amazing grace

-------- "Robert and I have been burgled," she said.  "Four silver spoons -- thank God, most of our things are plate -- eight silver forks, and a Georgian tankard.  I could have spared all but the last."

A faint sigh of relief escaped Lucia.  If the foul atmosphere of thieves permeated Daisy's house, too, there was no great danger that her Guru would go back there.  She instantly became sublime.

"Peace!" she said.  "Let us have our class first, for it is ten already, and not let any thought of revenge or evil spoil that for us.  If I sent for the Police now, I could not concentrate.  I will not tell my Guru what has happened to any of us, but for poor Peppino's sake I will ask him to give us rather a short lesson.  I feel completely calm.  Om."
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{Queen Lucia, written by E.F. Benson.  Copyright,
1920, George H. Doran Co.  Copyright renewed 1948
by Kenneth Stewart Patrick McDowall.
Copyright 1977, Harper & Row.}

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In the documentary film about Chuck Berry, "Hail, Hail Rock & Roll," there's a song which is introduced in the movie as "Understand Each Other" -- someone on the internet says the "real" title is "It Don't Take but a Few Minutes." 

And actually -- in the film itself there's only a minute of the song, but in the extra materials on the second disc they show the whole performance -- Chuck Berry, Keith Richards, Eric Clapton.  The song was written by Chuck Berry, but is not one of his best-known songs:  It was Eric Clapton's idea to perform it, because he loved it:  he sings, and Keith Richards and Chuck Berry play guitar & there's a drummer, who's a musicologist.

Before they start singing, they talk and laugh and joke around and Chuck Berry is bemoaning the idea that he can't remember the words and Eric and Keith are like, "Well you wrote it!"

And then Clapton counts off -- "two-three-four" --


When I see those big brown eyes is when I take my cue --
It don't take me but a few minutes to get a message through
I talked to you, and you talked to me and we talked to one another
It don't take us but a few minutes to understand each other

If I was twenty-three years old and you were twenty-two
I bet no one would try to run our lives the way they do
We take a chance and try romance, be true to one another
It don't take us but a few minutes, when we want each other

If I was in San Diego and you-were-in Portland, Maine
I'd fly to you lock, stock and bone in hail and pouring rain
Over the mountains, through the valleys, coming home to each other
It don't take us but a few minutes to get to one another

You would write a love song and play on my guitar
And if you should, in Hollywood, become a movie star
Would you let your heart forget, I loved you and you only
It don't take but a few minutes, when you're feeling lonely
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It's a fast, up-beat song, like most of Chuck Berry's works -- Clapton plays with energetic precision, and sings with this sort of professorial enthusiasm -- it's all about showcasing Chuck's song....Chuck clowns around a little, frowning and raising his eyebrows as Clapton begins a new verse, and going over to the music stand to squint at the music, like he can't believe, or remember, his own lyrics.  Keith Richards -- is Keith Richards.  He's in the background, near the drums -- toward the end, coming into an "it don't take but a few minutes" line, he makes a kind of subtle swoop where his guitar and his shoulder kind of roller-coaster down a little bit and back up.  Powerful.  He's just kind of an unprecedented, unique force of nature.  S-e-x-y.

Someone I used to work with in the 80s said to me, once, in a vaguely accusatory tone, "You just like all the fast songs."

(Yeah?  Where'd you get your Ph.D.?)

But I like the song "Amazing Grace," and that isn't fast.

...'Twas Grace that taught my heart to fear.
And Grace, my fears relieved.
How precious did that Grace appear
The hour I first believed.

-------Take that.

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