Category: music

Today’s Theme Music

This is a more recent, mellow song. Its simple, repetitive chorus makes it easy to stream to myself as I walk along: “We don’t talk about it. Shouldn’t talk about it.”

I also enjoy his flat delivery of several stanzas, such as the first: “I want you by my side, so that I never feel alone again.” That delivery imparts a sense that he’s talking to himself while making a confession to another, a secret, internal conversation. The other parts strike me as an effort to bring the other around to his thinking.

After hearing the song a few times, mostly while driving around, I looked up the words. Getting the words to songs right is one of the big technological advantages of this century. We used to need jacket sleeves, which weren’t always included. Don McLean’s “American Pie” caused arguments about what he was singing, and then, what it meant.

Here’s Milky Chance from Germany and two thousand thirteen with, “Stolen Dance.”

2

Today’s Theme Music

Feeling like a rebel today.

At first, I thought, gimme some power chords. Nirvana came to mind, with “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” “Here we are now, entertain us.”

But, then, naw…”Rebel Yell” began streaming, and quickly segued into one of my favorite Billy Idol tunes, “White Wedding.” “It’s a nice day to start again.”

It’s cooler today, with a projected high of just eighty-eight under clear blue skies. Definitely a nice day to start again. Here it is, Billy Idol, from nineteen eighty-two, when I was just a wee man of twenty-six years. Boy, what would need to be sacrificed to be twenty-six again, hey?

 

8

Today’s Theme Music

Today’s song came out during a time when I navigated the usual issues with understanding myself, love and life during my teenage years.

The song was written by Toy Caldwell, a founding member of the band, and a person of passions. He passed away in nineteen ninety-three, forty-five years old, from cardio and respiratory problems associated with cocaine use. It’s his lead guitar on the song.

The song is, “Can’t You See,” by the Marshall Tucker Band. It came out in nineteen seventy-three, and it’s one of those songs that captures the despair you can feel over something you’re enduring. The song’s sentiments ends up capable of being applied to many moments of frustration and hopelessness. “Can’t you see what you’re doing to me?” “Can’t you see what this job is doing to me?”

To me, to you, to us, you can run through the gamut and come out on the other side with the same vows the song encapsulates. “Gonna find me a mountain, jump off, and nobody’s going to know.” You’ve been pushed to your end. Then, after the release of all these thoughts, you reach a binary moment: which way you going to go? Are you really going to get on a freight train and run away, or jump off a mountain, or you going to suck it up, endure the pain, and find another way to press on regardless?

Some end up lost somewhere in the middle, unwilling or unable to commit to either direction.

 

0

Today’s Theme Music

This is a “recent” song for me. It came out in two thousand one, so that give us a sense of reference about how much I follow music these days.

That’s true with multiple areas. Matters about baseball, football, pop-culture, music, television, and auto-racing are less followed today. Instead, I follow housing starts, unemployment rates, consumer confidence, politics, and news. I think I’m beginning to mature.

This song, “Blurry,” came out in the aftermath of 9/11, but it’s appropriate for today, because this is Father’s Day in America. This song is about a young man trying to be a good father to his son after separating from the child’s mother. It’s a common theme in today’s America.

Here’s Puddle of Mudd.

2

Today’s Theme Music

I had a song selected for today. Then I saw episode eight of “The Handmaid’s Tale” last night.

The episode, ambiguous, powerful and emotional, full of shifting insights, was highlighted with a Nina Simone song. Man, I love her music. It was a perfect choice to mark the scene’s denouement.

The other choice, the original song, is “School’s Out,” by Alice Cooper.

There’s a striking dichotomy between the two songs, and the thinking behind them. The Simone song was about choices and the road being taken. The Alice Cooper song is a spiteful, joyous celebration of celebrate children’s ‘freedom from school’. I wanted to play “School’s Out” not because I go to school, but with school out, we don’t need to slow down for the school zone. Almost every major road in this small town goes through a school zone, forcing traffic into a tedious crawl. It’s a small, but annoying price, for safety, right? But hooray, speed! We can go five, sometimes ten miles per hour faster. Woo-hoo!

After some thought about it while brewing coffee this morning, I went with “School’s Out” because I didn’t want to debase the use of the Simone song in “The Handmaid’s Tale.” That powerful and shocking cautionary story shouldn’t be dragged down into the meanderings of a mindless blog like this.

Besides, Alice Cooper was part of my first concert I ever attended. The other two acts that day at Three Rivers Stadium were Uriah Heep and Humble Pie. Excellent concert. Memorable.

