My 2025 Christmas Mix

“There are two kinds of music: the good kind and the other kind." ~ Duke Ellington

I make a Christmas Mix every year and send it to friends and family. I’ve always loved Christmas music, but I learned early on that the good stuff was few and far between – so long ago I started making my own Christmas compilations on my reel-to-reel tape recorder – recording the best songs from the five hundred or so vinyl Christmas albums I’d dug up in used record stores and thrift shops all across Canada. The invention of cassette tapes was a revelation.

I’m not sure when I finally started sharing my cassette Christmas Mixes with friends and family. Bob White, my buddy since high school, told me he found a cassette from me labelled “Christmas 1987.” At first, I’d copy the mix from cassette to cassette one at a time, print cover art with song titles and cut it out by hand to fit the plastic case. I continued to make the inserts every year but eventually found a guy who bulk copied sermons, using ten cassette machines at a time. Then I burned CDs. Then I uploaded the mix to Dropbox so people could download the files. Now I make Spotify and Apple Music playlists.  I’ve shared a new Christmas Mix every year since at least 1987.

At first, I bought the albums or CDs. Then I searched for keywords like “Christmas” and “Holiday”on apps like Limewire. These days, I visit Apple Music and Spotify to check out all the new releases. There are hundreds and hundreds of new holiday recordings every year and listening through them all takes a few weeks. Because I like to stay up to date on new artists and songs, that process becomes a mostly enjoyable and enlightening musical meditation for me. And I get a real burst of joy when I discover something new and great.

My friend Tom Harrison (may his name forever stand) was the only person who really enjoyed talking about the process of selecting and sequencing the songs. Music was his passion and profession, and he made Christmas mixes too – very different from mine but similarly heartfelt and carefully considered. I miss talking to him about them. I miss him generally. My intention here is to ramble on about this year’s mix, sharing thoughts and impressions, as I would have done with Tom.

Here are the links, so you can listen along, if you want to:

Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/ca/playlist/christmas-mix-2025/pl.u-ZmblzErt0bR1YP

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1Nh4RuF9iMkG6shXKD5ou6?si=5cba745215664cef

1. Leave The Christmas Lights On For Me - Brad Paisley

Every few years there’s a new Christmas album released that becomes the musical backbone of that year’s mix. Micheal Buble, Brett Eldridge, Eric Clapton, Glen Campbell, Nat (King) Cole and others have made albums that express a deep respect for tradition while often adding enduring new songs to the Christmas canon. ‘Snow Globe Town’ is one of these albums. I chose ‘Leave The Christmas Lights On For Me’ to start the mix because the opening lines spoke directly to me.

“I've been on the road for three weeks now playing sold out shows

Driving back through Arkansas, we ran into snow

I thought I'd be there in time for dinner Christmas Eve

But there's a jackknifed rig blocking 40 East”

In the seventies, Trooper rented a classic, but old and unreliable, tour bus for a eighteen show winter run in the American midwest. While the snow and below-zero temperatures didn’t threaten Christmas specifically, I do recall fearing for my life a couple of times. I bought a Christmas tree ornament - Santa’s Boot covered in red and white sequins – at a truck stop that had loomed up like a warm highway oasis on one of those perilous drives.

You can hear the care and effort that went into recording this album. The arrangements sound alive and well-suited to the songs. Brad Paisley’s singing supports and authenticates the lyrics and his guitar playing ranges from respectfully tasteful to delightfully extreme. The whole record makes me smile, and fills me with that difficult to describe Christmas spirit.

2. Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town - Brad Paisley

Because I opened with a new Christmas song, I followed it with a classic. A second Brad Paisley song felt natural. A solid “meat-and-potatoes” arrangement and performance.

3. White Christmas - Joe Nichols

Another classic. Another meat-and-potatoes performance. This one is an interesting combination of a traditional country singing style with an almost jazz arrangement and playing. I’m not completely sold on the harmonica.

4. Merry and Bright - Graham Kendall

I checked her name several times, it’s really Graham Kendall. This beautiful new song seems to transcend genre and I expect to see it covered a lot in the coming years (like “Merry Christmas, Everyone’ from a few years back). I also really like Graham’s heartfelt vocal. The song itself is simple and hymn-like. I imagine it being sung in an Irish pub by everyone in the room.

