She loved reading books, and not just reading them, but researching what to read next, talking about her reads with her friends and family, and prowling book stores with her book list in her hand. Non-fiction, fantasy, young adult, historic novels, mysteries…they were all on her list. She read everyday, often reading four or five books a week. Finding a new author that she enjoyed was her greatest pleasure.
Then her mother died, her mother, who’d always encouraged her to read, introducing her to The Three Detectives series and Nancy Drew Mysteries, her mother, whose idea of a day out was taking her girls to the public library, where each was allowed to check out one book.
With her mother gone, she no longer wanted to read. It was like her book light had gone out, and would not come back on.
I’m picking up good vibrations today. Spring has sprung. Tulips and daffs are fading, shedding, and drooping (sounds like I’m talking about my hair and body), but the rest of our area is richly green. Trees are coming into their fullness.
The vibrations could be coming from my coffee, though. Its rich smell triggers a wonderful vibration deep in my nethers. The taste accentuates it, and then, when that caffeine arrives, it’s like, take it home, baby.
Or, it could be the productive results of a good night of rest, some wild and interesting dreams, a pleasant morning work-out, or a contact air from the neighbors smoking some early morning marijuana.
There’s a good chance that it’s all these things. Whatev, the Beach Boys’ 1966 hit, “Good Vibrations”, immediately piled into the stream. Absolutely one of my favorite songs, I enjoy it for the multiple changes, the theremin’s use, the quick but delicate bass line, the harmonies, and the lyrics. It came out when I was ten years old as well, so I float back into some finer times when the melody is in my stream.
Heard this one on the satellite radio yesterday. Memory gates crashed open when I did.
Chicago released “Color My World” in 1970. The slow ballad was an instant hit at school dances because it was a modern song, sloppy and sentimental, but with a slow tempo. That made it a perfect slow-dance song. Slow dancing was important to me as a fourteen year old. One, I could dance with girls to it. Two, I could dance with girls to it.
The song’s author and vocalist, Terry Kath, died just eight years after this song was released. He was also Chicago’s lead guitarist. His extended solo on “25 or 6 to 4” mesmerized me when it was first released, and I still enjoy it.
I awoke. Snatches of dream sequences cascaded through me. I was amused that I couldn’t remember more of the dreams. Enough came together that I knew I was remembering parts of different dreams and it was all out of sequence. Exasperated, I gave my mind a talking to, telling it, “Can’t you join the dreams together in proper order.” It was irksome to remember a few seconds, stop, and recall a different segment of another dream.
I guessed I pissed my mind off. It retaliated. “You want to join together? Who are you?”
Knowing what was coming, I tried apologizing, but it was too late. “Join Together” by the Who (1972) was already streaming. Not a bad song to stream, if you must. I like the song’s sentiments.
You don’t have to play,
You can follow or lead the way,
I want you to join together with the band,
We don’t know where we’re going,
But the season’s right for knowing,
I want you to join together with the band.
It’s the singer not the song,
That makes the music move along,
I want you to join together with the band,
This is the biggest band you’ll find,
It’s as deep as it is wide,
Come on and join together with the band,
Hey hey hey hey hey hey, well everybody come on.
Memories abound with this song, like cranking up the stereo and grinning like a madman as the sound crashed over me. I can taste my childhood just listening to this song. I always enjoyed that sentiment the song incorporates, that it’s the singer, not the song, that moves the music along. And, hey, it’s the Who, and it’s part of that classic rock sound, you know, the sound that my generation grew to love.
This one dipped into the stream out of nowhere, but reminded me of a friend. A sweet, petite person, I was surprised when I discovered her favorite music came from Danzig and Samhein. She wasn’t as fond of Black Sabbath because she didn’t think they were really head-banging, but she liked Def Leppard and Scorpion.
So, thinking of her, hope she’s having a good day after enduring trying years.
