Happy July, everybody! New day, new month, new hopes.
For awhile now July has been synonymous in my head with “Gold Dust.”And why wouldn’t it be? It’s a song about 4th of July. My 4th of July, 2001 experience in St. Louis at Bluebird Park.
The darkness darkness darkness and you hear the concussion of the firework and you track its squiggly ascent but you don’t know exactly when it’s gonna burst and you don’t know what it’s gonna look like but you know you’re about to be surprised and you agree to this.
And then it’s dark again. You look around you when a few of ‘em are in bloom up there and you can faintly make out other shapes and shoulders of people in the glow. All of them, like you, committing to a moment of surprise and magic. That hits more for me. Viscerally, that’s how I remember it most.
So all this week I invite you to listen to “Gold Dust” and crank it up. Sit with the words and the strings, and my hope is they steep into your thoughts and take you to a place when you were younger when things were safer, lighter. I hope there is a romantic glow there waiting for you like there is for me when I sing it. And in that glow…sneak a peek. Look around, and bask in the joy of youth.