Strange Pulse

I am pretty fanatical about Mike Scott and the Waterboys, so it should be no surprise to those who know me what my number one song of all time is–”Fisherman’s Blues.”

I saw them a couple years ago in Seattle, my second time seeing them. The first time was on their Fisherman’s Blues tour. This time was a small tour Mike Scott funded himself to prove to his record company he had an audience big enough in the states to release his latest album over here. They weren’t going to.

He talked during the show about how the previous afternoon he’d asked the guy at his hotel where Frasier’s cafe was, and he was directed to the Elliot Bay Bookstore, which has a cafe in it’s basement. While he was there, he found a copy of an old book his aunt had given him when he was a child. It was a book on manners and etiquette for children. He hated that book and had good reason for doing so. When he found it at this used bookstore, he bought it. He promptly took it outside, and tore it up, and dumped it in a trash can.

The thing that killed me about this story was that at the time, I worked directly across the street from the Elliot Bay Bookstore. It wasn’t unusual for me to run over there during a break to browse the books. Knowing that Mike Scott was so close to me and I missed him! Of course, if I had actually encountered him, I’d probably have collapsed in a heap at his feet. And laid there thinking, “Those are Mike Scott’s shoes!”

It makes me wonder how many other near-misses we have in life that we don’t even know about. I think I prefer to not know about them.

Anyway, I’m not even sure what it is that I love about this song so much. Probably the phrase “light in my head, you in my arms.” Or maybe the imagery of “crashing headlong into the heartland.” Or the lines, “casting out my sweet line, with abandonment and love.” Just everything about it. Here it is, listen to it on the radio.blog to the right.