How long has Eric Clapton been standing by the highway offramp, holding a sign that says: Will supply tasty, understated licks for food? I didn’t get the memo.

That song is, as they say, “a horse to ride.” Paul Carrack, the fellow pestering the Hammond organ and singing, wrote it back in the seventies, and had a minor hit with it with his band Ace. Number three, Billboard in the US. He’s British. I imagine he shuffles out to the mailbox every morning in his slippers and bathrobe, and finds a check in there that says How Long on it in the memo line, and shuffles back in to throw it on the pile. It’s good to plant perennial crops in this world.

That’s why Paul Carrack is a good example for me to show my son the musician. Paul Carrack works, and works with good people. Well, he works with everybody; I assume there’s some good people in there somewhere. I find it amusing that he was in Roxy Music, and then Squeeze. According to Wikipedia, he’s also either played, sung, or played and sung with:

Roger Waters
Mike and the Mechanics
Ringo Starr
Elton John
Eric Clapton
B.B.King
The Pretenders
The Smiths
Simply Red
Nick Lowe
John Hiatt
I’m sure I missed a couple of dozen more

As I said, I think he’s a good example to show to my son in this respect: Learn to sing, dude. It’s the only thing that matters. If you can sing, you’ll work. You’ll have some control over who you work with. You’ll be autonomous, if you like. You’ll be able to shuffle out to the mailbox in your jammies someday, and look for something besides dunning letters.

Learn to sing, son. Some day you might want old ladies to flap their bingo wings while they clap along to your songs.