And for the record, all the furniture in our living room was a shade of brown | Apostle of Hustle: Chances Are (Jim Eno remix)

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My parents loved the music of Johnny Mathis when I was younger. But it wasn’t just his music, really, as it seemed to small me that my mother and father also shared a genuine affection for the man; I truly believe that they saw in him a terrific human being. They weren’t only warmed by his voice and the way he carried a tune, but also admired the affable way in which he carried himself in television and radio interviews. My dad might also have been keen to the fact that a scholarly Johnny had broken future Celtic deity Bill Russell’s university high jump record while at SFSU. My mother, I am sure, saw some of my father’s features in Mathis (or vice versa).

I sometimes wonder if their adoration of the man has faltered in the time since, as over the years its become progressively rare to hear them play that same music that at one time seemed so ubiquitous in my parents’ household. These days there’s no more Johnny Mathis, no José Feliciano, no Bee Gees, Rondstadt or Diamond.

I was raised on feathery hairstyles. Soothing voices and helmet hair.

Maybe they’ve grown from all of it. But as far as I can tell, it’s not like they’re listening to anything different. In fact, I’m not sure that they’re really listening to anything at all.

It could be that they’ve worn themselves out on the records they’d once loved. It’s possible that they’d spun enough Mathis and Elton John in their decade-and-a-half of matrimony before I popped and I just so happened to catch the last days of their love affairs with these musicians. Still, it’s weird that nothing came after (though it’d be exceedingly shortsighted not to think that familial obligations intervened, rendering sentimental balladry not so much of a priority). At any rate, these memories stuck with me, as these things tend to when you’re so young, and as a result, songs like “Chances Are” and The Stone Poneys’ “Different Drum” and all of the ones Feliciano sang as he sightlessly strummed his guitar will almost certainly stick with me after I’ve worn out the stand-bys of my own youth.

They don’t play much music at all these days, my parents, save for the warm and lazy afternoons when they tune the TV to channel 951 and allow whatever sleepytime music is playing on the Time-Warner Easy Listening station to waft through the living room and into the kitchen, where my mom busies herself with some new concoction and my dad wearies his pupils over a string of bills.

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This work by Spoon drummer Jim Eno came down the pipeline earlier today, and is a remix of an Apostle of Hustle original; one that just so happens to share a title with the most famous of Mathis ballads. It continues what is hopefully a burgeoning line of Spoon remixes of Arts & Craftsmen songs, as it comes on the heels of Britt Daniel’s beautifully understated re-do of Feist’s “I Feel It All”.

Apostle of Hustle: Chances Are (Jim Eno remix) / MP3

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Purchase Apostle of Hustle’s National Anthem of Nowhere through GalleryAC and Spoon’s Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga from the hardworking elves at Insound. And be sure to pick up any one of the almost countless Johnny Mathis greatest hits comps from Amazon if the interest strikes you.