The Artful Trade

The Suddenness of Burt The first time I heard Burt Bacharach I was a kid at a party slow dancing with a girl that years later I came to love. Karen Carpenter’s voice singing Close To You. But it was the sound under the words I felt whispering to me. Telling me something had suddenly changed. Something I had never felt before. Something entirely new that I had never heard before. It was a different kind of song, like it was written with different kind of notes. A new kind of math. The same old 88 keys but, like bricks, erected in an entirely new way. The first skyscraper in a land of Levitt houses. A cathedral rising from the bones of a one room pine pew church. They played the record over and over that night. And I listened to the voice under the voice telling me a secret about love. About what it could and couldn't do. About what I could and couldn’t expect. I felt changed. Suddenly. We are taught that history is gradual. A slow roll of events circling inevitably towar...