Poetry

Money Is Also a Kind of Music

by Jason Guriel

The Wrecking Crew was just the cream of the "you pay — we'll play" LA session pool, that crack squad of 50 or 60 musicians...who played on Pet Sounds and Smile and probably half the records in your collection. They didn't just play the chops. They invented them. — Rob Chapman, MOJO

Money is also a kind of music.

I don't mean the slight sleigh bell

of a pocketed change purse

or an old-time till's single tap

of triangle, ringing

up sale, or even the percussion

of post-pillage coffers filling

up, plink by plink. I think

I mean that current

of classically trained breath

certain amounts of currency

can call forth

and blow through brass.

I mean the mean

current of electricity

Carol Kaye's bass drew

from Capitol Records in the sixties,

the timesheets that took their toll

and exchanged it for

four / four time

kept without fail by the brain

of drummer Hal Blaine,

worth its weight in scale.