven't caught an unintentional theme in the previous posts...ie...traveling, journey, searches...well, it's there.)

So despite the heavier actual content of the lyrics of the song, it has a happy rambling drawl to it.  And that's what I feel now in this first week of the most blessed of seasons.  Not the heavy part, but the happy rambling drawl...although I don't know how one feels a 'drawl.'  Perhaps I should step away from the keyboard.  Slowly.

Take it or leave it, that's Day 05/Song 05 - Maggie May by Rod Stewart

enjoy!
-Jesse