Soul Food For Here (To Stay)
A soul food is one which is associated with African-American cuisine. Any of the foods that I saw in the dream is far from being one. I’m not mindful of the association between soul foods and the foods that had become part of my childhood, some of which I’ve been missing for so long that even in dreams I still couldn’t have.
The title Soul Food To Go was something I retrieved from obscurity while trying to assemble the scenes I saw in the dream. I guess I was feeling the excitement and challenge one feels while doing a jigsaw puzzle with at least a hundred pieces alone. It is a cut from Manhattan Transfer’s album Brasil. The sound waves that would spring from the song first hit my auditory in 1992. The unfamiliar yet happy sound made its way from the mini-component in Room 102; it leaked through the slits of the door of that room, diffused at the hallway with glass windows through which you can see a strawberry field, and finally hit my ears. I was about to enter Room 103, my room at the dormitory that housed us during a 6-month training in Japan. I stopped and just stood right there listening to the sizzling and playful beat of the song, which for me was like a funky Brazilian jazzy bossa nova, if there’s such a thing. I learned later from a friend who occupied Room 102 that the song was Soul Food To Go by Manhattan Transfer. I was already familiar with popular Manhattan Transfer songs and even liked Twilight Zone, Route 66, Birdland, Baby Come Back To Me, Java Jive, Popsicle Toes, Killer Joe, Operator, A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square, Boy From New York City, Smile Again, and Smack Water Jack (a cover and a Carole King original); however, listening to Soul Food To Go for the first time, I could only think about that line from Keats’s Ode on a Grecian Urn – “Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter.” I hope I don’t sound corny.
The pot is on the stove, it’s cookin’.
Want some more? We always save some art nouveau for special patrons.
You look nice. Do you believe in jazz?
Wonderful!
Indeed, good music can be a soul food.
The title Soul Food To Go was something I retrieved from obscurity while trying to assemble the scenes I saw in the dream. I guess I was feeling the excitement and challenge one feels while doing a jigsaw puzzle with at least a hundred pieces alone. It is a cut from Manhattan Transfer’s album Brasil. The sound waves that would spring from the song first hit my auditory in 1992. The unfamiliar yet happy sound made its way from the mini-component in Room 102; it leaked through the slits of the door of that room, diffused at the hallway with glass windows through which you can see a strawberry field, and finally hit my ears. I was about to enter Room 103, my room at the dormitory that housed us during a 6-month training in Japan. I stopped and just stood right there listening to the sizzling and playful beat of the song, which for me was like a funky Brazilian jazzy bossa nova, if there’s such a thing. I learned later from a friend who occupied Room 102 that the song was Soul Food To Go by Manhattan Transfer. I was already familiar with popular Manhattan Transfer songs and even liked Twilight Zone, Route 66, Birdland, Baby Come Back To Me, Java Jive, Popsicle Toes, Killer Joe, Operator, A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square, Boy From New York City, Smile Again, and Smack Water Jack (a cover and a Carole King original); however, listening to Soul Food To Go for the first time, I could only think about that line from Keats’s Ode on a Grecian Urn – “Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter.” I hope I don’t sound corny.
The pot is on the stove, it’s cookin’.
Want some more? We always save some art nouveau for special patrons.
You look nice. Do you believe in jazz?
Wonderful!
Indeed, good music can be a soul food.
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