I wrapped up the week freshly reunited with an old friend. Gregor over at captain’s dead caught my eye with MP3s of one of my favorite KFOG-FM/ San Francisco broadcasts, a 1996 session with Paul Westerberg recorded at Fantasy Studios.
This particular broadcast is a nice little one hour Westerberg career rundown that held a special place with me when I first got a DAT copy of it in the late 90s. I had seen the Westerberg tour that year when it passed through Cleveland, and the KFOG setlist was a nicely condensed version of the show I saw.
My buddy Matt, who I’ve written about here before, took me to several shows in the 90s that when he asked me if I wanted to go, it wasn’t really a question – because “no” wasn’t actually on the list of optional answers. One was seeing KISS on their initial reunion tour in makeup – how can you argue that? As a guy that wasn’t much of a KISS fan, I found a way, but Matt wasn’t hearing it. After seeing KISS accessorized with lots of pyro and blood, I was a believer – still not a member of the KISS Army, but I get it now. The Westerberg show was another example – I found myself at The Odeon for a show that found Westerberg and his band onstage for an amazing two hour + set that instantly helped make Eventually, his new album at the time, one of my favorite releases of the year.
The Fantasy Studios show brought me back to my copy of Eventually this weekend, and in the closing moments of Saturday night, I drove home alone after parting ways with my company for the evening, with the sound of album closer “Time Flies Tomorrow” playing softly in the background.
These are the songs that you forget about sometimes, buried at the end of an album. Hearing them in the distance, you quickly reach for the volume knob to turn it up and remember, and on this particular night, “Time Flies Tomorrow” was the perfect musical cap on the evening.
Time flies tomorrow
But it ain’t made a move yet
Time flies tomorrow
And tomorrow will make a day since we’ve met
Your heart sings a feeling
It don’t ache but baby its gonna
Swing from the ceiling
Break like a pinata
Break like a whitecap
In the sand you shiver
With eyes like two hubcaps
At the bottom of the river
Time flies tomorrow
But it ain’t made a move yet
Time flies tomorrow
And tomorrow will make a day since we’ve met
Your hands are like an ovation
An uncertain work of art
I sometimes grow impatient
Gonna tear me apart
Ain’t no time for crying
As you stand and deliver
All my thoughts of dying
Are silenced by your river
Time flies tomorrow
And time flies since we met
Time flies tomorrow (and tomorrow isn’t here)
“Time Flies Tomorrow” by Paul Westerberg from Eventually (1996)