Category: memories

Tuesday’s Theme Music

Remember the expression, sock it to me? Maybe yes, maybe no. Our culture, especially the pop side, is an ever-changing amoeba. We’ve populated our language with expressions. They catch fire, flash through, and die. Sometimes they’re distantly remembered, especially more often now, as technology aids her ability to look back and remember.

In this case, I thought of sock it to me as part of streaming “It’s Your Thing” to myself. I was singing to myself about the things I do, and the cats for the things that they do, and mentally, to my wife, in regard to the things that she does.

“It’s your thing.” We mostly address life through avenues as individual as ourselves, seeking to do our thing. Sometimes the things seem weird to others. They can’t deviate from their paths and doing their thing to acquire the freedom to understand that you’re doing your thing. If it’s not offensive and not inflicting pain on others, why do they want us all to conform and not do our thing?

So, I want to thank The Isley Brothers for doing their thing and performing this song. They were good at doing their thing, giving us some memorable funk. Sing along. Don’t worry; the words are easy to learn.

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Monday’s Theme Music

You know, in the U.S. of A., it’s winter. Because of that, many towns are having beer festivals. At least, this is true out here in Oregon and California.

Some places call the beer festival a collaboration, a beer walk, or, if the organizers are feeling more stylish, a brewery tour. SF’s Beer Collaboration isn’t starting until Feb. 1. They have a theme, you know, like they do at a prom, Game of Thrones. I’m sure that some high school has had a Game of Thrones themed prom. That seems like it would be something like the red wedding or the prom from Carrie.

Anyway, in honor of beer strolls everywhere, I’m streaming Tom T. Hall’s 1975 classic, “I Like Beer”. Pretty self-explanatory what the song is about.

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Friday’s Theme Music

One of the cats followed me around this morning because I hadn’t fed him yet. “Hungry, buddy?” I said. “Want some kibble? Anticipating brekkie?” Naturally, I started singing, “Anticipation, anticipation is making me late, is keeping me waiting.”

That made it today’s theme music. Here’s Carly Simon, “Anticipation”, 1971. Those were the good old days.

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Wednesday Theme Music

Today brought me another Aretha Franklin classic. She didn’t write it, but she sang it with power — of course. We’re talkin’ ’bout Aretha Franklin.

Don’t know what prompted it to enter my morning stream and dance around the kitchen. I tried coaxing the housefloofs into singing and dancing with me but they were havin’ none of it, preferring to sit down and disparage me with judgmental stares.

Here we go, “Chain of Fools” (1967). It’s good hump day music, ya know?

 

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

I didn’t recall when today’s theme music came out. I guessed about 1966, ’67. I was wrong. It was 1969. I remembered it the other day, when I was reading about Oregon’s marijuana glut a few days ago. Oregon has grown about one million pounds of surplus weed.

“Little Green Bag” by the George Baker Selection sounds weirdly like it’s from several different eras of pop-rock. Its beginning is often used to define cool in a movie or television show. A group moves in slow music, typically turning toward the camera as the music plays. This was done in Reservoir Dogs and the BBC television show, Red Dwarf. That song’s beginning, with its  bass line and isolated percussion, is cool.

I always remembered the next lines, though, thinking, hey, he’s looking for a bag of grass, as in marijuana. It sounded like he dropped it and has gone back for it, except he wasn’t singing bag, he was singing back, like, greenback. Which, I realized in one history leson in school, was dollars. So he was looking for dollars, not grass. That amused me, but perplexed my friends, who didn’t know what the hell song I was singing.

I’d never seen the video before today. They look very uncomfortable to me, like they’re self-consciously cringing inside.

Here it is, though. This is how we used to roll.

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Once again, a debt is owed to the house clowder for coming up with a song. One cat was briefly absent, prompting me to say, “Where have you gone?” That was enough to let “Good Thing” (1989) by Fine Young Cannibals shoot into the morning stream. The cat turned up almost immediately after I began singing the song. My cats are always curious about me when I start talking, singing, or typing, apparently thinking, “What’s that sound he’s making? I better go check on him to see if he’s okay.”

 

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Sunday’s Theme Music

I’d heard about friends breaking up as a couple, and the difficulty one was experiencing afterward. Their story prompting Neil Sedaka’s song, “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do” to stream into my mind. I wasn’t thinking of his bouncy original from 1962, but the slower 1975 ballad that he released. I thought the latter showed a more adult approach to the lyrics and sentiments of breaking up. Anyone who’s gone through it knows how hard it can be.

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Saturday’s Theme Music

After feeding the cats, I read the news and skimmed social media while drinking a mornin’ cuppa. After reading a bit o’ America’s plight, the rush toward extinction of the Monarch Butterfly, some murder and scandal updates, I was ready to move on. Thinking, gotta get away from that same old, same old, I need a chance just to get away. If you could hear me thinking, this is what I’d say.

Poison’s song, “Nothin’ but a Good Time” (1988) burst into my stream. It was almost like their video.

Hah. Yeah, right.

 

 

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Friday’s Theme Music

Fixing the cats and mumbling to the coffee this morning, I streamed remembered dreams and pondered forgotten songs. The morass cleared after I ate some kibble and gave the cats some coffee. Losing its turbidity (a word of which I’m quite fond), the stream drew down into Joe Walsh with “All Night Long”, from Urban Cowboy, 1980.

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Reading the news yesterday and today, I was shaking my head, partially laughing while crying. You know, it was the same old story.

That led to me streaming Aerosmith.

It’s the same old story
Same old song and dance, my friend
It’s the same old story
Same old story
Same old song and dance

It was an easy song to identify with when I was a teenager and the song was released. When you asked questions, you often heard, “That’s just how it is. That’s how it goes.” It was always the same old song and dance, no matter what you were asked.

It’s a song and dance I’m getting tired of now with politics. It’s always one thing or another. Back in the military world, you tired of hearing you must do more with less — same old song and dance. Hurry up and wait — same old song and dance. In the corporate world, it became doing more with less, and then cut expenses and increase profits, or we can’t give you a bonus or pay raise, little boy, while they spread some B.S. about us being a family, or a team, and how much they care. Same old song and dance.

“Same Old Song and Dance”. Only the voices change.

 

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