Category: childhood

Thursday’s Theme Music

I awoke with Outkast’s “Hey Ya” streaming in my mind, but another song replaced it. The lyrics, sung by a woman went, “He’s the last of the secret agents, and he’s my man.”

I thought, was that Nancy Sinatra? Sure sounded like it to my brain. Thinking about Nancy granted permissions to stream “These Boots Are Made for Walkin'”, followed by a duet with Frank Sinatra, “Something Stupid”. Hearing Frank made the stream believe it was okay for him to join in, so I heard “Winchester Cathedral” and “Fly Me to the Moon”.

I’d decided I was becoming a basket case, which opened the ports for “Basketcase” by Green Day, followed by “Boulevard of Broken Dreams”. Thinking, enough, I went through a little of “Enough is Enough” by April Wine, followed by “No More Tears” (Streisand/Summers).

By then, I knew that it had been Nancy Sinatra streaming “Last of the Secret Agents” (1966). I never saw the movie, btw. Anyone know if it was any good?

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Apropos of nada, I awoke to the song “City of New Orleans” (1971) streaming through me. Written by Steve Goodman, made famous by Arlo Guthrie, it’s about how people pass time while riding across America on a train, what they pass, and how the train trip is a metaphor for change in America.

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Monday’s Theme Music

Today, after awakening, rising, and feeding the cats, I began streaming a Bee Gees song called “Lonely Days” (1970). Don’t know what prompted my neurotransmitters to order this song today. I think it might have to do with rain. It was raining as I awoke, and stayed in bed, listening to it for a short period before thinking, “Must have coffee,” which prompted me to get up.

“Lonely Days” always strikes me as a rainy-day song. Something about its timbre reflects a gray, rain-swept landscape to me, a feeling that intensified as I walked on damp pavement and light drizzle.

Here you go. Have an excellent day.

 

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Friday’s Theme Music

Streaming something outta my yewt, a Canned Heat cover of a gem called “Let’s Work Together”, 1970. Don’t know why that song came to me this morning.

Yep, it’s a mystery.

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Today’s Theme Music

My stream is back-flashing to high school. I remember talking with my buddy, Bob, about a new Moody Blues song, “Nights In White Satin”. I already knew the song and was puzzling about how I knew this song so well already. I told Bob that I was certain it was an old song. Later, on the radio, they mentioned that the song had been originally released in 1967, but didn’t chart well in the U.S., but had been released again in 1972, the year Bob and I were talking. I felt absurdly validated and pleased that I’d accurately remembered the song had come out several years before.

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

“For the Love of Money” by the O’Jays was released in 1974, the year I escaped high school by way of a bar of soap carved to look like a diploma. Like a zillion other people, I immediately took to the song’s funky sounds, hip lyrics, and the message that money corrupts. I started singing it then, and I still sing it now.

For the love of money, people will steal from their mother
For the love of money, people will rob their own brother
For the love of money, people can’t even walk the street
Because they never know who in the world they’re gonna meet
For that mean, oh mean, mean green
Almighty dollar, cash money

h/t to genius.com

It seems like this song is more relevant today than it was over a quarter of a century ago. If you don’t have money, you have to get it, and if you have it, you hold onto it. If you have a lot of it, it becomes a disease to hold onto what you have and get more. Money inspires corruption, power, selfishness, and greed. It’s a simplistic take in a complicated world.

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Someone shared this vocals & guitars only video of Queen on FB. I enjoyed it and thought, let’s share it as today’s theme music.

Hope you enjoy this recording of Freddie Mercury and Queen performing “Killer Queen” as much as I do.

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Thursday’s Theme Music.

I guess this is a throwback Thursday. Of course, many of my days are throwbacks. Some are throwaways.

I found myself streaming some ZZ Top as I walked this morning.

Jesus just left Chicago and he’s bound for New Orleans.
Well now, Jesus just left Chicago and he’s bound for New Orleans.
Yeah, yeah.
Workin’ from one end to the other and all points in between.

Took a jump through Mississippi, well, muddy water turned to wine.
Took a jump through Mississippi, muddy water turned to wine.
Yeah, yeah.
Then out to California through the forests and the pines.
Ah, take me with you, Jesus.

h/t to Lyricsfreak.com

Why this song, today? I don’t know. Maybe a smell that I didn’t consciously notice triggered a memory, or two neurons ran into each other on an axon and reminisced about the old days. Perhaps I whiffed someone toking up and connected that to  ZZ Top. Perhaps, in worrying about the present and future, I subconsciously longed for the past, and dredged up times that were simpler and happier for me. Maybe there’s no logic at all, but just random impulses.

The world may never know.

 

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

I’ve always enjoyed War. Their music speaks to me. Today’s song, “Why Can’t We Be Friends”, is an excellent accompaniment to walking about town. As part of the writing practice, I walk and think about where I’m at with my writing and editing projects. Once freed of that, I drift into other things. This song, though, was heard coming from a Toyota pickup truck as it trundled by. Picking up on it, I sang it and some other War songs, like “Smile Happy”, “Low Rider”, “The World Is A Ghetto”, and “Spill the Wine”. Such classics.

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Today’s Theme Music

Today’s song, “Nowhere Man,” by the Beatles, came out in 1965. I vividly remember carrying a small transistor radio (with a nine volt battery) and listening to this song early one summer afternoon, singing along with it as I walked along Laketon Road in Wilkinsburg, Pa. The lyrics were simple but seemed powerful to me.

It must have been in 1966, and I was ten when I was doing that. Fifty-two years later, I’m walking along A Street in Ashland, Or., singing it to myself in an early late summer morning. It still seems like simple but powerful song.

 

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