Today’s theme music came out when I was three years old. It’s so damn popular, though, I imagine anyone who follows American pop-culture even peripherally is familiar with it.
The Isley Brothers originated “Shout”. Mom was an Isley Brothers fan, so of course I grew up hearing it. The song made a huge comeback when Otis Day and the Knights performed it in Animal House (1978). It then became quite popular for dead bug dancing. Green Day and Robbie Williams both did the song. The song was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Come on, you must know one version of it.
In honor of the gopher dream that I had last night, I thought I’d use Kenny Loggins’ song, “I’m Alright” from Caddyshack (1980).
As an outside, I was stationed in Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, Japan, the following year. VCRs were becoming big. We bought one. Caddyshack was one of the first movies we rented and played on it. A popular movie, it was played in the MAC Terminal to entertain people while they awaited flights. The command post where I worked was located in that terminal. It seemed like it was on whenever I left the command post. It came to drive me nuts.
I haven’t seen it in years, and I don’t want to see it, thank you. Meanwhile, Kenny did pretty good with movie songs for a while, didn’t he?
Today’s song choice, “You Talk Too Much” by Joe Jones, was fluttering along my mindstream this morning when I awoke. It seems like I’ve known it my whole life. Small wonder there. Wikipedia states that it was released in 1960. I was four then, but Mom liked playing it and singing it. I remember her singing it to me whenever I was pestering her for something, apparently her counter-measure to my non-stop demand. It would infuriate me to the point of stamping my feet as I demanded that she stop singing.
That just made her smile as she continued singing.
This is a twofer Thursday post, featuring a dream and a song, because this song started in my dreamstream.
It was a turbulent stream, with multiple vignettes and one-act plays. I think the music made this one memorable.
“Conquistador” began playing in the dream. Hearing it, I said, “Hey, I know this song. “Conquistador”. Procol Harum.” After remembering hearing the song’s live version in high school in the early seventies, and talking to my friend, Bob, about it (in the hall in front of the art classroom, by my locker, where he was talking overly loudly and enthusiastic, trying to catch some girl’s attention), I thought about other Procol Harum music I know and wondered where the music was coming from. I couldn’t identify its source.
All that was backdream. I was in my most recurring dreamscape, which is dark green, slightly rolling hills. I seem to know or I remember such hills most often out of dreams. Accompanied by several friends, we were admiring two exotic hyper cars, a Lamborghini and Ferrari, that belonged to others, and discussing their styling, price, and performance capabilities.
My friends were envious, but I said, “Yes, but my car is faster than either of them, and costs more.”
They were skeptical. So was I. I thought my ride would be there by now. As it wasn’t, I didn’t think my ride was going to arrive, and was becoming anxious.
“Conquistador” ended, and my ride arrived, a stunning silver Aston Martin. “Wow,” I said, along with my friends. “Wow.” I never believed it would arrive.
Today’s theme music emerged from my dreamlands. As I stumbled around feeding the scamperbeasts and making coffee, I remembered the little I know about the song
It wasn’t much. An AM radio hit in the mid 1960s, I was troubled by the title. I thought it was “Hang On Snoopy”. When I discovered it was Sloopy, I thought, “Who’s Sloopy?” I knew who Snoopy was. I understood why they were urging Snoopy to hang on, seeing that he slept on his back on top of his dog house and battled the Red Baron, but who was Sloopy that they were telling them to hang on? It made no sense to me.
Thanks to Wikipedia, I discovered that the version of “Hang On Sloopy” by The McCoys came out in 1965, so I was nine. Sloopy is rumored to be Dorothy Sloop, a jazz singer.
All interesting stuff, but surprisingly, the McCoy’s vocalist on the recording is Rick Zehringer. The group performing the music was not his group from Rick and the Raiders, but another group called the Strangeloves. Rick and the Raiders’s name was changed to the McCoys for the release of “Hang On Sloopy”, and Rick Zehringer, who was eighteen when he sang “Hang On Sloopy”, changed his name to Rick Derringer, under which he continues to perform pop, rock, and blues and playing with people and groups from Edgar Winter, Johnny Winter, Barbra Streisand, and Meat Loaf, to television jingles for Budweiser beer commercials.
That’s a lot of pop history from one song. Anyway, hang on…whoever you are.
My spouse was busy making Christmas crockpot candy, which involves melting a lot of almond bark and chocolate together with some nuts, and then spooning it out into balls and letting it cool.
Christmas music was on, but this was a Christmas blues album. We have it on a CD that we picked up for a dollar about twenty years ago. The album was probably recorded in the sixties. It hasn’t been remastered.
Anyway, that CD ended, and a Motown Christmas album was launched. A CD of Motown hits from 1971 followed. A twelve minute version of “Papa Was a Rolling Stone” by the the Temptations stayed in my stream overnight.
What can I say? It’s great music, cool music, telling a story through voice, lyrics, and instruments.
Don’t know why I’m streaming today’s music. Are you surprised? Shocked, I am, totally shocked.
Anyway, today’s theme music was a pop hit that came to be part of my life music stream via my sister. I was nine when this song was a hit. Two years older, my sister was a popster and a big fan of the forty-fives. The Dave Clark Five were a Brit invasion pop group. Sis loved them. No surprise, then, that their 1965 hit “Over and Over”, has escaped my brain’s shields and entered my stream.
What’s perhaps more surprising is how little I hear this song on the radio. After remembering it, I looked the group up on that Internet. There, through Wikipedia, I discovered the Dave Clark Five had a run of hits, disbanded in 1970, and were inducted into the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame in 2008.
Love the video’s dancing display. Ah, those were the days, hey?
With another throwback via the wayback stream, I found myself listening to the Elvis Presley’s biggest-selling single, “It’s Now or Never”.
The song was released in 1960, according to Wikipedia. I would have been four, according to the math. It being Elvis, I know the song well through pop saturation, where the mantra is, if a little bit is good, massive amounts are fantastic.
Why is it streaming today? Sometimes there’s a direct causal stream identified, but that’s not today. I was going about, making plans for eating, dressing, and rushing out to walk and write. I think I may have thought, I gotta get going, it’s now or never, and there you have it, a wayback stream opened.
I discovered myself humming “An Old Fashioned Love Song” (1971) performed by Three Dog Night this morning. The song came out in 1971. Cannae tell ya’ where it came from or what provoked the stream to pick it up and deliver it to my brain. Didn’t relate to anything that I dreamed last night.
The song didn’t stay with me long today, fading as I walked, but I enjoyed the visit and thought I’d share it with thee. Paul Williams wrote it. It was from a time when he wrote several romantic songs in the late 1960s and early 1970s, that others, like Helen Reddy and The Carpenters, had as hit records.
More weather dictated theme music. I’m planning to dress, looking out the window, checking the temperature and forecast. Hey, fifty-one, windy as hell, but sunny. So, I’ll be walking in sunshine.
It was an easy jump in the stream to Katrina and the Waves and “Walking On Sunshine” (1985).
Michael Seidel, writer 