Fabulous essay.
Everything you wanted to know about "It Was a Very Good Year" but could not possibly find out, research, explain or ever express as good as Mark Steyn...
"That's another trick that lets you know it's a professionally crafted song: the placement of each type of girl in the middle of that long third line - "small town girls", "city girls", "blue-blooded girls"...
"It's the story of a man on his way up, and Drake has only a few syllables to sketch very precise worlds. He doesn't waste a word: "We'd hide from the lights/On the village green..." That pierces precisely stolen adolescent romance. Then on to the city girls "who lived up the stair/With all that perfumed hair/And it came undone..."
"There's a whole scenario in there. The date. The dropping off at the apartment. The "Would you like to come up?" And the hair tumbling down to let you know the evening's only just beginning. What a gorgeous, sensual image."
Divine: The current master of the English language essay appreciating the master of song, the "Chairman" of bad, and swagger.
Like the lyricist and songwriter he so graciously admires in this lovely essay, Steyn is also one who never wastes a word.
So do read the whole thing.