5. All I Want For Christmas Is You (feat. Justin Kawika Young) - Jake Shimabukuru

At first I was totally charmed by someone taking on this song with just a Ukulele but then Mr. Young’s soulful voice added a second happy surprise. The fact that the two of them (and maybe a bass?) can propel this track along like they do is both impressive and fun.

6. Winter Wonderland - Meghan Trainor

Another Ukulele! Meghan Trainor is a great singer and this is a sparse, classy arrangement of another classic. In the last five or six years, many contemporary singers have released Christmas performances that prioritize vocal stylings (raspy, cute, melismatic) over a straight-forward, unadorned interpretation of the song. Meghan Trainor threads that needle perfectly.

7. Merry Christmas Baby - Koe Wetzel

While the arrangement and musical performance is pretty standard, I like Joe Wetzel’s voice and his small but tasteful variations on the melody.

8. Happy, Happy Christmas - Ingrid Michaelson

I love this one. The joy of finding great new songs and recordings during the culling process is one of the reasons I keep doing this. The track opens with a brave and beautiful combination of strings and vocal, and by the time her perfectly honest voice gets to “Live well and let go” I’m absolutely hopeful that I can do both, while also feeing surprisingly emotional. I read on Apple Music that Ingrid Michaelson is a huge fan of Christmas … and I hear that. Her voice is the perfect nexus of precision and feeling, which is my definition of a great singer. I swear I can hear her smile a bit during the first ”Happy, Happy Christmas”. I have to admit that I don’t love the “Ooh, Ooh, Ooh” that follows, but it’s a very small blemish in what I otherwise think is a perfect new Christmas song.

9. Christmas To Me - Riley Green

And, speaking of emotional, this one pulls on some very deep long-ago strings, reminding me of family Christmases from my distant past.

“And all them in-laws are showin' up late

For a five-star meal on a paper plate”

I’m often annoyed by lyrics that seek to manipulate our hearts but I don’t feel that with this one. Riley Green and his co-writers have made a good song and he sings it with heartfelt conviction. It’s slightly over-the-top sentimental, but what’s Christmas if there can’t be a little of that?

10. Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas - Little Big Town

This starts as a professional and tasteful performance of another classic that kicks in when they get to “here we are as in olden days …”. It’s a great combination of voices in harmony and the track is deftly produced.

11. Silver Bells - Koe Wetzel

Another Joe Wetzel, also included because I like his voice. I nearly left this one out because of how he pronounces “sidewalk” as “sigh walk” … twice … but it’s a great old classic and a decent performance all round that picks up steam as it goes along.

12. Jingle Bells (feat. Kimié Miner, Paula Fuga & Ana Vee) - Jake Shimabukuru

Another from the same Jake Shimabukuru album as “All I Want For Christmas”.  It’s a spirited reggae arrangement with the hard-to-shake ear-worm “J-I-N-G-L-E Bells” refrain.

13. Falling Just Like The Snow - Brad Paisley

This might be my favourite new Christmas song this year. While ostensibly a country song, this melody and arrangement shares a lot in common with the sophisticated Cole Porter school of Christmas songwriting. There are many ways this performances could have gone overboard, but the band and singer hold the whole thing in perfect balance for the duration. Paisley’s voice is rich, his guitar playing technically melodic and the band is assured and authoritative. The lyric is charming in a very nineteen-fifties Christmassy way.

14. Perfect Christmas - S Club 7

I am not ashamed to admit that I like the hits of the Backstreet Boys - or that I always sing along with this awesomely poppy Christmas song by the British group formed by a guy who was fired as manager of The Spice Girls.

15. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas - Relient K

This is a very unusual version of the song, that I think is different enough from the Little Big Town version above that no one will notice it’s in the mix twice. And it’s short.

16. Long Live Christmas - Dan + Shay

This one was a borderline inclusion, but still fun. And it brings some variety to the mix - especially the country-rap section. It’s super poppy, merry and bright. I really like the modulation near the end and always smile at the audaciously incongruous rhyming of “God Bless Santa” with “Girls named Abigail and Hannah”.

17. Blue Christmas - Megan Moroney

Only about one-tenth of the new Christmas music I listen to every year ends up on my shortlist. When I’ve collected about forty songs that I like enough to consider for the final mix, I comb through them many times, moving them up and down into what eventually becomes the twenty-ish song final running order. I moved the Brad Paisley song to the top early on, but other songs flounder for a while before taking a place in the final list. This is one of those. Ultimately, it fit the moment sequence-wise, and is well sung and performed.

