Traffic
On the road

THE REVIEW

There are albums that, once you start listening to them, you can’t stop. They stay in your player, on whatever device you use, for months. And you can't remove them. Until everyone who knows you, everyone who shares your life, can’t take it anymore. And others that don't. Others that sit there, on a shelf, perhaps for months, perhaps for years. And you don't listen to them anymore. Yet they are fundamental. Yet, if you had to say what you would save on a hypothetical deserted island, one of the top ten albums would be it. This one. On the Road by Traffic. Perhaps not their best album (but here I really can't quite say, not exactly my cup of tea, as the English say). Certainly not the best album I own. A live album, from the German parts, if I remember correctly. A title that opens up worlds. And good music, of course. Recorded poorly. Like in that one (can you do cross-reviews?) which I continue to regard as the best album, the best live track ever recorded, that 21st Century Schizoid Man from Usa by King Crimson, distorted and hallucinated, by choice and due to technical problems. Close parenthesis. I resume. Good music. And something unforgettable. It's called (Sometimes I feel so) Uninspired. The parenthesis is not mine. It's in the title. And I, the parenthesis, love them. There’s a voice, distant, that begins to cradle you. It's not an unforgettable voice. It's an almost subdued voice. That sings to you softly. Almost as if to give you a pat on the shoulder. And it tells you a story. What, to tell the truth, I don't know, I've never quite understood. But the words are not important. The words pass. The music arrives. And what is special about the music of this piece, I can't say. Yet it is. If I had to strain, I would say it feels like those playing it are doing so as if it’s the last time. As if it's the time that counts for everything. And then another thing. They play it while listening to what the others are playing. And you can tell. When it happens, you can feel it. The voice resumes. It’s not the best voice I know. I certainly know a thousand better. Yet it pampers you, cradles you, tells you a story. What story I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. It tells you another couple of phrases, then fades away, disappearing softly. And the piano starts again, the sax, the guitar, everything. A deluge. And now you know. They are really playing as if their life depended on it. They are playing as if it’s the last thing they will ever do. They are playing - all together - as if they want to tell you something.

What, I don’t know.

That’s why this piece, though it's not in my player, though I haven't heard it for ages, I will never forget it, it is always with me.