Play us an old song for the first time

[Irieguy]

The other day I was driving to dinner with my gf and The Boxer by S&G came on a mix-CD I had. After a few minutes my gf remarked at what a beautiful song it was and asked who it was. I immediately stopped the CD and confirmed in disbelief that she had never, ever, heard the song The Boxer before in her life... even though she is a Paul Simon fan and has heard most of everything he has recorded solo.

I explained to her how lucky she was, and how jealous I was of her because she was about to hear one of the most perfect songs ever written for the first time, even though it was written over 30 years ago. I started the song over and we listened to it together. She was moved by the fluent, graceful melding of music and lyrics and the effortlessness of the recorded performance.

We agreed that in our opinions, there are few things in this world more pleasurable than listening to an old and brilliant piece of music for the first time. With over 10,000 songs from all genres on our collective iPods, it is a rare occurance though.

For myself the only example I can remember of simply missing a popular musical gem occured in 1993 when I heard a local cover band in San Diego perform Into the Mystic . I was with my college roommate and I remember remarking "holy [censored], this song is amazing... how are these guys not huge recording stars by now?!" He, of course, looked at me like I was retarded and began laughing as he asked me if I seriously had never heard of Van Morrison. Now, I HAD heard of Van Morrison and had probably heard half of the songs on Moondance... I just hadn't happened to hear that one song before.

So, members of the Lounge, bring us pleasure. Post an old, brilliant song that you think may have been missed by some of us. Clearly songs like The Boxer or Into the Mystic are not likely to have gone unnoticed by most of us, but I'm sure you have a few tunes in mind... amazing, old tunes that weren't quite hits that you think may have escaped our ears.

Also please tell the story of the hit song you never heard and your memory of hearing it later in life for the first time.

Irieguy