Positively Positronic Street
I had the thought of writing a post about the FCC's new redesigned website "FCC Reboot". There is a lot going on there, though. There is a lot going on with the FCC in general. Many articles to read. I find myself deep in the weeds. So I decided to cast about for something else to put up here in the meantime. The moral equivalent of listening to musak while your phone call is on hold.
For many years, probably thirty-five or more a short measure of a song has rattled about my consciousness. Which I've never been able to place. I suspect I have several similar half-remembered things, but when they are not with you it's impossible to recall and deal with them. This one was a song played on a Boston area radio station in the mid Seventies perhaps in conjunction with an interview of the band. I was in middle school at the time most likely. I don't recall understanding any part of this song at the time. Every so often ever since, I will say what lines I remember to others, attempting the snippet of melody also. Both of which have dissipated over time. Generally this only causes people to back away from me slowly in a straight line keeping their eyes on me with side glances towards the exits. As they tell me in a calm and even voice that I might be imagining the whole thing. At least once or twice in the modern "internet" era I've typed what I recalled into a search engine and got no result.
The other day while I was eating lunch the song came back to me. I thought to myself "if I can keep humming this line until I get back to my desk (because it comes and goes) I can search for this song again. What I remembered was: "Deep in the darkest hour of a very heavy night the earth men did confront me and I was weak with fright." Perhaps this was the problem because the line actually reads: "Deep in the darkest hour of a very heavy week three earth men did confront me, and I could hardly speak. They met me in a hurry and they left me tired and sore, and when I'm fit for wishing I hope they'll come no more. When I'm wishing I'll hope they'll come no more...They showed me 19 terrors and each one struck my soul. They threw me 13 questions each one an endless hole. 13 questions each an endless hole ..."
Revealed now, by the ever-increasing density of positronic tubes within the internet, it proved to be the band Seatrain Seatrain (band) - Wikipedia and their song "13 Questions". The song was actually a minor hit when it came out. I must not have been asking the right people about it all these years. This live video of the band at a festival in Toronto circa 1971 is a lovely lovely thing YouTube - Seatrain 13 Questions. The radio piece I heard was probably around the time of their 1973 album Marblehead Messenger at a point when the band was located in Massachusetts. No radio in our house was ever tuned to a rock and roll station until my older sister was in high school. The Wikipedia page for the band claims that George Martin (Sir George "abbey road" Martin) produced two of their albums including the one "13 Questions" is on. The surviving members of the band - at least Richard Greene and Peter Rowan - are still active musicians. Rowan I believe is the bearded shirtless guitar player in the Toronto YouTube video, Greene the fiddle player. Singing is the keyboardist Lloyd Baskin. Looking through the discography I see Rowan's earlier band, Earth Opera, had a song called "the Red Sox are winning" Clearly a right-thinking kind of person. Mystery solved; the moon is now, at long last, hung properly "like a Chinese ball".
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