Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
Getting ready to write? Or do anything else? Sometimes you need your mojo.
Time to get that mojo working. Maybe Muddy Waters can help. Sing along with the chorus – “Got my mojo working.” Feel free to move around and dance.
Get your mojo working. Go write, edit, whatever, create a better life.
One heart, so many ways for it to be broken. When it breaks, you think, “That’ll teach you. You should learn your listen. I’ll never love again. I’ll never trust them again. It’ll never be the same again.”
The broken heart comes from believing and trusting in something or someone – a cause, a hope, a dream, a love. When your heart breaks, the pain echoes through time and fiber, never truly healing, but scabbing and developing scar tissue. Even then, sometimes you conclude, “I’m over it,” but when you let yourself consider your broken heart and its circumstances, you discover, “No. I’m not over it.” And you wonder, “Will I ever be over it?”
I’m a walking classic rock stereotype, so here is Led Zeppelin’s ‘Heartbreaker’.
A character is pushing for this music. She screwed up. They accused her of trying to be a hero, which is wrong, which is not what it was about at all. They don’t care. They set the course of their perceptions long before her actions.
Now she needs a hero. So many offerings out there, musically, but went with David Bowie’s ‘Heroes’. Many renditions are available and Bowie always delivered an excellent show. I chose the recording of his Live Aid performance from 1985.
Consideration of my state doubled me back through a labyrinth of realizations and understanding. I set fire to a few things and watched the ashes of those spirits take to the eddying winds. Then I set off to find a new place in the labyrinth of being. Once I did, I needed different music. Here is the song that volunteered itself.
Lynyrd Skynrd, ‘They Call Me the Breeze’.
A depressing dream has pillaged my enthusiasm and burned my energy. Rising to face the tedium of repeating yesterday’s activities just like I did yesterday and on through a hall mirroring hundreds of yesterdays and tomorrows, I thought, “Yeah, you go back, Jack, do it again.”
So here it is, another throwback. Steely Dan’s ‘Do It Again’.
Ah, a simple offering today. I’ve not known this song long but it’s taken a place in my virtual jukebox.
The song is ‘The Blues Don’t Care’ by Frank Bang and the Cook County Kings. I’ve added writing verses:
The blues don’t care how many words you wrote
The blues don’t care if you’re published or not
The blues don’t care if you’ve written all month
The blues don’t care if can’t write at all
I need to amuse myself somehow.
I woke up with this song in my mind so I went with it.
It was written before I was born but it’s a pop standard, and has been used in movies. Lots of famous people covered it, and even some later groups, like The Cure. I know it from my mother playing it. I primarily grew up in the towns, townships and suburbs surrounding Pittsburgh. This was the 1960s. Hi-fi stereo was the iPad of the day and vinyl was emperor.
Mom listened to many records on her hi-fi stereo console and I became familiar with many artists through her enjoyment. This song was one of her favorites. I always enjoyed these lines:
“And if you should survive to 105,
Look at all you’ll derive out of being alive!
And here is the best part, you have a head start
If you are among the very young at heart.”
(n/t to Lyricsmode.com)
That’s what I awoke to in my mental jukebox today. Don’t know why. I slept well and had interesting but common dreams.
Here is Frank Sinatra with ‘Young At Heart’. He didn’t write the song but it was his hit, and it seems most associated with him. Enjoy. Cheers
So many songs call me today. My spirits are high, but we’re bracing ourselves for a storm. The remnants of typhoon Songda is heading our way up in the Pacific NW, so thoughts drift that way as we prepare for high winds, power outages, and possible flooding. We appear to be on the fringe as we’re inland, but we’ve gone through storms elsewhere, so we prepare.
As always, though, I’m looking forward and back, riding the wave of the day. Some John Cougar Mellencamp creeps through my mind, as does Boston, Pit Bull and Farrell. But then comes a memory from 1971.
‘Riders on the Storm’ was the last song The Doors recorded before Jim Morrison’s death. I vividly remember the first time I heard it in Pittsburgh. I was fourteen, on the verge of fifteen, on the verge of moving out of my mother’s house to join my father. The day was overcast, with a slight drizzle, and this song played. It seemed perfect for my mood and the moment. After hearing it, I sat in a small shed I’d made out of found construction plywood and huddled as the rain finally opened up to full throttle.
1971 seemed like a continuation of harsh years and fast change for me. Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin had died the year before, and now Jim Morrison was dead. Listening to rock, drawing, and reading were my escapes, and one leg of that tripod was breaking down. It may sound depressing. I don’t consider it depressing but enriching, and the beginning of my growth as a more introspective person. Of course, I also became more withdrawn then, and socially awkward, trends I still continue. It probably didn’t help that I was reading books like ‘Catch 22’, ‘Catcher in the Rye’, ‘War and Peace’, ‘Cancer Ward’, and ‘Crime and Punishment’ in that period.
Stop and listen to the storm as we brace. Stay safe, wherever you are and whatever you’re doing.
I first heard and saw today’s song while I was in an Osan City donut shop in Korea in February, 1986. I was there on temporary duty with the Air Force during the annual Team Spirit exercises. This little mocking gem was an MTV staple for the late Robert Palmer, a song that was sexy and debasing as it called your attention to models pretending to play instruments and told you, “You were addicted to love.”
Yeah, it was the love that had you watching, wasn’t it?
Stevie Nicks has lived an interesting life and presented memorable music. I have many favorites out of her catalogue. Her music usually has a story behind its creation.
The story behind this one is what makes it one of my favorites. Newly married, she and her husband were driving somewhere when Prince’s ‘Little Red Corvette’ came on. Stevie really enjoyed it. Humming it, she began coming up with her own song and actually went into the studio and did a demo that night, even though this was her honeymoon. Then she called Prince and told him about the song and how his song inspired it. He came over and helped her finish it.
That story of inspiration firing her creativity resonates with me. The final touch is Prince’s unattributed (on the album) assistance. Here’s ‘Stand Back’.
