Sunshine lit the valley from the west, splashing through lazy swatches of stretched grey clouds outside our windows. Could’ve been early summer by its deceptive appearance, but it was March 3.
Ill with a sore throat and dribbling nose, I alternated between reading (Fear: Trump in the White House, Woodward) and napping whereupon a song found the stream and played in my brain.
You see, she was gonna be an actress And I was gonna learn to fly
She took off to find the footlights
And I took off to find the sky
I couldn’t fathom why Harry Chapin’s “Taxi” (1972) was streaming in these circumstances. I often don’t understand how my mind words but I decided that “Taxi”, about the dreams that age into nostalgic memories, would be today’s theme music.
Nathaniel Taylor, an actor who I knew from his role as Rollo on “Sanford and Son”, passed away a few days ago. He was eighty.
Many actors, politicians, writers, and sports and rock stars have passed away throughout my lifetime, along with cats, friends, family members, and people that I didn’t know. Some of them were killed in ways that we don’t like to think about.
Nathaniel Taylor’s death was another death. We all understand that death is gonna get us. Now, what happens beyond the door that death opens, well, we don’t know. We have a lot of theories, and we think that we have intangible proof that once we die, that’s it, game over. Then again, many ancient people believed that the sun revolved around the Earth, until we learned how to prove otherwise.
The death of someone who acted on a show when I was young triggered a stream of thought about how time seems to pass and prompted me to think, wow, 1969 was fifty years ago. Ain’t that somethin’?
Not really, right? It’s as arbitrary as weather in March, 2019, predictable but still surprising. Thinking ’bout all that nonsense kindled reflections on the music from then. Pop goes the song and out came the Rolling Stones with “Honky Tonk Women”.
We went to see Beehive at the Oregon Cabaret Theater last night. The link is to a newspaper review of the show. Music interspersed with some narrative to set or change the tone, along with clothing, hairstyles, and dancing that evoke the 1960s, is what it was all about.
It was called Beehive for the hairstyle that dominated the era for a long period. That prompted me to wonder what they’d call a musical named after our current error. Fake News? Smart Phone? Fragmented?
The show started in 1960. Most of the early years featured girl group or all female ensembles. Intermission came at the end of 1963.
With ’64 came the Brit pop-invasion, but what really changed the music was America’s evolving politics. If you were present in the mid to late 1960s, you know about the protests, the Vietnam war body counts, the civil rights movement, rioting, discontent, assassinations, and the growing power and influence of television and entertainment.
The subject matter for songs changed from simple, almost naive and innocent about meeting the right boy and falling in love to They did a fantastic job in last night’s show of portraying those changes through dance and music, highlighting singers like Aretha Franklin, Diana Ross, and Janis Joplin, and their diverse styles and mind-blowing performances.
Performances of “Where the Boys Are”, “You Don’t Own Me”, “To Sir with Love”, “Me and Bobby McKee”, and “Chain of Fools” stood out for me. But for today’s theme music, I went with a group of four young women from New Jersey who were there at the beginning.
Wherever these singers, musicians, and songwriters came from, thanks for the ride.
Today’s theme music popped straight into the stream from memories and dreams. Here’s Rufus and Chaka Khan with a song that Stevie Wonder wrote, “Tell Me Something Good”, from the year I graduated high school, 1974.
I don’t know what dislodged in my stream last night that led this song to stream in as I sipped my coffee this morning.
“Guitar Man” was by Jerry Reed (1967). In this version, he’s playing with Glen Campbell. Both of these players have passed away, but a large sense of Jerry Reed’s personality shines through in this song. We’d call him a good ol’ boy.
I remember watching this. I would have been ’bout eleven. Guess I was an impressionable kid.
Today’s theme music is a surprising turn for me. I blame my dreams.
I had a cluster of dreams last night that shared the theme of saving. I saved some people and animals in a few dreams, but I was also saved, most memorably once by a Jack Russell terrior. The dog led me out of what appeared to be a benign situation. After I thanked him, he left.
Keeping with the weirdness of all that, I awoke thinking, “And it said so in my dreams.” I immediately knew that line from “Candida”, a hit song by Tony Orlando and Dawn back in July 1970. I never had one of their albums, but they were immensely popular in the early seventies. That popularity translated to a lot of AM and FM radio play and appearances on television shows — or did the radio play and appearances on television shows lead to immense popularity? Either way, I heard them often. Pop culture tends to be like that.
I’ve always had a place in my heart for the Clash, and I like the hard-edge they bring to today’s theme music. “I Fought the Law” by the Bobby Fuller Four was a hit when I was ten. Featuring clear and easy lyrics and a fast beat, I heard it on AM radio and picked it up and liked singing it. It was a decent song.
Over twenty years later (1979), with the Clash’s almost smug, sneering, raw cover, I felt it was more correct. Then, on reflection, I recognized, no, this is more about our cultural shift regarding music, and the evolution of taste. My mother disagreed. She liked Fuller’s smoother version.
I also thought it was humorous and odd after “White Riot” that the Clash recorded “I Fought the Law”. While the subject matter, an unlawful resistance theme, was similar, the songs’ structure were different. I decided the Clash were being ironic with their cover of “I Fought the Law”.
The trigger for releasing the song into my stream last night and today was a conversation with my spouse. I said, “I’m going to the ATM for some cash. Need any?” As I went, I thought, “I needed money ’cause I had none.” Naturally, the chorus followed. Fortunately, my ATM card worked, my account had cash, the law wasn’t involved, and the only fighting was within myself about how much cash to take out.
Here’s both versions. Hope you enjoy one of them. Cheers
In my neck of existence, back when I was a child, snowstorms meant listening to the AM radio to see if school was canceled. Snowstorms meant bundling up to go outside to play in this substance, to sled, build, explore, and experience. The storms meant returning home to hot tomato soup with a grilled cheese sandwich with a dill pickle, or a cup of hot cocoa.
Snowstorms changed our neighborhood sounds, forcing out the usual ruckus in favor of cars’ soft sibilant hissing, or a spinning whine as tires looked for a bite in the slick mess. Rhythmic chains, clicking studs, and the snowplows’ grinding blades broke the stillness, enhancing the ambiance.
The house was hot and the outside was frigid. Sunshine seemed hidden by infinite layers. Trees were starkly outlined, but cars and houses were buried.
Snowstorms made the day special as routines bent and fractured under the snow’s weight. Now I anticipate the snowstorm for days, hoping it’ll return some of childhood’s joys when the snow closes us in, but the storms rarely stand up to hopes.
I always liked this band’s vocals and harmonies on this song, not so interested in the synthesizers. Not anything against synths; I enjoy them with Yes and Kansas, and other rock bands. Part of it is that I think the opening is just too long, becoming a little tedious.
Anyway, this morning found me streaming “Never Been Any Reason” by Head East from 1975. But remembering a time when I was young and the present sucked and the future looked depressing brought the song into my stream. Made it through that time, you know, obs, head down, plow through, just hold on and take one step at a time, just breathe, all that.
Michael Seidel, writer 