Category: music

Wednesday’s Theme Music

This song has been creeping in on my consciousness like volunteer weeds taking root. Then my wife started singing parts of it and playing it.

I had a problem, though. I thought they were singing, “Ooh ooh, I’m a rebel with a kick stand.” My musical instincts told me that probably wasn’t what was being sung.

I asked my wife, and she provided the right words: “I’m a rebel just for kicks, now.”

Ah, kicks now. That makes more sense than kick stand.

I enjoy this song, with its cool rhythm, back beat, and muted brass inflections. The lyrics are awesome, too:

I been feeling it since 1966, now
Might be over now, but I feel it still
Ooh woo, I’m a rebel just for kicks, now
Let me kick it like it’s 1986, now
Might be over now, but I feel it still

Here’s Portugal. The Man, and “Feel It Still” from 2017.

 

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

I learned this song from the AM radio when I was very young. I began thinking about “The Name Game” this morning, but remembering “The Clapping Song,” I switched to it. I loved its rhythms and clapping when I was a child. Come on, they’re fun lyrics and easy to learn:

Three, six, nine, the goose drank wine,
The monkey chewed tobacco on the streetcar line
The line broke, the monkey got choked,
They all went to heaven in a little row-boat

Clap-Pat
Clap-Pat
Clap-Pat
Clap-Slap

Clap-Pat: Clap your hand, pat it on your partner’s hand (right hand)
Clap-Pat: Clap your hand, cross it with your left arm, pat your partner’s left palm
Clap-Pat: Clap your hand, pat your partner’s right palm with your right palm again
Clap-Slap: Clap your hands, slap your thighs, and sing a little song; go:

My mother told me
If I was good-ee
That she would buy me
A rubber dolly

My aunty told her
I kissed a soldier
Now she won’t buy me
A rubber dolly

h/t to lyricsfreak.com

I didn’t know that Shirley Ellis sang it. Honestly, when I learned this song, it all came from that magical place called the radio. It wasn’t for a few years that I realized that those voices and music represented individual people. Yeah, I was a little slow. After hearing the song when I was older, I wondered about the age of a person who was being promised a rubber dolly but wasn’t being given one because she kissed a soldier.

 

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Monday’s Theme Music

When I heard “Share the Land” by the Guess Who, I knew that wasn’t Randy Bachman on the guitar. The style sounded different. Nothing against Bachman, who did some excellent playing with the Guess Who (like “American Woman”) and with BTO, but I really liked the guitar’s fast, fluid movements and high notes on “Share the Land.”

Because of that one song, I became a Kurt Winter fan. He died of kidney disease when he was fifty-one, but he left some wonderful performances to remember him. I like how Burton Cumming’s honky-tonk style piano in this song underscores Winter’s guitar work.

 

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Sunday’s Theme Music

This song, “Ramblin’ Man”, was recorded a year after Duane Allman died. I was a big Allman Brothers Band fan when he died after a massive motorcycle accident. “Live at the Fillmore East,” released on July of 1971, was one of my recurring go-to albums. A month after “Ramblin’ Man” was recorded, Berry Oakley, Duane’s friend and the group’s bassist, died in a motorcycle accident a few blocks from where Duane had his accident.

Dicky Betts sang “Ramblin’ Man,” which explained a lot for me. When I first heard it, I thought, boy, Gregg’s vocals sound a lot different on this. That song, though, captured the uplifting, rambunctious, rambling spirit I often felt while I was traveling. The pace feels faster with the song’s guitar solos, and the notes make me feel like I’m soaring on a wind.

It’s a memorable song, and has been used in many movies and venues. Here they are, the Allman Brothers Band with “Ramblin’ Man” from 1973, my junior year in high school.

 

 

 

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Soft rock isn’t my bag. I always enjoy that expression, ‘my bag’. When I was a child and heard it, I asked, “What’s that mean?” When adults explained it, I asked, “But why a bag?” Because we carry baggage, they explained. Took me a while to understand until a sixth grade English teacher clarified the whole metaphor.

Today’s soft rock is by Orleans. “Dance with Me” features a melodica solo. When I first heard the song, I thought, “Is that Stevie Wonder?” It’s one of those riddles that stayed with me through the years until I finally hunted down an answer. No, it’s not Stevie Wonder, it’s Larry Hoppen, Orleans’ lead vocalist, who committed suicide half a decade ago. He was sixty-one. I don’t know why he committed suicide. It seemed to be depression.

Of other Orleans’ hits, I much prefer “Still the One” (which Larry also sang) but this is the song that was streaming through me. Sometimes, I just take what I’m given.

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Friday’s Theme Music

Care for a little Smashing Pumpkins music today? “Despite all my rage, I am still a rat in a cage.” Here’s “Bullet with Butterfly Wings,” a song fit for the times because of its reek of cynical rage.

 

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Thursday’s Theme Music

I love the association of things. Smells and good times, music and friends, books and places. This song came to me last night as I recalled a friend. I worked with him in 1977 in the Philippines. I’d always wondered what happened to him, and have used the Internet to look for him, but have never had success.

He had a girlfriend for a short time, about a month, that I recall, and she played this album by Bob Marley and the Wailers. Bill would say, “Can we listen to something else?” I liked the album. It was a different sound, and interesting.

The album was Exodus. It had a number of wonderful songs. Side two – yes, we listened on vinyl, and there was a side two – had songs that turned out to be memorable hits. I always wondered what happened to, the girl, Melissa, too. That’s the way it was in the military back then. You’d meet someone, and then probably never see them again.

Here’s “Jamming.” Once, when we lost power during a typhoon, a group of us sat in a room drinking strawberry wine, and sang this song to pass the time in the dark. I hope you like “Jamming”, too.

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

“I Wanna Rock” and “We’re Not Gonna Take It” are the only Twisted Sister songs I know off the top of my head. Gotta love that rousing chorus of “We’re Not Gonna Take It”.

“We’re not gonna take it! No, we’re not gonna take it. We’re not gonna take it anymore.”

Videos for both songs start the same, with rants from a man that culminates with the question, “What do you want to do with your life?”

I like WNGTI much more than IWR as a song. It’s damn good theme music to stream through your head when you’re pissed off and have decided on a new path.

Crank it out and shout along.

 

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

This song, “Song Sung Blue” by Neil Diamond, slipped into my mindstream this morning. Don’t know why. Not really the rock that I generally listen to, the words and melody are easy to learn. It’s a casual choice for a casual day.

 

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Monday’s Theme Music

Not an uplifting song, but one that inspires a sense of hope. “Everybody Hurts” by R.E.M. came out in 1992. It works as a vehicle for when you’re down and suffering, when the shit’s gone wrong, and you’ve hit the bottom, and you’re ready to start climbing back up again.

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