Category: memories

Friday’s Theme Music

A favorite song is stuck in today’s stream, but it’s quite apt for the time. Growing up in the 1960s, Shirley Bassey was a recurring fixture in pop culture. She sang several of the Bond movie theme songs, showed up on television shows, had international hits. Her voice and style were well-known.

So it was something of a delight when the Propellerheads combined with Shirley Bassey in a retro sound, “History Repeating”, in 1997.

[Verse 1]
The word is about, there’s something evolving
Whatever may come, the world keeps revolving
They say the next big thing is here
That the revolution’s near
But to me it seems quite clear
That it’s all just a little bit of history repeating

[Verse 2]
The newspapers shout – a new style is growing
But it don’t know if it’s coming or going
There is fashion – there is fad
Some is good – some is bad
And the joke is rather sad
That it’s all just a little bit of history repeating

h/t to Genius.com

Here we are in 2020, struggling to advance rights for women, people of color, regardless of sexual gender, identity, or orientation, while a segment of society tries to anchor us to a time that’s gone. Against that, we’re fighting a pandemic, kind of like that 1917-1918 flu pandemic, and there’s talks of voting rights and states’ rights vs. Fed. rights vs. individual rights…like the American Civil War and the ongoing civil rights movement.

Also, I chose this as my theme song back in back in 2017, so, yeah, “History Repeating” works for today. And it’s a swinging tune.

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Yet again, my brain selected a song and has put it on a loop for reasons that I can’t pinpoint.

This one may have to do with the neighbor’s cat passing away. Named Pepper — an independent cat of independent means chasing independent ways and independent dreams — I often called her sugar and sweetness. A tortie, she featured a coal black face with big golden eyes that seemed solemn but optimistic, and a clear, strong voice. So maybe her spirit kicked the song into my head.

Anyway, here is Robin Schulz with “Sugar” from 2015. It uses Baby Bash’s song, “Suga Suga” from 2003 to build upon. Just realized, too, according to my neighbor, Pepper was ‘supposedly’ (they weren’t pos) born in 2003. Admittedly, this song goes against my general principle of referring to women as bitches. Just don’t like it as an expression, attitude, or stereotype.

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

After waking up and getting up, songs filter in and out of my cogent stream. With a little surprise, I put together their identities:

“One” by U2 and “One” by Three Dog Night, “I’m the Only One” by Melissa Ethridge, “One” by Metallica, “Still the One” by Orleans, “I’m One” by the Who. Another one song, “She’s the One” by Bruce Springsteen finishes the list.

WTH?

It becomes a quietly amusing background thinking game as I do other things, wondering why songs focused on one are in my mental stream. Not necessarily new; my mind has done this to me with other topics. But I can usually pinpoint the root. It’s different today, as I don’t know what’s kicking one into the stream.

I also wonder, why those songs, and not other songs with one in them. Or maybe other songs with one played in my head but I forgot.

Oh, well. After all that, I settled on a Wallflowers favorite from 1997, “One Headlight”. That’s today’s theme music.

So long ago I don’t remember when
that’s when they said I lost my only friend
they said she died easy of a broke heart disease
as I listened through the cemetary trees

I seen the sun comin’ up at the funeral at dawn
with the long broken arm of human law
now it always seemed such a waste
she always had a pretty face
I wondered why she hung around this place

hey-ey-ey
come on try a little
nothing is forever
there’s got to be something better than in the middle
me and cinderella
put it all together
we could drive it home
with one headlight

h/t to Metrolyrics.com

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Yesterday was in the mid-nineties. Today we’re looking at ninety-eight to one hundred degrees. Heat warnings out, etc..

Can’t complain too much. Had a scorcher back in May, and thought, oh, no, here comes the heat. But June turned mild and rainy. Different from what we usually get, and tres acceptable.

I’m not an air conditioning fan. Prefer not to run it in the house. Seems like a sledgehammer approach to things. I don’t usually run it in the house until the temp inside goes to eight-three. To do this, I cool the house at night, right? Sure. Everyone’s with that. But last night didn’t cool too much (seventy at eleven) (that’s degrees at o’clock PM). The house was comfortable through and it’s comfortable now, but, well, we’re looking at eighty by eleven (temp/time, AM).

Speaking of time and clocks (or writing about them), I was thinking about counter-clockwise. I was following some instructions which used that statement. Which cause wonder, what’d they say before clocks about turning things? I suppose, reflecting on technology, not many things were turned before clocks, and they just said, left or right.

Also, though, kids. Their clocks are digital. Aren’t they? Are they? Don’t have children, so I don’t know what’s in school, and whether that’s still taught. Kind of assumed it wasn’t, since they’re dropped the whole cursive writing business.

But if they’re not shown standard round clocks, being told about turning something counter clockwise must cause a minor brain freeze.

Back to the music. For today’s heat, the theme is “Heat Wave” as covered by Linda Rondstadt back in the last century. The original song was excellent, and there are many terrific versions, but Linda’s version popped up in 1975, so I associate it with driving around and partying as a young adult.

Let’s go with it.

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Sunday’s Theme Music

“Do you ever get restless?” my wife asked.

Do I ever get restless?

Do cats ever go to sleep?

Good lord, we’ve been sheltering in place with limited contact with others since the middle of March. I’ve had itchings to leap into the car and race away, to find some sanctuary at a beach. I’ve sighed over ideas of meandering through book stores. Favorite places get longing looks as I drive by. Small heartaches are felt as advertisements to travel slip past. When will we safely do these things again?

