A Trick of The Tail

Dolphins dig sustained chords. I know this because the songwriter Fred Neil used to play to them all the time. The author of 'Everybody's Talkin' and yes, 'Dolphins' used to swim with his favourite creatures and when he got tired of the music industry, he even settled in Coconut Grove, Florida, so he could be close to his pals. He also lent his support to a special rehabilitation project that released some of these captive animals back into the wild. So while Bowie wished you could swim, like dolphins can swim, Fred Neil was literally in the flow.

I was thinking of melancholic old Fred during my own brief time in Florida. I saw those bottlenose guys along the Gulf shores, charming the humans in the tourist boats, jumping out of the water for fun and for the showbiz lifestyle. And in Clearwater Marine Aquarium I saw Winter, the superstar dolphin with the prosthetic tail. She lost the end of the real one after getting caught in fishing tackle, and she learned to swim a little by wiggling her stump from side to side. But apparently this shark-like motion is bad for the spine and so now she is encouraged to swim with the artificial tail. Apparently the technology used to make all this work is now being used for human prosthetics.

So in honour of Winter, I will play a version of 'Dolphins'' this Friday night. Maybe the Fred Neil original, or that fine version by Terry Callier and Beth Orton. Or perhaps the dreamy live rendition from Tim Buckley. Whatever, I shall be thinking of blue water, a meaningful drift and ideally, a sense of porpoise.