Music Has Been a Little Thin Lately

I am one who eagerly awaits the release of new music from my favorite artists.  Lately, the pickins' have been slim.  In my opinion, the last really good new music releases were Miranda Lambert's Revolution, and The Zac Brown Band's Foundation.  Since then, there hasn't been much of significance. 

I did look forward to Lady Antebellum's second release.  Never has a CD been so hyped.  The country music stations began playing Need You Now months before it was commercially available.  Now you cannot hear more that 3 songs in a row without hearing a cut from that CD.  The CD was marginal at best, but after repeated airplay I am sick of it.

So in the absence of good new music releases, I have turned to the old faithful iTunes for music from my past. Last weekend I dipped way back into the early seventies and downloaded that eternal classic, Baron von Tollbooth and the Chrome Nun by Paul Kantner and Grace Slick.  Kantner and Slick where in the transition between the Jefferson Airplane and Jefferson Starship.  So in reality, the release was late Airplane, or early Starship.

Actually I was amazed that iTunes carried a record that was so obscure.  So obscure, it probably didn't sell many vinyl records when released, yet iTunes makes it available immediately and online.  If there isn't something contemporary released soon, I'll be searching iTunes for Blows Against the Empire or Sunfighter, also late Airplane hits.  Who can forget cuts such as Universal Copernican Mumbles, or The Baby Tree.  I'm sure you agree.

The Baby Tree, by Paul Kantner

there’s an island way out in the sea

where the babies they all grow on trees
and it’s jolly good fun to swing in the sun
but ya gotta watch out if you sneeze sneeze
ya gotta watch out if you sneeze

yeah you gotta watch out if you sneeze
for swinging up there in the breeze
you’re liable to cough
you might very well fall off
and tumble down flop on your knees knees
tumble down flop on your knees

and when the stormy winds wail
and the breezes blow high in a gale
there’s a curious dropping and flopping and plopping
and fat little babies just hail hail
fat little babies just hail

and the babies lie there in a pile
and the grownups they come after while
and they always pass by all the babies that cry
and take only babies that smile smile
take only babies that smile

even triplets and twins if they smile.....