Monday 9 March 2015

Maybe Some People Don't Die

"Pride and Joy" by Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vo23H9J8o8

Of course, like anyone who hears this, I love the lunch-bucket blues of the drummer and the bassist and the lyrics and the singer, the last of whom also plays the guitar, which is the real star of the song, the real pride and joy, the real ass-and-limb mover: it's so warm and fleshy (those pulsing chords sound like they're strumming themselves) and twitchy (the picking follows the code but throws in its own delightful tics). Since I can't hear any other instruments, I'm assuming the players comprise only a trio, but because of that guitar, they sound like a much bigger outfit.

Stevie Ray (some people don't need a surname) probably wrote this song to and for and about a woman, but if you get hypnotized by all those electrified, magical strings, you could be forgiven for fancying the idea that he wrote it to and for and about them. (I used to be in love with a typewriter, so I vote for the ode-to-a-guitar reading.)

Stevie Ray Vaughan has been dead for almost twenty-five years, but this number makes you think that historical fact can't be right. (He's dead? What am I talking about? I just heard him. I just heard "Pride and Joy.")


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