"It is time for you to laugh instead of crying."

The Song: "Stop Your Sobbing," The Pretenders. Words and music by Ray Davies. Track 7 of Pretenders, 1980.
How/when acquired: Downloaded MP3, 2007
Listen/watch here.

I sang this song to Dizzy all the time when he was a puppy, and when I played it this morning he grumbled and whined along. He almost never pays attention to the music I play; he must remember this song.

Anyway, the last ten days have had more than their share of bad news, and I'm ready for it to stop. Tonight I start rehearsals for yet another show — My Three Angels at Gaslight, November 12–20 (closing night is my birthday, so you have an extra reason to come). I'm looking forward to sitting around a table and laughing for a couple of hours.

It's mildly alarming to think that this album is 30 years old. (This song, by the way, is older than I am; this version is a cover of The Kinks' original, released in 1964.) It's also a little strange that I didn't own it until recently, because it was an important piece of the soundtrack of my late teens. But this was one of those albums everyone owned, so I didn't need to; my best friend had it, my boyfriend had it, my roommate had it, my next boyfriend had it . . . now Dizzy and I own it together. I would put it on a short list of best first albums of all time.