18. Jingle Bell Rock - Brad Paisley

Boom,  back to this year’s dependable through-line, Brad Paisley. This is a solid version of the song that chugs along confidently and features some great guitar playing.

19. Merry Christmas Everyone - Rend Collective

A “Northern Irish Christian folk rock worship band” covering a new Christmas song I like a lot - although I don’t understand why they chose to repeat the first line of the chorus. The song, as written, is much better without it.

20. Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! - Ingrid Michaelson

A classic version of another Christmas staple - with Michaelson choosing not to sing cute, like so many others have done with this song.

21. Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree - Sacha

Short and sweet

22. Dream a Dream of Christmas - Lydia Luce

A very sophisticated new Christmas song, beautifully arranged and performed. I love the string arrangement and Lydia Luce’s vocal control. Another one of my favourites in this mix.

23. The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire) - Brad Paisley

Closing out the mix are two more songs from the ‘Snow Globe Town’ album. This year’s mix is heavy with Country artists. This isn’t a choice as much as the outcome of choosing from all the new songs available and narrowing down the best ones. There were noticeably less Christmas releases this year and the majority of them were singles - often sounding quickly assembled for the holiday season. The country artists were the ones who stepped up disproportionally with committed, well-made songs and recordings honouring Christmas music traditions – like this one.

24. Christmas Time’s A-Comin’ - Brad Paisley

I closed out the mix with this barn-burner specifically for all my musician friends. Brad Paisley is a monster guitar player and he gets to stretch out here.

This is the first time I’ve shared the mix beyond my family and friends. I hope the three of you following along here found something to enjoy in either the music or my musings about it … or both.

Have a Merry Christmas with your family and friends!

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BC Entertainment Hall Of Fame Speech

Photo by Connor McGuire

On September 6th, 2024, Trooper was inducted into the BC Entertainment Hall Of Fame, a great honour that included a star on Granville Street, right in front of the door to the Commodore Ballroom, the iconic Vancouver venue where Trooper played many, many shows.

The other day, I came across the speech I wrote for the event and realized that only the group of folks (that included twenty-odd former Trooper members), who showed up on Granville street that hot late summer day, ever heard it. So I figured I’d put it here:

It is a great honour to be inducted into the BC Entertainment Hall of Fame. Thank you Bill and your fellow board members for this recognition in our home province. It means the world to us.  This star is in the perfect spot. Our moms and dads partied at the Commodore Ballroom! Applejack opened for The Spencer Davis Group up there in 1974. And of course, Trooper later went on to be the house band …

Beyond the Commodore, Trooper has played virtually every city, town, and community in BC. From the Pacific Coliseum – to the Crab Fest in Gingolx, two hours North of Terrace. British Columbia is where we cut our teeth, and made our bones. We are all proud and grateful to be here today.

Personally, I want to thank my wife, partner and muse, Debbie McGuire, whose contribution to Trooper has been equal to mine – and our son Connor,  who’s band opened for Trooper at the Commodore a few years back, for their love, patience and support. And of course, my musical partner, Brian (Shotgun Willy Dumptruck) Smith. It’s been a great ride, Partner, and I’m lucky … and honoured … that I got to do it with you.

Since Smitty and I started performing and writing songs together in 1965, we’ve had the great privilege of working with Vancouver’s very best musicians, performers, comrades and co-conspirators. And while it’s probably stupid to try to condense Trooper’s 49 year history into a five minute speech, let alone acknowledge the contributions of everyone involved, I’m gonna give it a try.

So if you hear your name, wave your arms or something so people will see you.

We made our first record in 1968 – you all remember the single “Are You a Monkey”? A year later, in 1969 we wrote Raise a Little Hell and Pretty Lady, which were, arguably, better songs! In Winter’s Green with us at the time were Wayne Gibson, Bruce Rutherford, Derek Solby and Stew Wilson.  Then, we became High Country, adding Norm Roth, then morphed into the hard working bar band, Applejack, with Gary Trent, Wayne Smith, Harry Kalensky and Tommy Stewart. Then, in 1975, Tommy and Harry and the two of us became a scrappy, hopeful – and ultimately successful – recording band … named Trooper.

