Marmalade -- "I See the Rain" (1967)

I see the rain again

I must complain again

It doesn't have to be raining for me to complain, but it definitely helps.  

I will always complain when it is raining -- but I also complain when it's not raining.  To apply the formal terminology of logic, rain is a sufficient condition for me to complain, but is not a necessary condition.  

(Zing!  Zoom!  Those are the sounds of the previous sentence going right over the heads of its readers.  Sorry, boys and girls, but I can only dumb things down for so long before my brain refuses to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and kicks over the traces.)

I hate conversations that start out like this:  "So, how's the weather been?"  But today I'm starting off 2 or 3 lines by talking about the weather.

Nietzsche had one
helluva mustache

I am truly a man of many contradictions.  But remember what Nietzsche said: "Only idiots fail to contradict themselves three times a day."  Of course, he said it in German, not English.  

I can't remember an August and September -- and I've seen quite a few of 'em -- where the weather was better than it was this past August and September.  The late summer weather in Washington this year was fabulous -- not too hot and not too humid, and with less than half the normal amount of rainfall.

Weekends in particular have been perfect.  I became accustomed to taking my breakfasts (luscious, ripe local cantaloupe from my farmer's market and prosciutto) and lunches (cottage cheese accompanied with juicy, sweet cherry tomatoes from that aforementioned farmer's market) outdoors on my patio, basking in a sunlight that produced a pleasant warmth that suffused one's body but didn't produce a desperate longing for A/C, which is the usual effect of the summer sun in the Washington, DC area.

I simply couldn't believe how beautiful the pellucid blue skies were, day after day.  (People don't use "pellucid" as much these days as they once did, but I'm trying to reverse that trend.) 

I took dozens of pictures like this one:

But that's all just a distant memory today.  I'm writing this column on a Sunday.  It started raining Wednesday, and it hasn't stopped -- AND THERE'S NO END IN SIGHT.  I'm getting tired of gray skies and the smell of my wet dog after I take her on her morning constitutionals.

I don't need crappy weather because I've got a lot on my mind these days.  I was recently on the road for a week or so, and then I was occupied with my son's wedding festivities.  

Plus my increasingly obsessive efforts to get more and more free music through the Freegal service offered by a number of local public libraries has become quite time-consuming.  

In addition, I've been busier than usual at work -- I like to think of myself as semi-retired, and like my workload to reflect that, but the past week has been very busy.  

Finally, a young writer I've become acquainted with has asked me to read and comment on her new book before she submits it to her publisher.  My kind of editing involves going through the text line by line and word by word -- no detail is too small for me to worry over.  (God knows why this writer thinks my comments will be helpful, but she's a very interesting writer and I was very flattered to be asked for my help.) 

All of this has played havoc with my 2 or 3 lines production schedule.  Those posts you see each and every Sunday, Tuesday, and Friday don't write themselves, you know.  (If I ever miss a deadline, please call 911 become I'm either dead or on my way there.)  

I try to build up a reserve supply of posts in advance when I'm going to be traveling or otherwise occupied, but the well is dangerously close to being dry, and I've been scrambling.

There's another problem.  It's apparently become impossible for me to just toss off a short, snappy 2 or 3 lines post.  

I actually planned this one as sort of a throwaway -- I'd quote the song's lyrics as usual, bitch about the weather and how busy I was, and unapologetically admit that I needed to phone one in for the reasons stated above.  Then I'd go to the music video, and -- badda-bing, badda-boom -- I'd be done.  (To quote Jay-Z, "On to the next one!")

But I can't even phone one in when I'm trying to phone one in.  The content of this post may be an inch deep but it's a couple of miles wide -- full of "luscious, ripe local cantaloupe" and "pellucid blue skies" and other pretentious filler.  Blah blah blah BLAH BLAH!

The Marmalade released "I See the Rain" in 1967.  It was their third single, and like their first two, it went nowhere on the UK pop charts (although it was a big hit in the Netherlands).

Jimi Hendrix supposedly said the record was the best British single released that year.  I'm not sure what to make of that, but I will say that the guitar fills do have a somewhat Hendrix-ish quality.  

"I See the Rain" was used (for no apparent reason) in a very odd 2002 Gap commercial that featured the late Dennis Hopper and Christina Ricci, and was directed by the Coen Brothers (speaking of phoning one in):

(By the way, there's another version of the commercial that uses the Beach Boys' "I Know There's an Answer.")

