Maybe not one of Bob Seger’s best, but “Turn the Page” is certainly his most poignant. A mournful saxophone introduces us to the first stanza: ” On a long and lonesome highway, east of Omaha – you can listen to the engine moanin’ out its one note song”. The engine belongs to a tour bus carrying a rock’n’roll band relentlessly from city to city. That same saxophone takes over after the last line of the song: “Here I go, playin’ the star again – there I go… turn the page”. Seger is comparing a musician’s life on the road to life in general. There comes a time when you must turn the page and move on.
After four years of bombarding people with stories about my own experiences as a working musician and hopefully providing interesting histories of a variety of songs, I’ve determined that this will be my final blog. Oh, I’ll keep the site up and running, but I think we can lose the commentary, don’t you? I’ll keep posting new backing tracks, but the actual file that can be used onstage will be for sale so that professional singers (or amateurs for that matter) can keep these old songs alive. The sample MP3 file can still be downloaded for free by anyone who happens to like a particular song as an instrumental. I can’t possibly stop playing music and creating new tracks for other people – but I can quit talking about it.
It’s been fun, folks. I hope I’ve given someone a chuckle along the way or made you go “Hmmm – I didn’t know that”. My philosophy is that you should never believe your best days are behind you. I love discovering other things to do and I’ve always been sure that a new adventure lies just around the corner. There will soon be a new blog and more mischief.
And so, with no regrets… I’m turning the page.
Stageworthy Backing Tracks by Dave Zobrist 