This was several months ago in our car. My wife was speaking.
I was listening. I didn’t know the song. “What is it?”
“It’s ‘Watermelon Sugar’ by Harry Styles. It comes whenever I’m in the car. Then I can’t get it out of my head. I walk around singing, ‘watermelon sugar pii-ieee.”
“Watermelon sugar pie? What’s that? I could go for some pie right now.”
“It might be high.”
“What’s a watermelon sugar high? What have I been missing out on?”
I don’t know. Listen.”
I couldn’t tell. “Should we stop and get some pie somewhere?”
I looked it up after I got home, and it’s high, not pie. A book inspired the song, which I thought interesting.
The song came on yesterday when we were out dropping off our ballots. So, in her honor, “Watermelon Sugar” is Sunday’s theme music.
Give it a listen. See if it sounds like he’s saying “watermelon sugar pie” to you.
I gotta go find some pie. I’m so weak. Yeah, sue me. Later.
Ready for the Floof(floofinition) – Floofmerican R&F band formed in Floofchigan in 1982. The band achieved its greatest population and success in the 1980s. Although the group disbanded in 1991, they regrouped in 2004, and are currently touring.
In use: “Ready for the Floof’s breakout hit came with “Oh Floofla”, which reached number one on several charts in Floofmerica and Canfloofda.”
A 1980s power ballad burst into my head this morning. I was a little lethargic getting up. Not really looking forward to the day.
Seems like I’m in a rut. I don’t think I’m alone in that self-appraisal, not just in the U.S., but in many parts beyond our coastlines.
A large part of my malaise is the novel coronavirus who dances under several names, but most frequently appears as COVID-19. “Winter is coming,” George R.R. Martin has Ned Stark warning us. Up here in the northern climes, the daylight period is falling shorter. Night hangs on a little longer. With an overcast day like this one, there’s no daylight, just a pale grey nothingness to the sky.
I long for my old, comfortable routines. Man, am I a person of habit. I used to be flexible and adapt, but as I’ve aged, my processes have ossified. Change comes hard.
Different songs about change and attitude set the background to my dream reflections and morning routines, but then an absolutely obstinate cat – we call him Boo – crystallized the choice.
Here’s “Never Surrender” by Corey Hart (1985). For Boo.
Thompson Floofs(floofinition) – Flooftish floof pop (floop) band formed in 1977. Originally focused on a new wave sound with synthesizers, gravitating more toward a more floofstream floop sound delivered them international success in 1982.
In use: “One of the Thompson Floofs’ biggest international hits was, “Pet Me Now,” which was released in 1983 and reached number one on some charts.”
When I was growing up in the sixties, music was usually heard on the AM bands on my transistor radio, bedroom radio/alarm clock, or in the car. This was augmented by Mom’s music on her console stereo, and my sisters’ music on the older sister’s portable phonograph. It was red and gray suitcase with a record player inside.
By the end of the sixties, we were listening to more sources, including cassette tapes and 8-tracks. FM was coming on a purveyor of pop culture, though.
Overseas in the military, I depended on the Armed Forces Radio and Television Services. We had a heavy dose of popular songs. I listened to some local radio but not understanding the language was often a turnoff.
By the time I returned to the United States from overseas for the last time, it’d all changed. CDs were on the scene. Digital and the net were rapidly emerging. Radio stations became more segmented. I had three primary music stations in the SF Bay Area. One each for alt rock, classic rock, and top forty rock, which included pop. I had buttons for country and western, young country, R&B, soul, rap, gospel, along with the news, sports, and talk stuff. It was an amazing plethora.
Yeah, just thinking and remembering, that’s all. Today is sooo different.
All of was triggered by Genesis as my theme choice yesterday. Early Genesis with Peter Gabriel was much different than Phil Collins’ Genesis but I enjoy both. Fascinating how Peter and Phil also found solo success, along with Mike Rutherford of Genesis.
As they were all on my mind, I’m going with another Phil choice. This one combines Phil Collins with Phil Bailey of Earth, Wind, and Fire. Here’s “Easy Lover” from 1984.
Floof the Wet Sprocket (floofinition) – American floofternative flock (floof rock) band. Formed in 1986, they derive their name from a Floofy Python skit.
In use: “Floof the Wet Sprocket has had multiple hit songs since their formation, including “Falling Floof” in 1994.”
Many songs have the potential to be the theme song for the COVID-19 season for folks locked up in their house together. We can get under one another’s skin, you know?
