Sunday 10 February 2013

Breakfast in America

in 1980
i was selling records
tons of them
i worked for the hudson bay company
scarborough town centre

selling records for the bay
was the greatest straight job anyone could have asked for
i'd spin albums all day
on sunday's they'd ask me to play easy listening
i'd put on side 3 of the wall

there was always a ton of cash in the register
everyone bought records
there were daily shipments
and we sold tons of really strange stuff
like hagood hard
the knack
nana mouskouri

but the album i remember selling more than any other album
was breakfast in america
man
in our little corner of the world
we must have sold 5000 copies out of that one store
and this was going on everywhere in the world

i saw supertramp in concert
at the canadian national exhibition
and the show was exact
shivers
the contrast of roger and rick
two gentlemen
both young
and at the top of their game
both of them composing absolute works of genius
and bringing them to the band
to learn and interpret
what an experience
supertramp are like nasa
they're rocket scientists with notes

we recently had a fun connection with roger hodgson
a cat from roger's camp
got in touch
and told us that roger had been checking us out
and would we be open to working together?
i said we would very open to working with roger
just tell us what to do

but it didn't happen
roger tours all the time
he works hard
i just don't think that time allowed for it
but i remain hopeful
i don't push
we're at his beck and call
it would be an honour

still
i'd have to insist on note for note
perhaps over the years
roger has gotten used to playing a certain phrase in logical song
ever so slightly different
we'd have to correct him
the nerve!
could you imagine?
i have this same scenario played out with paul mcCartney and roger waters
clearly i have issues

breakfast in america is a perfect album
perhaps the greatest slice of pop pie since the beatles disbanded
the british classical element
zep had it
the beatles had it
floyd
certainly the who
and supertramp had it too
masters all

we begin to perform breakfast in america this month
so wonderful
a miracle
it was beautiful
magical

craig
february 10, 2013
tea and cookies

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