Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
Sheryl Crow’s song, “If It Makes You Happy”, streamed in as I talked with one of the house floofs this morning. I was telling them, “You know, it’s cold out there today. Not freezing, but below forty. The sun is just coming out. Are you sure you want to go out there?”
Boo, the cat, looked up at me and said, “Meow.”
“Okay,” I said. “If it makes you happy.”
And there it was. I figured in a little while, I’d look out and see Boo huddled against the chilly air and wonder, then why are you so sad?
I was watching an episode of The Americans last night. I enjoy how clothing, cars, news, and pop-culture, like music, is used to convey the year.
They used “We Do What We’re Told” by Peter Gabriel (So, 1986) in the episode I watched. I thought the music was effectively employed, with the lyrics fitting the situation and the characters’ thinking and decisions.
The song’s words are simple and repetitive
we do what we’re told
we do what we’re told
we do what we’re told
told to do
one doubt
one voice
one war
one truth
one dream
I thought the song’s appropriate for now, when so many people seemingly respond to news by saying, “Hey, I believe him,” without applying any critical thinking to it. I imagine them telling others in a few years, “Hey, I was just doing what I was told,” or, “I was just following orders.”
Dipping into Wang Chung today. I featured “Dance Hall Days” once. This time I’m going with a favorite walking song, “Everybody Have Fun Tonight” (1986), which I often call, “Everybody Wang Chung Tonight” because of that line in the song. It’s an excellent walking song when I’m feeling optimistic or jubilant.
As an aside, a co-worker at the time hated this song. A major fan of Ratt, Judas Priest, and Rush, he felt music by groups like Wang Chung used too much techno to be true music.
This song started streaming into my head this morning. Part of my Bay Area experience, when I lived at Moffett, Mountain View, or Half Moon Bay, this song was on repeat for a while for my daily commute.
I enjoy its soft beginning:
Drivin’ faster in my car
Falling farther, from just what we are
Smoke a cigarette, and lie some more, these conversations kill
Falling faster in my car
Time to take her home, her dizzy head is conscience laden
Read more: Stone Temple Pilots – Big Empty Lyrics | MetroLyrics
Yes, “Big Empty”, STP, 19whatever.
I was chuckling to myself as I read about the Le’Veon Bell debacle with the Pittsburgh Steelers. I read a comment that said, “Don’t let him go,” which opened me up to streaming “Don’t Let Him Go” by REO Speedwagon, 1981. I like the song’s hammering insistence of guitars and dreams, and the impassioned pleas, “Don’t let him go.” I later learned the song was supposedly about asking girlfriends to be patient with their boyfriends.
Continuing a newly established trend of using my walking to inspire my theme music instead of my dreams and pets, this song popped into my head today.
I’m not an amazing walker, but I usually manage to walk seven to ten miles a day, typically in three or four segments. I like walking as part of my writing rituals. But once I’m done writing in my head, my thoughts wander. Sometimes, inspired by the writing or editing process, a song pops in.
So it was today. Finishing with my phantom writing/editing and feeling happy, I told my muses and myself, “That’s it. We got it.” That prompted the drumming intro to the popular hit by The Go-Go’s (a spelling which maddens me, as I think that it should be The Go-Gos, but whatever), “We Got the Beat” (1982).
I heard this song a few years ago, on its first release. I still hear it once in a while, and sing it to myself as I walk about Ashland in my pre-writing and apres-writing walks. The song’s beat and lyrics are marvelous complements to my natural stride.
Here’s Alice Merton with “No Roots” (2016).
Just yesterday, I was walking along, thinking, here I go again, naturally downloading the White Snake song, “Here I Go Again” (1982).
Although I respected Coverdale’s skills and talents, except for Deep I never became a great fan of him. I tried. I had White Snake albums and Coverdale-Page (where I thought Coverdale often sounded like Plant, with the overall result that C-P sounded like Led Zeppelin), but I thought there was too much glam-rock to Coverdale after DP. I thought the glam-rock sub-genre was often derivative, simplistic, and repetitive.
That doesn’t stop me from thinking of this song when I take a deep breath and tell myself, here I go again.
Today, after awakening, rising, and feeding the cats, I began streaming a Bee Gees song called “Lonely Days” (1970). Don’t know what prompted my neurotransmitters to order this song today. I think it might have to do with rain. It was raining as I awoke, and stayed in bed, listening to it for a short period before thinking, “Must have coffee,” which prompted me to get up.
“Lonely Days” always strikes me as a rainy-day song. Something about its timbre reflects a gray, rain-swept landscape to me, a feeling that intensified as I walked on damp pavement and light drizzle.
Here you go. Have an excellent day.
How ’bout something uplifting on Sunday, like some Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band doing some “Shotgun Blues”?
