Perfumes and French-fries
Grilled burgers and fried chicken
Scentways fly me back
Friday’s Theme Music
After another night of peculiar dreams that ended with Boomtown Rats singing “I Don’t Like Mondays”(hello, it’s Friday), and streaming some Brian Seltzer, “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” arrived in the stream. I had the dubious enjoyment of Bob Dylan’s original version alternating with the Guns n’ Roses cover. Clapton’s reggae version slipped in there a few times, as did the a recording of Tom Petty singing it with Bob Dylan.
Although I prefer Bob’s original song, the Guns n’ Roses’ cover (1990) dominated today, so I went with it. Had to have a shot of coffee before I stopped feeling like I was knocking on heaven’s door.
Cheers
Saturday’s Theme Music
After a night of interesting dreams – no family, games or military, but soup, spilling, and reach – I awoke and turned to thinking about the novel-in-progress. I focused on where I’d stopped yesterday, conducting a what’s-next exercise. Then I catapulted into more generalities before spinning the wheel to think about the greater story.
The muses were present and engaged, so it was a comfortable exercise. One said, “We can do this,” and another said, “I know we can.” “Yes, we can,” a third said.
That’s when I realized that they were channeling a 1973 Pointer Sisters song, “Yes We Can Can”. Although mostly about politics, change, and unity, it’s a powerful, energetic song about trying and confidence, too.
We got to iron out our problems
and iron out our quarrels
and try to live as brothers.
And try to find peace within
without stepping on one another.
And do respect the women of the world.
Remember you all have mothers.
Read more: The Pointer Sisters – Yes We Can Can Lyrics |
Nineteen seventy-three. It was yesterday, and faraway. Here we are, dealing with madness in the White House, and setting up for more military conflict in the Middle-East. You know, because bombing other lands has all gone sooo well.
Friday’s Theme Music.
TCB. Takin’ care of business. I don’t know when the expression started, but it was in use everywhere I was by the time I reached a walkin’ talkin’ age, and I was using it by the late sixties. People would ask, “What’s up?” We, the pseudo-hip, would reply, “Oh, you know, TCB.”
Bachman-Turner Overdrive – BTO – formalized it in a song for us. It came out in 1974, the year I graduated from high school and joined the military. It feels like I’ve been taking care of business ever since.
As a side note, was a movie, later, “Taking Care of Business”, with Jim Belushi and Charles Grodin, which I didn’t find too funny. Weirdly, Stewart Copeland who was the drummer for the Police, did the music for the movie.
Anyway, here’s today’s song. I’m sure you’re out there taking care of business, so feel free to stream this as you do. Its beat will help keep you movin’.
Friday’s Theme Music
I’m streaming the original Beatles’ version of “With a Little Help from My Friends” (1967). Don’t know. My streaming began with Ringo singing the third verse.
“Would you believe in love at first sight?”
“Yes, I’m certain that it happens all the time.”
Why this, today? Don’t know. Some inhibitor breakdown in the stream, a word caught in the wind, a flash in the brain, or maybe a neuotransmitter collision. I usually imagine my neurotransmitters as little sports cars racing through my head on beautifully constructed highways and country roads. Lately, though, ala Sim City, my neuro landscape is more like a hot and humid city under constant expansion, construction, and repair. There’s a lot of jackhammer and bulldozer noise. Big rigs transport loads of information as commuters struggling to get to work in their part of the brain creep along in traffic.
Sorry, side bar. On with the music.
Wednesday’s Theme Music
Something mellow popped into my head yesterday. I’d finished some yardwork and was enjoying the warm late afternoon air. The temperature, sunlight, humidity, and silence combined into a rarefied sense of relaxation. “Groovin'”, the Rascals’ hit from 1967, began wending through my memory stream.
Thinking about the song reminded me of an incorrect lyric where people sang, “Life would be ecstasy, you and me and Leslie.” Everyone wondered, “Who is Leslie?” Leslie was “endlessly” misheard as Leslie. It’s a fun mondegreen, innit? I like singing Leslie instead of endlessly because it makes me laugh inside. Yes, I’m a simple-minded guy.
Hope you soon have some sunshine and time to relax and do some groovin’. If you’re not sure how to groove, I can’t help you. I think it’s something that you need to grok.
Book Light
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.
Monday’s Theme Music
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.
Here we go.
Saturday’s Theme Music
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.
Hope this song stirs some memories for you.
Friday’s Theme Music
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.
h/t to LyricsFreak.com
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.
Yeah, I’m talkin’ ’bout my generation, baby.
Michael Seidel, writer 