Fabulous Friday: *Seductive Reasoning*

My brother Howard used to work in a record store in La Crosse, Wisconsin. It was called Face the Music. Our mom sometimes called it Face the Nation by mistake so my brother Patrick and I started calling it Meet the Press. Just to be assholes.

I discovered The Roches sometime in the 80s and Howard told me about an album that two of the three Roche sisters had recorded in 1975, Seductive Reasoning. I bought it on LP at Face the Music sometime in the late 80s and it was my most beloved album for a while. I wish I still had that LP, who knows what happened to it. I bought it on CD sometime in the 90s and still have the CD.

The singing and the songwriting are thrilling and distinctive. Howard describes them as "singular sisterly stylists."

Dwight Garner wrote an article in the NY Times the other day called "Maggie & Terre Roche’s 1975 LP Is a Revelation. Why Is It Forgotten?" Howard texted me a link to it and naturally my response was, "Not forgotten by me!"

This is my favorite song on the album, with one of my favorite lyrics ever:

There's always something to fall back on

Like a knife, or a career

Please forgive them for using the word "colored." It was 1975 and I think they chose that word to point out the cluelessness of the narrator. I like to think that, anyway.

The toe-tapper of the album is this country-flavored number with an amazing title, "If You Empty Out All Your Pockets You Could Not Make the Change." Produced by Paul Simon! Backing vocals by The Oak Ridge Boys! Priceless!

I feel like Fabulous Friday has become a place for me to continually thank my brother Howard for introducing me to music. I think I found The Roches on my own but I never would have found this album without him.