Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
This is a long time favorite. I hope I’ve not shared it before. If I have, suffer.
Let’s listen to CCR, sometimes more formally known as Creedence Clearwater Revival, and their song, “Bad Moon Rising,” from 1969. I like this, too, for the mondegreen, where, “There’s a bad moon on the rise,” is sometimes heard as “There’s a bath room on the right.” I’ve been known to propagate the misheard lyric and assure people those are the corrects words.
Cheers
I can play the what-if? game with any subject. Not hard. A reflective exercise, it can be fun, and it’s helpful when writing fiction. Mostly, the game is about wondering how things would have changed if this or that hadn’t happened.
Janis Joplin died in 1970 of a heroin overdose. She was twenty-seven. She would have turned seventy-five this week. She achieved much in a short life. Playing what-if?, you can imagine how much more she might have done.
On the positive side, she was a person who’s celebrated and remembered. Too many people die and have no one playing the what-if? game with their life. Too many die too young for vain causes or absurd reasons. Of course, it’s death, and we all die. The reasons for our death is a lot of feed for what-if?
Another Who offering has hooked into my streaming memories.
This one, “Join Together,” was released in 1972, while I was in high school. I remember hearing it and thinking, that’s the Who, because they always had a distinctive sound, especially with Daltry’s voice. Like a lot of Who songs, interesting sounds, instruments, and arrangements lend Who songs thickly textured melodies. I like that. I prefer complications in books, movies, and music. At the same time, I’ve always been invested in guitar sounds. That’s why the guitar draws me to a lot of southern urban rock, and blues, or blues-rock, and classic rock. But even with Townsend’s synthesizers, the Who prevail and maintain a hold as one of my favorite rock groups.
Here’s “Join Together.”
Confession: I didn’t know who sang this song. Nor do I remember the first time I heard it. After looking up the artist, I still didn’t know who he was, but I knew the song from AM radio.
“Down in the Boondocks” apparently came out in 1965. I was nine. The performer with the hit was Billy Joe Royal. After googling him, I found I knew several of his songs, like “Cherry Hill Park.”
“Down in the Boondocks” started streaming in my head while I was talking to Tucker (one of my cats) and emptying the dishwasher. Yeah, I don’t see the connection either.
This song is one of my defacto songs that I start streaming when I’m walking. Several walking songs are plugged into my streaming library. There’s a Nancy Sinatra offering, where she sings “These boots are made for walking,” and a song less about walking but about getting there from Grand Funk, “I’m getting closer to my home,” and some song by some guy named Miller who sings, “King of the Road.” Which one pops into my stream seems dependent on my mood.
Today’s classic is offered by Edwin Starr. Here is “Twenty-five Miles,” from 1969.
Ta
Another loopback to my early teen years. Donovan’s music, with its psychedelic, flower-power, folk-rock influences and sounds. I stream several of his songs in my head, sometimes slipping into whole albums. Today, though, I’m stuck on “Hurdy Gurdy Man.” You can imagine how the repetitive words and guitars can mesmerize someone like me, who seems attracted to such noises. Such sounds were especially enticing to me when I was twelve, when I theoretically first heard this song on AM radio. I have no clear memory of the first time I heard it, only that I enjoy all those “hurdy gurdy” and “roly poly” lyrics.
So I’m posting “Hurdy Gurdy Man,” today, but not with an eye toward stopping its looping. It fits in well with my mood, and I’m pleased to have its company.
Well, for now.
They – the omnipotent, omniscient, slightly mysterious and ill-defined ‘they’ – say that the best way to rid yourself of an earworm is to pass it on. That’s what I plan to do today.
On the other hand, I said to myself, perhaps I’m part of a chain. I’m streaming an old song – hell, I was six years old when it became a hit – but the fates put the song there knowing that I’d post about it to rid myself of it. There’s no earthly reason for streaming this song. It just popped into my head. It’s not my sort of music, and I don’t own, and never have, owned an album by these performers.
But maybe someone out there needs to hear this song. I don’t know. How this whole thing called life works is almost as complex as “A Game of Thrones”, or the definition of a catch in the N.F.L.
Here we go, with the Lettermen, from 1962, with “Turn Around, Look At Me.” Others have done it and had hits with it, but this version is the one looping in my stream.
Well, I woke up this morning, and I got myself a beer
The future’s uncertain, and the end is always near
And with that, today’s song goes into its final minute.
I always liked singing “Roundhouse Blues” at work. A rousing, rowdy song, it was a great defiant response when bosses would say, “Let it roll.” Well, alright, let it roll.
I’d also sometimes sing, “The future’s uncertain, and the end is always clear.” I was divided about what Morrison was singing. Wasn’t till the net came about and I could look it up that I was satisfied. But my misheard word fits as well. The future for us all ends the same way, so it’s always clear. It’s all those damn little steps in between now and then that cause us problems.
Here are the Doors, from way back in 1970. That was a pretty good year to be a Pittsburgh Pirates fan, until they ran into the Big Red Machine, and the year turned sour.
“Time,” by Pink Floyd, was one of those songs that I liked to listen to while laying flat on my back in the dark with headphones on. I did that with of the entire album, Dark Side of the Moon.
The discordant beginning of alarm clocks and bells ringing that starts “Time” is a satisfying, *ahem* wake up call. Then the heartbeats begin….
Later in life, I often streamed it in my mind as I awaited events, made plans, or traveled.
And you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it’s sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way, but you’re older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death
Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over, thought I’d something more to say
Of course, I always continue listening (or streaming) on through the next two songs.
New Year. Don’t know about you, but on a personal quantum level, I feel good about it. Feel like I’m in tune.
Which is a nice segue for today’s music. Here’s Daltry and the Who with the Pete Townsend composition, “Getting In Tune,” from 1971, as fine a year as there is. The song starts soft and then rises and quickens, a perfect metaphor for 2018.
