The Dutchess & The Duke

Reservoir Park b/w Mary

scum stats: two different versions on this single, first one I am holding here with the slick silk-screened cover, later version(s?) with a xerox cover.

This could've just as easily been their "Never Had a Chance" single. Both supreme in my book, but this one squeaks ahead barely as the first thing the band ever released.

What a week. It rained for 36 straight days. Minute by minute I'm trying to establish and quantify the difference in symptoms between allergies and coronavirus. Months-long tailbone pain subsided (I'm not sitting at my desk all day for the first time in a decade) but because I do all my calls/emails laying down I've now got a crick in my neck and am sizing up a slipped disk in my back. Got sucked into Tiger King and feel like I missed my calling in life by NOT herding big cats. Watched "Onward" no less than six times in five days. Have tried to upload one Archer Records-manufactured title a day to the Discogs database . Was told to "fuck off" by someone when I pulled a chair away to maintain the requisite six feet from them. Bought a flavor of ice cream titled Milkshake & Fries which I've yet to sample. Went on a billion walks. Made my first ever post on Instagram (find me at official_ben_blackwell) of a confusing bit of dialog from an episode of "Clifford the Big Red Dog" and writing on this desktop at home is the worst because the left side shift button DOES NOT WORK and that having been my jam for 20+ years of typing it is HARD trying to do all that shit with the right side shift. I've never been more tempted than now to go full ee cummings

So, you know, I'm staying busy.

And shit, have you heard the new Dylan song? Not gonna lie, got choked up, so brilliant, thoughtful, evocative...if that shit was on vinyl I'd be writing about it here.

Instead I searched for something comforting in the 7" boxes. As much as I love this band (so much that I lobbied them hard to do a live album for Third Man, which happened) it seems like I forget them every couple of years. With no less than five songs that would probably make my theoretical "Top 150 songs of all time" list, how do they ever manage to escape my brain?

Pretty sure I first read about this from Terminal Boredom back in 2007, instantly mail-ordered a copy directly from the label (which I'm pretty sure one of the band members ran) and just fell in love. I don't even want to talk about "Reservoir Park" here. For me, the gem is "Mary."

Fleet, airy, a great anatomy/physiology lesson as lyrical plot device, happy and sad at the same time...a tenuous dichotomy to balance, rarely achieved, but oh so delicious when it works. And when the chord and melody structure resolves around the 2:11 mark, it feels so clutch, elevates the tune beyond its environs and I fall apart.

Songwriting credit to this one is pseudonymously credited to Ladd/Blackwell, but though Jesse from the band admitted being "aware" of me at that time, it apparently had no bearing on that name choice. Either way, it's cool to see your last name on one of your favorite records.

At this moment, this song puts a smile on my face and makes me optimistic about the pause in regular programming, however long it may last.

And yeah, the three-year-old wanted to get in on the photo action. Some say she looks like me. I only see it like 5% of the time.

(ps. I'm pretty sure that the versions of the two songs on this single are the same as on the album/used in the video embedded here, but the little weasel below busted the needle off the TMR Manny record player and I'm too lazy to get the Shinola all fired up on the Sonos, so we'll just play the guessing game here)