Category: memories

Thursday’s Theme Music

Song from 1969 is rambling through my head. (Guess it’s Throwback Thursday.) (This is Thursday, innit? Days are sort of bleeding together with a lovely melange of rain, sun, and night.)

“Good Times, Bad Times” by Led Zeppelin is cranking through the stream? Why? Because it can. But I think it sorta works for these P.D. (pandemic days, or pandays, if you must). “Good times, bad times, you know I’ve seen my share.” Plant sings it so much better than me, according to my cats. But then, they’re very critical by nature. They’re like, “Stop singing. Feed me. Stop moving. Let me sleep on your lap. What’re you doing? Where you going? Get back here. Don’t close that door. Hey, what’re you doing? What’s going on behind that door? Let me in! Let me in!”

 

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Doing yard work yesterday, looking at the dreadful state of the side yard.

Things have been planned for years. Yardwork is a low priority, but I thought this shit (I’m using the formal shit here to indicate improvements) would’ve been done by now. Stepping back, I thought of all the things that’ve occurred that I employ as excuses.

Friend dying of cancer. Cat dying of cancer. MIL dying and being moved into a nursing home. Wildfires and their smoke. Drought and water rationing. Extreme heat and poor air.

This year, it’s a novel coronavirus, wearing masks, social distancing, and SIP. (Yeah, a drought is also widening and extending, so it’s not looking good – and the wildfire season started early because of the extremely dry conditions. I also hear some murder hornets are on the way…)

Of course, that sort of stream gushes with vows not to take time for granted and do things when the chance comes, because that chance may not come again.

Long way to say that today’s theme music is Bryan Adams and “On A Day Like Today” (1998). Cheers

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Friday’s Theme Music

Have news and events finally done it to you? Are you, like me, comfortably numb from it all?

Pink Floyd put it to music back in 1980 as part of a little-known album called The Wall. Here is “Comfortably Numb”.

I remember when this was released. In the U.S. Air Force, stationed at Randolph AFB in Universal City, Texas, I lived not far from family. One cousin was a huge Pink Floyd fan. I’d not heard of any of it but he’d already bought the album. He brought it to my house and played it for me.

Admittedly, I slightly prefer the original studio recording, but David Gilmour playing at Pompei moved me, so here you go. Enjoy the light show. (Hey, it’s Pink Floyd. Well, David Gilmour.)

Seriously, enjoy the lyrics. Enjoy the powerful guitar solos. Enjoy the band members’ interaction with one another.

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Today’s song is actually the cats’ theme music. As I’m reduced to staying at home (see: novel coronavirus news), the cats have employed a shadowing technique. Wherever I’m at, here they come. That brought to my mind (and I’m sure it’s already in the cats’ minds), Blondie’s song – “One Way Or Another” (1979) – about stalking.

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Listening to the news from various places but mostly the U.S., I’m hearing a lot of calls to open up businesses and start up the economy. I thought they needed theme music. I’m recommended the Rolling Stones with “Start Me Up” (1981).

As a point of order, I’m not in favor of most places in the U.S. starting up. Insufficient testing is in place, tracing has huge gaps, and not enough is known about COVID-19 at this point. It seems like many places are taking a shrugged shoulders, fingers crossed, half-assed approach. While plans don’t need to be perfect, half-assed rarely succeeds. History will be our judge.

Check out the moves from Jagger.

 

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Stumbled down nostalgia lane this morning. Probably a combination of mood, weather, and personal struggles, the sort of thing that sometimes takes most of us. It ended up with a stream of what I used to do and used to be. That invited the 2008 Coldplay song, “Viva La Vida”, into my morning’s mental music stream.

It’s not a dance number but the way the song’s layers build always rouses me. It is at once a contemplative and reflective song about what had been, and a song that reinforces my will about what I will do. Does anyone else experience an effect like that? No? Well, maybe it’s the coffee.

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Monday’s Theme Music

I can only imagine the shit so many people face daily. I’m sorely aware of my privilege. I have it pretty fucking good. Don’t need to work, having put my time and life into two moderately successful careers while experiencing good luck and little tragedy.

Others aren’t having it so well. They’re struggling to pay for food and shelter. Many times, they work several jobs; work defines their lives and aspirations. They’re being forced to work for little pay under conditions that the rest of us shun. Yet, we depend on them while looking the other way and pretending all is good.

As data about COVID-19 is gathered and analyzed, and corporations, governments, and faux patriots demand that businesses re-open, that we ‘return to normal’, people must decide, should I stay or should I go? That makes the Clash’s 1981 classic the official theme music for this May Monday during the 2020 coronavirus pandemic.

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Sunday’s Theme Music

An old but apropos song hit my mental music stream last night. Maybe it was the sunshine and rain. Could be that the green full trees and blossoms cast a spell on me. Probably a combo of that, along with restless mind syndrome, but the weeks of limited movement and near-continuous confinement gave me a jab.

“We gotta get out of this place,” I sang to my wife, remembering the 1964 hit by the Animals. “If it’s the last thing we ever do.”

Here it is. Turn it up. Sing along. “We Gotta Get Out of this Place”. Watch the video. Dig that set.

 

 

 

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Friday’s Theme Music

“Well you don’t know what uh we can find
Why don’t you come with me little girl?
On a magic carpet ride
You don’t know what we can see
Why don’t you tell your dreams to me?
Fantasy will set you free
Close your eyes girl
Look inside girl

h/t to Metrolyrics.com

Yeah, it’s Steppenwolf with “Magic Carpet Ride” (1968). I was a big Steppenwolf fan in those days; “Born to be Wild”, “The Pusher”, “Sookie, Sookie”, and today’s theme music were heard at least once a day in the summer of my twelfth year. Mom was aware enough of them that when an article about the group and John Kay’s escape from the Soviet side of Germany was in the Pittsburgh Press, she brought it to my attention.

It’s come up today because, hey, locked into the house, a magic carpet ride would be mighty fine to do a flyover. Even more, fantasy will set you free. Fiction writing is the fantasy that sets me free. Although my quasi-official writing time is about three hours a day, fiction writers (including me) will tell you that the story and its twists and characters invade every mental recess, influencing (and influenced by) every interaction and activity. It’s an interesting trip.

Enjoy the music. Happy Friday, and happy May 1st. Another month in the books. Persevere and overcome the current adversity, endure, and then prosper.

That is all.

 

 

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Out in the backyard last night, breathing in the quiet and cool air, looking for stars through the clouds. A cat twined around my legs and then did a tuck and roll, stretching out for a belly rub.

Lyrics from a Smashing Pumpkin song, “Tonight, Tonight” (1996) came to mind. I’d just retired from the military the year before and was in my first civilian position ever as an adult. It was a bit different, and I was questioning myself and my plans back in that era.

And you know you’re never sure
But you’re sure you could be right
If you held yourself up to the light
And the embers never fade

h/t Genius.com

Funny, but I’m still questioning myself and my plans, in this era. ‘Nuff said.

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