Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
Today’s song is perfect for the moment. A cat’s attentions awoke me about five this morning. Dream pieces stayed with me while I attended the cat, and since I was up, visited the water closet. Sometime during this period, ELO’s 1975 song, “I Can’t Get It Out of My Head”, started streaming because I couldn’t get that dream out of my head.
Now, like the title, I can’t get this soft, mystical, prog-rock song out of my head. Over to you.
Thinking about having a beer with friends at our annual Haroldfest tonight when this energetic old rock song streamed in. Even though it’s by this group led by this guy named Santana, I don’t I’ve heard it on the radio in about four decades.
The lines that brought it into mind:
You can understand everything’s to share.
Let your spirit dance brothers everywhere.
Let your head be free. Turn the wisdom key
Find it naturally, see you’re lucky to be
Sing it loud
It’s time for you to all get down
Yeah do it.
‘Get down’ is a slang expression for partying and relaxin’, you know.
Time to get down.
The Wayback Machine injected another song into the stream yesterday.
I was out walking through an autumn day. Reds, golds, oranges, and yellows have been splashed across the foliage but leaves aren’t dropping yet. Temperatures have dropped in a fallish segment, thirties to forties at night, fifties to sixties in the day, with rain showers.
As I walked through this, I noticed how many people weren’t dressed for the day. Maybe, like my friend, in his loud flowery, tropical shirt, they’re making a last stand for summer. Perhaps they expected the area to follow its tradition of quickly reverting to warmer weather, or, it could be that they’re just denying that the season changed, or they’re not paying attention. I also thought that they were tough people, unfazed by chilly, soggy weather, and were wearing tee shirts and sandals because the weather wasn’t affecting them like the rest of us mortals. The majority them looked cold and a bit miz, though.
So, reflecting on the weather change, I chanced to glance upon a far-away scene, where the leaves were a splash of fiery color on the mountain. Natch, the WM poured a 1975 Marshall Tucker Band song, “Fire on the Mountain” into the stream, and off I went, humming and singing as I continued on.
Of course, “Fire on the Mountain” is about a futile search for gold so a man can improve his family’s situation. He fails and dies. That’s often life, innit?
Today’s theme music was my dream’s theme music. It was a flying dream, and involved one of my little sisters, so I don’t know why my brain used this song.
“Fox on the Run” (1975) is by Sweet. I know of them and their music mostly through radio play, or from their music being used in television shows or movies. I’m more familiar with “The Ballroom Blitz” but I’m accommodating my brain and its choice here. The song played constantly in the background during the dream’s flying segments. There weren’t any foxes in the dream but that would be literal. There was a young woman who was attractive to me and who told me that she wanted me, so I guess the song could be a reference to her. We used to call attractive women foxes or foxy. That’s what the song is about.
The flying was effortless, by the way, but the aftermath — this morning — I feel exhausted. Coffee, stat, you know?
Meanwhile, I didn’t much about Sweet, so I read their Wikipedia coverage and a few other sources. The singer, Brian Connolly, died of renal and liver failure. when he was fifty-one after suffering multiple heart-attacks. Back in 1974, he’d been beaten and kicked in the throat, which damaged his vocal cords. Life didn’t seem the same for him after that.
So, here. Gotta get this out of my head and my dream. Cheers
I was running up a hill the other day, so Kate Bush’s song, “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)” (1982) popped into the stream. While running up that hill and thinking of her song about relationships, I thought about how easy it is for “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)” to be about trying to change your life or achieve something, just get somewhere.
I’d be running up that road
Be running up that hill
With no problems
Running up a hill seems more apt as a metaphor over something like running in place. The exertion needed to run up a hill makes it different, as well as your attitude. When you’re running up that hill and begin tiring, breathing harder, sweat bursting out of your body, your attitude changes. You thought, “I can do this,” when you began. It seemed like a friendly challenge for yourself. Now, as the hill goes on, and your teeth grit and your muscles flail, you wonder. Your body flags, will flags, your heart pounds, and you breathe harder and faster, reaching a point where you decide, “Can I make it? Should I go on or give up?” Attendant thoughts, like, “Why am I doing this,” and, “Nobody else cares, nobody else would know if I stop,” enter.
