This is an old and familiar song. It just joined my stream today, coming from many things and nothing, as often happens with the breccia that I call my thinking.
I first heard this song, “River Deep, Mountain High” by Ike & Tina Turner, when I was young. I don’t recall the circumstances, but wikipedia tells me it was released in 1966, so it’s reasonable to think I heard it on AM radio while driving about with Mom in her car. Later covers were more commercially successful.
Ike and Tina broke up. There’s a big story behind those four words. Ike has passed away. Tina lives on.
Sly and the Family Stone gave us a lot of awesome music when I was young. Today’s theme song, “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) is a favorite. This song’s deliberate mondegreen in its title delighted me. I always knew it as just “Thank You.” When I bought the greatest hits album (actually, on an eight-track tape that the machine ate within a year, but not before torturing the sound into a strange warbling), the full title baffled me. I’d always heard the lyrics correctly, not something that always happened with songs, but did happen at the time. That’s when I was first introduced to mondegreens.
That greatest hits album deserved that title, and that’s why it was worn out. That was common for that time, to wear music out because of its medium, whether it was tape or vinyl. Digital has made a huge difference.
I started this morning by streaming some old ELP, “Welcome back my friends, to the show that never ends, we’re so glad you could attend, come inside, come inside.” Any ELP fan recognizes that opening from one of the Brain Salad Surgery “Karn Evil 9 Impressions” (1973).
But the stream drifted, bringing in “Still…You Turn Me On” from the album. I also enjoy thinking about the song’s enigmatic lyrics. It’s like they’re singing about trying to understand someone, and failing while guessing at who they are, and despite that, being attracted to them.
Many of us find ourselves in like situations in life, trying to understand others, and sometimes loving or hating them for reasons that we can’t explain.
Well, duh? How different was the music from the forties to the fifties to the sixties to the seventies until now? We went from gospel, the blues, rockabilly, and rock and roll to bubblegum, soul, R&B, folk and folk-rock, the British invasion, hard rock, psychedelic rock, acid rock, heavy metal, synth rock, techno-pop, country and western, young country, alternative country, classic country, hip-hop, rap, adult contemporary, soft rock, and every manner of hybrid of these styles.
Those are just a few that streamed through my coffee-less brain (just having the first sip…now…ah.) Today, music seems to be more about sounds, focusing on vocals, with catchy rhymes and repetition, while telling a story For example, my song today is “Jackie Chan” (2018) by Tiësto and Dzeko. Preme and Post Malone provide the vocals.
What intrigues me about it are lyrics such as these:
She said she too young, don’t want no man
So she gon’ call her friends, now that’s a plan
I just ordered sushi from Japan
Know your bitch wanna kick it, Jackie Chan
Not knowing what’s being sung, I sang alternative lyrics.
She said she too young, don’t want no man
So she gon’ call her friends, now that’s a plan
I got to go and use the can
I stand up to take a pee like Jackie Chan
Sometimes, encouraged by the delivery, I just go stream-of-thought freestyle on the whole thing, rhyming on man/plan/can/sand/band/land/hand, etc.
Yes, it’s different, catchy, interesting, intriguing. That’s what’s not new about popular music, and how pop-music in all its forms finds and keeps audiences. A hook is found, and a form is born.
“Back in the U.S.S.R” by the Beatles (1968) is today’s theme music. I thought it was appropriate to give a nod to a nation that no longer exists, one who built walls to keep their nation safe while building up a huge military and cutting their social safety nets and education, a nation whose primary concern became driven by the ruling party, who did everything they could to remain in power, control and intimidate their citizens.
Today’s choice is for my little buddy, the mighty Quinn. Here’s Manfred Mann performing their hit-record version of the Bob Dylan song, “Quinn the Eskimo” (1968).
A week out from election day, 2018, I find myself streaming an old Stevie Wonder song from 1973.
His hair is long, his feet are hard and gritty
He spends his life walking the streets of New York City
He’s almost dead from breathing in air pollution
He tried to vote but to him there’s no solution
Living just enough, just enough for the city…yeah, yeah, yeah!
We’re at a crossroads in America, where the divisions are strong and stark. We have white supremacists insisting that things need to change, and they’re willing to change it by lying, cheating, intimidating, and killing. Their hate knows few boundaries, becoming directed at liberals, minorities, women, science, education, and just about every other nation in the world.
At the head of this monster is a clueless POTUS consumed with self-adoration, an empty vessel that mouths calls for unity as he leads chants for violence and threatens everyone who doesn’t support his claims. Instead of seeking a brave new world of social justice and equality, he promotes greater divisions of wealth, opportunity, and hope. He builds more borders with words and threats, and builds walls with his mindless rhetoric. He places his optimism in a time that’s passed him by, but bolstered by people living in a hopeless fantasy existence, he remains empowered.
We end up, again, with people barely hanging on, coping, as Stevie Wonder wrote and sang, with just enough for the city.
I have mixed thoughts and emotions about today’s theme music, “Bad Motor Scooter”, by Montrose (1973). It’s an energetic song, but when I listen to the lyrics, I sometimes cringe. Then again, escaping on my bad motor scooter is really appealing on some days. Just race up through the gears and away from cares and civilization.
What the hell. It’s music. Love the rock attitude (rockitude?) on display in this video.
This is such a maudlin, sloppy song. It started streaming apropos of nothing that I can recall, but as I streamed it from memory, I thought about how meaningless the words might be for a younger listener.
“Sealed With A Kiss” came out in 1962, when I was six. It was a hit, so it was on the radios often, but I’m more familiar with the Bobbie Vinton version released when I was a teenager. This song is all about being morose because they’re missing their love, so they’ll send all their love, every day in a letter, sealed in a kiss.
I thought, well, these days, they probably wouldn’t be sending a letter. I imagined youth saying, why didn’t they just send them a text or a selfie? Why didn’t they just Skype?
I decided that, “I’ll send you all my love, every hour in a selfie, clicked with a kiss.”
I awoke streaming this song, “Is It in My Head?”, in my head this morning (ha, ha).
I often wonder about the truths of perceptions, impressions, and memories. I don’t wonder about just mine, but how others came to their beliefs, and how difficult it can be to dislodge an idea after it’s burrowed into you. We’ve been exposed to evidence that the winners write history. History is often propaganda to justify and moralize decisions and sustain political or popular support. We all love heroes and myths.
So I wonder with myself about whether I remember something correctly, whether I’m too deeply embedded in silos and bubbles to perceive the truth and grasp it, and often, if I’m conning myself into hoping and believing that my writing efforts amount to anything. It’s a perpetual cycle of challenging, searching, and thinking.
Today’s song selection, made by my mind (and probably invited in by the latest rounds of dreams), “Is It in My Head” is from Quadrophenia by the Who. The album was released in 1973, when I became seventeen years old. I’d been searching and wondering well before I heard this song.
I continue searching and wondering today, almost fifty years later.
Michael Seidel, writer 