I only ever went fishing once in my life. I was about three years old. My dad took me up the lake behind our house to initiate me in what he thought was one of the many rites of passage a young lad like me should go through.
Being a bookish sort - okay a comic-book-reading-music-loving tyke - I really wasn't down much with his ideas of what young boys should be interested in: the outdoors, hunting, athletics, cars etc. And that included fishing.
There's a picture of me looking at the fish I 'caught' that reminds me of how crestfallen Charlie Brown was when he thought he killed his little Christmas Tree. I had taken a life that day, and I vowed I would live a peaceful life, never raising my hand in anger ever again. Okay, so I got in a scrap in junior high, and I once killed a mole, but I have been a hippy peacenik ever since.
Which brings me to the Song of the Day, which did win my heart the first time I heard it Fishing Blues by Taj Mahal. I purchased a live album of his from an antique store without knowing anything about his music and found that song so charming, I played it over and over again, taking several days to actually listen to the rest of the album. I thought it would just be bitter disappointment from there on in. I've heard many other artists do it, but any version I've heard from Taj cuts those. To use a bad pun, he always reels me in...
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