Category: childhood

Monday’s Theme Music

Since it’s Monday, and so many songs feature Monday in their titles or lyrics, I thought I’d go with “Wooly Bully.” “Wooly Bully” does not mention Monday, as far as I know. I’ve never looked up the lyrics, but I must admit that I don’t understand most of them. As far as I know, they go, “Mattie told Hattie about a thing she saw. Something (with big horns?) and a wooly jaw. Wooly bully, wooly bully.” Mattie also tells Hattie to take a chance. The singer shouts, “I like it, I like it.”

I don’t know. I like singing that woolly bully chorus. Very liberating.

I learned the song from a forty-five RPM record on a little phonograph. I want to say it was a Capitol record, from what I remember, but I was young, and didn’t pay attention.

Here is Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs from, geez, I’m guessing mid-nineteen sixties, with “Woolly Bully.”

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Friday’s Theme Music

Care for a little cream for your Friday coffee?

Robert Johnson’s masterpiece, “Crossroads” (or “Cross Roads Blues”) has been covered by many. I like the Cream version because it was the first one I heard when I was young. It’s hard to overcome that first love. More metaphysically, it’s a song that captures so much of life’s essence, IMO. We think, after making a journey, that we’ve gone somewhere. And we have, but then, we found ourselves at another crossroad. Decisions are made, moods are felt, directions are chosen, prayers are offered, and help is sought.

So here you are, on Friday, with a “Crossroads” about what to do, where to go, and maybe, who to be.

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Thursday’s Theme Music

So much has been written about this song and its lyrics. After it became a hit in America, our local newspaper, The Pittsburgh Press (or maybe it was the Post-Gazette) had an article with the song’s words in it. My sister, two years younger than me, told me that she’d memorize the lyrics. She seemed proud of doing that. The lyricist himself, Don McLean, has avoided analyzing the lyrics. He says they’re poetry. I recall McLean once said something like, the artist should put it out there and then keep a dignified silence when others ask what the song is about.

I but into that. People often uncover their own meanings in books, stories, movies, songs, and poetry. I like that, that people can take words, sounds, and images, anchor them to their lives and events, and affix unique interpretations to them.

Here it is, “American Pie,” from nineteen seventy-one. It’s a piece of Americana.

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Wrote That Scene

Wrote one of those scenes. You know what they’re like. You’re casting for something inside yourself and discover something hidden, so you drag it out and use it.

In this instance, I used a memory from when I was young. I’d seen a creepy movie that burned anxiety into me just in time for bed. Despite that, sleep managed to find me.

Awakening, though, I kept completely still in an all-embracing darkness. Even now, remembering, my blood pressure rises and my pulse thumps faster. In that darkness, I’d heard a noise while I was asleep —

Or did I?

Was it real or imagined? I listened and listened without daring to move, barely breathing to help me hear and minimize my presence. Just when I’d begun to accept the hypothesis I’d imagined it, I heard another sound. It sounded like slithering….

Snake, I thought.

A snake is in the room.

I couldn’t move. If I left the bed, I might step on the snake. It might be coiled on the floor, waiting to strike.

But I couldn’t remain in bed, because the snake might crawl up into the bed. Which was worse, waiting in bed, or stepping down and getting bitten?

It was a rush of words to write, but it fit the novel like a found puzzle piece. As for the young boy who feared what might be in the dark, he carefully stood up in bed. Balancing himself and profusely sweating, he leaped across the yawning gulf where the snake might be waiting, and threw on the lights.

Time to go write like crazy, at least one more time.

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Fall has claimed us. Leaves have turned. Many have rained down, filling gutters and carpeting lawns and sidewalks. So I turn to “Dancing Days” by Led Zeppelin. I have firm reasoning, oh, yes, I do. Although the vegetation is going along with the timeline, we have glorious sunshine. A cold front has taken command. Nights are cold, but the sky is clear, and that sunshine pushes our temperatures up into the mid seventies. We might even touch eighty.

So dancing days are here again. It may be fall, but it feels like summer afternoons. Maybe it’s just a state of mind.

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Friday’s Theme Music

Out of the morass of the morning’s thinking and feelings streams Bob Dylan and “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35.” The lyrics always said to me, somebody will be unhappy, no matter what you do. Someone will find fault and throw stones at you and your efforts. So what the hell, chill, and get stoned. You’re going to be stoned anyway.

Besides those words, I like the original recording’s rowdy, rambunctious tone. I couldn’t find that anywhere, and offer this live version instead.

So come on, “Everybody must get stoned.”

 

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The Bike

He remembered his bike, and his best friend. His best friend’s name was Mike. The bike was a red three-speed English racer. It was a Christmas present from his mother.

Man, he loved that bike. It was an upgrade from the used, heavy bike he’d previously ridden. He rode it everywhere he could, but often pedaled back to see his best friend. He’d moved away from Wilkinsburg to Penn Hills two years before, but still visited. The two remained close, doing the silly things that twelve year old boys did in America in the sixties. Six miles away, he loved those rides and the visits, looking forward to both.

During one visit, his bike turned up with a flat tire. Unable to fix it, he called his mother and requested a pick-up. She complied, but was angry. It interfered with her plans. Still, he was her son. She came to get him. She couldn’t take the bike, though, declaring it too big for the trunk and herself incapable of helping him. Forced to leave the bike, he locked it with its chain. His friend promised to look after it.

Getting back to get fix it proved problematic. The weather had turned. His mother didn’t want him walking back there, or hitch-hiking, but she wouldn’t give him a ride, either. He finally made it, to discover the bike had been stolen.

