I suppose that, upon further reflection, I would want to be like you after all

(Cryptic title is a play on the Alan Parsons Project song “I Wouldn’t Want To Be Like You”.) Check out this list of remastered goodies from the upcoming Parsons Project remastered albums. Some of it’s really interesting, and some of it…well, you can tell they’re probably reaching. There are some parallels with the bonus tracks on the ELO remasters, such as the stripped-down mixes and the backing-track-minus-vocals mixes, the latter of which have thrilled the heck outta me on the ELO CDs.
Before either they or I die, I really want someone to stick Jeff Lynne and Alan Parsons together in a studio full of instruments and gadgetry and not let them out until there’s a full reel of tape left on the machine (or they run out of air, whichever happens first). Actually, what would be really interesting would be for them to pre-record vocals and basic rhythm tracks for about four or five songs each, and then each one takes a shot at producing his own 4-5 tracks and the other’s 4-5 tracks in their own style. So you get the same ten songs, reinterpreted in radically different ways – Lynne has regressed into a kind of retro-rockabilly style with light strings, while Parsons has gotten an education in the ways of electronica. That would be interesting. (Not as interesting as having Neil Finn or Peter Gabriel do one song’s worth of guest lead vocals each into the mix, but I doubt that’ll happen anywhere except in my dreams.)
I lurk on the ELO mailing list and on a Parsons forum or two, and I’m amazed that there are folks who like one, but not the other – at their mutual heyday (the late 1970s), both groups shared some distinctive similarities in style, and I was in love with both of ’em.
All of this is just me trying to distract myself from other things. We informed the whole family over the course of the last 36 hours or so; I think the happiest reaction we got was from my father. I really get the impression that nobody ever expected us to unleash any mischevious spawn upon the surface of this planet. Honestly, we’re as surprised as anyone else…but you know what? I’ll take it. I haven’t been this happy in a long, long time, and the thought occurs to me that maybe this is what I’ve been missing in my life for years. And yet I’m not sure it could’ve come at a better time, what with me having just left the crazy slavery of teevee and more or less perfectly positioned to be a stay-at-home dad.
I can’t wait to read to my child. This is gonna be so freakin’ cool. I know there are diapers to be changed too, but you know what? That’s a pretty small tradeoff. (It’s not like mucking horse stalls for eight hours straight.) (And it ain’t like dustin’ crops, boy.)
And here you thought it was the expecting mother who was supposed to be glowing.