Bob Martin
Blind Marie
RCA
1972
Night falls hard; I wander outside and realise how quickly the familiar is made unknowable.
I’m a trespasser; surrounded by animals smaller and smarter and more at home here than I. No moon, no sky, no breeze, no light. I retreat to my overlit house.
The next day, listening to Bob Martin, I feel the same, fleeting feeling. It’s all familiar and yet it’s completely foreign, totally unexpected. Somewhere I didn’t bargain for. As if I bought a ticket for one destination and ended up a world away. I’ve slipped into and out of something. This is what music should be, a mysterious meeting place.
“Singing voodoo chimes and holy rhymes, till the longest day is done, she burned out fast, from the inside out…”
It’s an autumnal record – always on the change. Familiar but shifting, unpredictable; just when you think you’ve got a handle on it a wind blows and it’s gone.
It’s hard, lonely music; multi-storied and brittle – the streets are full of it. So is the night. So, at the moment, are my days.