The Waterboys
Book Of Lightning

The green of old barbershop chairs... That sort of bottle green, which is used to confer prestige upon something... Maybe it's the background of a courant lion, or a coat of arms, even if fictional... The sea in my city is also green, on this windy late autumn day. Aqua green, sure, but it doesn't matter.

You know when you feel a little melancholy? And when you're sad and you smile? Or when you're out and about and feel like you're missing the warmth of your home? When everything around you, the voices, the lights, the faces, the sounds, the sky, the wind, and even the sea, seem to ask, "What are you doing out here?"

The colors are the green of the water and the gray-blue of the sky; the wind is from the north. The faces are those distracted, lost in thought, or completely bewildered ones of those I encounter; the lights are those of a city wanting to get ready for Christmas.

And the sounds? The sounds are those of the "Book Of Lightning" by the Waterboys, from the back cover of that particular green, the green of the aftershave bottle my grandfather had...

The sound of ten classic and beautiful songs, the sound of the noblest and most mature britpop in tracks such as "The Crash Of Angel Wings" or "It's Gonna Rain". The sound of splendid ballads like "Nobody's Baby Anymore", and of that electric violin that beats three guitars, or of the electric folk with arpeggio of "She Tried To Hold Me".

The sound of Van Morrison in "Strange Arrangement" and in the melodrama of "Sustain". And the blues of the fisherman in the tearful and salty "You In The Sky", in the smiles of the prenatal and exuberant "Everybody Takes A Tumble" and in the epic finale of "The Man With The Wind At His Heels".

Old rock, like a real liquor. Soothing, to take care of oneself, like everything that can boast a background of "that green there". Mature music, as is this Scottish Knulp, over time becoming more wrinkled, faded a bit in the brown of his hair, like a stray starting to age. Chestnut and fireplace rock, music that makes you want to give up being tossed by the wind and life, and having rain fall upon you, from the sky and the usual immense annoyances from people every day. Music for yourself, today.

Better make your way home: it's really cold out here...