But I knew, and I kept running, although I gotta tell you, I was a lot slower for much of it until I issued a final hard, determined burst and made it. Then I walked, hands on hips, gasping and sucking air, perspiration all over me, enjoying the view…and recovering.
Going back to that song, though, I often think of it when I know of someone I love that’s suffering, and think, “If only we could swap places, so I could take that on for you, and relieve you of your pain and suffering.” But if there is a God, it doesn’t seem like God likes to make deals.
Naturally, it relates to writing, too. Most writing days are stoic, persevering days of going on, like running on a flat. Some days become more powerful, days when I get a special wind and feel like I’m running faster than light. But there are days and times when I’m running up that hill and it seems endless and pointless.
At least for me.
Today’s song is one of those turn-it-up loud touchback beats from waayyy back in 1990.
Fun facts from November 1990:
The U.S.S.R. was the United States’ great enemy and an evil empire, according to our former POTUS, Ronald Reagan. Our new guy, in his first year, was George H.W. Bush. The Berlin Wall had fallen the previous year. The U.S.S.R. would soon end.
A coalition led by the U.S. was building up for the Gulf War, amassing troops to attack Iraq and free Kuwait.
The Internet and web were just catching on as a force. AOL and Yahoo were big players in the U.S. Google hadn’t been started yet. Cell phones were just rolling out as the 2G network took shape. Taking selfies with your phone weren’t due for twenty more years. Facebook was still over a decade away, and Twitter was further out that than.
New England Patriots QB Tom Brady was thirteen years old.
Donald Trump was still with his first wife, Ivana.
Cool beans, right?
Here’s Jane’s Addiction with “Been Caught Stealing”. Crank it, baby.
“Don’t push me cuz I’m close to the edge. I’m trying not to lose my head.”
Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five’s classic rap song, “The Message” (1982) started streaming in me after dealing with our cat, Boo. Fair to Boo, a large bedroom panther, he suffers PTSD and is hypersensitive. His back fur has become terribly matted, and he’s too freaked to let us do anything about it. Exasperating. I feel for the cat, who is very smart, but after a bit of trying to do something about his fur and having him hissing, spitting, and swiping at me, only to turn around and come back to get petted again, I had to walk away.
And that’s when that line entered and the song started streaming in me.
Today’s song came about from Facebook. Stuart Berman posted a gorgeous shot of sunset and the Golden Gate Bridge, with darkening purple and indigo waves in the forefront.
Naturally, my mind injected “Lights” by Journey (1978). I lived in the S.F. Bay Area about fourteen years, from the early nineties to the mid-aughts, and I’m nostalgic about the place. It has a magic, powerful energy. Although Steve Perry originally wrote the lyrics about L.A., he changed the lyrics after he moved to S.F. and saw the light on the bay. Having that so simply stated, the bay, allows the song to be applied to wherever light is going down on a city by a bay. It’s a soft, reflective ballad with some nice Neal Schon guitar work.
“That’s why you can’t hold me down. You can’t tie me down. I gotta gotta gotta get away.”
I awoke with Jimi Hendix 1967 song, “Stone Free” in my stream. (I think I was missing up choruses, though.) I think it came about from judgement calls on people like Greta Thunberg about everything except what’s she say. People were throwing superficial criticisms at her; some even suggested that she was mentally ill. Most also mocked her as a child because she’s still a teenager.
Never mind that she’s making intelligent points about the environment. Never mind that elsewhere people are quite willing to use teenagers as soldiers or proclaim them able to carry and give birth to a child, or to be married.
Thankfully, Greta is above being shamed for who she is and is proud of what she does. I only wish I had her balls.
Michael Seidel, writer 