STAR (LOS ANGELES, JULY 2014)

If you want to be a star, start shining, shine on

But if you’re happy where you are, stop whining, it’s wrong

I don’t think you really care, if you’re here or if you’re there

But if you want to be somewhere

Build your love on one foundation

If you are aiming for the sky, it’s too high, too far

Unless you are prepared to die, don’t try for a star

I don’t think you really care, if you’re here or if you’re there

But if you want to be somewhere

Build your love on one foundation

But if you want to be somewhere

Build your love on one foundation

But if you want to be somewhere

Build your love on one foundation

 

Kevin Ayers: Star (Live On John Peel Link)

Note:  In Los Angeles afer a long break, the exhausting schedule we're pursuing will leave us in dire need of another long break.  When Jane saw the eight lanes of facing traffic yesterday on the virtual parking lot that was Wilshire Boulevard, it freaked her out a little, but also inpired her to capture it for future reference.  Tomorrow Burbank's scalding plains, the next day . . . Burbank's scalding plains.  But since the blog next door seems to be stuck in a permanent PLO meeting, I'm hoping you like this and find it pleasantly diverting. 

I would have liked to post the original studio version of "Star," which I listened to while exercising yesterday, featuring some of Ollie Halsall's best playing, but this live version is  fascinating because it really shows why Andy Summers, as fine a musician as he is, wasn't ideally suited to performing Kevin's music.  They just didn't mesh.  Interesting, I think, to note that the first person who raved to me about The Police, well before the release of their first album,  and Andy's role in it was Kevin.  He was a very acute and discriminating listener.

The  palm trees out here look enfeebled and, I'm sorry to say, on their last legs. The giant fig tree, however, in the courtyard of the big Santa Monica hotel, looks robust.