Category: memories

Sunday’s Theme Music

Thinking about how things change and stay the same, even while changing. Details change, but the broad sweeps of progress often take so long, we fail to see them. Perhaps, for some, it’s because we’re buried so deeply into the way things are that we can’t see the change from our vantage. Foremost among all of this, I was thinking about how the Democratic and Republican parties have changed. Once upon a time, the Republicans fought against the expansion of slavery. Now, they embrace white supremacists. It’s the same as it ever was, because political parties hunt the winds of change to develop a political advantage.

“Same as it ever was,” right? Here are the Talking Heads with “Once In A Lifetime,” from nineteen eighty.

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

I’m back-upped with music, dreams, and writing today. I took my monthly swim in the dark waters for a few days. Now, breaking surface, a survivor one more time, my creative and artistic energies are lit up.

For the musical theme portion, so many songs streamed through me last night and today. I finally went with an odd choice. My love of music comes from Mom. I’m sure. I once asked Dad what music he liked to listen to; he shrugged. Mom, though, put albums on whenever she cleaned, and Mom was, and is, passionate about keeping her house clean. Music was always playing. One guy she really enjoyed was Frank Sinatra.

I can understand why. Sinatra had a big voice and style. This song, “That’s Life,” has been covered by some great talents. I especially enjoy Shirley Bassey’s cover, because I like Shirley Bassey. But I stayed with Frank’s cover, because that’s the one streaming through my head today. I thought about doing David Lee Roth’s version, just for the hell of it, but that was rejected.

Got to love these words, right?

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

When I heard this song in twenty-eleven, I wanted to know more about it. Each time I heard it played, I listened to hear the performer’s name and the song title. That’s not something easily learned in the modern listening era. Many stations like to end one song and start one or two more before giving a song’s details, if they do at all. But thanks to the computer age, I looked up lonely boy. Knowing there were many songs featuring those words, I settled in for a detailed search.

But, ta-da. I found it immediately and checked out the video. I enjoy this video. So here we go, Tuesday’s theme music, “Lonely Boy” by The Black Keys.

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Monday’s Theme Music

Ah, they’re always pestering me, calling from phone numbers that I don’t recognize, and sending me emails with sensational deals, deals that will make me wealthy, or is such an amazing travel bargain, that I’d be a fool to take it up. Never mind that the travel bargains are going to places that I don’t want to visit. It’s such a good deal.

Although this song, “Who Can It Be Now?”, by Men At Work, came out while I was stationed on Okinawa, I always think of Mom and my family. In the days before caller identification, Mom established the number of rings as a primitive IFF – Identification, Friend or Foe – for when friends and relatives call. “Ring twice, hang up, and call again. I’ll know it’s you, and answer.” Or maybe she won’t. But when the phone rang more than twice, “Who can that be? Should I answer it?”

The same was true with someone knocking on the door or ringing the bell, or  stopping in the driveway or in front of the house. “Who is that? What do they want? Who can it be now?” Mom passed it on to the rest of us. “Who can it be now?”

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Robert

Who played Pappy Boyington in the television show. He needed to remember. He wanted to say it was Robert somebody. Because he was looking for a dark-haired Robert, the first Robert to answer was Robert Blake, which he knew was incorrect. Blake played Baretta. Was he still alive? Wasn’t he also in the “Our Gang” movies, and wasn’t there he charged with murdering his wife, but acquitted? Then there was something else, with his children, or something, wasn’t there?

That didn’t answer his original question. He thought it was a Conrad, and the guy was also in television commercials for batteries. But wasn’t Robert Conrad in “Jake and the Fat Man?” No, no, that was WILLIAM Conrad, right? Sure, and wasn’t he also in “Cannon?”

Was William Conrad still alive?

By then, he was, he would guess, ninety-five percent certain that the actor in “Baa Baa Black Sheep” and “Wild, Wild West” television shows was Robert Conrad, but he remained uncertain about whether these three actors remained alive. It was an odd subject for his morning walk, and left him with so many questions requiring answers.

Well, not that many.

Now; who is William Katt? Didn’t he have a television show? Was he still alive?

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Saturday’s Theme Music

It’s a blustery but pretty Saturday, which somehow inspired me to start streaming an old Albert King number. Maybe it’s the frequency of news about California, due to the fiery destruction of NorCal wine country, that brought the song to mind. Here’s “Travelin’ to California.” It’s from nineteen sixty-one, but I encountered it looonng after that.

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Thursday’s Theme Music

I heard today’s song yesterday and started laughing in memory.

The song is “Animal,” by Def Leopard. One line is, “I got this feeling in my blood.” A friend told me years ago, “For the longest time, I thought they were singing, “I got this feeling in my butt.” I couldn’t figure out why they had a feeling in their butt, or why they were singing about it.”

Ah, a classic mondegreen, but if you casually listen, you might hear it, too.

 

 

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Awoke with these words nibbling my ears. “Well, I just got into town about an hour ago.
Took a look around, see which way the wind blow.”

Ah, yes, that’s a song from my youth. “L.A. Woman,” nineteen seventy-one, The Doors. I was unfettered by fears and worries in those days, except rioting, the Vietnam War, air and water pollution, nuclear or chemical attack, equal rights, and civil rights.

Ah, the good old days. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

 

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

It’s been twenty years since this was recorded in concert, spit in the cosmic wind as far as time goes, but a chunk of living for humans on Eath. These humans are renown for their musical performances. These humans are David Bowie, with the Foo Fighters. These humans were performing this song, “Hallo, Spaceboy,” at Madison Square Garden in New York to celebrate Bowie’s fiftieth birthday.

Fun to watch. There will be drumming’.

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Monday’s Theme Music

Rising out of nineteen eighty-three came a mocking, damning tirade on behalf of the common person just coping with their chains of fucking moments. Called “Synchronicity II,” created, performed, and released by The Police, the song has a hard-edge beat to buttress bitter lyrics. Take these lines:

and every single meeting with his so-called superior
Is a humiliating kick in the crotch.

Few are the people of whatever gender, race, country, and vocation that haven’t sat in a meeting and thought, “These people are my superiors? My superior what? All they are is a superior pain in the ass.”

Can’t identify? How about,

Daddy grips the wheel and stares alone into the distance,
He knows that something somewhere has to break.

That’s how it feels: something somewhere has to break. If you listen, you can hear the deep groans of the wrenching cracks in the world. They’re just not yet visible. Or maybe I hear them in my head.

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