Around this time last week I was cruising around in the Dominican Republic with my boy Saloman from ShaveUrLegz.com, the weather was amazing and then Salo played this jam and man did it take over the moment…
This time, this time I’m gonna try it my. I’m gonna live it my way…”
All my life I’ve this overwhelming vision of a life lived without settling, a custom made, tailor fitted experience I could look back at with a smile. One of my all time favorite songs is Sinatra’s My Way and I always tell my friends if I ever die, don’t cry just play that song really loud and keep rocking.
When I heard this song I was immediately trying to figure out who sang it, Salo made some calls and was told DJ Shadow was the artists. I could see Shadow remixing something like this but I knew there was no way on earth he was the original composer. It turnes out the origin of this song is actually pretty cool…
This sample originates from an (apparently) 40-year old studio reel found in an abandoned recording studio in the Bay area that was about to be shut down. The only writing on the reel was some yellow tape labeled “Joe”, hence I decided to put Joe as the artist for the original track.
The original person who found the reel in the studio and introduced it to Shadow converted it to mp3 and posted it on Soulstrut.”
Origin aside this is one of those rare and special tracks that make you reflect on the past, the present and the future with great confidence and wisdom. They say a wise man learns from the mistakes of others and while that’s certainly true you’d have to live in isolation to completely avoid life’s challenges. Also, any successful person (however you choose to define success) will tell you that making mistakes, losing, struggling and overcoming all those things is a very important part of winning…
There was a dream wanting to come true. But dreams you know they need to be followed through…
Ain’t that the truth. We all like to fantasize about our dreams but rarely take into consideration the hard work that goes behind it. To all the highly ambitious people out there, it’s important to develop a love for the process because that’s the reality that will bring that dream into fruition. I have to tip my hat off to Shadow and the guy who found the sample for this one. Had it not been for them this amazing song could have been lost forever and this “Joe” guys experience would have never been shared, enjoy.