This video has always had an impact on me and not because it was one of the greatest songs ever sung by possibly the greatest R&B singer who ever lived….but because almost everyone in this video would be dead in little more than 24 hours.
Otis Reading, four of the Bar-Kays , behind him, died December 10, 1967 on the way to a gig after taping this on December 9th.
There is a deafening loneliness to this video – like a wave that washes up on the beach when everyone has gone to sleep and "lovely" leaves "empty" in charge of the ocean til morning. It is a dark exchange where bad deals are made. That is what this video is and seeing him sing with that full-on emotion explains we people loved him so much. And we have the gift of this video!
And the burden of watching it.
There is nothing like hindsight and even better there is nothing like the internet where we become revisionist historians of the dramatic variety. Have I not retold my stories, fleshing out here, burying there? Why do we rewrite parts of our lives when every minute leads to something else - tributaries that become our own oceans that pull our dreams out and spraying us with the humility carried in the foam of each wave.
Every Yes, every Maybe, every single moment carries a story. Every single person wants to tell it because we are fragile and are at times crushed by the weight of our own humanness which is "need".
Our anger, our sadness, indignancy - this is part of every person's story but we can change it because for us, there is time. We can change our stories.
We think we can.
We think that.
Otis Reading was lived 26 years. There's nothing else to write.
(with thanks to Andrzej Liguz who included me in the Epitome of Cool for the piece)
We think that.
Otis Reading was lived 26 years. There's nothing else to write.
(with thanks to Andrzej Liguz who included me in the Epitome of Cool for the piece)
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