Secret of the Easy Yoke

Frank Sinatra used to say he orchestrated his albums so their timing would match the timing of bringing a date home.

You walk into your apartment, put on the LP and pour the drinks, make some small talk, then move to the couch and slip off your shoes as the conversation becomes more intimate.

It was when she’d be wanting to be kissed that you’d heighten her tension by leaving her to flip the record. Perhaps you’d return to the couch. But perhaps she’d follow you to the turntable and you’d kiss her, leading her to your bedroom…

I can say fairly certainly that Pedro the Lion doesn’t orchestrate their CD’s thusly.


I’m on top of Stockholm and we’re at the point in the evening beyond the kissing and small talk. Both of us concentrating on this moment. David Bazen begins slowly bleating, ‘Suddenly, I don’t love you at all… I don’t love you at all… I don’t love you at all…’


I stop and sit on the side of the bed, exhaling the words ‘Fuck me.’

‘What?’ Stockholm says, confused.

‘It was an expletive,’ I say, walking to the stereo to change the CD, ‘not a request.’


When I get back into bed, I start rubbing her back and we talk, listening to Nina Simone’s Pastel Blues. She tells me she’s going to Montgomery for the weekend.

‘Doesn’t your ex-boyfriend,’ I ask her, ‘live in Montgomery?’

‘Yeah,’ she says, ‘it’s no big deal. I’m just going to see my dog.’

I lift her hair and kiss the back of her neck, not understanding that this is the last night she’ll ever spend in my bed.