I Had Excellent Taste for a Ten Year Old

I just had a moment of Web 2.0 serendipity. I was poking around the iTunes store (I know, I know, but sometimes it gives me ideas for stuff to look up on eMusic). Anyway, I was looking at the "Recommended for U" suggestions and I noticed a Leonard Cohen album. I discovered his poetry last year while working at the bookstore, and loved it, so I took a closer look. Browsing the track titles brought on that intense sense of almost-deja vu that means I'm remembering something from childhood, something powerful and important that I had almost forgotten. I listened to the clips. I knew the songs, but I knew them sung by a woman. Jennifer Warnes. I found her on eMusic. She was a backup singer for Cohen and released an album of covers which he co-produced. My mother played this album a lot when I was about ten, until I stole the tape to play for myself.

I downloaded the album and listened to it immediately. God it's good. I hear it through two sets of ears. My now self hears the music and lyrics together and loves the power of the language. At the same time, my ten year old self remembers the sounds and the feelings, while the words made only the vaguest sense. I remember singing along with Famous Blue Raincoat, knowing there was something big and strong inside that song. Now I listen and feel turned inside-out. I see my former lover, and the lover I left to be with him, and the girl he found to replace me. I see myself.

Usually profile-based recommendations are just toys, good for random thoughts and ironic amusements. But every once in a while I see the grand possibility. Some recommendation strikes a spark, begins a tenuous thread that I can follow back to something I absolutely love.