Nuggets

There are some records that just stay with you and every time you put them on, you wonder why you don’t listen to them every day. This record is like that for me.

Jonathan Richman recorded Rockin and Romance in 1985 and it’s been a staple of The Gotham Gal and my music collection ever since. This is simply a wonderful record.

I got thinking about this record this morning as I was getting ready to go on a sunrise bike ride. We’d been to the beach not once, but twice, yesterday and I was eager to hear the first song on this record, The Beach.

On this record, Jonathan sings about:

People he loves: Vincent Van Gogh (he loved color and he let it show) and Walter Johnson (all through baseball he was loved and respected)

Places he loves: Bermuda (it’s quiet that far out at sea), The Fenway (where I dream my dreams), and The Beach (it’s not what you have on, it’s what you have not).

Things he loves: His Jeans (my jeans are nearly rags, my jeans are almost dead, they’ve lost the little wrangler tag and you can see my knees right through the thread) and The Baltimores (they bring the clothes when they sing, in fact that’s all they bring).

And it’s got the song that says it all about The Gotham Gal and me: Now Is Better Than Before.

So it’s a record about love and maybe that’s why I love it so much.

It’s been out of print for years but you can get TwinTone (Jonathan’s label at the time) to make you a custom copy here. If you are a romantic at heart, I suggest you do just that.