Rescued From Obscurity

     In 1986, Upside Records released a new album optimistically entitled “It’s Time For Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers.” It wasn’t. Like Jonathan’s entire career, this record seems to exist outside of time. Someone hearing it now for the first time might reasonably believe this was a product of the late 1950’s. In the relaxed and beautiful “Just About Seventeen,” Jonathan made his embrace of permanent adolescence explicit: “When I hear he’s getting older it sounds so strange, I wake up and I know that I haven’t changed.”   The thing is, he knew full well this was just wishful thinking. The next 30 years would see him sing of marriage and divorce, of fatherhood and great painters, of the death of his mother and the budding of a new relationship. There has been the occasional movie appearance, annual tours that take him around the world, and genuine affection from the fans lucky enough to know about him. But there has been little radio play, nothing like a hit record, and pe