Tonight on the ride home from work I was listening to my I-pod. The song that came on was Steve Winwood "Don't you Know What the Night can Do". Then came on an old Traffic song "The Low Spark of Highheeled Boys". Now I think there is a gap between Traffic and Steve Winwood's eighties pop songs. But I don''t think the gap is that big. In the late 60's and 70's (and yes I have switched from referring to decades written out to the numerical shorthand, and don't be scared but I might switch back) Winwood as a part of Traffic sang some amazing technical rock songs. By technical I mean that you cannot put on Shanghai Noodle Factory or John Barleycorn at a random party and have people rip into a frenzy (Like you could, say, with Total Eclipse of the Heart), but anyone who has listened to a lot of music will if not like, at least appreciate Traffic's music . And to create music like that requires a certain attitude, a rock and roll attitude. But if one were to listen to say Roll with It or Back in the High Life or Higher Love one realizes that Winwood is no longer technically challenging us, but has he wussed out?

I state strongly no, he is just changed how he is challenging us . As anyone who has ever seen Dazed and Confused or stayed around their hometown a little too long knows there are always those people that keep redriving the same road over and over and over again, the basketball hero who now leaves his job early to help be the assistant coach of the JV team. Then, there are those people who who were absolute screw-ups and then all of a sudden have a job at the bank, a family and a condo. They have changed in some ways and like Bruce Springsteen's Glory Days, which I compared to the Robert Frost poem Nothing Gold Can Stay, my freshman year of college, there is a part of them that still longs for the the old days and wants to know that now and then they can recreate for themselves a life in the now that has some of the energy of the old days. So, Steve Winwood at the point of this song is probably in his late thirties or early forties sings. The easy choice would be to sing one of three things, one he could try and recreate the Traffic magic, two is he could sing about missing the rock and roll life, three he could sell out and sing silly love songs. Instead he sings a song reminding himself and us of a feeling that was probably common place in our twenties but is fleeting as we grow older. The feeling of the the possibility of love, when you think instant love is on the verge of exploding but really you are merely just having a good time. Steve Winwood sings a song that echoes strongly with the 37 year old woman who is out for Cosmos with her coworkers and gets hit on with on by a 25 year old for a little bit too long. Steve Winwood sings a song that rings true with the forty five year old who decides for that one night of the year he is not just going to have one more beer, but has three more beers and sure when he gets home the following morning after tackling a 30 minute cab ride, his wife hates him for having to drive to get his car, so he can go to work,. Because you know for that one night what he said was funnier, what he thought was more positive and the waitress at O'Malley's liked him more. For that one night he or Cosmo woman were reminded of what the night can do. That a night can imply so much that a morning's reality will erase.

Winwood is singing to us, not about what the night is doing, but about what the night can do, or better said from his optimistic eye what it could do, even though that now he knows it won't , because if it did he would be singing Don't You Know What the Night has Done....