I love working from home, and I have a great WFH space. Yet oddly, from time to time over the past year, I’ve missed my old desk at work. It wasn’t a big or handsome desk. It didn’t have any fancy bells and whistles. It wasn’t even a stand-up desk. As I explained to a friend on the phone the other day—it was just my good old desk.
As I heard myself say, “good old desk,” I had a cool flashback to the late 1960s, my radio DJ days, and Harry Nilsson’s amazingly touching voice. Good Old Desk was side 1, cut 2 on his Aerial Ballet album. His second album for RCA.
Nilsson’s lyrics here aren’t profound or earth shattering. But written over 50 years ago, the lyrics are touching and sure capture the mood of many of us still working from home due to COVID:
“My old desk never needs a rest
And I’ve never once heard it cry
I’ve never seen it tease, its always there to please me
From nine to five—”
I have a sense that the current work from home situation will continue much longer than many of us suspect; I have a fear that we’re a long way away from seeing the end of coronavirus infections, mutations, and deaths. While we’re still working our way through all of this, I offer a thought: When you’re feeling a little down, there’s a whole lot of comfort and joy to be found in music and the performing arts.
Please get vaccinated, be well, social distance, and as Maryland governor Larry Hogan says daily, “Wear the damn mask.”
