Category: childhood

Sunday’s Theme Music

Everyone sing.

I took her home to my place, watching every move on her face
She said, “Look, what’s your game, baby?
Are you tryin’ to put me in shame? ”
I said, “Slow, don’t go so fast
Don’t you think that love can last? ”
She said, “Love, lord above, now you’re gonna trick me in love”
All right now baby, it’s all right now
All right now baby, it’s all right now

ht to lyricsfreak.com

I’m always surprised when people do and don’t know the words to popular music, but then again, we’re not all in the same vacuum. A friend of mine insists he only really knows and likes one song. That song is “Battle of New Orleans” by Johnny Horton. That I knew it and could sing it to him impressed him.

His wife is like me. I guess we listened to a lot of music on the radio. Her husband’s excuse is that he was doing tours in Vietnam during that time. (Cue, “Country Joe and the Fish” and the “I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ To Die” rag. No, he doesn’t know that one, either.) He’s older than us.

I’m surprised, too, by the young people who know the classic rock songs. Many know them via their parents and older siblings’ listening habits, while others learn the music through movies or video games like “Guitar Hero”.

Here’s Free from 1970 with one you may or may not know, “All Right Now”.

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Saturday’s Theme Music

I was streaming this song as I walked today. It’s a favorite song. A number of performers have covered it. I think my two preferred versions are by Creedence Clearwater Revival and Marvin Gaye. CCR did a long version of it that has a little more rock ingrained, while Gaye’s version had more blues and soul to it. Gaye’s version was released in 1968 and was a huge hit. CCR came out with their version in 1970.

Here’s both versions. Hope you enjoy them.

 

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Another rocker

is dead and gone yesterday

leaving us with songs

In memory of Ed King, here’s “Incense and Peppermints” by Strawberry Alarm Clock, 1967. Ed King also played with Lynyrd Skynyrd.

“Who cares what games we choose? Little to win, but nothing to lose.”

 

 

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Today’s Theme Music

“Two drifters off to see the world, there’s a lot of world to see.”

Today’s theme music is “Moon River” from Breakfast At Tiffany’s. Why not? Based on Truman Capote’s novella, the movie was released in 1961. The song came out the same year. I was five, so I don’t remember much of that, but Mom loved music and movies, and she exposed me to these things. After In Cold Blood came out, I read it and then read other Capote works, including Breakfast At Tiffany’s.

The song and movie are an emblem of the times. Johnny Mercer wrote the song’s lyrics, and Henry Mancini composed the music. Those are some big names in that business. George Pepard and Audrey Hepburn starred in the movie, which was directed by Blake Edwards. Pepard’s character was gay, gay in 1961, and the world didn’t come apart. Hell, Capote was gay. Yet, now, a zillion years later, some in the world want to turn back time, back to the way things were. Did they forget that gays existed back then?

(*snark alert* Yes, I know, they haven’t forgotten, but gays and the coloreds knew their place, then, didn’t they, in this white mythical world where everyone was happy as long as everyone was kept in their place.)

What the movie was and what it was supposed to be, like the novella, like our times, and our memories of those times, depends upon your baggage. I thought that song was perfect in many ways, romantic, hopeful, and smooth, tidying up an image and glossing over deeper struggles. The song and movie came out right before the explosions of the 1960s. When we think of it, we don’t think of the grace of Breakfast At Tiffany’s and “Moon River.” We’re more likely to remember riots, demonstrations, the civil rights movement, protests, and the expanding Vietnam War. Really, 1961 was still part of the fifties.

Many sang or recorded “Moon River” but Mom liked Andy Williams, so that’s the version that I know best.

 

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Monday’s Theme Music

Monday o’memories – I stumbled across some ol’ Grand Funk Railroad stuff while browsing today, and remembered their first live album. It was my sister’s album, but I really enjoyed it, another step in my rock music education. It was a 33 RPM vinyl record that I played on Mom’s big Magnavox stereo that resided in the living room of our thirteen-hundred square foot ranch-style home in Penn Hills, PA. I only did this when I was home alone.

GFR was basic and almost primal in their early years before moving on to more of a pop sound. This first song, “Are You Ready”, epitomized their first year, I think – frenetic musical energy.

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Know these words?

We skipped the light fandango
Turned cartwells ‘cross the floor
I was feeling kinda seasick
But the crowd called out for more
The room was humming harder
As the ceiling flew away
When we called out for another drink
The waiter brought a tray

Procol Harum released “A Whiter Shade of Pale” in 1967. When I heard it, I thought, WTF? What are they singing about? What’s it all mean? Later, in my early twenty-somethings, out tasting libations with friends, the song made complete sense. It became then a song about feeling isolated and lost, not drunk or stoned, but confused and searching. I like that in music, art, and literature, I can find one meaning to what I perceive during one stage of life, and discover something vastly different at another point.

The other thing that I like is how some of these things pull me back to a very sharp point of a moment and feel it all again.

 

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Saturday’s Theme Music

This song came to mind yesterday. I was thinking about lunch. What to do, what to do, what to do? Wanted something small, light, and easy. Just a little food, just a little food. Soon I was singing, “A little bit of food, yeah, a little bit of food.” With a little thought, I realized it was the tune to “Little Bit O’ Soul” by The Music Explosion. I don’t know how long it’s been since I’ve last heard this song, but I’ll share it with you.

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Friday’s Theme Music

Little Feat was one of my favorite groups when I was a young teenager but none of my friends had heard of them. When I played their music on the eight track, they’d ask, “What’s that?” with that look on their face like they’d taken a bite and discovered a funky and unexpected taste that worries them because maybe they they’d bitten into a bug or some rodent part.

Years later, I was surprised to hear Little Feat were playing again because, hello? Didn’t they break up and the guy that started them die? Yes, but they’d been reformed by surviving members.

Well, they’d become a little more mainstream but I still enjoyed them. “Hate to Lose Your Lovin'” is probably the song most people know them for, so why not?

From 1988.

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

This is a classic of my childhood era. Although I was a rocker, who could resist the Temptations? Their blend of R&B and soul helped me look at life, love, and relationships with new perspectives as I evolved through my teens.

This particular song comes out of the nostalgia stream because of our dry, dire situation out here in the Pacific Northwest. You may not know it, but we have many fires happening out here. Our air is unhealthy to hazardous due to wildfire smoke on most days. Hot in the nineties to low hundreds doesn’t help, nor does the drought much of the region is enduring. Events are regularly canceled as we hunker down.

Naturally, I thought, “I wish it would rain,” more than once in the past few days. That triggered the Temptations’ beautiful and melancholy song streaming into my mind. And then it rained.

Here it is, as we heard it back in 1967, “I Wish It Would Rain.”

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Still slipstreaming on a nostalgia stream, I sang along to this 1969 hit. Released by Tommy James and the Shondells (I always wondered what a Shondell was), “Crystal Blue Persuasion” triggered some controversy during its time on the charts. Some believed that it was promoting or popularizing using crystal meth or a blue LSD that was popular at the time. I later read that it was inspired by the Bible!

Hah! Go figure.

 

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