Last night, I sniffed the cooling summer breeze. The breeze smelled like that time I was on Sicily, and recalled a moment on Okinawa, and a summer night in the Philippines. The breeze reminded me of being in bed in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia when I was a child, and being on holiday with my wife in Astoria, Hawaii, and California. Recollections of living in Germany, standing under the Eiffel Tower, and visiting Korea rode that breeze in. A little bit of the Carolinas, Texas, and Florida came in on that breeze. Other times in Oregon and New Mexico rose on that breeze.

So, yeah, I get restless. After she asked, and I was outside later, staring at the night sky (cloudy, so saw nothing but clouds), a line from Weezer’s “Island in the Sun” (2001) streaked through my stream like a summer meteor.

We’ll run away together
We’ll spend some time forever
We’ll never feel bad anymore

That was followed by that lovely, low key refrain, “Hip, hip.”

h/t to Genius.com

Yep, feeling a bit restless today. I’d love to be on an island in the sun. Hip, hip.

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Today’s song comes fresh out of the dream stream. I awoke singing the song Danny Elfman wrote that he can’t stand, “Weird Science” (Oingo Boingo, 1985). I’ve never seen the movie by the same name. Began watching to see if friends who loved it were right, but didn’t find it that weird, that funny, or that interesting, and too predictable.

As for the dreams…well, that’d be another post.

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Friday’s Theme Music

Cyndi Lauper’s 1986 song (wow, so long ago, in retrospect), “True Colors” gave to mind today as I perused the news.

Everything seems like political news in the U.S. in this era. Trump wants to stop Bolton’s book from being released, using the conflicting reasons, it’s all lies, and it’s all classified, making the book classified lies, which I think would be a good name for a music group. “Classified Lies”. Think they might be a one-hit wonder.

Karens — white women who call the police for calling on Blacks for living while being Black — have been caught showing their true colors, smugly declaring how right they are in hateful tones, demanding that Blacks go back to where they came from or stop what they’re doing, or police! The tactic seems to have been solidly ingrained into their psychic, as they have little fear of using it. Oh, how often when the video exposes their true colors do they sob about how sorry they are, how they didn’t realize. Sure, too late; we see your true colors.

More on the right insist that wearing masks and social distancing doesn’t matter, they want to invoke herd immunity. “The economy,” they scream. Many are ‘pro-lifers’ who also screamed against abortion choice and spread rumors of death panels when the ACA was being debated. Now, the possibility of spreading death doesn’t bother them. Life isn’t so precious as the economy. They’ve shown their true colors.

As protests supporting Black Lives Matter and against police brutality rose and spread, some people spoke up for the police even as video evidence of their abuse and disregard spread. True colors were shown.

Yes, the pressure to stand somewhere and declare yourself often exposes true colors. It’s a good song for Juneteenth, 2020, as we see too many people’s true, ugly colors.

Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg wrote “True Colors”. I didn’t know that until I read it on wikipedia.org. Cyndi Lauper puts a beautiful spin on it. While I mock the true colors of racists and the right wing in the light of current news, the song is an antidote to such trumpshit.

No, “True Colors” is more supportive of the protesters standing for change, because more of us, a majority, are awakening to the wrongs manifested in our names, and are trying to put it right. 

You with the sad eyes
Don't be discouraged
Oh I realize
Its hard to take courage
In a world full of people
You can lose sight of it all
And the darkness inside you
Can make you feel so small

But I see your true colors
Shining through
I see your true colors
And that's why I love you
So don't be afraid to let them show
Your true colors
True colors are beautiful
Like a rainbow

Show me a smile then
Don't be unhappy, can't remember
When I last saw you laughing
If this world makes you crazy
And you've taken all you can bear
You call me up
Because you know I'll be there

h/t to Lyrics.com.

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Thursday’s Theme Music

I’ve always enjoyed these lines:

Here’s your ticket, pack your bag, it’s time for jumping overboard
The transportation is here
Close enough but not too far, maybe you know where you are
Fighting fire with fire, ah!

h/t to Genius.com

After a night of chaotic dreaming (sometimes I was dictating a novel to others, sometimes they were dictating it to me, which sometimes involved an empty white room but then featured a red jukebox where I made selections but they didn’t come up), I awoke with those lines from “Burning Down the House” dominating my mental stream (along with “Summer Breeze” by Seals & Croft and “This Magic Moment”, as covered by Jay and the Americans). Not really hooked on it (for example, fragments of Bon Jovi’s “Runaway” just skittered through), but why shouldn’t it be today’s theme music? I like the song’s nonsensical connections that hint at something deeper.

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Today’s music arrives because of interactions with the cats.

Another cat, one I’d never seen, arrived on the backyard fence yesterday. Alarms went off in my cats. Tucker, who rules the house, lifted himself up, slowly sat down, curled his tail around his body, and watched this newcomer, a tabby with a white chest and white front paws. They gave Tucker a long look.

Then Boo, the resident house bagheera, took note of the newby and sat up so he could watch. And Papi, the ginger blade, emerged from the shadows to sit and watch.

Newby had been thinking about jumping down into the yard. These three’s laser gazes gave them pause. But how should they redirect? Nothing appeared trustworthy.

Which is when I said, “Everyone relax.” They immediately ignored me. No one relaxed but Frankie Goes to Hollywood began thumping in my head.

So here we go, “Relax”, from 1983.

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Been listening to some blues streaming in my head and decided to share it with you. Here’s Stevie Ray Vaughn and Double Trouble with “Pride and Joy” from 1983. Turn it up!

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