My Gen X Playlist: Verdi Cries – 10,000 Maniacs

I love pastries with a fresh hot cup of coffee. Trader Joes used to have an EASY blueberry scone mix. When I say easy, this is not an exaggeration – just add water and bake for 15 minutes. Nothing fancy, but easy and delicious. I’d separate the dough into evenly sized portions and bake them in a cup cake tin for the perfect scone. I was sad when this was discontinued during COVID. Even now, when I go to TJ, I can’t help walk by the baking aisle with the hopes that it will magically reappear. My niece recently started working at TJ for the summer and I shared my sadness for the void that TJ left in my mornings. She suggested I send an email requesting for their return. I think I may just do that. There’s no harm in throwing a Hail Mary. If I could make something right now, I wish I could bake a fresh batch of blueberry scones and brew a hot cup of coffee. I can almost smell them now.

The thought of pastries remind me of 10,000 Maniacs’ Verdi Cries. The song was inspired by Natalie Merchant’s first trip to Mallorca when she was 20 years old. Her quaint hotel overlooked the Mediterranean and through the very thin walls, listened to one of her neighbors, an older German man, listening to Verdi’s opera Aida over and over every morning.

He will not touch their pastry
but every day they bring him more.
Gold from the breakfast tray, I steal them all away
and then go and eat them on the shore.

– Verdi Cries

Her voice, a solo piano and the nostalgic reminiscing of the quaint hotel overlooking the Mediterranean transports me from my daily life and nudges me to daydream. Daydreaming is good, even if just for a brief moment.

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For a complete playlist, please click here.

For the Spotify playlist, please click here.

The man in 119 takes his tea alone.
Mornings we all rise to wireless Verdi cries.
I'm hearing opera through the door.
The souls of men and women, impassioned all.
Their voices climb and fall; battle trumpets call.
I fill the bath and climb inside, singing.

He will not touch their pastry
but every day they bring him more.
Gold from the breakfast tray, I steal them all away
and then go and eat them on the shore.

I draw a jackal-headed woman in the sand,
sing of a lover's fate sealed by jealous hate
then wash my hand in the sea.
With just three days more I'd have just about learned the entire score to Aida.

Holidays must end as you know.
All is memory taken home with me:
the opera, the stolen tea, the sand drawing, the verging sea, all years ago.