Maybe We Can Sleep In?

About an hour ago I was preparing a peanut butter and banana sandwich (un-fried).  For me, any time that I'm cooking with bananas, this song pops into my head.  It's like how I think of the Menken & Ashman classic "Le Poissons" when I'm making a recipe with fish.  It had me thinking about what to write about, and coincidentally, Pandora immediately started playing it.  You see?  The universe wanted me to write about Jack Johnson's "Banana Pancakes."

So, Jack Johnson is known for writing about a wide range of subjects.  Love, friendship, politics, and how to live a better life.  When I was in college, I got my first Jack Johnson album, and I was hooked.  Just as I'd get into the Waifs' catalogue during some Boston blizzards, there were snowy weekends at Syracuse where I would be barefoot with a radiator the had no "medium", "low", or "off" settings.  I would crank out some art assignments and enjoy some music from warmer climates.  I'd estimate that I may have.... ten Jack Johnson CD's and a DVD now.  They're still a musical place that I go.  Sometimes, my iPod may be stuffed with his music (and a little Ben Harper).

Sort of like Jewel's "Morning Song" (from 1995's Pieces of You), this song is about the singer convincing their mate to sleep in a bit and enjoy the morning, shirking any other obligations, having an intimate breakfast, and ... you know... more intimate activities.   The settings written by these singer/songwriters describe intimacy in two very different places (I'm imagining their home states of Hawaii and Alaska).  Unlike Jewel's urges to keep warm together under the blankets,  Jack Johnson's more tropical, wanting to pretend that the rainy morning is the weekend, and perfect for late-morning banana pancakes.  Johnson's In Between Dreams came out 10 years after the aforementioned Jewel album, but they do feature some similar elements of romance.  Be warned, while he doesn't release all songs to the public, his albums each usually have at least one song written about the love and life that he and his wife share.

Let's play with words, and say that from all this sappiness comes the maple syrup for my banana pancakes!