Happy Average Birthday, Rob
Posted on May 11, 2009 Posted by John Scalzi 17 Comments
One of my closest friends in high school, Robert Lawrence, has a birthday on the 12th of May; mine is the 10th. Which makes today our Average Birthday. To commemorate the occasion of our 40th Average Birthday, I present a song that we played a lot in our high school years, ON AN LP BECAUSE WE ARE OLD:
[Temporarily removed because it’s making my site crash for some unknown reason; it’s Pink Floyd’s “San Tropez”]
Good times, good times.
Echoes would’ve been superior. :/
Hey, today is my actual birthday, and I certainly am not “average.” (I read this here blog here, don’t I?)
MH:
When you do your average birthday with your friend on your blog, you can choose the music.
Happy average birthday, you two. Nice song for it, too, cheerful spring song from Mr. Pink.
You sure it’s the average and not the mean birthday? ;)
Good stuff. I believe I will listen to Floyd all day today.
Well, happy average birthday to the both of you. And happy actual birthday to Joan and to my older brother, who just hit the big three-oh.
I also played this song on LP in high school. Unlike them, I am not old. I don’t turn 40 for another two months. Lord I’m glad I’m not OLD like John and Rob.
Thanks John — Happy Average Birthday to you, old man! I find your song choice to be excellent. I think I’ll put it on repeat for an hour or so. The 9 minutes of wierd noises in the middle of echoes might have obscured the message anyway, and left too much open for interpretation.
Gina @5: I think its both our mean birthday and our median birthday. Which one is average again?
Anyway, Thanks John. I’m so sorry we won’t get to see you this summer.
Just to underscore_ how old John is_, I’ve gotta tell this 1987 highschool story:
When CDs first began to exist, the first one I ever heard Dark Side of The Moon at Deven’s house. Probably John’s first too. It sounded AMAZING. We all heard things that were always there but we hadnt noticed in hundreds of LP listenings.Then I bought Atom Heart Mother – even though I didnt have a CD player. Very few people I knew had one. And guess how many had MP3 players at that time?
Then came prom night. My girlfriend and I left early and I wasnt even there to claim the doorrpize that I won — A CD PLAYER! All reports say that the DJ or band on stage announced my name and 99% of my senior class shouted “pick another name.” But John jumped up on the stage and claimed it for me. Thats a friend.Alas, I couldnt really afford to buy CDs so I sold it the CD player. Probably should have given John some of that money.So now you know highschool wasn’t all Journey and Depeche Mode and Alison Moyet. There was also plenty ‘o Floyd too. On vinyl, on cassette, on 8-track tapes, and on CD. 1987
Could be worse, John; you guys could have been listening to it on eight-track.
And no, that’s not a personal confession, though I should perhaps admit that a bandmate and I once worked up a version of “Echoes” that clocked in at about two minutes fifty.
I LOVE that song, and the whole Meddle album (yes, ALBUM).
I love to play it and have people guess who the artist is. Almost nobody gets it.
David – I’m with you on that. Excellent Album. For the guessing game, after you reveal the artist, have them guess what the heck is in that great photo on the album cover! Its obvious once you know, but until then, its kind of mysterious and maybe even creepy (when seen close-up at Album Size).
Front Cover: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=451260&l=c4dcbeb375&id=1032405957
And if you unfold the album jacket (youngsters, ask someone for a translation) and see the back at the same time it makes it pretty easy to figure out what it is:
Great song about getting old:
I remember hearing Pink Floyd for the first time, but it had nothing to do with “formats,” and everything to do with the two hits of purple double-barrel I’d had taken. Dark Side had never sounded so . . . transcendental. It wasn’t until they released Live at Pompei that I watched it repeatedly, probably my most-played DVD. I’m 40 as well, so I can relate. We were in high school when Fast Times at Ridgemont High came out in the ninth, and Gun’s and Roses’s Appetite for Destruction in the thirteenth (oops! Americans didn’t have grade 13 back in the 80s, or ever for that matter). Anyway, happy birthday, dude. Lifelong friends are a precious resource . . .
Hrm…I think you mean “Saint Tropez”, as in the town where Gilmour used to bum around and (rumour has it) had an affair with Brigitte Bardot.
KevinT – John’s got the name right, at least as Floyd named the song on their album. Great song.