Monthly song of the day - Bill Evans - Peace Piece

November 2025, Last Updated December 2025

Ah, November rain... No, not the Guns N' Roses song. It was never my favorite, despite the pompous video featuring scenes from an action-packed orchestra hall, a flashy wedding, a funeral and Slash doing Slash in front of a tiny wind-swept church in the middle of the desert. Of the longer takes on the double album I would always prefer Coma on odd days and Estranged on even ones, and sometimes Civil War would make it spot nr. 3 before the song featuring precipitations in its title.

November rain as in one of the accomplices of the dreary, dark times in late autumn ripe with slimy weather, when raindrops obstinately hang on to windows, racing each other which one can linger on the glass for longer on the path down. Downbeat times.

Yet there are antidotes to it. One of them is time spent with company you love, company that brings you happiness, perhaps by a cozy Café table, lazily sipping hot tea or merrily joining in the exchange that lights sparks in the eyes and brings smiles to faces of all parts involved. But another one is also this piece by Bill Evans. Perfect to go with November. Calm, peaceful, perhaps solemn, but not somber, like rays of sun making it through clouds, unwaveringly pushing through the thick mist. Like an instant switch it unfailingly works to stop a racing mind, perhaps the worries too. It's like a meditation but without the pose, like hope without despair, like an entrancing lullaby sounding from somewhere out in the eternal fabric of the mind. Quite simply, timeless magic coming from the sound of piano keys.

Ivo Makuc, 2025
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