From time to time, The Changingman by Paul Weller resonates with me. Thinking about where I am and how I'm feeling right now—in truth, perhaps over the last couple of years—I might need to pay heed to the song's message: when you're stuck in a rut, you need to shake things up.
Some fun stories about how I’ve discovered music come to mind, but they’re probably best left untold. Instead, I’m thinking about a record introduced to me by my funny, talented friend Steve, who I met at university. The first time he invited me to his room, he put on Stanley Road by Paul Weller. It was new to me then, and we listened together, smoking in companionable silence. Thirty years on, when I play the record, I’m taken back to the moment I knew I’d met someone who would always be there: a true friend. I got plenty wrong in those days, still do, truth be told, but about this I was right.