I’ve apparently upset my mind. I don’t know if I hurt its feelings or it’s angry at me, but it’s definitely upset. To get even, it’s playing games with me, looping a song in my stream. I have nothing against the song except that it’s not my cuppa. Harkening from 1971, it’s just a little too pop and saccharine for me.
So I have to put it out there, foist it onto the ROW, where it’ll find somebody else’s stream and vacate mine.
Please enjoy “Go Away, Little Girl” by Donny Osmond. Please. You’ll be doing me a yuuuge favor.
I’m once again streaming 1974, another year in which things happened, other things changed, and everything kept going almost as though nothing had happened. For me, I graduated high school, turned eighteen, joined the military and left home, in that order.
Today’s theme music, “Only Solitaire”, arrives via a miasma polluting the thinking stream. Jethro Tull’s Warchild album was being streamed, but thinking about a particular individual, the stream’s thread narrowed to “Only Solitaire”. It’s a short and simple song.
Brain-storming habit-forming battle-warning weary
winsome actor spewing spineless chilling lines —
the critics falling over to tell themselves he’s boring
and really not an awful lot of fun.
Well who the hell can he be when he’s never had V.D.,
and he doesn’t even sit on toilet seats?
Court-jesting, never-resting
he must be very cunning
to assume an air of dignity
and bless us all with his oratory prowess,
his lame-brained antics and his jumping in the air.
And every night his act’s the same
and so it must be all a game of chess he’s playing
“But you’re wrong, Steve: you see, it’s only solitaire.”
Today’s song came out in 1955, a year before I was born. Mom played it a lot, so I learned it.
The carries the sound of that era, with a heartfelt delivery of the song’s sentiments. The lyrics are timeless. It’s a song that I think everyone should think is about them.
Only you, can make this world seem right
Only you, can make the darkness bright
Only you, and you alone, can thrill me like you do
And fill my heart with love for only you
O-only you, can make this change in me
For it’s true, you are my destiny
When you hold my hand, I understand the magic that you do
You’re my dream come true, my one and only you
Today’s choice came right out my morning. Cats were hungry and wanted fed but my urine collection bag was full. So I was apologizing to the cats (of course), telling them, “Sorry, you need to wait. My bag is full.”
That invited ZZ Top’s “Just Got Paid” (1972) into my stream. There’s a line that riffs off a classic nursery room, “Black sheep, black sheep, have you got some wool? Yes, I do, man, my bag is full.” See how it all works?
Sorry if I’m sharing too much about the whole urine, bladder, catheter, pecker thing. My wife thinks I need to think about my boundaries.
A bizarre string of songs flowed through this morning’s stream. A brief sampling is “Snoopy and the Red Baron” by the Royal Guardsmen (1966), the Bee Gees with “Massachusetts” (1967), John Denver singing “Annie’s Song” (1974 ), and “Cumbersome” (Seven Mary Three, 1996). The rest included a song by ELO called “Telephone Line” (1977) and that’s what I went with. It won because of the lines, “Okay, so no one’s answering. Well, can’t your just let it ring a little longer? I’ll just sit tight, through shadows of the night, let it ring for evermore.”
I always think, wow, that’s persistence. I probably wouldn’t stay on that long. I mean, I don’t have Phoebe’s stamina for waiting to be served. Nor am I living in twilight like the guy in “Telephone Line”. I’m just streaming songs forevermore.
To clarify a little, each song was actually triggered by something that happened in the morning. For example, I was marching the cats to their feeding area (sure), saying, “Hup, two, three, four.” That’s used in the Red Baron song. A glance out the window at the sun and light rain introduced “Annie’s Song”. (“You fill up my senses like a night in the forest,
like the mountains in springtime, like a walk in the rain.) A reflection on people being too rich invited “Cumbersome” in (“Too rich or too poor, she’s wanting me less, I’m wanting her more”). “Telephone Line” came by way of being on hold.
Michael Seidel, writer 