Hall and Oates–call me what you want, but I’m still going to listen–from the archives

I wonder if, when I get to that point when there’s only one question left to be answered, that question will be “Now can I listen to Hall and Oates all day without somebody thinking I’m a wuss?”

Living with the requirements of the life of the mind on some days, and trying to get the ambience of that life a suitable as possible, the music, or lack thereof, has to be just so.

Typically, when I’m editing, I just skip the music altogether, but when I’m writing the music has to be like an obedient child when you’re busy, there but not too much so. It isn’t enough that the volume be turned down, but the music can’t be such that excites the spleen. It has to be pleasant and friendly and ever so efficient, but it can’t be too boisterous or mentally stimulating.

This last part is difficult to achieve, because we want to listen to music that can be both of those things; the trick is that the songs be able to be both of those things, and then able to not be them too, that the songs themselves can be turned down and not just the volume. Victor Wooten knows what I mean.

Being the age I am, Hall and Oates fits the bill perfectly. What you can say about these guys? Heck, what can’t you say? They’ve been at it for 47 years, and while they take the time to work on side projects (If you haven’t caught up with Live from Daryl’s House, you really should), there has been no break in their union in all of that time. They’ve released 18 LPs of original music, and sales of more than 40 million albums rank them first for any duo in the rock era. They were inducted into the Rock an Roll of Fame in 2014, and they had their star placed on the Hollywood Walk of Fame last year. What’s more, our kitchen manager, Megan Marie Mummert Jones, AKA Megatron, saw them a couple or three weeks ago, and she said they just “shredded it.”

But those are the stats, and what really matters is the songs. She’s Gone, Sara Smile, Private Eyes, You Make My Dreams, Out of Touch, I Can’t Go for That, Maneater, One on One, Family Man, Say it isn’t So, Kiss on My List…

And then you have my favorite, Wait for Me, from 1979. My middle sister, Cara, was just buggy about that song, and it stuck with me. It wasn’t the first Hall and Oates song I’d ever heard, but it was the first that I knew to be a Hall and Oates song, the song that told me that Hall and Oates existed. Indeed they do, and they’re here today, whether you call me a wuss or not.

Hope you’re well. Thanks for stopping by.