Earlier this week, I was listening to an episode of Blood On The Tracks, the Colin Murray-fronted show, where guests bring their record collections and debate their favourite tracks in certain chosen categories.
In one particular round, the guests were asked to name their favourite act to come out of Scotland.
Fashion queen and former guitarist in The Fall Brix Smith chose Donovan.
If you don’t recognise the name or the above picture of Donovan, don’t worry.
In the 60s, he had a string of hits, such as Mellow Yellow, Sunshine Superman and Hurdy Gurdy Man, but his star waned in the 70s.
It transpired that Brix Smith knows Donovan and has his number, so Colin Murray challenged her to call him live during the recording.
He duly answered and immediately launched into an excited monologue about the new album he’s about to release, and if he can send it to her.
When the call finished Colin Murray was ecstatic to hear that Donovan was still enthusing about making new music at the tender age of 73.
Find a passion and stick with it
And that’s my point here. Try and imagine yourself in your 70s.
For many, this will be half a lifetime away or more. The thought of still doing then, what you do now AND still being excited by it seems unreal.
So find something you enjoy and keep doing it differently in order to avoid it getting dull.
Then maybe you, too, will be like Donovan at 73.
Oooh, that’s a tough one! The thing I’m really passionate about (eating) should only be done in small doses. Reading for fun and a bit of travel are nice, but also in limited doses (I can’t read all day and don’t like to be away from home for too long)…