Stream: Jonathan Richman – “My Music (For MOJO Magazine)”
This is so good. MOJO magazine shared this fantastic poem and here’s the back story:
“The preposterously youthful 60-year-old is currently touring the UK, and while MOJO’s requests for an interview met with the usual polite refusal, Richman offered to interview himself in the form of a poem.”
It starts out like this:
So Jonathan, does it feel at all strange to be sixty years old,
Singing in clubs now for forty odd years,
Playing for students a third your age?
Yes, it feel strange.
Yes, it feel strange.
My face keeps on changing, but the public stays 20.
I once almost got into a fight with a guy over Jonathan Richman. I was young and earnest and couldn’t believe that any decent human being could have heard but not like Jonathan Richman. It didn’t come to blows, thank goodness, but that’s mostly because it was morning, I was hungover, and I was staying at this guy’s apartment for the weekend. I’ve gotten considerably less rigid regarding my prerequisites for decent humanity, but I still think that if you don’t like Jonathan Richman you’re probably an asshole.
Jonathan Richman’s latest album, O Moon, Queen of Night on Earth, was released in 2010.
I was just singing “Roadrunner” for my 4 year old niece last night. Even she knows that Richman rules.
Jake, I’m dying to know who the guy is that you almost got in a fight with over Jonathan Richman.
It was some dude Lazy-T was living with in Ann Arbor while you and I were at K. He was suggesting that Jonathan’s child-like earnestness was an annoying gimmick and that made me furious. It’s difficult to find the energy to be actively furious the morning after a couple forties of St. Ides though.
That joint in Ann Arbor was a pit of near-violence.