Gerry Rafferty is dead

My first car cost me 600$. A 1966 VW Beetle rust bucket that couldn't climb over steep hills but ran like the devil in a good tail wind. I was 19 and I loved that car. Mandatory back then was... the tape player. So I got one, hooked up mini speakers to player to fuse box; wires dangled everywhere. And then I drove, playing my tapes in rotation, loud, because louder is _always_ better when you're 19.

The back seat collection grew weekly, until the day I bought Gerry's latest, a mix that felt so perfect, and so matched my feelings as I drove the hills east of Montreal in the autumn, or as I headed north to join friends for a day of skiing in the winter, that I never bought another tape again. I had found _it_.

And though I lost that tape long ago, in my memories, Snakes and Ladders remains one of my favorite album of all times. So, thanks man, and much respect. And if you stumble upon an old tape player with your songs in it, know that it meant a lot to someone back in 1980.

Alex.