Category: memories

Sunday’s Theme Music

I’ve done this song before, but it’s a throwback, optimistic song. “A Change Is Gonna Come” by Sam Cooke was inspired by his life experiences. He released it in 1964.

It’s a good, reflective song about trying and being. The chorus is the best part (from Genius.com):

It’s been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change gonna come
Oh, yes it will

Change has come today, the same changes as every day, every year: the weather, the shadows, the temperature, the month, the date. We’re looking for more permanent changes in other ways, to the way that people act and treat one another. We need changes to the erroneous supposition that same deserve less freedom, less equality, less opportunity, because of their skin, their religion, their sexual orientation or gender, or their heritage.

This is a cover by Brian Owens with his father. I enjoyed it, and thought that you might enjoy it, too.

0

Saturday’s Theme Music

Today reveals that I’m in a nostalgic, wistful mood. I stepped outside onto the back patio.  Buds are on the trees, and the air smells rain-filled. Not a new rain nor a close rain, but hints that rain was nearby. Which, after a bit of talking to cats and thinking about the rise of spring (like it’s a rebellion in the air) reminded me of other times and places that seemed. Out of that came a Rolling Stones song, which, I guessed after a bit, would’ve been heard in 1973. Getting back into the house, I looked up “100 Years Ago”, confirming, 1973, from the album Goats Head Soup. Not quite a hundred years ago, but at least most of a lifetime ago.

“The buds were bursting and the air smelled sweet and strange,
and it seemed about a hundred years ago.”

0

Today’s Theme Music

“Creep” by Radiohead (1992) has flooded my stream this morning. Its presence was prompted by the query, “What the hell am I doing here?” when I paused in the kitchen, lost in what I was about to do. I then went through the mental checklist (fed the cats, let them out, let them in, fed them again, peed — oh, yeah, coffee.)

Many people dislike “Creep”, thinking it depressing. It is depressing. But I think its chorus captures what too many people sometimes experience:

But I’m a creep
I’m a weirdo
What the hell am I doing here?
I don’t belong here

h/t to Genius.com

I have felt like these words from time to time (yes, alcohol was involved) but it’s been a long while for me. Hope it’s been a long while for you, too, or better, that you’ve never endured that stream of thought.

Cheers

 

0

Tuesday’s Theme Music

I was singing today’s song because it’s Tuesday, and I was ruminating over my dreams. Had to look up the date of when the song was released. It’s one of those songs that’ve been around for almost all of my life.

Turns out that “Ruby Tuesday” was released in 1967. I turned eleven years in ’67. Good years for cars. I enjoyed the ’67 Ford Mustang’s looks, along with the ’67 Chevy Camaro and the ’67 Mercury Cougar. I also like the ’67 E Jag, but it was little changed in its looks from previous years.

The lyrics (besides the main chorus) that came up with the sun today were toward the song’s end:

There’s no time to lose, I heard her say
Catch your dreams before they slip away
Dying all the time
Lose your dreams
And you will lose your mind.
Ain’t life unkind?

h/t to AZlyrics.com

Somehow, Mick and the Stones make this work. One of the things that go through my head while watching this video is the thinking, okay, what am I going to wear today, that must have progressed. Yet, being a boy from the sixties, I often dressed like this.

Fun times.

0

Monday’s Theme Music

Preparing to depart the coffee shop yesterday, I bused my table. Looking into the roasting room, I saw one of the Noble employees back there. My jaw dropped.

He’s a spitting image of Chuck Negron of Three Dog Night back in the late 1960s.

640px-Three_Dog_Night_1969

Negron, Wells and Hutton of Three Dog Night in 1969

Thinking about that as I walked the town, I went through a few TDN songs – “Eli’s Coming”, “One”, “Joy to the World”, “Mama Told Me Not To come”, and “Liar”. The song that arrived to stay in the stream was one where Negron was the featured lead vocalist. That would be TDG’s cover of “Easy to Be Hard” from Hair.

Not only was it fittin’ to have Negron, the secret coffee roaster (maybe he cloned himself) singin’ a song, but the song whose lyrics fit these times of rollbacks in how we treat one another to the point of open hostility and cruelty.

