Looking for something specific, finding something else entirely unexpected, and getting totally distracted, absorbed, and not caring anyway. It happens all too often. Usually it’s no bad thing. Sometimes it even seems more than a coincidence. As if it is meant to be. This time it was a cheap and cheerful 3CD The Songs of Carole King set that turned up, which was odd as, of late, I had been haunted by that beautiful, almost ancient, song ‘Goin’ Back’, thinking about the past, wondering about the Dusty version and The Byrds’ one, curious about the spell they weave still, but not quite thinking of them in the sense of that old Robert Forster song where he’s musing about who sings better in the dark, Townes Van Zandt or Guy Clark. No, no, not that, just really thanking God, or whatever heavenly thing is out there, that we have those recordings by Dusty and by The Byrds to pull us through.