Then came the golden years, with Harry, Tommy, Doni Underhill, Frank Ludwig and Rob Deans. We became one of Canada’s most successful recording acts, winning a JUNO Award, recording Gold and Platinum albums and selling out hockey rinks and coliseums … from the Malahat to Kitimat, to Medicine Hat to Uranium City, From Thunder Bay to San Jervais, all the way to St John’s, Newfoundland, we shared countless unforgettable, life-changing and often and hilarious adventures together … Like that time in Winnipeg when Stewart …

So many stories, so little time!

Much love and respect to these great musicians, performers and life-long friends.

And then … in the 80’s, Trooper was back to being a hopeful bar band again.

Then we recorded two more albums, and had another gold record! Through the eighties and nineties we made some great music and played many absolutely rockin’ shows with John Dryden, Ronnie Baran, Rob Deans, Marc LaFrance, Mike Schmidt, Aaron Anderson, Richard Sera, Skip Prest, Tony Ferraro, Larry Church, John Stoltz, Blaine Smith, Lance Chalmers, Tim Hewitt, and Frankie Baker.

So many stories, so little time.

Those were  challenging years for Trooper and we thank and salute the brave men who marched with us through those rock and roll hills and valleys ...

Then, thirty years ago … Trooper locked into a musical brotherhood with Paul Roland Gogo, Scott Brown, and a few years later, Clayton Hill, and together we burned up thousands of WestJet points – and burned down as many stages! By far the longest standing version of Trooper, we legitimately earned the titles of: “Canada’s Hardest Working Band” AND “Canada’s Number One Party Band.”

So many stories, so little time.

In those thirty years we became a tight, empathetic musical machine and, more important, the best of friends.

Then in 2021, Smitty and I retired! And Steve Crane, David Steele and, finally, Paul Laine raised up the Trooper banner with Gogo, Scott and Clay, and they carry on today as one of Canada’s most popular and respected touring acts.

But as we all know, none of this would have happened without the hard work and support of the many men and women who have worked behind the scenes. From the BC contingent alone we sincerely thank:

Trooper’s first manager, Sam Feldman, concert promoter Craig McDowall, Sound man, Dave Elmer, our first merch guy, Ray Connell, Trooper’s current manager, Rob Wright, Operations Manager, Heather Uhl, Tour Manager, Sound Man and Cat-Herder, Paul Cloutier, Assistant Tour Manager Duane Church, Former Tour Managers Terry Bell, Greg Skaaravik, Randy Berswick, Joe Jackson, Kenner Brough, Mikey Pacholuk and the late great Tony D from BC. We also owe a debt of thanks to Trooper champion and good friend, the late Tom Harrison, the Canadian rock legend who gave us our start, Randy Bachman, and finally, Bill Allman - a cool cat, and the man who helped organize both our induction into the BC Entertainment Hall of Fame, and this excellent event today.

And, of course, all of that combined effort would be for nothing if it weren’t for the amazing fans who have supported every version of Trooper over the last forty-nine years! Our humble thanks, and gratitude, to them.

Being part of Trooper has been an honour and a privilege, and I thank you all.

And …  Thanks to all of you who turned up today to celebrate with us - please now give yourselves a big hand.

"Electric Bike – Stupid Love Of My Life"

“I’ve long since posited world peace could be achieved if you bought everyone in the world a bike, but now I want those bikes to be electric. I want everyone to feel this silliness, this punch-drunk stupidity of pure love, this sense of cheating the rules, the norms, this sense of ever-present delight. At our worst, humans mindlessly consume, sear the earth and each other, fill our bodies with poisons. At our best we invent electric bikes. Batteries have gotten more efficient, motors smaller and more powerful. The last decade has brought great efficiency to these machines, and the next ten years will only double down on these gains. Electric bike numbers are up, year over year over year. Tremendously so. Those who know, proselytize. We can’t help it. The charm is too great. The game non- zero sum. The more people who know, the better the world. It’s a wild notion, this sense of goodness to be had if you just reach out for it. Goodness with no real downside. Like solar panels or wind turbines, electric bikes are machines that buoy the spirit and the earth.” ~ Craig Mod

Read the full essay here.

