Rainy Day Dream Away Still Raining Still Dreaming by WakaJawaka
The track above isn't by WakaJawaka actually - that's just my Zappaesque user name on Soundcloud. It's James Marshall Hendrix for those interested.
Driving to work the other Monday morning as the familiar Mancunian rain spattered and beaded my windscreen, I longed to be back in my bed. The tardy heater had still not sputtered it's desultory and frankly tepid whisper of comfort and my arthritic frame was extracting groans and grunts everytime I was forced into moving my arms or legs. The working day lay before me like a childhood month.
I pulled onto the Mancunian Way as the surly and recalcitrant dawn glimmered behind the Beetham Tower like a.....like a...well, like a surly and recalcritrant teenager to be honest and I was subsumed in a back to work slough of despond.
'Does it get any worse than this?' I muttered as David Cameron's oleaginous twaddle oozed from the Sony in the dashboard. I vaguely stabbed a forefinger against the 'source' button and switched to whatever CD was still lurking there since the last time I played music in my car. I'm glad I did. It was home made affair - from the days before iTunes and the like. Furthermore, it was a track that, in it's entirity, probably only exists on the master tape and my hard disk/CD.
Checking out the date stamp on the file later I realised that I created it in 2004. It's the track above if you're interested. If I were you I'd be playing it now, not reading this.
It's Jimi Hendrix 1968. From Electric Ladyland. It's two tracks from different sides of that album that were obviously one longer track chopped in half. I loved both of them as a fourteen year old and still do. 'Rainy Day Dream Away' and 'Still Raining Still Dreaming'.
One day back in 2004, I came home from work and was messing about with some sound editing software I had acquired when one of the tracks came on my cd player. I got the idea then and there to try and put back together what James Marshall had rent asunder.
I don't know about you, but until the remastered version approved by Hendrix's estate, MY version is definitive.
3 comments:
Jimi - incomparable. Great memories. I saw one of his first gigs in London in the winter of 66-67 at a club in Tottenham a week or two after Hey Joe came out. My ears are still whistling. Got there too early, stood right at the front. Magic.
I don't wish to inflate your ego or be in any way condescending but I thought your opening paragraphs in this post were most brilliantly written. Regarding the music, I don't feel qualified to say anything but like Bob Piper I also had the privilege of seeing Jimi Hendrix live. Do I get a gold star or an Eccles cake?
I'm jealous of the pair of you.
Thanks for the praise YP - I'm dead chuffed you like it.
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