(no subject)
So my mother Linda and I found a fantastic documentary on Paramount+. The Smithsonian did a few short docs on Princess Diana, and one of them was specifically about the funeral, called Diana: The Day We Said Goodbye. They talked to the florist, the military men who did the procession and were pallbearers, a choir boy, etc. Mom loves Diana and I love arcane details.
When they planned the music, they wanted Elton John to sing, and he suggested Candle in the Wind (written about Marilyn Monroe). They basically said, you are not singing about another woman at Diana's funeral (reasonable). So he called his lyricist Bernie Taupin, who I respect more with every bit I learn about him, and within hours had the 1997 (England's Rose) version of the lyrics.
Then, listening to Elton John sing the song at the funeral, I realized that the mp3 I had of that song was probably ripped right from a recording of the funeral. That mp3 lived in my WinAmp playlist for months. Even just having mp3s was amazing - truly digital, intangible music that you could send over an Ethernet cable. (Wi-Fi? What was that? The 802.11 protocol wasn't written till that year, 1997, and the term "Wi-Fi" wasn't coined till two years later.)
The song brought me back to a time before I got hurt, when everything was possible.