The Songs - The Show Goes On

This is another entry in my ongoing “songs that visited me and decided they wanted to stay” series. I hope you like these enough to become a paid subscriber, because I really need you to keep this project going.

The Show Goes On - Bruce Hornsby and the Range

From where she sits, everyone stands in judgment
People watching as the curtain falls down
See the lights do a long slow fade
The show goes on…..

I remember the first time I heard Hornsby on the radio. “The Way It Is” was this piano driven protest song that sounded so unabashed and out of place in the mid 80s that it was perfectly thrilling to a young, wild liberal like myself. It was a song that was completely out of fucks to give, and featured the kind of chops (and message) that pop music had seemingly left behind. I was immersed in sloppy, lo-fi, apolitical, jangly bar bands at the time, so to hear something that sounded so pristine, without a single note or snare hit out of place, was like getting slapped in the head with a musical score that nobody in my record collection could read. Hornsby’s playing was so technically good, I don’t think anybody realized how killer the actual song was.