food for tuesday
Why “Food For Tuesday”?
When I was probably about 15 I would plan what my platinum selling album titles would be. “Marah’s Dream” was one such title. Based on a dream my friend had about me releasing a hit record. It was a double album in the vein of the Smashing Pumpkins now classic “Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness.” It would be packed with hits but also deep tracks of artful brilliance. The two discs, Pink Dreams and Blue Dreams, were planned out to the point where I recorded the songs on cassettes on my Panasonic tape deck and even created cover art. To my knowledge they still exist in the possession of my former band-mate, Charles (of Secret & Whisper).
My second album would be entitled “Food For Tuesday”.
As a teenager, Tuesday was my favourite of all days. The reason? Tuesday was the day on which albums would be released in record stores. Many Tuesdays I could not wait for lunch break, or the end of the school day, to head to HMV, Sam the Record Man, A&B Sound or one of the other now virtually extinct record stores to purchase the latest offering from some brooding grunge, shiny brit-pop or self-absorbed indie band. This is what kept Tuesdays alive for me. These new records would be the “food” that kept Tuesdays alive. I would do my part in feeding the day by releasing my second album and pay tribute with the title.
The old A&B Sound - Kelowna
If you were to search for “food for tuesday” in my iTunes library you would find 18 songs attached to the title. Recorded by “Fincy”, the album starts with the dance/grunge anthem “Cindy-Lou” and ends with the sarcastic piano ballad “Flour.” Spanning 4-5 years of songwriting it unknowingly tells the story of a young man discovering love, pledging love, and losing love. It ends too soon, before the young man learns what love really is. In the final lyric of “Flour” the young man is “…all out of gas” before some sad piano, both in style and performance, carries the tune out.
Although the “album” is completely unlistenable by anyone other than my closest friends, it represents a pivotal point in my life.
My food for Tuesday is very different these days. Occasionally I still get excited about a new album being released but only once in the last few years have I been motivated enough to head into town to pick a CD up on the day on which it was made available. For the most part all those once treasured albums now gather dust in my crawl space.
Album or dust collection?
10+ years have passed since the original “Food for Tuesday” and I feel like I am entering another pivot point in my life.
My wife has long been bugging me to put my thoughts and feelings down on paper. Perhaps so she can read them (or not) at her leisure rather than constantly being bombarded by the ramblings of a near crazy person. Like the original food for Tuesday, I expect this incarnation will be more for myself than for an audience. Thank you for listening.
foodfortuesday 