Roy Head
You Got The Power
TMI
1972
Shall we go out today and walk up through the mud drenched fields, across the flooded roads, stand on the highest bit of hill and shout at the rain? Shall we do that? Are you with me? Tell it to stop, that enough is enough. Tell it to take things easy for a few days. It’s done is job, things have been rinsed and watered and fed and filled. The lakes and wells and reservoirs are full. We’ve all had enough. The rabbits and foxes and every other furred an-imal; the birds too, the ground dwellers and the high nesters; the birches and alders and bare limbed oaks; the grasses and shrubs. We’ve all had a meeting and decided. Enough. Is. Enough.
For the past week we’ve lived submerged. A grey grind of mist, fog, sleet, rain and, just for good measure, hail. What’s a man to do? I haven’t ventured far from either the fireside or the record player. Get warm and dance – that’s my advice. During these weeks, as I sit multi-shirted, a jumper too and the thickest socks, I mostly listen to those records that make me move. From side to corner. My whole hips or just my toes. In my own awkward way. My two options being: move or freeze. I throw my arms out and approximately fill the space around me.
This morning it’s Roy Head. He’s doing his Van Morrison thing and he’s got Steve Cropper on guitar and it was recorded in Memphis and the whole thing sounds like it’s a million miles from Wales and rain and flooding streams. And it does what I want it to, it makes me move and it takes me away. And if he was here, if he walked through the door this morn-ing, in his flat brimmed hat and boots, I’d shake his hand and say, thanks Roy, you brought a little bit of Louisiana with you and you cleared the clouds and I’m damned grateful.