2007 Goodbye
It’s been a year of extraordinary personal and musical highs and lows – I hope one of the abiding memories will be one of the great years for new Brian Wilson music, possibly the greatest since…1977? Not only did we have the premier of That Lucky Old Sun, an event I was privileged to witness first hand, hearing (and seeing) another great Brian work, but there were some extraordinary one-off songs, not least of all What Love Can Do. It appears that Brian Wilson is experiencing a late-period creative burst, and although we know things will never be 100% in Brian-land, overall one feels he is in the best possible place he can be. The Kennedy Center award was the icing on the cake for a very good for Brian Wilson.
Otherwise, musically, my joys have been the continuing brilliance of Lucky Soul (and an opportunity to see them), as well as hearing most of the back catalogue of the Pernice Brothers. It was a big year for the Beatles with the 40th anniversary of Sgt. Pepper but my biggest joy with the Beatles was hearing all of their “songs that they gave away” and realising the depth of the song catalogue of Lennon and McCartney (and a bit of Harrison) in that heady 60s period.
It was a year that I was virtually switched off from the radio and MTV and I wasn’t too aware of the next big things, which was probably a good thing. It was disappointing that Lucky Soul didn’t have greater commercial success, especially after having a shot at the Christmas market, and it does make me sad that a group with genuine melody and emotion seems to be submerged under the noise and formulaic sounds that seem to be appealing to most people these days. Or was I just made differently?
At a personal level, I will remember the wonderful opportunities to travel, many documented in this blog, and the friends that have sustained this year -many around me in Cape Town, some far away and possibly reading this blog. It is also the year of a deep personal hurt that feels even more raw at this time of year; one that has been soothed by friends and the beautiful music out there, but one that ultimately only time can probably heal. So the passing on to 2008 does give the hope of a better year and the tangible passing of time towards that healing, and it is with that wish that I reflect on 2007 with the gratitude for the music and personal high points but with an underlying cloak of sadness that permeated the whole year.
