38 Special began as a standard southern rock band. Their sound became more mainstream rock than the likes of Marshall Tucker, the Allman Brothbers, CDB, by their third album. I liked the transition. This song, “Hold On Loosely” (1981), epitomized the new sound. I offer it today because it’s stuck in my ear. While it’s a good song, it’s been looping in my stream for the last twelve hours. I need to get it out of there before I start screaming.
Kisses
Sweet memories kiss
Time holds me enthralled and warm
I say, I miss you
Saturday Theme Music
“We Got the Beat”, by the Go-Go’s (1980), slipped into my stream while I was walking yesterday. An energetic song, reminiscent of sixties surfer music, it’s a good song to stream while walking at a brisk pace. The song’s mindless enough to present a good walking time without distracting me from thinking about writing, politics, cars, people, and the places that I pass.
It’s also a pretty good song for a Saturday, if you’re planning a party. I’m not, but you can use it. It gives a good energy bump.
Friday’s Theme Music
Reaching back today to ’67, when I was eleven. Feels like a hundred years ago and feels like yesterday evening. Cream was a short-lived supergroup. Eric Clapton was already one of my guitar idols. Here comes Cream with those quasi-psychedelic, hard-rock, deep bass song, “Sunshine of Your Love”. I heard it and thought it was the future’s edge swinging toward me.
Now I sing it as a walk the street, sunshine on my head, laptop in my backpack, heading to the coffee shop to write, and think of it more as an homage to sunshine. At least, that’s why I was singing it yesterday. I thought the sunshine would enjoy it.
Wednesday’s Theme Music
We saw Amazing Grace, the documentary about Aretha Franklin and the two sessions used to record the live gospel album, Amazing Grace (1968). Watching her sing up-close was a powerful experience. Her talent still moves us, and technology allows us to experience it again and again. Besides her, Rev. James Cleveland, and the Southern California Community Choir, with Alexander Hamilton directing, gave mesmerizing performances.
After seeing the documentary, many Aretha Franklin sangs joined my mental music stream this week. Eventually I became stuck on “Think” from The Blues Brothers (1980).
Tuesday’s Theme Music
I suppose that it won’t surprise anyone to learn that today’s song, “Can’t Fight This Feeling” by REO Speedwagon (1985) came about from a food fight. I was fighting with myself about eating something. Not anything critical (chocolate was involved), it wasn’t that big a deal, a restriction that I put upon myself. The climax came when I said, “Screw it, I can’t fight this any more, I’m eating it!” That opened the stream to one of the Speedwagon’s hits from its multi-platinum album, Hi Infidelity. The song’s not really my cuppa – too soft, really – but it’s soothing on the ears.
Monday’s Theme Music
Today’s choice arrived in the stream because of a chance encounter with a friend.
I’m retired military, 1974 – 1995. He was in the Army for almost five years. Most of that time was in Vietnam. May, 1969, was his one year anniversary of being in country. It was a bloody year for him. He lost many friends. He was also nineteen.
We guessed that it was just a juxtaposition of insights that brought about the darkness dragging him down this weekend. This is twenty nineteen, which kicked off the memory of being nineteen, when he was in Vietnam fifty years ago. It’s probably because of Memorial Day, and the many men walking around with Vietnam Vet hats on their heads, and the television shows talking about different military campaigns. It could be his sense of mortality. He’s getting older, as he reminded me.
He never cried when he spoke but he did a lot of sniffing, some quick eye wipes, and sometimes coped with a trembling voice with some deep breaths. Vietnam offered some hairy days, and he was grateful to have survived without too much damage, get home, go to college under the GI Bill, marry, and have a family.
After we shook hands and went our separate ways, and I was walking under the lush green trees, past beautiful beds of colorful flowers as cars rolled by and people pursued their celebrations of Memorial Day, I started streaming an old favorite song.
Here, from nineteen seventy-four, is William DeVaughn with “Be Thankful for What You Got”.
Just Mine
Debby told me and Emi a story when we were all visiting Mom for her birthday. This was about twenty-five years ago. Debby had a habit of making a coffee drink at home in the morning and topping it with whipped cream. She’d then go out into her Florida home’s backyard to enjoy it. Trying to rebuild her life, she’d started going to college while working at night, leaving her children up north for their grandparents to raise them.
A squirrel approached her during one of her early mornings. Debby thought the squirrel was interested in her drink. Debby put some whipped cream on a spoon and offered it to the squirrel. The squirrel hopped over to her and lapped it up.
That started a daily habit. Debby and the squirrel met every morning to share a spoonful of whipped cream. Their ritual continued for four years. Then, one morning, she went into the back yard and found the squirrel dead.
Debby’s life had been a struggle since a brutal assault in Jacksonville had taken place in her early twenties. She kept trying to rebuild, and kept getting knocked back. After a miscarriage, she endured a three year stretch that saw a business bankruptcy, personal bankruptcy, and divorce because her husband was unfaithful and a drug abuser. Then she learned that her husband hadn’t been paying taxes to the IRS for over three years. The squirrel had been a symbol of change. Now the squirrel was dead.
Debby cried when she told the story. Emi and I cried when we heard it.
Come forward to last week. Mom had passed away. Home to make her funeral arrangements, Debby, Emi, and I were remembering our lives with Mom. Debby recalled how her parents had taken her children in, so I mentioned the squirrel tale, because it was part of that same era.
Debby looked blank. “Nope. Wasn’t me.”
Emi said, “I don’t remember ever hearing that before in my life.”
Their response stunned me. I guess the memory was just mine.
It really makes me wonder.
Saturday’s Theme Music
Today’s song came about as a choice between it and a Shawn Mendes. A young girl with me was listening to Shawn Mendes’ song, “Stitches”, in my dream, and there were reports that a strange man was lurking outside of our building. In my dream, I assumed that this clumsy device foreshadowed Shawn Mendes showing up. I wasn’t surprised when he did, although the rest of my dream people were all happy and surprised. I don’t know he showed up. It seemed like some sitcom playing in my head.
But the Beatles’ “I Am the Walrus” (1967) replaced the Mendes’ tune. I decided to go with it. I went with the Beatles because Walrus part of the “Magical Mystery Tour”, a very strange movie. I was eleven when this song and album came out, and it left its mark on me. After a night of strange dreams, I felt it apropos for my Saturday theme music.
Friday’s Theme Music
Reading about Sen. Mitch McConnell’s obstructions, and a then a murderer, I thought about monsters in the world. Edgar Winter Group’s “Frankenstein” (1972) jumped into my thinking stream, and here we are.
Michael Seidel, writer 