A dance to the music of time
This is the time when everybody and her cousin is showering you with lists of the best and the worst of what's happened during the past year and with predictions or anticipations concerning the year to come. Do I want to add to this mountain? Readers, I do not. Instead I shall emphasize certain patterns of recurrence, focusing on the shapes we give to time. And I shall do this with a musical accompaniment.
Here goes
1. Tanya Tucker sees in the first month of the year with 'The Jamestown Ferry': 'It's not a hot day in January...'
2. Nat King Cole understands the general concept in 'Shine On Harvest Moon': 'I ain't had no lovin'/Since January, February, June or July.'
3. Next we're on to the 'Winds of March': as in 'You came like the winds of March...'
4. Ella Fitzgerald celebrates 'April in Paris': she 'never missed a warm embrace/Till April in Paris...'
5. Pat Boone offers you some 'Friendly Persuasion': 'More than the buds on the May apple tree' he loves thee.
6. In 'June Is Busting Out All Over', you'll find that June is busting out all over - and over.
7. Sinatra and Crosby take us into the second half of the year with 'Well, Did You Evah?': 'Have you heard? It's in the stars/Next July we collide with Mars.'
8. Two other guys sing about an 'August Day': yup, that's an August day.
9. Here's Sinatra again, with a younger and hairier companion, on 'September Song': the days 'grow short when you reach September'.
10. U2 follow up with 'October': it's when 'the trees are stripped bare', October.
11. And, next thing you know, it's 'November Rain': cold November rain.
12. I'll give Merle Haggard the last word in this run-through of the months. He's singing 'If We Make It Through December': if they make it through December, he's 'got plans to be in a warmer town come summer time'.
Talking of which, let me now take you through the four seasons
13. The logical place to begin is in winter. Johnny Mathis is in a 'Winter Wonderland'.
14. If winter comes, can spring be far behind? 'Spring Spring Spring' (five and a half minutes in).
15. Then it's 'Hot town, summer in the city'.
16. And Ol' Blue Eyes again, as only he can, with 'Autumn Leaves'.
From the shape of the year to the shape of the week
17. 'Splish splash, I was taking a bath/Long about a Saturday night'
18. 'Sunday mornin' comin' down'
19. 'Monday Monday, can't trust that day'
21. 'I'd be there on Wednesday night'
22. 'Thursday night your stockings needed mending'
23. 'I got to Kansas City on a Frid'y'
The shape of the day
24. 'Gonna rock around the clock tonight'
25. The Darkest Hour Is Just Before Dawn
31. Fred and Ginger dance one: Night and Day
And then some
33. Today I Started Loving You Again
38. 'We may never never meet again, on that bumpy road to love...'
39. 'Sometimes I wonder why I spend/The lonely night dreaming of a song...'
40. You Were Always On My Mind
It's a musical extravaganza, friends - assembled by me, just for you. Happy New Year!
