WHITE BIRD by It's a Beautiful Day

Maynard G. Krebs made me a beatnik, but songs like WHITE BIRD transformed me into a long haired hippie. David LaFlamme's plaintive song with the greatest violin solo of the psychedelic era has me hankering for LSD, although listening to this classic by It's A Beautiful Day is enough to flashback to those days of the Summer of Love. I was 17 and that time has come again.

1968.

The year is vintage.

Some much good. Some much bad.

Last week I was riding the subway to work. Newspapers strew across the platform. The commuters grim. Wife #2 in Thailand unhappy with my love. My funds low. No prospects of more money. Despair was inevitable until the lilting violin of It's a Beautiful Day drifted out of the past from my cellphone.

42 years distant.

A plaintive violin.

The Bay Area band scored a 1968 hit with WHITE BIRD and this tune rescue my soul from the general malaise of 2009.

David Laflamme the band leader wrote the song about his life in Seattle. "Where the 'white bird' thing came from ... We were like caged birds in that attic. We had no money, no transportation, the weather was miserable. We were just barely getting by on a very small food allowance provided to us. It was quite an experience, but it was very creative in a way."

Hippies.

I picked up the garbage on the subway platform and sang the song to myself.

People thought I was mad.

They hadn't seen 1969 in a long time.

But it's still there at this URL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmb69MdeJBc&feature=related