Song of the Day: The Airport Blues by Roger Manning

So this Tuesday SOTD post is by still a pretty totally unknown artist after one of the world’s biggest or important yesterday! In the 90’s Roger Manning was just as important to me but I’ve never meet anyone who’s heard of him? That’s how obscurer he is! It’s track number seven on his self-titled debut album of 1988 but I’ve embedded the full album just above because it’s still pretty hard to find, you know? I’m highly recommending you just to listen to the whole album! Manning was or still is, I guess quote his very short Wikipedia page: “Roger Manning is a New York City based singer-songwriter who plays an aggressive acoustic style of music. Manning, along with a small handful of other artists, composed the original New York City anti-folk scene.” and then goes on to say: “His legal challenge in 1985 overturned New York’s longstanding ban on music in the subway, and launched the Music Under New York program.” and he have radio program in the early 90’s and then since 2001 he’s made his living as a web designer. Anyway I came across him in the 90’s sometime, I think it was thanks to the Black Flag’s guitarist Greg Ginn indie label called SST, who I just got almost the whole back-catalog on releases. Manning did and I did get both his 90’s albums too which were also self-titled albums but on different labels. So on his bandcamp profile they’re numbered now but I still have my CD copies of them, just looking at them again they don’t have any number system anywhere in them! His debut seems to have a totally different front cover now, much darker photo of him and his guitar but original it was all very light or white. Please check him out and see what you think? The Airport Blues lyrics are:

i know love when i see it i get scared when i feel it but it’s no matter now she left her music on she left her picture on my wall my baby’s gone to lon-don go ahead, leave your country behind bay-bee it’s too big around the middle anyway some people just don’t know some people just ain’t thinking love me kiss me leave me miss me so how do i appear to you in the night? am i your mother, am i your lover? am i the monster of your dreams? what if loved another and another and another? let’s pretend numbers don’t exist love me kiss me leave me miss me i want to find out the hard way that money isn’t everything and then i’d like to visit lon-don mama makes baby laugh on the subway yeah, i know love when i see it i get scared when i feel it leave your music on when you go hang my picture on your wall in lond-don love me kiss me leave me miss me… in lond-don

This is the front cover as released by SST label in the late 80’s!

Cheers! 🙂