“Self-indulgence” prolly wasn’t the right phrase… maybe “pretentious” instead. I just got tired of hearing the song.

Crusaders were good. About the same time I was following Brian Auger’s Oblivion Express, John Mayall, and a bunch of the art-rock bands. Then I discovered that a lot of my favorite songs from the top rock bands were covers of early blues recordings, and I found that I liked the originals better. My rock and roll ROCKED ON.

Weather Report was good, but I think I prefer The Crusaders.

One of these years, I may move my Return to Forever box-set LPs to MP3. I’ve still got about 300 LPs sitting around in the garage.

You don’t get cover art like some of them have anymore, like the Frazetta cover for Molly Hatchet, or the Gahan Wilson one for Herbie Hancock. Every now and then, I play with the idea of building a photo database of my LP covers. My daughter’s response to seeing some of the covers is to remind me that, when I die, there are a number of things she’ll be happy to acquire. Foremost among these are my Samurai Cat art prints.

I heard it differently, that white bird, sitting crosslegged in a meadow grooving on the crickets’lament, someone pretending to play an ocarina, and everyone being, like, you know, intellectual and all. That’s what I meant by “self indulgent.”

Iron Butterfly was just stoned. At least Chick Corea had talent.

Weather Report was/is my favorite of the early jazz-fusion blast.

[And I didn't click your link before I responded! I just blew greenies all over the keyboard. Nice find.]

I had never thought of it as a self-indulgent song (I have that LP), but so much popular music was and is self-indulgent, perhaps particularly around that time. The extended drum solo in Inna-Gadda-Da-Vida comes to mind (IIRC, one of my brothers attended an Iron Butterfly concert where the drum solo was extended to about 45 minutes), as does almost anything by Chick Corea and Return to Forever.

As for rain, you could have used The Rain, The Park, and Other Things.