SOUNDTRACK: BUDGIE-“Breadfan” (1973).
I am pretty much wholly ignorant of Budgie. I know this song “Breadfan” because Metallica covered it back on one of their covers EPs. I really Metallica’s version, but since that was pre-internet, I was never able to explore Budgie more. And then I forgot about them.
Well, just the other night, WXPN played “Breadfan” (as part of a 70s power trio segment) and I was shocked at how high-pitched Burke Shelley’s voice was (the comparisons to Rush are apt). And I was also surprised at how heavy this song was. While Black Sabbath had certainly been releasing heavy albums up until this time, this song introduced a much faster element. And there were only three members in the band!
What’s also interesting is the prog rock leanings in some of their songs, like the middle of this one. The fact that Roger Dean did this album cover and that they have a 10 minute song on this album seems to lean towards prog rock as well).
Time to dig deep in to the Welsh band’s catalog, I think.
[READ: June 17, 2014] “Beautiful Girl”
This year’s Summer Fiction issue of the New Yorker was subtitled Love Stories. In addition to the two graphic stories, we have a series of five personal essays which fall under the heading of “My Old Flame.” I like that all five writers have slight variations in how they deal with this topic.
Wolff surprises (me anyhow) by saying that when he was fifteen, he cut off the last joint of his left ring finger. This piece of information just sort of lingers there until the end of the story.
Because he then talks about how he never really had a girlfriend. In sixth grade he and his friend Terry would meet Terry’s cousin Patty and another girl in the movie theater and they would pair up and make out (clearly Terry did not make out with his cousin). But they pairings were never seen in public and never went on a further date.
But later that winter his family moved to the Cascades, where the elementary school had all of four rooms. There were ten kids in his class and nine were boys. The one girl, Nevy, drove them all crazy. She favored one then the other but her real love was horses not boys.
High school meant more girls, but the pretty ones went for the older kids. That was the school where he cut off his finger. And that’s how the story continues from that original statement.
After he cut off his finger, he woke up in the hospital to find a beautiful girl staring at him tenderly.
When he woke up she said, “See Daddy, [he looks] just like Dr, Kildare.” He was mesmerized by her and didn’t speak, he just let her talk and gaze at him. She gave him her phone number and when he got home he called her every day. They talked and talked on the phone. And finally she invited him to visit her.
He hitchhiked to her house and when he arrived she told her dad that they were going for a walk–he seemed okay with that. And finally they were alone.
And that’s when he froze up, just like in the hospital
The end line is a nice capper.
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