Each Friday I pick a song–new, old, borrowed, blue–that’s been on my mind and in my ears, and write a short post about it.

This is “Theme de Yoyo” by Art Ensemble of Chicago:

I listened to Les Stances a Sophie pretty constantly (though not exclusively) while working on my novel, Noon in Paris, Eight in Chicago. I didn’t consciously choose it because of the Paris-Chicago connection, but because somehow the mood seemed to hit the right spot for the thinking and writing I was doing.  I wouldn’t want to get too mystical about it.  At the moment, as part of my research and thinking towards a new novel, I’m reading A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music by George E. Lewis, so Art Ensemble of Chicago, and the musicians playing here, are much more explicitly on my mind.  “Theme de Yoyo” is a powerhouse of a groove, with all kinds of eccentricities breaking out of it, from the squalls of free improvisation, right down to those similes in the lyrics. If you don’t know it, I suggest taking a listen to the full album, which is really a single virtuoso composition and performance, to my ears anyway.