Friday, August 11, 2017

(We need 45PRM Chapbooks!)


 “But do you like the Kinks?”
“Of course I love the Kinks
One of the great singles bands
During the era when singles were king….”

“But they crossed over into Classic albums!
Got more serious, grew up, all that.”
“Yes, but they wouldn’t have without the singles.”
“Singles aren’t a lesser art than albums.”
“Singles can have more weight than albums
Like a poem can be wider than an album
You gotta try to look through the eyes,
And dance with those ears, and hear with those feet
If you want to hear the prelapsarian
Magic of what you love about Fertile 64/65.

‘A Change Is Gonna Come/Shake”
could be a book.’ So could “Sunny Afternoon/
I’m Not Like Everybody Else.”
Or “Youngblood/Searchin’”
Or “Built For Comfort/
300 Pounds of Joy”
or “Day Tripper/
We Can Work It Out”—
Or “Who’ll Be The Next In Line/
Everybody’s Gonna Be Happy.”

Stop trying to erase it
with your bloated 70s standards
and your 33 1/3 books.
Yep, even those Millennial MP3 file sharers
You so deride as ruining music
Get it better than you, even if they don’t
Get the magic of the double-sided single

& the radio culture that made them possible.