I saw on the Ken Burns PBS Jazz documentary that Paul Desmond originally composed Take Five as two seperate pieces. Dave Brubeck takes credit for melding them together. Take Five's eerie phrases and syncopated rhytm draws me to Time Outrepeatedly.

I remember listening to 680 AM WRKO in Boston about 1973. At that time AM radio played a totally different format. I heard whole sides of albums played during the middle of the night. This was about the same time I noticed the progessive provocative infuence of WBUR on the airwaves including a live brodcast from Wounded Knee. I remember Bob Marley and the Wailers live version of No Woman, NO Cry. I was knocked out with the simple words and the incredible variations Bob coaxed from a simple melody with his coarse and expressive voice. The rich textures of the organ, percussion, guitar and backing vocals made me wish it would go on forever. I had no idea what the Government Yard in Trenchtown was. I sensed Bob mentioned it to illustrate the lackluster attempts to address poverty in his native Jamaica. The name Trenchtown itself evoked for me a place tourist rolled their windows up when they drove through. I reached for this song repeatedly throughout my drawn out adolescence. I find it ironic men write songs about women crying so other men can listen to them. Come on, guys, I know you have worn out the side of your copy of Blonde on Blonde with Sad-eyed Lady of the Lowlands. I find a very different message in the song now. I see courageous people making do and being happy with what little they can gather together amongst themselves, even if their own two feet are the only things they have to carry themselves:

I remember when we use to sit
In the government yard in Trenchtown
And then Georgie would make the fire lights
As it was, log would burnin' through the nights
Then we would cook cornmeal porridge
Of which I'll share with you
My feet is my only carriage
So I've got to push on thruogh

Brían