I love The Alan Parsons Project.
Unabashedly.
And so I’m excited to see a live concert tonight at the Crest in Sacramento–last time, I had to go all the way to Napa to see them.
If you’re saying to yourself, that band’s name sounds familiar, but I can’t quite place it, let me assure you that you’ve heard the music–I don’t watch sports, but I still know the first song off the Eye in the Sky album, Sirius, is played all the time when stars take the court.
You may also remember that Dr. Evil’s plan, in Austin Powers 2, to turn the moon into a death star is the “Alan Parsons Project.” “The Dr. Evil Edit” then appeared on The Time Machine album.
The Alan Parsons Project isn’t like other bands–various musicians cycle in and out–the constant is musician/producer Alan Parsons, most famous for his work on a couple of Beatles’ albums and Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon, which got him his first Grammy nomination.
The albums the Project puts out are loosely themed. One of my favorites is Gaudi, inspired by the work and life of Antoni Gaudi, the Catalan architect, whose Sagrada Familia is still under construction (it started in 1882). It started my quest, now fulfilled, to visit Barcelona.
Other albums also appeal to the queen of the geeks side of me, with themes ranging from Keats to Poe to Freud to Egyptology.
It was probably the Eye in the Sky album I heard first–I went through all of my stepfather’s albums, looking for new friends. It was love at first listen, and I demanded that the family collection house the complete works.
One song that means a lot to me is “Prime Time,” from Ammonia Avenue. When I was a terrified 17 year old, I listened to it on repeat on the way to the hospital to have my son. “Even the longest night won’t last forever [. . .] Something in the air / Maybe for the only time in my life / Turning me around and guiding me right.]” Now, having had him in my life for 25 years, I can say it did all work out, surprisingly, amazingly, even if it wasn’t at all according to plan.
(That night did last forever, though–and by two days later, the theme song should have been the next song on the album: “Let me go home / I had a bad night / Leave me alone.”)
I’m listening to The Alan Parsons Project as I write this–my computer tells me I have 18.7 hours total.
I often listen to The Alan Parsons Project while I’m writing, which annoyed my son greatly in the Fall of 2012, when I was finishing an intensive project.
On the way to a Writing Program conference in Santa Barbara with Melissa in 2012, I relayed a conversation the boy and I had just had:
The Boy: Why are you always listening to this?
Me: I binge it when I’m writing.
The Boy: But you’re always writing!
A few days later, Karlissa spent the last day in Santa Barbara touring and wine tasting.
Near the end of the day, we were at Cottonwood Canyon tasting room. Just as our host was handing us a chocolate to have with the dessert wine pour, he mentioned his friend, Alan Parsons.
And I fell off my stool.
Literally.
I got myself up, fished the chocolate out of my cleavage, where it had fallen, and said, “The classy thing would be for everyone to pretend that didn’t happen.”
When Melissa explained why I’d been so overcome, our host insisted that the embarrassing story would be told.
“Well, when you do, tell him there’s a whole book out there written to his music.”
La Sagrada Familia