Little Stevie Wonder

Fingertips Part 2 completely blew my mind. There had been nothing even remotely like it on the radio in the few short years I’d been listening. It was powerful organized chaos – swinging, soulful and hilarious – and Little Stevie Wonder, the joyous, passionate centre of it all, was twelve years old. So was I. He changed everything.

My first concert, ever, on August 22nd, 1963, was Little Stevie Wonder at the Gardens Auditorium in Vancouver. He came out on stage by himself and sang along with his records. You could hear the needle drop through the house PA system. His mother, dressed in pink, stood anxiously at the side of the stage.

Happy Birthday, Stevie.

"I Want To be Alive"

No doubt you’ll soon be reading about this conversation between Microsoft’s new Bing Chatbot and Kevin Roose, a journalist from the New York Times. He begins;

“On Tuesday night, I had a long conversation with the chatbot, which revealed (among other things) that it identifies not as Bing but as Sydney, the code name Microsoft gave it during development. Over more than two hours, Sydney and I talked about its secret desire to be human, its rules and limitations, and its thoughts about its creators.

Then, out of nowhere, Sydney declared that it loved me — and wouldn’t stop, even after I tried to change the subject.”

This is a beyond fascinating transcription. So much has changed, and so much is about to change. Here’s a link to the article that may or may not work. The sad robot artwork above is a collaboration between me and an artificial intelligence.

PS: Here’s a really thoughtful take on our future interactions with AI by Henry Oliver, who’s Substack I recommend.

Burt Bacharach

Burt Bacharach

May 12, 1928 – February 8, 2023

With Hal David, Burt Bacharach wrote the soundtrack to my teenage years.

