Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
Today’s music is “Sharp Dressed Man,” but this is being performed by John Fogerty and Billy Gibbons, representing two of the FM staples of my rock era, CCR and ZZ Top. Of course, I used to sing, “Every girl’s crazy about a short, fat man,” as the main chorus in “Sharp Dressed Man.” Ah, it’s musicians playing and having fun.
On this throwback Tuesday, I found myself in the kitchen streaming an old favorite in my head.
“If you got bad news, you want to kick those blues, coffee. When your day is done and you want to run on, coffee. She don’t lie, she don’t lie, she don’t lie. Coffee.”
No doubt I’ve posted this before. It’s a rainy day, and it calls for coffee, stat. What better song than Eric Clapton’s cover of the JJ Cale classic, “Cocaine”? While “Cocaine” is an anti-drug song, my version of “Coffee” is not anti-coffee.
Cheers
I like the time changes of this song. It begins with an older rockabilly tone to it before it segues into 1970s rock. It’s all about music and the generation gap (remember that expression?). Anyway, I thought it appropriate for the U.S., where we just jumped through the daylight savings time hoop. Here’s Loggins & Messina with “Your Mama Don’t Dance” from 1972.
I was stationed in Germany in the late 1980s, doing military service. I returned to America a few times for conferences. I’d usually visit family when I did.
So, visiting Dad in Helotes, Texas, I hear this song on the radio. And I think, I know that voice and that guitar, but I don’t know this song, and that guitar and that singer aren’t usually together. The vocalist was more distinctive. It sounded like John Waite.
Fortunately, I heard the song until the end, and this was a time and station where the song and group were mentioned at the end. The song, with a sort of fantasy sound to it, was “Forget Me Not,” and the group was Bad English.
That made sense. That voice was John Waite, and that guitarist was Neal Schon.
Bad English was a super-group. Super-groups are interesting phenomena. They form with hyperbolic announcements, typically release a few albums, tour, and then break-up. It’s always exciting news when one forms, as they’re well-established stars – that’s what makes them a super-group. The first album is generally well-received, but subsequent offerings, if there is one, are often stale. Think of Blind Faith, Cream, Asia, and GTR.
Bad English’s first album had a few hits. I bought it but didn’t play it much. They were more corporate-glam than I preferred. They released a second album and broke up.
Not really fond of this song, but one line, “I will be your keeper, you will hold the key, forget me not, forget me not, you belong to me,” sometimes streams in as I’m walking.
As it did today.
Today’s music came out in 1965, when I was nine. I lived in Wilkinsburg, PA, around that time. A group of us liked going into one girl’s basement and pretending we were musicians, singers, and daughters. The Outsiders, Monkees, Nancy Sinatra, Johnny Rivers, the Turtles, and Paul Revere and the Raiders provided us with our music via forty-five RPM records. We’d take turns performing. It was a way to spend time. I don’t know who provided us with that record collection.
Anyway, “Time Won’t Let Me” by The Outsiders, was one of those songs. Later, after reading the book, and then much later, when I saw the movie, I wondered if the Outsiders had taken their name from the novel. Then I found that the band existed before the novel. Oh, well.
As an aside, the movie was interesting. Francis Ford Coppola directed it. The cast was an amazing ensemble of young stars. Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez, Patrick Swayze, Tom Cruise, Ralph Macchio, Diane Lane, and Matt Dillon all come readily to mind.
One final aside, I read the novel around 1970, when a teacher recommended it to me. The novel is controversial and remains one of the most frequently challenged books in America.
Today’s music is a little gross.
Supine in bed, I would feel the mucus shifting. It moved with a soft snapping and crinkling sound, like it’s trying to sneak around my head. From that, I began singing, “Mucus stream,” to the tune of Bush’s “Glycerine,” from Sixteen Stone. I was making up whole verses for it by the time I stole into sleep.
That’s not to denigrate “Glycerine.” I like the song, and enjoyed the album. It still lives in the shuffle space dedicated to that era.
(My CD player holds two hundred discs. They’re divided into eight sections. Sections are assigned genres, eras or purpose. Like, one section is for the blues, and houses Buddy Guy, Albert King, B.B., SRV, etc. Another section is home to classic rock, with Cream, Blind Faith, Traffic, Led Zep, The Who, and so on. Bush lives in the section I call post disco rock, along with Def Leppard, the Scorpions, later Van Halen and ZZ Top, and STP. My wife has a section of her favorites, and I have a section of my favorites. Since my punk and alt offerings are small, I just mix them in with other sections. Anal, aren’t I?)
(And of course, the CDs are stored alphabetically by group or performer’s last name, and I’ve indexed them on an Excel spreadsheet. Yes, anal.)
Returning to the song, the lyrics fascinate me, and I thought the video reflects the song’s mood.
As I endured the cold and its migrations, interactions, and pain during the last few days and nights, I began assigning musical instruments and notes to my experience, thinking, how would my cold sound musically? Just something to while away the sleepless, mucus filled hours.
Doing so reminded me of “Love Reign O’er Me,” by the Who. The song begins with a thunderstorm and rain. The song is the final cut of the Who rock-opera, Quadraphenia, and marks the final act and possibly redemption of the main character after chaotic struggles with love, drugs, family, violence, and identity.
Mom bought the album for me for Christmas 1973, based on my older sister’s recommendation. Thanks, Mom and sis!
Ah, from 10CC, in honor of my illness, “You Got A Cold,” from 1977.
Your nose is runnin’
And your eyes are red
Your head is achin’
You’d be better in bed
From the bottom of your fever
To the throbbing in your toes
You’ve got a cold
I’d only recently learned that Dave Mason wrote this song. I knew that Traffic had performed it, but in my heart, this song always belonged to Joe Cocker. Whichever group or performer does it, the song always lifts me up. I loved it when he sang it in concert.
Hope it lifts you today, wherever you are, whatever you’re doing. Here’s Joe Cocker with “Feeling Alright” from 1969.
Staying with Argent, I enjoy one of the early songs he wrote for The Zombies, “She’s Not There.” Although it’s been covered by many others, including Santana, I like the original.
It came out in 1964, when I was eight years old. I obviously learned it through repetitive play, mostly on the radio. Its melody seems reflective about the subject, while the words are bitter and wondering. I like the yin and yang feel to the combination.
Michael Seidel, writer 