MUSIC: "Jet Airliner"

Here are several reasons why I love "Jet Airliner," by the Steve Miller Band.

1) "Threshold," the spacey, hippie-trippy synth intro track that sometimes gets played before it on the radio.

2) I find the term "big ol'" inherently amusing. "Big ol' jet airliner." It's such an old-timey, country kind of phrase, talking about such a modern contraption.

3) Steve Miller's many audible intakes of breath. Especially: "You know you've got to go through hell before you [gasp] get to heaven."

4) The fact that, even in this day and age, with radio stations terrorized into cowardice by the increasingly Puritanical FCC and its skyrocketing fines, most stations will still play, uncensored, the line "funky shit goin' down in the city" (as opposed to the watered-down "funky kicks" version).

5) "New England town." Where, exactly, is "New England town"? Is that a nickname for Boston?

6) "I've got to keep on keepin' on." Truer words were never spoken, brother Miller. Unless they be: "Keep on truckin'!"

7) The change of lyrics in the final chorus, and my mis-hearing of them. The last chorus goes (sans the "big ol' jet airliner" bits), "Carry me to my home/'Cause it's there where I belong." But until recently, I'd always heard it as, "Carry me to my home/'Cause it's there where I feel at home." Well, damn, that's stupid, I always thought. You feel at home when you're at home? No shit, Sherlock!

8) Uh, because it's awesome? Duh!