How can people be so heartless
How can people be so cruel
Easy to be hard
Easy to be cold

How can people have no feelings
How can they ignore their friends
Easy to be proud
Easy to say no

Especially people who care about strangers
Who care about evil and social injustice
Do you only care about the bleeding crowd
How about a needy friend
I need a friend

h/t to AZLyrics.com

Cheers

Love the bumper stickers in the video.

0

Sunday’s Theme Music

“This Diamond Ring” (cover by Gary Lewis and the Playboys, 1965) began playing in my head as I reconstructed and evaluated my dream, which was about theater, wine, food, and clothes. Why that song, I wondered, going over the lyrics. It’s all about broken promises and lost dreams, and gathered, that must be what the dreams were about, a depressing thought at its face.

Anyway, now the song is lodged in the stream. Sharing it will release it, so here you are. Watch the video, as their performance is interesting. (So is the setting.) (Such a simpler time.) Several of those musicians look like, “Where am I, where am I,” is caught in their thinking streams.

Cheers

0

Saturday’s Theme Music

Today’s music came into the stream via word association.

I was looking for my ‘other’ blue jeans. (Like any good American male, I own several pairs of blue jeans, but have favorites.) (Because I like their fit, see?) From that, the stream picked up Neil Diamond’s “Forever In Blue Jeans” (which seemed appropriate, as I seemed forever in blue jeans) (at least until the weather warms and I become forever in shorts). That stopped after a few seconds as “Blue Jeans Blues” (ZZ Top) supplanted it.

As I chuckled over those songs, “Tangled Up In Blue” (Bob Dylan) popped in. But, as I found the jeans (in the closet, on a hanger, where they’re supposed to be) (how’d I miss them the first time?) (do you hang your jeans or fold them and store them in a drawer?), David Bowie’s light song, “Blue Jean” (1984), about a woman named Blue Jean, swarmed the stream.

So, there we have it, the genesis of today’s choice, “Blue Jean” by the late D.B.

 

6

Friday’s Theme Music

Yeah, another song that seems like a remnant from the dreamscape that’s slipped through the filters between the worlds and ended up in the stream of my consciousness.

“Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin'” by Journey has an entertaining hard-rock bluesiness to it, delivered by the beat and that piano playing. The lyrics are based on a true story experienced by Steve Perry, according to memory, which claims it heard that factoid on American Top 40 whilst stationed at Randolph AFB, Texas in 1979. Drove a lovely Pontiac Firebird then, which we’d just purchased new. I was back in the military after a year’s break. Owned a restaurant and attended college during that break, but that’s another story.  Big news of that year is that the Shah of Iran, the end of the Iranian Monarchy, and the Iranian hostage crises. Jimmy Carter was POTUS. Remember any of that? Seems like a million years ago.

As for the dream? Ah, that’s another tale. It needs thought about more to be writ about.

Like Steve Perry’s leather pants?

 

0

Thursday’s Theme Music

Clear night last night, after a quasi-balmy day. That’s a day when warmth and cold — spring and winter — have repeated rounds, looking for victory. Walk in sunshine and it’s so warm, and yeah, baby, spring is almost here. Then, stepping into the shadows, wintry winds slash your cheeks and hands and you’re, like, geez, that’s friggin’ cold. Even the smell between these experiences is different, with one offering a definite winter scent to the air.

Back to last night, it was clear, feeling like winter settling in for the night, but I was out, looking for stars and the moon. No moon was found, which made me cycle through what I remembered from seeing the moon (oh, yeah, we had that big full moon weekend earlier this month) (was that this month?) (how many weeks ago?). Then I spotted her, a waning crescent, by my guess, just peeking past trees, houses, and mountains, shy, like she’s uncertain of her role here.

All that released song lyrics into the stream. I had to strike a pose to remember. (Something about the moon and crossing…who was that?) I vaguely heard the guitars and vocalist…the voice seemed familiar.

More lyrics were found, and then I remembered, that’s REO Speedwagon. With a little more coaxing, other lyrics came, and finally, the name, “Ridin’ the Storm Out”.

Here’s the initial verse that I was trying to recall regarding the moon (thanks, Metrolyrics.com)

And I’m not missing a thing
Just watchin’ the full moon crossing the range
Ridin’ the storm out, ridin’ the storm out

Wikipedia.org says it’s from 1973. Cheers

0

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