That Title Sounds Familiar

Song 274: This week on the playlist you can hear If I Was Your Man by Joan Osborne, written by Joan Osborne, Joseph Arthur, Louie Pérez, Rick Chertoff and Jack Petruzzelli. It seemed like a good time to post a Joan Osborne track because she's performing in my town tonight, though, due to some contrary circumstances, I can't make the gig, as much as I might wish I could. Back around the turn of the new millennium, I happened to catch a Joan set on TV, and I liked what I heard, both in the sound of her voice and in the songs she sang. She performed cuts from her then-current CD Righteous Love, and when she got to this one, it grabbed my attention with its layered sitar sound and an alluring melody that lingered in my mind. I still remember that magic TV moment, and I soon added Righteous Love to the CD collection. A few years later, when a friend gave me an iPod for Christmas, I made a place for RL in the iTunes list. Around the turn of the new decade, working on Who Said What, I would sometimes key up mixes of my own songs on the iPod as I rode the train into Manhattan, and sometimes other people's music, often including Righteous Love, so I might listen to my song If I Was You and then, not long after, I would listen to Joan's song If I Was Your Man. Both her song and mine are incorrectly worded -- the correct form of both phrases would use Were instead of Was -- and Daisy, who is the wife of my recording partner, engineer and co-producer David Seitz, didn't hesitate to mention that to me, mainly because she's a teacher and she doesn't appreciate the way performing musicians can lead her young charges astray, but the way I figure it, Joan's probably leading more of them astray than me at the moment, and if she can get away with it, then maybe I can slide too. Of course, I'm not trying to tell you what to do, but If I Was You, I'd cut me some slack on that one, and give Joan some room as well. You can find the song video for my track just by clicking on the title.