Too Many Nights Too Long - Poco
This is good played LOUD.
Poco were formed by ex Buffalo Springfield's Ritchie Furey and Jim Messina, but they were long gone when the ever evolving Poco recorded this. And who needs them when they sound this good.
A man is on the run, he's bust out of jail, what he was in for we don't know.
The song has a kind of pastoral paranoia, as the fugitive seems to identify with the countryside in which he's hiding, emphasised by Al Garth's folk fiddle in the final sweaty fade out, contrasting with the almost gentler moments where he is hidden by the night.
Great bass too from Toothy B Schmidt, drums from George grantham and lovely words and vocal from Paul Cotton:
....it's the same old story
somebody bound for glory....
I've been sleeping in the day
running below the pale moonlight...
Hiding in a cane break
From a man I can't seem to shake…….
and when they give us some Spanish to remind us that we're in border country, the song suddenly sounds desperate and current:
Escondido en un canaveral De un hombre que no puedo ver Y el hombre, escondido De donde sera
which roughly translates as:
Hidden in a cane field (or reed bed)
from a man I cannot see
and who could come out from anywhere.