Musings of an old git

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Stephynbouby
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Joined: Tue Dec 24, 2024 7:33 am

Musings of an old git

Post by Stephynbouby »

As I’m writing this, I’m listening to Elusive Butterfly – what else!

I first heard the song as a 13 year old way back in ’66.

Before I continue, I need to point out that I’m a Brit and before anyone complains, it wasn’t my fault that I had the misfortune to be born in the UK. Sometimes, life is unfair. It just is. Anyways, movin’ on.

Back in those days, lots of bands and singers churned out what they laughingly referred to as ‘music’ by the yard, just like today in fact. Nothing changes it seems. Bob’s Elusive Butterfly was different. Even as a 13 year old, I had the presence of mind to understand that this song was very, very special. It somehow struck a chord with a whole generation. It reached the parts of the brain that no other song before it, or since, has reached. It, quite simply, was the best song ever written and ever likely to be written by someone other than Bob. Had I written Elusive Butterfly, I would go to my grave a happy man knowing that I’d left a generation in a better place. No one growing up at the time can forget that song. To be unaffected by it, one would either have to be deaf or have a heart of stone.

I, rather naively, believed that Bob would produce more songs of the calibre of Elusive Butterfly. In the UK, we waited and waited. Sadly, it didn’t happen. Back in those days, we didn’t have Google, or the Internet, or PCs to allow us to simply enter: ‘When is Bob Lind planning to release his next song?’ or ‘When is Bob Lind coming to the UK?’. Living out in the boonies, we didn’t find out Jack Shit until it was too late to do anything about it. Someone once asked me what the village that I lived in was planning to do for the Millennium, remember that? I said that we were all going on to the village green to hold hands and see if we could contact the living. You think that I jest? I jest not.

Then, LIFE happened.

I went to University, got married, had kids, got the mortgage, paid the bills yada, yada. I took up listening to heavy metal to drown out the silence from decent singers/song writers such as Bob.

Now, my kids have kids. They are currently living on other planets, or so it seems.

I’m still that teenager kid inside. Outside, there’s the face and body of this old twat. Jeez man, it’s scary. Where did my life go?

At least Bob is still with us – unlike Bowie, Lemmy, Frey et al who sadly passed away recently.

If Bob reads this, I’d say, ‘Bob, you wrote the best song that has ever been written. A generation remembers it. It gave us a soul. Bless you for that.’
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