New Minglewood Blues, by the Grateful Dead.
Back in 2004 and 2005, apparently, when we drove a manual Honda Civic with no A/C, but a 6-disc changer in the trunk, I made some mix CDs for road trips. These things live on in the big ol’ CD wallet I still drive around with, and lately “Driving Music 04” and “Camping Mix, vol. 2” have been in rotation. The 11-year-old has identified “Driving Music” as a favorite, for some unknown reason, even taking precedence over our “Soccer Practice” Spotify playlist that includes Herbie Hancock and Fela Kuti, but OK.
Somewhere in the middle of the CD, this song kicks in, and quickly provides somewhat nonsensical blues lyrics, if you’re an 11yo who is in a mode lately to just absolutely question everything if it’s not perfectly rationale, which is not at all exhausting.
How can he be raised in a lion’s den?? This song doesn’t make any sense.
My younger spawn.
It’s great. Today when I skipped it, because he’s annoying, he insisted that we listen to it, but that I wasn’t supposed to sing along. Reader, I sang along.
I’m not sure which version is on the CD, of course, but I was a big fan of May ’77, and there’s one of those on Spotify, so that’s where I’m linking to above.
Oh, and of course, this is a #cover-of-a-cover, as the original is by someone called Noah Lewis.