Here it is, from nineteen seventy-two, “School’s Out.” Crank it up and sing along, if you know the words. Just fake it, if you don’t. Nobody cares.

 

2

Today’s Theme Music

It’s a funky Friday, perfect for those funky musicians, Sly and the Family Stone.

This was a perfect song to sing along when I was thirteen in nineteen sixty-nine. It’s even better now as a joyful anthem for an adult. Still, there were always questions about what in the world was he actually singing. I spent time when that song came on, to pause and listen, trying to decode the lyrics. They still don’t make a sense to me, but I still love them:

Stiff all in the collar
Fluffy in the face
Chit chat chatter tryin’
Stuffy in the place
Thank you for the party
But I could never stay
Many thangs is on my mind
Words in the way

Other lyrics made perfect, beautiful poetic sense to me:

Flamin’ eyes of people fear
Burnin’ into you
Many men are missin’ much
Hatin’ what they do
Youth and truth are makin’ love
Dig it for a starter, now
Dyin’ young is hard to take
Sellin’ out is harder

h/t to MetroLyrics

Let’s get funky with “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Again).” It was years before I learned the correct title and the reveal that it was a mondegreen. So sue me; I was a kid.

 

 

 

0

Today’s Theme Music

Although this song was released and charted in nineteen seventy-six, people probably know it, thanks to President Bill Clinton. He used it as the music for his campaign theme in nineteen ninety-two, and then at his inaugural ball after winning. Since then, it’s played whenever he shows up to speak at a Democratic National Convention.

And it’s good for that purpose. Before Bill Clinton used it, I used it, too, to keep myself moving forward, dreaming and hoping. It’s a rousing damn song. Here it is, Fleetwood Mac with, “Don’t Stop.”

 

0

Today’s Theme Music

You hear it said so often. I was pleased and impressed that someone finally put it to music.

When I was growing up, the expression, “That’s the highway to hell,” was commonly heard. When someone disagreed with a position, it wasn’t surprising to hear them say, “I think that’s the road to hell, if we do that,” or, “You know what they say: the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

It took that Australian band, AC/DC, to turn the expression into a hard-rocking hit. Between its standing as a rock music staple, and use in video games, television shows, and movies, few in the western world have probably not heard the song, or at least its opening guitar riff, or chorus. It’s a good anthem to stream in your head as you tramp around. Singing with it is good for releasing some angst.

From nineteen seventy-nine, here we go.

0

Today’s Theme Music

“Time Won’t Let Me” is a song by a group called The Outsiders.

In nineteen sixty-six, I was ten years old, part of a small group of neighborhood children on McNary Boulevard in Wilkinsburg that included Tracy and Carolann, and Mike and Richard. The group fluctuated as people moved, went on vacation, or attended Bible School. Technically, I’d moved away to Penn Hills, but I came back to visit friends.

I don’t know who, exactly, bought this record, or the rest. We listened to them on a little portable turntable. The record was part of a stack of forty-five R.P.M. singles. Setting up in someone’s basement during the summer months, we listened and danced to these records while pretending to sing the songs and play the instruments. The Monkees began dominating the stack, although Johnny Rivers had a strong presence. Others included Herman and the Hermits, Paul Revere and the Raiders, and Nancy Sinatra. As the summer passed, our interests and musical tastes shifted. But for a while, we had our forty-fives.

Now, watching this video, I laugh.

0

Today’s Theme Music

Today’s music is provided by Eric Burdon and The Animals, so it’s an old song, yeah?

I remember that Mom was really excited about Eric Burdon and The Animals coming on to television. I’m not sure what show they were appearing on, as I was about eight years old. I think it may have been “The Ed Sullivan Show.” I lived in Wilkinsburg, PA, on Laketon Road, across from Turner Elementary School. That’s how vivid this memory is of that week. Mom was talking about it while ironing and dressing to go to work at her job as a telephone operator.

Eric Burdon and The Animals’ appearance hugely disappointed Mom. Somehow, in the course of the advertising, she thought it was to be singing animals! My older sister laughed and laughed over that.

This song is an old stand-by for me. “We Gotta Get Out of This Place” was often selected as a theme song when I was down, depressed, frustrated, or bitter, which seems to be quite a bit. I would sing it to my self, my wife, my cats, my work teams, whatever. There’s something freeing and invigorating about singing, “We gotta get out of this place, if it’s the last thing we ever do.”

Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about. Whether it’s physical, emotional, or intellectual, if there’s a place you gotta get out of, this song is ideal for fortifying your determination to do so.

Here they are, from nineteen sixty-five, Eric Burdon and The Animals, with all the glory of nineteen sixty-five technology.

 

2

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