Vinyl Jeopardy

Hello. This is the weekend Gene Pool, in which I beg you for questions and observations I will start responding to next week, but also offer entertainment in gratitude. We begin the entertainment with an anecdote:

Rachel, my roommate and fnorf, is acting in a play about love, longing and vinyl records. It takes place in a record store: Not a stage outfitted as a record store, but in an actual vinyl-only record store in Annapolis. Rachel was born in 1984. For this part, she had to learn, from scratch, how to expertly operate a turntable, and to do it in the semi-dark, while talking, including locating and pinpointing an interior song-starting groove on a moving record. She reports that the experience was “worrisome” because most of the people in the audience would know if she was doing anything wrong, or with dweeb-like clumsiness. It was not easy; it’s something a lot of us older folk with ancient muscle-memory take for granted.

Vinyl is making a major comeback, which leads to our Gene Pool Gene Poll.

Okay, so of course we’ve bought a turntable and are buying vinyl in limited quantities. Vinyl is cool. Anyway, we are listening to more music these days and it is reminding us of the thrill and magic of brilliant lyrics, old and new. I’ll include only one here: “Money doesn’t talk, it swears,” from Dylan’s “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding.)

So:

Please send in lyrics. Not lyrics you like — there are too many of them. Lyrics you are blown away by. Any time period. Long or short. Elaboration / explanation would be very good, but is not necessary; great lyrics tend to speak for themselves. Send ‘em here, to our questions file, along with any other questions, comments you might have about anything at all.

Also, as always, there will be begging today. The Gene Pool is successful. We have several thousands of people around the country and globe who read us weekly for free, and many hundreds who pay us a little money. ($4.15 a month.) Will you leap from the first group to the second? We’d be wretchedly grateful, and it will keep us alive. Here: