Posts tagged 032621
The pressure to make it perfect

In Stevie Wonder’s delightful “Sir Duke,” off of his masterpiece double album, Songs in the Key of Life, you’ll find a terrible marriage of lyric and melody in the second verse.

Not only is the line itself a bit nonsensical, you have this weird accent on “the,” which is a big no-no. And a line that begins with “be,” separated from its helping verb.

If it had been my song, I would have changed it. I wouldn’t have let it see the light of day with a lyric like that.

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Lessons learned from a tiny Thai place

One of my favorite restaurants is a fluorescent-lit paradise called Little Bangkok, in Atlanta.

The restaurant doesn’t have enough parking, so people double-park and you can’t leave until the guy behind you comes out and moves his car. Their color scheme is soft pink and baby blue — with bright red booths. The decor is kitschy. They don’t take AMEX. The neighborhood is not that great. What’s more, their website is generic.

And yet, I go to Little Bangkok every chance I get. I love the food, the people, and the experience. I don’t need them to have a fancy website.

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Lessons learned from Belle & Sebastian

A band that I listened to obsessively in my twenties was Belle & Sebastian.

By the time I discovered them, standing mesmerized at a listening station in a Tower Records store in Nashville, the Glaswegian band was already well into their long career. Back then, you had to actually buy the music you wanted to hear; I made a deal with myself that I could buy another Belle & Sebastian album only when I felt really down. For better or worse, I amassed their entire back catalog within two years.

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