w.atching the w.orld unw.ind

Today's lyric:

"Desperado, why don't you come to your senses?
You've been out ridin' fences for so long now
Oh, you're a hard one
And I know that you've got your reasons
These things that are pleasin' you
Can hurt you somehow
Don' you draw the queen of diamonds, boy
She'll beat you if she's able
You know the queen of hearts is always your best bet
Now it seems to me, some fine things
Have been laid upon your table
But you only want the ones that you can't get
Desperado, oh, you ain't gettin' no younger
Your pain and your hunger, they're drivin' you home
And freedom, oh freedom well, that's just some people talkin'
Your prison is walking through this world all alone
Don't your feet get cold in the wintertime?
The sky won't snow and the sun won't shine
It's hard to tell the nighttime from the day
You're losin' all your highs and lows
Ain't it funny how the feeling goes away?
Desperado, why don't you come to your senses?
Come down from your fences, open the gate
It may be rainin', but there's a rainbow above you
You better let somebody love you, before it's too late."

The Eagles: "Desperado"
From the album: "Desperado"

When we married in '73, a family row resulted in us unexpectedly footing the bill for the planned celebrations. Busted, all prospects of a honeymoon away evaporated overnight, and the only thing we could afford to buy new was our bed.

Once solvency eventually kicked in, I 'persuaded' Mrs.D. that what we desperately needed to buy first was a stereo. Bearing in mind our food for a week cost a Lady Godiva, she let me spend 55 quid on a Thorens TD 160 turntable, double that for the amp (Marantz 1060 - 38 watts rms per channel, and still working 33 years later) and 127 quid for a pair of Tannoy 15" concentric speakers, mounted in teak and weighing - honestly - half a hundredweight each! Man, they were a bu99er to get upstairs to our flat. And they could pick up CB conversations, the magnets were that powerful!

Unfortunately, all this expenditure left damn all to spend on anything to play on it, so the first four (vinyl) albums got played to exhaustion. Being the first of our circle to have a crash-pad of our own, we became the focal point for record-playing sessions (those Tannoys could make downstairs' chandelier rattle in its mounting!) and the pass-out centre for mates too pi55ed to go home to the approbrium of their parents.

Shortly after our nuptials, I jumped ship career-wise into the industry I still serve today, and while I was away for the induction course, Mrs.D. treated me to Pink Floyd's seminal "Dark Side of the Moon" - which I supplemented with the cd version on the 25th anniversary of its debut, and the SACD version on the 30th.

Romantic, me, eh?

The other main stock in trade of our album 'collection' was The Eagles' "Desperado" their de rigeur anthemic album about the creation and death of a gunslinger.

"Four men ride out and only three ride back."

It took more than 30 years for us to see the band live, and we honestly thought it would be the last time, too. But we've been lucky enough to get tickets to see them at Twickenham later this year.

When they encore with "Desperado", I'll be crying as usual.

Romantic and soft, eh?