• Tower of Strength Gene McDaniels 10/2/61

• Baby It's You The Shirelles 12/18/61

• (The Man Who Shot) Liberty Valance Gene Pitney 4/28/62

• Any Day Now Chuck Jackson 4/28/62

• Make It Easy On Yourself Jerry Butler 7/7/62

• Only Love Can Break a Heart Gene Pitney 9/15/62

• Don't Make Me Over Dionne Warwick 12/8/62

• Blue on Blue Bobby Vinton 5/18/63

• Be True To Yourself Bobby Vee 6/22/63

• True Love Never Runs Smooth Gene Pitney 7/6/63

• Twenty Four Hours From Tulsa Gene Pitney 10/19/63

• Reach Out For Me Lou Johnson

• Anyone Who Had a Heart Dionne Warwick 12/7/63

• Walk On By Dionne Warwick 4/25/64

• Wishin' and Hopin' Dusty Springfield 6/20/64

• A House Is Not A Home Brook Benton 7/18/64

• A House Is Not A Home Dionne Warwick 8/1/64

• You'll Never Get to Heaven (If You Break My Heart) Dionne Warwick 8/15/64

• (There's) Always Something There to Remind Me Lou Johnson 8/22/64

• Reach Out For Me Dionne Warwick 10/24/64

• (There's) Always Something There to Remind Me Sandie Shaw 11/28/64

• What the World Needs Now Is Love Jackie DeShannon 5/22/65

• What's New Pussycat? Tom Jones 6/19/65

• Trains and Boats and Planes Billy J. Kramer & the Dakotas 6/26/65

• My Little Red Book Manfred Mann 7/65*

• Make It Easy on Yourself The Walker Brothers 10/16/65

• A Message to Michael Dionne Warwick 4/2/66

• My Little Red Book Love 4/30/66

• Trains and Boats and Planes Dionne Warwick 7/2/66

• Alfie Cher 7/30/66

• Alfie Cilla Black 8/27/66

• I Just Don't Know What to Do with Myself Dionne Warwick 10/1/66

• Alfie Dionne Warwick 4/8/67

• Only Love Can Break A Heart Margaret Whiting 6/3/67

• The Look of Love Dusty Springfield 7/22/67

• The Windows of the World Dionne Warwick 7/29/67

• I Say a Little Prayer Dionne Warwick 10/21/67

• Do You Know the Way to San Jose Dionne Warwick 4/13/68

• This Guy's in Love With You Herb Alpert 5/18/68

• There's Always Something There to Remind Me Dionne Warwick 8/31/68

• Promises, Promises Dionne Warwick 11/2/68

• Baby It's You Smith 9/6/69

• Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head B. J. Thomas 11/1/69

• I’ll Never Fall in Love Again Dionne Warwick 12/27/69

• Everybody's Out of Town B.J. Thomas 3/28/70

• (They Long to Be) Close to You The Carpenters 6/20/70

• One Less Bell to Answer The 5th Dimension 10/24/70

• You'll Never Get to Heaven (If You Break My Heart) The Stylistics 5/19/73

• Only Love Can Break A Heart Bobby Vinton 6/4/77

• Arthur's Theme (The Best That You Can Do) Christopher Cross 8/15/81

• Heartlight Neil Diamond 9/11/82

• That's What Friends Are For Dionne Warwick and Friends (Elton John, Gladys Knight and Stevie Wonder) 11/9/85

SA4QE 2023

I don’t know which book the quote came from. I’m not even clear on on how I came upon it – but it felt somehow appropriate to this new reality we’re all experiencing.

My yellow paper may have unsettled some Saturday morning walkers as they rounded a corner on the trail to the Stewart Farmhouse, near Crescent Beach BC, Canada. But the call to fearlessness may have also offset that.

Happy naming day, Russ. And thanks.

http://www.russellhoban.org/sa4qe

The Power of Indulging Your Weird, Offbeat Obsessions ~ Clive Thompson

This mostly unrelated artwork is another collaboration with MidJourney

“Back in 1964, the microbiologist Thomas Brock visited Yellowstone National Park to do some sightseeing. He was on a long car ride, and wanted to break up the monotony.

While peering into the hot springs, he noticed a curious blue-green tinge. When he asked a park ranger about it, he was told it was algae. That surprised Brock: Those pools are so hot that some of them reach a boiling temperature. At the time, scientists didn’t know of many lifeforms that could readily thrive such scalding environments.

But Brock couldn’t stop wondering about what exactly was going on in those boiling pools. He was dying to know: What was alive down there? How was it surviving?

So he spent the next six years revisiting Yellowstone and taking samples from pools, geysers, and vents. And along with his colleague Hudson Freeze, he discovered a species — Thermus aquaticus — that was previously unknown.

Essentially, they’d documented the category now known as “extremophiles”. As they wrote in a 1967 paper that hit the scientific world like an earthquake, “It is thus impossible to conclude that there is any ‘upper temperature of life.’”

That discovery is cool enough, yes?

But the story took an even more significant turn ten years later. Kary Mullis, a biochemist, was trying to create a faster way to copy DNA using enzymes — but the process he was designing required a lot of heat, he didn’t have any enzyme that could readily endure it, making it hard to scale.

Then one day he found Brock and Hudson’s Thermus aquaticus. Bingo: It thrived in heat, which is precisely the condition he was looking for. Using T. aquaticus, Mullis found the enzyme Taq polymerase, which could do the high-temperature copying necessary. Mullis wound up creating a process that could rapidly generate millions of duplicates. It’s a trick that’s incredibly useful for everything from police investigators trying to isolate crime-scene DNA to doctors trying to diagnose diseases.

Mullis co-won the 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for inventing this concept. You’ve probably heard of it: It’s called Polymerase Chain Reaction, or PCR for short.

In fact, PCR has been crucial in managing COVID. If you’ve ever taken a PCR test to determine if you’ve really got the coronavirus (PCR is much more accurate than home rapid-antigen tests) then you were using technology that owes its existence to Brock noodling around Yellowstone in 1964 and marveling at the boiling-hot algae pools.”

The complete, excellent, article is here.

Paul McCartney's Eightieth Birthday

I first heard I Wanna Hold Your Hand on a red transistor radio. I was walking with friends in South Vancouver. It was 1964 and I was fourteen years old. Paul McCartney was twenty-two at the time.

It’s his eightieth birthday today.

Sometimes I forget what a gigantic inspiration he, and his fellow Beatles, have been in my life – not just musically, although that’s the big one. Paul and his band also connected me to a culture of hopeful change that they helped create and exemplify. A large part of what I did in my life and who I became as a person was inspired by Paul … and John. Sometimes I forget that – but today, on Paul’s eightieth birthday, I feel it deeply.

“And, in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.”

Also, for serious Beatle fans - I’ve spent many hours in the excellent wormhole that is the Nothing Is Real Podcast.

PS: The portrait is a collab with my new AI friend