Pat Metheny & A.M.Jopek "Are you going with me" (audio and video restored) I have always been, ever since I was a teenager, the kind of guy who preferred smart girls; not because it was a deliberate choice, quite the opposite! But because I found myself obsessively thinking that if I ever fell in love, those girls would keep their distance.
Everything was great until—how could it be otherwise?—I met HER. The one that all the guys fear: the one who seems TRULY in love with you. And maybe she is, for the moment.
Anyway, it doesn't matter, and let's get to the reason for this song, specifically this version, precisely because—surprise!—it features an extraordinary female presence. To cut a long story short, I play this track for her in my Caddy, I believe on Mulholland Drive, if I remember correctly, and I ask her: "Do you want to come with me?" But in the sense of “do you want to marry me?” She looks at me with those eyes, full of sea, smiles with that girl-next-door smile that knows she has just become a woman, kisses me passionately, and says: "You don't understand anything."
Both of us, years later (never count them!) whenever we see each other, hug like sisters and laugh heartily together. In fact, we have both happily multiplied our lives, but without ever getting married: and the laughter comes from simply realizing how much money we saved on stupid lawyers.
That said, Pat’s Solo (my daughter is indeed named that, in the registry) would have melted even the iceberg that sank the Titanic. But female intelligence is a divine thing and doesn’t fall for teenage passion. At least in my case.
But SHE (my Pat), the love of my life, when I tell her this story, says that I have the same gaze as JJ Cale (rip) when he plays his guitar at dusk on a porch, with a bottle of beer resting on the floor just a few inches from his right foot: that same gaze that seems to perceive other things than what appears. And that her mother doesn't hold it against me too much for this.
Ah: the two—actually three—have never met. But that's a coincidence.
