Tracy Chapman’s first album was a masterpiece and I loved it whole-heartedly but her second album ‘Crossroads’ while being less commercially successful is still a very fine album indeed. This is my favourite song from that album.
For some reason this song reminds me of another student at my drama school. His name was Andy (and sometimes Drew) and like me he came from Leicester and started east 15 in 1989. I had seen him around Leicester before we went and we had some mutual friends in common but it was not until we were living in the school’s Jacobean Mansion in York that we got to know each other a little better.
Andy was a very talented actor but unfortunately he had a tendency to be unreliable in so far as he would turn up late for rehearsals or not at all and was sometimes ill prepared but when he was there and applied himself he gave tremendous performances.
One Sunday he cooked us a roast dinner in the basement kitchen. He had somehow managed to get hold of a Joint of Lamb and slow cooked it in the oven whilst the residents of the house sat in the old Jacobean kitchen in front of the real fire drinking wine and discussing changing the world. Andy played the guitar and he was playing the opening bars of this song and because I knew it I recognised it instantly.
The words of the song are very powerful. It is true that in the end all that we have is our soul….
Now listen to this song. Dedicated to Andy R wherever he may be…..
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