“I was going to call you,” his best friend said. “They left a note. They said they were the Blue Globe.”

None of that made any sense. Shit, it sounded like a lie. He made the accusation. An argument ensued. His best friend’s older brother, Donnie, came in.

“I took your fucking bike, and sold it. I needed the fucking money.”

He was speechless. “You had no right,” he finally said.

“Fuck you. It was just sitting there. You should have come and got it. It’s your own fault.”

“My fault. I trusted you guys,” he finally said.

Donnie laughed. “Serves you fucking right, then, doesn’t it?”

“I want my bike,” he said.

“Too fucking bad.”

“I want my bike.”

“Too fucking bad, it’s not here. What are you going to do about it?”

Balling his fists, he attacked.

They crashed across the small kitchen, knocking over the tables and chairs, and moving the refrigerator with the force of their fight. Donnie was older, taller, and weighed more, but he hammered Donnie’s skinny body. Finally throwing him back, Donnie fumbled in his pockets and drew out a switch-blade.

Click. “You better fucking go,” Donnie said, “or I’m going to fucking cut you.”

Ready to be cut, his best friend stepped in, stopping him and yelling at his brother. “Came on, man,” Mike said. “You’re bleeding. You’re all bloody.”

He didn’t want to go anywhere with his best friend. He didn’t want to see or hear him, but he went into the bathroom and washed up his bloody face. Cleaned up, done, he gave Mike a final look and began the walk home. The incident had changed him. He’d lost his bike, but worse, he’d lost his best friend and his sense of trust.

Yes, it changed him. He withdrew. People could no longer be trusted.

Not even if they were your best friend.

 

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Thursday’s Theme Song

Drifting further back along the memory stream today, back to nineteen seventy-two, I stumble over one of my favorite artists, a person named David Bowie.

Bowie’s song, “Changes,” came out when I was in high school. My most vivid memory, though, was talking about the song during my first permanent duty assignment in nineteen seventy-five, three years later. I was with the 2750ABW at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. Permanent meant that I was assigned to the place, and would be there for a while. I was a command post emergency actions controller for the base and HQ Logistics Command. Three of us were on duty at a time, for twelve or eight hour shifts.

One night, I was on duty with Dale and Sistrunk. Studying, as we were often doing, I was singing the song to myself. “What is that you’re singing?” one asked. I explained what it was, and who performed it. They knew Bowie, but not that song, which surprised me. It was a youth’s surprise. I thought we all inhabited the same universe in America, where we all listened to rock music. But Sistrunk didn’t listen to music in his car or at home, and Dale preferred light jazz. I didn’t know the light jazz performers he enjoyed, and was amused, thinking of him as dated, when he shared their names.

That’s why “Changes” is perfect for that memory, and this time. As years passed, windows opened on myself, but they still remained small and few. I stayed in my personal garrison, spying on others, wondering what they think of me, as I thought of them. I think about the child I was, and then the man I was, and now, the person that I became, and wonder who I’ll be next.

Bowie’s lyrics capture the sentiment. “Every time I thought I’d got it made, it seemed the taste was not so sweet. So I turned myself to face me, but I’ve never caught a glimpse of how the others must see the faker. I’m much too fast to take that test.”

We think of the universe, world, and its inhabitants in terms of static existences, but really, we have snapshots of moments that we consider permanent. Almost everything is always changing. We’re just not fast enough to comprehend it.

As a bonus, it was Rick Wakeman on the piano in “Changes.” Wakeman was already known for his session work on many albums, but had formed Yes with others, another group I greatly enjoyed.

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

I’m back-upped with music, dreams, and writing today. I took my monthly swim in the dark waters for a few days. Now, breaking surface, a survivor one more time, my creative and artistic energies are lit up.

For the musical theme portion, so many songs streamed through me last night and today. I finally went with an odd choice. My love of music comes from Mom. I’m sure. I once asked Dad what music he liked to listen to; he shrugged. Mom, though, put albums on whenever she cleaned, and Mom was, and is, passionate about keeping her house clean. Music was always playing. One guy she really enjoyed was Frank Sinatra.

I can understand why. Sinatra had a big voice and style. This song, “That’s Life,” has been covered by some great talents. I especially enjoy Shirley Bassey’s cover, because I like Shirley Bassey. But I stayed with Frank’s cover, because that’s the one streaming through my head today. I thought about doing David Lee Roth’s version, just for the hell of it, but that was rejected.

Got to love these words, right?

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Monday’s Theme Music

Ah, they’re always pestering me, calling from phone numbers that I don’t recognize, and sending me emails with sensational deals, deals that will make me wealthy, or is such an amazing travel bargain, that I’d be a fool to take it up. Never mind that the travel bargains are going to places that I don’t want to visit. It’s such a good deal.

Although this song, “Who Can It Be Now?”, by Men At Work, came out while I was stationed on Okinawa, I always think of Mom and my family. In the days before caller identification, Mom established the number of rings as a primitive IFF – Identification, Friend or Foe – for when friends and relatives call. “Ring twice, hang up, and call again. I’ll know it’s you, and answer.” Or maybe she won’t. But when the phone rang more than twice, “Who can that be? Should I answer it?”

The same was true with someone knocking on the door or ringing the bell, or  stopping in the driveway or in front of the house. “Who is that? What do they want? Who can it be now?” Mom passed it on to the rest of us. “Who can it be now?”

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