Category: memories

Sunday’s Theme Music

Another week, and more mass shootings – hello, El Paso and Dayton, we’re talking to you. Chicago is overlooked; none dead in its mass shooting, just seven injured.

August has arrived with a bang. We’re expecting a week of thoughts of prayers. Sure, everyone dies, but do their deaths need to be senseless executions for the crimes of their skin, culture, ethnicity, or being in the wrong place and time when angry, hateful people acquire guns and decide to pull the trigger?

Sorry we can’t do anything about it, so, so sorry. What else can I be, but all apologies?

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Friday’s Theme Music

Out walking the beach under glorious weather – seventy and sunny – a few days ago at Yachats. Out came a Tommy John song, “Draggin’ the Line”, 1971. I heard it as a fifteen-year-old. I took it to be about working, and accepting that he had to work, because he was in love with a girl. He’s not hurrying or complaining, he’s just doing what must be done, and – to reference another song from another group – they’re happy together.

Makin’ a livin’ the old, hard way
Takin’ and givin’ by day by day
I dig snow and rain and the bright sunshine
Draggin’ the line (Draggin’ the line)

My dog Sam eats purple flowers
Ain’t got much, but what we got’s ours
We dig snow and rain and the bright sunshine
Draggin’ the line (Draggin’ the line)
Draggin’ the line (Draggin’ the line)

I feel fine
I’m talkin’ ’bout peace of mind
I’m gonna take my time
I’m gettin’ the good sign

h/t to AZLyrics.com

I later heard that it was about doing cocaine. That didn’t make sense to me. Today, after thinking about the song, I checked Wikipedia. “Asked about the meaning of the title in a 2009 interview, Tommy James said: “”Draggin’ the Line” just meant working every day. Nothing really very mysterious about it.””

h/t to Wikipedia.org

Let’s mellow, children.

 

 

 

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The First Time

Oh, I remember the first time. Dad had taken us children out. It was just the four of us. Mom was working. When we reached home, we discovered that Dad didn’t have the key, and the door was locked. This was pre-cell phone days, back when phones were big, clumsy things a headset as large as a small child’s head, and a rotary dial.

Dad reconnoitered to find a way in and then started talking about going to one of the neighbors’ houses to call Mom. We hadn’t lived there long, and didn’t know the neighbors.

I had a more pressing issue; I had to pee. Dad pointed to a bush and said, “Just go behind a bush.”

I was shocked. Pee outside? What are we animals. But when a boy hasta go, a boy hasta go.

Yep, I remember the first time.

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The Joke

“There’s a Dairy Queen. Want to go there for dessert?”

“Okay.” She sounded pleased.

He’d been joking but he made the right turn, found parking, and they went inside. It’d been a long time since they’d been in a DQ, and the menu was different from those days, requiring a study of offering, ingredients, and calories. Finally choices were made. “Do most people take a long time like I did?” he asked the young cashier.

She smiled. “Yes, most do.”

His wife said, “We used to go to the Dairy Queen when we were dating. Not this one, but I mean, another Dairy Queen. It was the only place around.”

“That was literally almost fifty years ago,” he said. He and his wife laughed.

The cashier smiled. “Your orders will be up in a moment.”

 

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Today’s music started with a simple response to a weary situation. I thought, “Take me home,” and my stream kicked in with the Stevie Nicks song, “Stand Back” (1983). So, here we are.

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Well, did you ever wake up
With them bullfrogs on your mind?
Well, did you ever wake up
With them bullfrogs on your mind?
You had to sit there laughin’
Laughin’ just to keep from crying

h/t to genius.com

Yeah, you know what I’m talking about. I think I first heard Canned Heat perform “Bullfrog Blues” in the late 1960s. Later, though, came Rory Gallagher, and it’s his lively version that streamed through my head this morning after a peculiar sequence of dreams.

So here it is, my sweet baboos. Cheers

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Today’s song came by way of a cat. He went out through the pet door from the MBR, crossed the patio, came in through the living room side door, and then walked around behind me, greeting me as I came down the hall from the MBR.

Whipping my head back, I asked, “How did you get here so fast?”

He flicked his tail once and sat.

I nodded. “Everything you do is magic.” I knew, of course, that it wasn’t magic, but quantum walking. Cats are adept at walking through universes from one to another, turning up at odd times and places.

That simple phrase, though, invited the stream to begin “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” (The Police, 1981).

I need to watch what I say.

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Friday’s Theme Music

Okay, I knew this song, but, one, I didn’t know who performed it; two, I didn’t know the song title; and, three, I didn’t know what year it came out. I also only knew a few choruses. None of this stopped it from streaming in my head as I was walking yesterday. Boisterous, with a thumping beat, it’s an excellent freakin’ walking song.

I needed the details. I mentioned the song to the barista yesterday, telling her it was stuck in my head, and sharing some of the song with her.

“That’s familiar. Wait.” She stared into space. “I know it but I don’t know who did it or the name of it.”

“Well, I need to go look it up.”

She nodded. “Please tell me if you find what it is, because now it’s stuck in my head.”

Well, I found it. Took a good five minutes, but the net is an impressive place. Here is Fitz and the Tantrums with their song, “The Walker”, from 2013. Let me know if you recognize it.

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Thursday’s Theme Music

How ’bout some prog-rock about some sailors? Amazing, but songs about sailors aren’t that uncommon in the rock world.

You might have something from Styx, Blue Image, or Gordon Lightfoot in mind. This one, though, is from Kansas and 1977. Not their biggest hit by far, I’ve always been teased by that line, “How long to the point of know return?” It’s like, “Well, I don’t know.”

I also always remember Jerry, a buddy of mine, when I hear this song. He loved being the vocalist while playing air keyboards when this song played.

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