And once, a long
while ago, she gave an interview to an American magazine in which she described
what it took to get a record in the old days. A new album by Leonard Cohen,
Iggy Pop or The Doors. For every small second it takes you these days, you had
to wake up early in the morning, get on a cold bus upstate, travel many miles,
get out in the afternoon and then, with some luck, there was a chance that the
record store will have the LP that you wanted. After which you travelled back
the same way.
Only happier, much
happier. You got back when it was dark already. And of course there’s no point
in saying that your music-listening experience would differ greatly, and God
knows you would spin the record until it wore off and you knew more about it
than any music hack slagging or praising it in that very same American
magazine. It was your record, you lived with it.
And it was a loving
description. What appealed to me about that interview was that there was no
bitterness in her words. It took guts not to be bitter, but she wasn’t. As
ever, she sang about angels.
