music – RickMcCharles.com

The Killers’ “Mr. Brightside” (2004)

This never gets old.

“Tiny Dancer” by Elton John & Bernie Taupin

After seeing the NEW VIDEO for the classic song, I got these lyrics stuck in my head. For days.

I love this song first released 1971.

Blue jean baby, L.A. lady, seamstress for the band
Pretty eyed, pirate smile, you’ll marry a music man
Ballerina, you must have seen her dancing in the sand
And now she’s in me, always with me, tiny dancer in my hand

lyrics

Bernie Taupin:

We came to California in the fall of 1970 and it seemed like sunshine just radiated from the populace,” Taupin says. “I guess I was trying to capture the spirit of that time, encapsulated by the women we met, especially at the clothes stores and restaurants and bars all up and down the Sunset Strip. They were these free spirits, sexy, all hip-huggers and lacy blouses, very ethereal the way they moved.”

“They were just so different from what I’d been used to in England,” Taupin continues. “They had this thing about embroidering your clothes. They wanted to sew patches on your jeans. They mothered you and slept with you. …

Behind the Song: “Tiny Dancer” by Elton John

The Blue Jean Baby is Maxine Feibelman — Taupin’s first wife.

Click PLAY or watch my favourite version on YouTube.

And here’s the OFFICIAL music video released in May, over 45 years after the song was published.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

my AirPods

I’ve cursed Steve Jobs 10,000 times for not perfecting wireless headphones.

The new Apple AirPods are good and bad.

The good? No wire tangles. They fit. They don’t fall out. Battery life is excellent. You can tap them to start and stop play.

The bad? Bluetooth is not 100% reliable. Audio cuts out quite often. There is no volume control without Siri. They are expensive at US $160. And … not everyone thinks they look cool wearing them. 🙂

Audio books and podcasts are important to me. I’ll get good value out of that $160 over the lifetime of the AirPods.

Still, I’ll normally use them in preference to my regular headphones.

Click PLAY or watch the Johnny Ive pitch on YouTube.

Here’s a real world review. Good and bad. Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

The fit and sound exactly like Apple earbuds.

A Brief History of Seven Killings

Couldn’t do it.

This book is too abstract. Too confusing. More than 75 characters.

And too violent.

I gave up about a third of the way through.

A Brief History of Seven Killings is the third novel by Jamaican author Marlon James. …

The novel spans several decades and explores the attempted assassination of Bob Marley in Jamaica in 1976 and its aftermath through the crack wars in New York City in the 1980s and a changed Jamaica in the 1990s. …

The book was awarded the 2015 Man Booker Prize. This marked the first time that a Jamaican-born author has won the prize. …