Record Haul No. 11

Laura Nyro - Christmas and the Beads of Sweat
Laura Nyro - Eli and the Thirteenth Confession
Beyond the Fringe: Alan Bennett, Peter Cook, Jonathan Miller, Dudley Moore
The Alan Parsons Project - I Robot
Joni Mitchell - Song to a Seagull
Stevie Nicks - Bella Donna

Record buying has taken on a desperate, scrambling nature. I’ve started to become possessive, to think of records as ephemeral things that must be owned or forgotten. If I don’t get that record, it might be gone the next time I come to this shop. And then I’ll never ever hear it again ever.

Today, as I was listening to my Stevie Nicks Pandora station, I remembered a copy of Bella Donna I’d seen while browsing the record store last time, a record I’d hovered over, then shoved back in the stacks. Not now.

Late in the afternoon as I was tidying my desk, I noticed my heart rate rising. I was thinking of that album. If I didn’t get it, it might be gone. It might be gone now.

As soon as my little work clock wound down to its end with a rattle, I raced outside, onto the subway, racing through the turnstiles, tapping my toes impatiently by the doors, raced up the stairs, out onto the street, and, sweaty now, into the shop, quickly greeting the man behind the register.

“I just came to get a record I saw last time but didn’t get,” I said, a bit breathless.

More than fifteen minutes later, I emerged from the stacks. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

“Yes. That. And quite a few more.”

Because if not, I’ll never ever hear them again ever.

And so I sit here singing whoo, baby, whoo, said whoo along with Stevie. Satisfied for the moment. My pulse slowed. Until I think about that copy of Kick Inside I passed by, lingering in the dusty stacks, waiting, haunting the moors, it might be gone…

(Previously: Albums Purchased One Hot Weekend, Record Haul, Record Haul No. 2, Record Haul No. 3, Record Haul No. 4, Record Haul No. 5, Record Haul No. 6, Record Haul No. 7, Record Haul No. 8, Record Haul No. 9, Record Haul No. 10)