Category: memories

Tuesday’s Theme Music

Woke up hot at three-ish. As I reviewed dreams, got up and drank water, and then opened the back door to entertain cool night air, my mind began streaming Blue Oyster Cult and “Burnin’ for You” (1981).

My mind seems to have a song ready for any moment. I imagine a team of people up there. Males and females are armed with servers loaded with music. Sitting on swivel chairs, they stay poised to begin songs for each sight, sound, thought, emotion, and memory.

“Burnin’ for You” works on multiple levels. Fer instance, It addresses homes in a major way. That’s fittin’ for ‘merica, where Homeland Security and police battle protesters as jobs and savings dwindle and eviction notices fly, leaving folks without homes. BOC catches that:

Home in the valley
Home in the city
Home isn’t pretty
Ain’t no home for me

Yet, priorities: save the businesses! Protect the billionaires! Grow the military!

Sorry. Jumped onto my anti-GOP train as led by 45 hisself. I’ll’ stop now. Here’s the music.

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Monday’s Theme Music

The Traveling Wilburys song, “Handle with Care” (1988) sprang to mind last night. Eleven thirty, I went out into the clear, friendly bight and entertained the moon and stars. All were bright and lively, and rona kept the time free of passerbys as all are home shelterin’. My cats joined me, with Boo being the one to break the silence, rub up against me, and lean against my calf.

That brought out the Wilbury chorus:

Everybody’s got somebody to lean on
Put your body next to mine, and dream on

h/t to Genius.com

This song is so special, IMO. Such talents, legends of rock, are brought together as friends, performers and song writers, contributing but remaining as individuals. Look at the video and how each is dressed and how they act and participate. They’re enjoying themselves. That feeling carries over into the song.

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Went out at eleven last night. Cool and clear under a sharp moon and a starry blanket, it was the type of night that prompts enthusiastic prose.

A shooting star whizzed past, gladdening me. I always view them as a good omen. Back inside, I fed cats and replenished food and water bowls. Then, putting away the laundry, a 1967 Boyce & Hart song tottered in.

Yes, this was my Saturday night. I don’t know why “I Wonder What She’s Doing Tonight” came out of the memory jukebox.

You might know of Boyce & Hart as the duo behind much of the Monkees. It’s a convoluted pop episode involving TV and Bob Kirschner, but this is definitely a song from another era.

Maybe that’s why it spoke to me on a quiet Saturday night.

 

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Saturday’s Theme Music

My dreams returned last night. I awoke feeling fantastic. The air was clear and cool, and my energy was flowing like a river during the spring melt off. The perfect song for this moment, I decided, was a kick back in feeling, style, and spirit. For that, I summoned “Old Time Rock and Roll” and Bob Seger from 1978.

This ’83 live version brings it all home. Give it a listen.

 

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Friday’s Theme Music

Got up from bed at the crack of cat (hmmm, that sounded better in my head) and began channeling Jimi Hendrix, “Stone Free” (1966).

The lyrics attracted me as sort of counter to my day, as I’m being ‘forced’ to socialize. (Yeah, I’m such a whiner. Poor, poor, pity poor me.)

Stone free, to do what I please
Stone free, to ride the breeze
Stone free, I can’t stay
I got to, got to, got to get away right now
Yeah, alright

h/t to Genius.com

 

 

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Thursday’s Theme Music

I dreamed a black man in black clothes came by and fixed my arm. He was upbeat about it all.

Thinking that over, I opened my eyes and checked the time: 6:01. Not needing to get up and wanting more sleep, I told myself, I’ll just close my eyes for a moment.

My mind answered, “I close my eyes, only for a moment, then the moment’s gone.” Then the rest of the classic rock tune, “Dust in the Wind” by Kansas (1978), swelled in my head.

It’s a good choice as theme music goes. We’re battling over rights, equality, facts and science, trying to preserve our lives, planets, and society while coping with COVID, all to a cacophony of bullshit from the WH. Sometimes I feel like we’re warring nests of ants. Then, looking at the stars, I remember that we’re stardust, born on a cosmic wind.

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Blame Paul Krugman for today’s song.

I was reading his post about zombies. You’d conclude, then, that today’s music features music by or about zombies.

Nope.

Krugman addressed Republicans et al who won’t or can’t change their thinking about unemployment compensation, the social safety net, and the economy despite decades of validated data that the Republicans are wrong. I then widened my scope of thought to include civil rights and equality. Voting rights. Police force and violence. Eventually my aperture narrowed to change.

Raise your hand if you’re convinced change is easy. For most, it isn’t. Change messes with psychology and comfort zones, habits and vices, and the way it’s always been versus the way we’d like it to be. Trump and his followers are already demonstrated that they’re mired in tar pits; they can’t and won’t change.

All this brought me to songs about trying to change. There are numerous musical releases about seasons and change. I went with Tracy Chapman’s 1988 song, “Fast Car”.

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Up early. (Well, early-ish.) (With le chats.) Opened the back door and ventured into the cool air (well, coolish, low seventies, but it’s a relative thing, innit?) and clear blue sky (well, clear-ish and blue-ish, save for the marring brung in by wildfire smoke to the south and east, gentle nudges to check the wildfire updates). Birds were speaking but it was quiet (well, quiet-ish, as cars’ motoring punctured the mo’ — again, again, again). Thought of the world sit, rolling into longing for where I was and where I preferred to be.

Here’s a song from another time which I think evokes those senses, “The Boys of Summer” by Don Henley and Mike Campbell, with Campbell on guitar, from 1984. By coincidence, it captures the sense of summer, 2020: “Nobody on the road, nobody on the beach. I feel it in the air, the summers out of reach. Empty lake, empty streets, the sun goes down alone.”

Hmm, seems like an -ish kind of day…

 

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Monday’s Theme Music

A conversational tic, “Do you know what I mean,” triggered recollection of the Lee Michaels 1968 song. Know what I mean?

It fits for today as topic lines are starkly drawn. Voting by mail can’t work, they say, but I did it throughout my military career and since moving to Oregon in 2005, so I think it works, know what I mean?

Trump couldn’t come up with shit for the pandemic, but he eagerly sends geared paramilitary Feds to cities led by Dems, know what I mean?

Pro baseball started playing in bubbles in the U.S. and now they’re canceling games because players have tested positive, know what I mean?

COVID-19 deaths are taking place, and positive cases are rising, they canceled the in person Republican convention but still want to open businesses and send children to school, you know what I mean?

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Cleaned up, shaved, cats fed, I sought the next things: what’d I need now? Coffee, water, a trip to the beach, my arm mended, the rona virus ended, a cold bevvie with my friends, a publishing contract…

“Dial it back, laddie,” I decreed. “Talkin’ ’bout here and now.” My mind reiterated my needs, building on them…

Such contemplation about what I need often collapses into what I want. Got air. I needed food and water. We can expand it into the hierarchy of needs., of course, but I’m addressing basics.

Yeah, it was too much for too early. Retreating from myself, I made coffee and breakfast, and invited the Stones in to perform “You Can’t Always Get What You Want“.

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