Valentine's Day

You may wonder, why the photo of what looks like a 'full English'? 'I've logged on to read amateurish and badly spelled music posts that lack insight and judgement, and you've gone all Master Chef on me'. The 'baked' beans weren't up to scratch to be an 'English', but for a Kiwi take on it (Kiwi owned cafe), in Chile, the Mrs (who has sampled authentic fayre in the greasy spoons of West Ealing, Northfields and the pubs of Shropshire) declared it 'lovely', through a mouth full of sausage.

It often perplexes me as to why, after spending time and effort creating a pleasant atmosphere, perfecting a menu, and spending a fortune on tables, chairs and lighting, the owners of eateries pay so little attention to the music they play. Is Barry White an aid to digestion?

The posh brunch, in an upmarket backstreet, was because of Valentine's Day, which I usually don't recognise. This year I recognised it as an opportunity to have posh poached eggs with smolked salmon on toast, and my digestion was actually aided by the Everley Brothers wafting through the precariously mounted wall speakers. At the end of a confusing conversation with the Mrs, it turned out she was confusing the Everleys with the Blues Brothers, which explained her continuous mentioning of 'their sunglasses'. Also played was Tony Bennett's 'Rags to Riches', by which time we were on the small coffees and 600 peso biscuits.

My only complaint was the fact that one speaker was in one room, and the other in another room, so the miracle of stereo made it sound like some of the musicians were on the far side of the joint. At one point I worried for the group of gringos who were seated about six metres to my left, as I thought they were being attacked by trombonists.

So, here is a Valentine's Day threesome, made up of 2 I heard while mopping up my egg with French Bread, and The Godfathers, who always used to play their Valentine's Day Massacre gig.

Birth, School, Work Death by The Godfathers

Walk Right Back by The Everly Brothers


Rags to Riches by Tony Bennett (it's on The Goodfellas Soundtrack)