I’d planned to trip back in time today to the fabled Summer of Love, but found myself distracted by the events of the present.
As I write, Hurricane Irma is ravaging Florida’s west coast. We’ve weathered a few hurricanes here in the Delaware Valley through the decades, though nothing of Irma’s magnitude – we’re far enough inland that they’re generally teetering on tropical status by the time they reach us. But I remember one – Irene I believe, in 2011 – that found Diane and I, and our wooly bully of a cat, huddled in our stairwell (the safest place in our old apartment) while the storm thrashed outside and tornado warnings flashed incessantly on our cell phones.
Storms (of all kinds) eventually pass, just never as fast as we would like.
1) Which leads to the first entrant in today’s Top 5, “Waitin’ on a Sunny Day” by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. Springsteen wrote it following a storm of another stripe, of course, and paired the joyous melody with bittersweet lyrics about overcoming grief.
2) Storms, as evidenced by that Bruce song, work well as metaphors. This Nanci Griffith song, which was penned by her former husband, Eric Taylor, is another example…
3) …as is this one from the Nobel Prize-winning bard, Bob Dylan:
4) There’s also this classic from Neil Young:
5) And, finally, “Shelter” from Lone Justice, a song I could play on a loop for weeks on end.
The Old Grey Cat 