SOTD - Chris Isaak/Dancin'

In the late nineties, Chris Isaak packed up his band and headed south down the California Baja peninsula. They found a remote place to lodge and let the atmosphere steer what was to come. Between surfing and cantina stops, they channeled their experience into a collection of songs that would become known as the Baja Sessions. Mostly, it is made up of session recordings of songs from earlier albums and a few covers with a few new songs mixed in. Due to the nice weather we have been having lately, we have had the summer tunes on heavy rotation. The Baja Sessions are often in that mix. My favorite songs comes toward the end of the disc, Dancin'. The song completely takes me on vacation. This song belongs, not on the beach swaying in the breeze or blowing through your hair as you drift down the PCH with the top down, like many of Chris' songs do. This one is more on the fringe. It is sonically the soundtrack to a small cantina that opens to the beach right about the time when you are hitting your third drink and the sun has just dipped below the horizon. Despite the present tense of the delivery of the lyrics, the "Dancin" in the song sounds less like a recount of what's happening and more like an anticipation of what's to come.