It's hard to believe that I've featured two Marmalade songs on 2 or 3 lines, and neither one of them is "Reflections of My Life."  Hopefully, there will be world enough and time to get to it some day.

But in the meantime, here's "I See the Rain":

Click here to buy the song from Amazon:

Marmalade -- "Lovin' Things" (1968)

Our friends call us the perfect pair 

For the lovin' things, baby, that we share 

(As was noted in the previous 2 or 3 lines, I currently have three blissfully engaged children.  It seems like every song that my iPod serves up these days has some lines that reference this happy state of affairs.  To wit, see above.)

I was happy to get a compliment about a recent 2 or 3 lines from an old high school friend who went on to have a long career in journalism.  "Nice, nice column," she wrote.

The compliment was all the more meaningful because the friend was a year ahead of me in school.  When you're a junior in high school, the seniors are (to quote Genesis) "giants in the earth."  It was a red-letter day indeed when one of them deigned to notice a lowly junior.

I'd never thought of my three-times-a-week 2 or 3 lines posts as "columns" before.  But I really like the sound of "columns."  And being a "columnist" sounds so much better than being a mere "blogger." 

Of course, not everyone likes columnists.  Here's what the newspaper publisher played by Robert Duvall in the 1994 movie, The Paper, had to say about columnists:

I hate columnists! Why do I have all these columnists? . . . What every columnist at this paper needs to do is to shut the f*ck up!

(I can only imagine what this character would have had to say about bloggers.)

I thought about going to journalism school before deciding to become a lawyer.  (One of my daughters did get a master's in journalism.)  I greatly enjoyed working on my law school newspaper, and did quite a bit of freelance writing over the years before starting this blog in 2009.  Seeing my words in print -- not to mention my name -- is as satisfying a feeling as anything I know.

If you had to choose one word and one word only to describe me, "reader" would be a good choice.  I have deep admiration for good writers -- and I am absolutely awestruck by good writers who are also prolific writers. 

2 or 3 lines is the tiny grain of sand that I have contributed to the beach that is the internet, but I'm inordinately devoted to it.  (Some would say obsessed.)  It makes my day whenever someone says something positive about what I've written.

But even better than that, of course, is when someone clicks on my ads!

I was walking my dog the other day, listening to the latest batch of songs I had "liberated" from the Freegal music download service that is offered by the half-dozen or so public libraries I have accounts with.  (Power to the people -- right on!)  

Suddenly "Lovin' Things" -- a classic sixties three-minute pop song -- popped up on my iPod, and I sang along to it while my four-legged companion trotted alongside me, stopping to sniff every peed-upon mailbox along our route.

Something hit me a couple of hours later.  "Lovin' Things" had been recorded by the Grass Roots, one of the great singles groups of the late sixties and early seventies.  

But I was certain that I had searched the Freegal database for the Grass Roots and come up empty.  So where had my recording of "Lovin' Things" come from?

I hurried to my computer and found that the version of "Lovin' Things" on my iPod had been recorded the Glaswegian pop group, the Marmalade.

Marmalade

("Glaswegian" means someone who is from Glasgow, Scotland -- just like "Mancunian" means someone who is native to Manchester, England.  I don't know why the Brits think they're too good to use normal suffixes like "New Yorker" or "Washingtonian.")

The Marmalade are most famous in the U.S. for their 1969 hit, "Reflections of My Life."  

But in 1968, their recording of "Lovin' Things" was a #6 hit in the UK.  The next year, the Grass Roots released their version of the song -- the arrangements are very similar -- in the U.S.  

"Lovin' Things" has some almost comically over-the-top lyrics.  Here's one verse:

With your soft and sweet caress 

You brought me such tenderness 

To think I was once forsaken 

With your kiss I've been awakened

Here's another:

Then you walked into my life

Said how you'd soon end all my strife

With a smile from your young face, you 

Gave me back my inspiration 

The Marmalade released "Lovin' Things" just in time.  Their first few singles had gone nowhere, and their mean ol' record company was about to give them the old heave-ho.  The group had foolishly turned down the chance to record "Everlasting Love," which later was a #1 hit for Love Affair.  ("Everlasting Love" is a great record that 2 or 3 lines will have more to say about at a future date.)

Later that year, Marmalade reached the #1 spot in the UK with a cover of "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da," perhaps the worst song Lennon and McCartney ever wrote.  But the group made up for that crappy single with "Reflections of My Life," which is a FABULOUS song.  (We'll have more to say about it in the future as well.)  

Here's "Lovin' Things":

Click here to buy the song from Amazon: