Impressing Miss Axelrod

Cherry

By Ewan

Thu, 18 Feb 2021
  • 1469 reads
7 comments
 

I can remember

lifting the school-desk

cover for the first time.

The rumours weren’t true,

or perhaps the paper “pannies”

were just on American-issued vinyl.

 

Slide the disc half-out

of its boring sleeve; tip it,

let the vinyl fall into palm,

edge first, still-short finger

onto the label, locate the hole

for the spindle, let the inner sleeve fall.

Use the rocker switches,

dial up the sound,

put the spindle through the hole,

gently does it. Lift the pick-up,

try to keep the shakes

to a minimum, the needle is

diamond hard, the vinyl isn’t.

 

More twang than the sainted Duane,

the simplistic riff rattles the cones

in the cheap speakers.

 

“Schooooooooool’s Out….”

Certificate PG
Poem
Gathered Flowers
Miscellaneous

Comments

Submitted by marandina on

I still have lots of vinyl records in boxes I never listen to. There is something special about the first crackle as the needle heads over towards the disc. I think there's a huge market for vinyl again these days.

 

Submitted by Ewan on

but I'm not buying it all again. When I was getting ready to move to Spain in 2004, I sold 400 odd albums, keeping only a very few I couldn't bear to get rid of. After the first summer in Andalucia I had a dozen or so avant-garde vinyl fruit bowls.
 

Author Page at the 'Zon
 

Submitted by airyfairy on

I miss my vinyl, but in an abstract sort of way, more for the memories of the ritual so beautifully described here than for the actual stuff.  The music is the music, however it comes.  It would be cool to be able to stack CDs though, and see how many slithered down the spindle and on to the turntable all at once.  Small pleasures.  

Submitted by Ewan on

that you miss the albums in the abstract. It was a ritual, even turning the album over half-way through. Imagining how much thought had gone into track order so they would fit. Yes, I know all the music there ever was is available on Horrify or Amazulu, but the point is their algrorithms are nosey, and they think "because you played that, we know you'll like that"... but I don't.

Thanks for dropping by.

E x

Author Page at the 'Zon
 

Submitted by Insertponceyfre... on

oh I loved that song - it brings back every single last day of the summer term past 197-whatever it was

pannies?

 

Submitted by Ewan on

 render in writing the American word for underwear...

I'll whisper it ('72)

I loved the whole album, with its West Side Story parody and jazzy (!) inflections. Miss Axelrod appears on side two in "Alma Mater".

Thanks for dropping by.

E x

Author Page at the 'Zon
 

Submitted by celticman on

aha, time travelling.