overlap

Just got in from seeing the godlike genius of Tom Paxton. It's funny, I always thought that I came to Paxton as an adult via Nanci Griffith's version of Can't Help But Wonder Where I'm Bound, but it didn't take more than picking up a cheap best of compilation to realise that Going To The Zoo was something I remembered from my early school days. Which means Paxton and I go back further than I thought. Sometimes the most telling reminders and inspirations come from unexpected directions. There's a couple of things that emerged - the question of what on earth would I have told that poor little seven year old if I could from this distance, and, yes, where exactly am I bound? That poor little sod turned himself out ok, as it happened, but he'd have benefited greatly from being told just to hold on and ride things out, and not to worry so hard about stuff. Now, while this adult knows exactly where that little kid went and what happened to him, this adult is also only too aware of a life spent gathering knowledge and wisdom in sure and certain hope that it would be put to good use by being passed on further down the line, and the dynamism of a song like Katy speaks too much to me of the parent-child relationship for me to discount how much I want that. And while physiology is in my favour, I hear that ticking ever louder.

Labels: Tom Paxton