My husband sets my alarm for 6:31 AM every morning. I then proceed to systematically hit the snooze button every 6 minutes until roughly 7:01 AM. That means that the alarm goes off 6 times every morning (not counting the one time it goes off for my husband). It is set to a radio station. Here is how I woke up this morning:

6:31 AM – “If You Could Only See” by Tonic. Gag.
6:37 AM – “Vacation” by the Go-Gos. So aggressively cheerful that I should have woken up for good at that point.
6:43 AM – “Jesus is Just Alright” – The Doobie Brothers (henceforth referred to as “The Doobies”)
6:49 AM – “Back in Black” – ACDC
6:55 AM – I have no memory of this one, because my hand was lightning-quick in hitting the button. In fact, I think my half-slumbering self might have had my hand poised above the clock radio, ready to strike.
7:01 AM – “China Grove” – The Doobies

So this, obviously, got me thinking about The Doobies. They are playing at Innsbrook After Hours (a seasonal concert series here in the West End of Richmond, if you are not from around here) this Wednesday, April 22 at 7-ish. So of course local radio stations are playing their songs. They always do that when a band is getting ready to play here. Here’s the thing. A while ago I blogged about the Yacht Rock phenomenon that was sweeping my household. Like it or lump it, The Doobies were an important cog in the finite machine of Yacht Rock. Just watch the first YouTube video (linked to in the blog linked to above – can’t get to YouTube right now) and you’ll see how important they were to the whole smooth movement (yeah, I know, cheap shot).

My point is, how do you reconcile a song like “Jesus is Just Alright” or “China Grove” against a song like “Takin’ It To The Streets” or “What a Fool Believes”?

Of course I turned to Wikipedia for the answer. And my suspicions were confirmed. It’s Michael McDonald. He drastically changed the sound of The Doobie Brothers. Now that Yacht Rock video makes a lot more sense to me.

I think he might be the devil. I also think my husband might divorce me for this blog post.