Rocket Man

I am an avid listener of public radio. Even in Mississippi I suffered through Mississippi Public Broadcasting. The cut-outs in signal, the broadcasting of two shows on top of each other, the repetition of the same shows back to back. Why? Because I love the national programing.

I have my favorites. Wait Wait Don't Tell Me. Whad'ya Know (which KUOW in Seattle doesn't broadcast), Car Talk. And I passionately hate some programming, like anything done by Garrison Keillor (man, they love him up here; KUOW plays that craptastic show at least twice every weekend).

One show I don't listen to as much as one might think is This American Life. I like it. I subscribe to the podcast. But I rarely get around to listening to it. This morning I was a little slow getting out of bed, and I don't have to be anywhere until this afternoon (manicure followed by coffee).

Today's This American Life was a rerun where they looked at the lives of people who place classified ads in the local paper. The one segment that really caught my ear was Act Three: Musicians Classifieds. They went through the ads and put together a band. The band would be together for one day and would record one song. They had people from all over the music genre map and there were a few things that just didn't seem like they could fit. And they had a violinist who was in anger management.

They went into the to record Elton John's Rocket Man. And you know what? It was amazing. It was one of those things where I stopped everything I did to listen. I got goosebumps. Maybe it was the narrative that went with it--how within a few minutes these people clicked and played like they had always been playing together. It worked, and it worked well. I had hoped they had a copy of the song I could purchase, but I don't see it on their site. Because I would have paid the 99 cents to iTunes to get a copy. You can stream it here.

This episode is seven years old now. I really want to know what happened to the people in the band. Did they ever find a band? Did they ever decide to play together again? Was it just a one-time thing where Jupiter was in Mars and the star aligned just right?

I need to know!