Tuesday Tuneage
Morphine - “Cure for Pain”
1993

When another pain hits and you imagine a future of using a cane or being in a wheelchair or wearing a back brace or learning to write left handed and on the worse days waking by going for an ice pack before coffee and hey forget those pills, maybe amputation is the best route ... you just know calling the 24/7 nurse or going to the clinic will result in “Naproxen, stretch, RICE” so you save time by researching physical therapy exercises on YouTube, making sure your ice packs are in the freezer, and embracing RICE:

Rest: No problem at all with this one, dude.
Ice: Ice, baby. You need more numbness in your life.
Compression: Strangle the f**k out of the pain, like you never can with your anxieties.
Elevation: Think of the Chance card, Mr. Monopoly with feet kicked up on desk.

And more often than not, after days or weeks the pain goes away and you take the time to hand-wash your compression bandages in Woolite. You sleep through entire nights and some mornings and while you enjoy a coffee or beer on these pain-free days, you vow to not take walking, standing, or writing by hand for granted ever again.

Tuesday Tuneage
Billy Thorpe - “Children of the Sun”
1979

An Aussie updates Billy Lee Riley’s “Flyin’ Saucers Rock and Roll” from 1957 with synths and power riffs. It’s the title track of what is allegedly (sez Wikipedia) a space opera, which takes up side two of the album. (Side one? Don’t ask. Let’s just say it was also futuristic as it presaged the worst stuff you’d hear on hits radio in the eighties.) And no, Roman, I don’t know if its hard sci-fi or not. I scored this on vinyl ten years ago (and the sticker on it indicated it had sat in the Roadrunner Records used LP racks for four years) and have only listened to it in its entirety twice, afraid that if listen more I may actually understand the opera’s plot and start blabbering about it to my two friends who remember this song. Then that’ll be two guys who would “forget” to invite me to bull sessions at the CC Club. I can’t get over the photo of Thorpe on the back cover and MOST IMPORTANTLY: this song was used in Fargo season two, when Rye Gerhardt was driving down the highway — undoubtably blasting Q-98 on the radio.