Summer of 1994, Redux

It's funny how sometimes you return to music you've known for ages, and is so ingrained in your psyche so as to be second nature. I haven't listened to Dulcinea in eons, and quite frankly, I don't know where my copy of that CD is at the moment. However, I was Youtubing this evening and it struck me that I haven't heard the album in forever.

It will forever remain one of those seminal albums of my adolescence -- it came out around 1993-94 or so, when all was well, I earned $4.75 an hour folding sweaters at the mall, and my left elbow was getting sunburnt for the second summer in a row as it hung out the driver's side window of my non-airconditioned compact coupe. Seventeen is such a magical age -- a crossroads, no doubt -- but there is just something about the world being your oyster, and taking ownership of the possibilities.

Perhaps that's the point of adulthood: we spend our lives trying to recapture those heady days of carefree worldliness, days when we owned up to our loss of innocence and rather enjoyed ourselves in the process. Dulcinea was part of my soundtrack for that time in my life, and I will forever be able to pick up that album and sing every single song, line by line, note by note, no matter how much time passes between listenings. I actually had a thought -- I've heard a bootleg of JM and Glenn Phillips doing a cover of Walk on the Ocean, and it struck me that maybe during that summer when I was just a kid folding sweaters somewhere in the Midwest, he was just a kid, with a sunburnt left elbow, doing whatever it was he did for $4.75 an hour somewhere in Connecticut. In any case, Toad the Wet Sprocket will always be ingrained in my musical psyche, and there will always be a spot in my collection for Dulcinea (even if it's currently in a black hole somewhere).

another day, I call and never speak
and you would say, "nothing's changed at all"
and I can't feel much hope for anything
if I won't be there to catch you if you fall
--Something's Always Wrong

Nothings so cold
As closing the heart when all we need is to free the soul
But we wouldnt be that brave I know
And the air outside so soft, confessing everything...everything

And it wont matter now whatever happens to me
Though the air speaks of all well never be it wont trouble me
-- All I Want

There's something that you wont show
Waiting where the light goes
Take the darkest hour-break it open
Water to repair what we have broken

There's something that you wont show
Waiting where the light goes
And anyway the wind blows
Its all worth waiting for
-- Windmills

She said I'm fine, I'm okay cover up your trembling hands
There's indecision when you know you ain't got nothing left
For the last time conscience calls, for a good friend I was never there at all
When will we fall...when will we fall down
--Fall Down