New Year's Day, 2025

After having a quiet but fun New Year’s Eve, I woke up this morning and decided I needed to start 2025 with a walk. It was tempting to stay inside and warm, but around 11:30, I bundled myself up and headed for the river.

While I was walking, I listened to a playlist I created the other day which is simply the contents of a stack of James Brown albums I own on vinyl. Nearly all of them are from the height of Brown’s creative arc, though at least a few of the records are anomalies in the Brown discography. Gettin’ Down on It is a jazzy outing recorded with a cocktail piano trio; Soul on Top is a big band affair; It’s a Mother is a zen meditation on “the popcorn” as a dance and, presumably as a way of life.

In addition to the delightful James Brown tunes, many thoughts about the coming year were rumbling through my head as I crossed the Schuylkill River on Main Street from Royersford into Spring City. I then turned right down the walking path that would lead to the restored trestle bridge that would return me to Royersford.

As I approached the trestle, I was drawn to take a look at what appears to be an abandoned cabinet for electrical wiring (maybe?) standing just beyond the path I was about to take. For the first time ever, I took a closer look at this object, which you can see in the photo on the left above.

Gazing into the cabinet, I saw the painted head of some kind of creature (I think it’s a lion). At the exact moment I discovered this, James Brown began singing Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson’s “September Song.” You’ve probably heard this song before (“Oh, it’s a long time/From May to December/But the days grow short,” etc.) but unless you’re a James Brown fanatic, you’ve probably not heard it in quite the way the Godfather of Soul approached it.

“September Song” is about romance, aging, and mortality, but, Brown almost immediately turns the song into some kind of existential booty call, the Louie Bellson Orchestra blaring behind him. He even interjects the word “overnight” after the line about spending “these precious days” with you. He also notes that he’ll put more vibe in the stride and more gut in the strut of his paramour. At least, I think that’s what he’s saying.

For my money, James Brown and the Louie Bellson Orchestra have the hottest “September Song” ever and the combination of listening to it while examining the painted lion in the abandoned utility box filled me with an unexpected happiness that had me strutting jauntily across the trestle to head home.

This leads to my point about the coming year: it’s quite likely going to be weird. It you start to be overwhelmed by it, take my wife Donna’s advice: “Do the things that bring you joy and help other people when you can”.

For me, that means discovering the painted lions hiding in plain sight while simultaneously hearing James Brown, at the height of his powers, positively kicking ass on “September Song.”

For me that also means connecting with my own creativity and encouraging other people to connect with theirs. Therefore, when I got home from my walk and saw that a social media acquaintance of mine, who goes by the name “Rex Racer”, had just posted that he’d write a short poem about any photos his readers posted for him, I immediately posted my just-taken lion-in-a-cabinet photo. So here’s my photo one more time, with “Rex Racer”’s most excellent poem in the caption:

Happy New Year!