Drake ft. R. Kelly - "Best I Ever Had (Skeemix)". Ralph heard the song in the car. Clouds were skating across the blue sky and he was switching between stations, search, search, and as he went into a left turn -- this. "You the fucking best. You the fucking best. You the fucking best. You the fucking best." His foot eased off the gas. He thought of Lucy in a summer dress. Lucy was twirling under a willow-tree in a blue & white summer dress. "You the fucking best. You the fucking best. You the fucking best. You the fucking best." He listened to the sunsoaked beat and he began to nod his head with it, tap his steering wheel. He thought about how he had thought of Lucy, thought of Lucy immediately; as soon as those lyrics had come crooning - he had thought of Lucy. He smiled at the irrefutability, the unassailability of this. Of how much he was in love!

He had thought of Lucy!

As he breezed down Constance Boulevard, the song sounded like glints, like glints on locks, a hundred different locks, a heart strung with a thousand different glinting locks, ten thousand gleaming certainties. He said "Woo," gently, into the air. He shook his head and nodded his head and drew a few little circles with the tip of his finger. He accelerated and braked and changed gears as he made his way to Lucy, to where she was standing on the corner of the street, purse slung over her shoulder.

That night after dinner, Ralph called Lucy into the living-room, asked her to sit down beside him on the couch. He had found the song on YouTube. He loaded it up. "Listen to this," he said. At the beginning it didn't sound as he remembered - but then the rhythm started, the beat, the hook, that sunsoaked sound. Ralph remembered the blue sky and the straight streets and the way he had thought of Lucy. He thought of Lucy again. Her face was scrunched up as she listened to the laptop speakers. He loved her. "I love you," he said to her.

"What is this?" Lucy asked.

"A song I heard," said Ralph.

She listened some more. "It's filthy," she said.

"No no," he said. "It's in love. You're the fucking best, you're the f--"

"I get it," she said.

"As soon as I heard it, I thought of you," Ralph said. "As soon as. Immediately." He tried to communicate the irrefutability, the unassailability. "Without trying," he said.

"'I can make your pussy whistle / like the Andy Griffith theme-song?'" she said.

"That doesn't matter," he said. "I thought of you."

[Drake's MySpace]

---

Elsewhere:

Sing Statistics has launched a mailing-list surrounding a particularly mysterious and ahem wonderful book project, I Am We Are The Friction.

John Darnielle (of the Montain Goats) with a wonderful analysis of (and repping for) Blackout Beach's Skin of Evil, one of my favourite albums of the year. I like the way he takes it to task. See also Carey Mercer's (aka Mr Blackout Beach's) recent blog-post about assisting at a Wolf Parade music video shoot. Hilarious.

Tickets are now on sale for Sappyfest. Sappyfest is a remarkable music & art festival in Sackville, New Brunswick. I will be attending for the first time this year, doing a writing project with them. (To be announced shortly.) The music line-up so far includes Calvin Johnson, Clues, Destroyer, Eric's Trip, Eric Chenaux, Feuermusik, Jon-Rae Fletcher, Julie Doiron, Ladyhawk, the Luyas, Mount Eerie, Shapes & Sizes, Snailhouse and Women.

I also recently wrote about Buraka Som Sistema for McSweeney's. "...when they play it's as if there is another member perched on a black corner speaker, hurling plums and diamonds onto the dance floor."

Someone started a Said the Gramophone Wikipedia entry - but it could use some sprucing up.

And as for our Monks contest, looking for a description of the best tattoo ever... So many amazing entries. Go look! From the Petit Prince to freckles to EAT SHIT. But the winner is weeghiz, with this entry: There's a bus and god is on the bus with a crowd of normal humans. god is dressed and shaped like any of his people. Joan Osborne is also on the bus. Joan doesn't know god is on the bus. No one but the owner can tell that god and Joan Osborne are on the bus because god is blending in and Joan Osborne is pretty generic looking; also her nose ring is facing away, towards the windows opposite the ones we are looking through. Because it is too annoying to always have to explain that he has a tattoo of a memorable image from the 1995 top 40 hit "One of Us" on his back and then point out the characters, he always just calls it "people on a bus" when he is forced to respond to inquisitors, like at water parks. We'll be in touch.