I can hear that old brass band playing our song down the hill

Today feels like one of those dulcet, lucky days of indian summer reprieve before the air turns crisp and cold around all the edges. As I sat on a front porch this morning with my coffee, looking at the mountains, I took note of the slightest suggestion of autumn coming. I can feel it waiting for me. Hence I am cramming my days and nights full with as many warm-weather things as I can before the seriousness (and wildness) of Colorado autumn wrestles me into sweaters and rainboots.

I think I’ve said this ten thousand times before in this forum, but I really do love my summer nights (minus mosquitoes). The sitting in a lawn chair at nine thirty, the sky still echoing with sunlight like a colossal glow-worm being held just beyond the horizon. The midnight bike rides, campfires, drinks like mint juleps and Pimm’s cups….

My pal J Tom Hnatow, pedal steel/electric guitarist for These United States, put together a whiz-bang mix this summer for that time of day when the twilight is deepening and the air is cooling. Of all the excellent tracks he picked, I’ve fallen for this Jayhawks song the hardest. It’s one of those terrific songs that sounds like you already know it as soon as it cues up for the first time.

Haywire – Jayhawks

Tom explains:

“A friend of ours from the band Revival once told me that he always forced himself to be doing something, anything, at twilight — the longest, loneliest, heaviest time of day for him to get through, when all your thoughts and memories seep hazily in at the edges, darkness creeps inevitably on.

This is a mix for driving west, the sun setting red through the clouds, watching the world fade away until there’s nothing left but the glowing instrument panel and the lonely headlights of fellow travelers.”

As for me, I am heading to a little cabin the mountains of Colorado this weekend and I’ll be waiting for the light to change, as the aspen leaves flutter yellow for probably just these next few days, and then they’ll be gone.

[photo by Thierry Lombry from The Venus Transit 2004]