Monday, October 4, 2010

Another great song about New York is Garland Jeffreys' "New York Skyline", from his brilliant 1977 album, Ghostwriter. Jeffreys was a college friend of the pre-Velvets Lou Reed at Syracuse, and they've remained friends - Reed still makes guest appearances at his shows - as recently as last Tuesday, in fact. Man, would I love to see that. The one time that I was lucky enough to see Jeffreys perform live was at the Montreal Jazz Festival in the summer of 2007, where an acoustic performance of this song was the highlight of an electrifying set. During the song's tag, Jeffreys sang of some of the city's famed skyscrapers: the Chrysler, the Empire State, the Pan Am - and when he sang, "We've got those two big towers" as if they were still standing, the crowd went wild. There was a collective realization that he was right - in a very important way, we still do. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPZ-Z7RNulQ&feature=related

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