This 1983 Genesis offering came when I was contemplating should I eat one more cookie. We don’t usually have cookies in the house because we eat them. For cookies to successfully stay available for a while, they must be cookies we don’t like, or frozen and tucked out of view. As I’ll eat just about anything, it’s tough finding cookies that we don’t like.
But that whole should-I-eat-one-more thing brought about lyrics from “That’s All”, “Taking it all instead of taking one bite.” Phil Collins, the vocalist, delivers it with outrage.
It was an amusing exercise. For the record, one cookie was left. It was due to be my wife’s, but she came in and said, “You can have that last cookie.”
She’s such a nice person.
Also, for the record, this song always seems like it could be by the early Bee Gees or a Gilbert O’Sullivan song.
The Flooffield (floofinition) – Floofish floof rock (flock) band formed in Floofdon in 1984, who achieved commercial success, mainly in the United Floofs of America, in the mid-1980s to 1990s.
In use: “One of The Flooffield’s first major hits in the UFA was “Floof Love”, which reached number seven on the Floofboard Hot 100 charts in 1986.”
I’m a pop child, you know? Born in ’56 in the United States in a lower middle-class household and living mostly in suburbs, I grew up as television and radio matured. When Mom cleaned house, she turned on her records and sang with them. Throughout the years, I heard her with Patsy Cline, Pat Boone, Johnny Cash and Johnny Rivers, Tony Bennett, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Chubby Checkers, Louis Armstrong, Tammy Lynette, Ray Charles, Johnny Mathis, Barbra Steisand, the Ink Spots and Four Platters, to list the ones that jump casually to mind.
Then there was big sis. Two years older than moi, she started listening to the Beach Boys, the Beatles, Dave Clark Five, Herman’s Hermits, Simon and Garfunkel, and Grand Funk Railroad. Boys, interested in this attractive young woman and usually a year or two older than her, brought more music in, like the Spencer Davis Group, John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, and David Bowie.
The radio was always on in the car, and I received small transistor radios from Japan as birthday gifts. AM radio gave me some bubble gum pop like the Osmonds, the Archies, and the Jackson Five, along with Elvis Presley, Glen Campbell, Don McLean, Steppenwolf, and the Temptations. We had the Bee Gees, the Rolling Stones, and The Who. Television brought along Ricky Nelson, the Monkees, and all manner of performers via variety shows like Ed Sullivan,Hullabaloo and American Bandstand. Movies got into it. Friends introduced me to Sly and the Family Stone and Three Dog Night.
I explored on my own as I aged, discovering Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Cream, ZZ Top, Mountain, Captain Beefheart, the Moody Blues, early Electric Light Orchestra before they became ELO. More performers came onto the scene, like Elton John.
That’s just a little taste. Music was everywhere then, as it is now, always on, part of the foreground and the background, part of the scene, a topic of conversation. All of this is just on the pop and rock side. Beyond it there was country and western, soul, rhythms and blues, and the blues, and all the offshoots and variations. Beyond the United States were vast seas of music to be found in other countries and continents. Concerts gave us destination. Dancing gave us dates.
Music enriched existence. Oddly, all this came from a 1977 Paul Simon song, “Slip Slidin’ Away”. Time has fled through the year. Whether it’s because the days are less structured or because the usual placeholders of American culture have been disrupted, it seems like time has accelerated. Here it is, already more than halfway through the tenth month of the year. Just two more months and ten days to 2020 remains before we’re kissing it’s ass good-bye and saying hello to 2021.
Yet, we have an open-ended agenda at this point. COVID-19 has disrupted normalcy. The U.S. elections are due. We’re into the thirty-first named storm of the ‘hurricane season’. Climatologists are predicting wilder, more violent, and less predictable weather. With all that’s happening, water and food security for many of the world’s creatures are being jeopardized.
So, you might see why I’m thinking of “Slip Slidin’ Away” might have slipped into my thinking. Opportunities, time, and hope seem to be slip slidin’ away. Some might claim that sanity and peace are, too.
Certainly, it feels to me, probably because where I am in life, the days seem like they’re slip slidin’ away.
Here’s the song. Yeah, it’s a repeat. Used it back in August, 2018. Wear a mask please. And as they once said to the point it became nauseating, have a nice day.
The Spencer Floof Group(floofinition) – Floof pop (floop)/rock (flock) band formed by the late Spencer Floof in 1963. The band broke up in the late sixties but was formed again several times.
In use: “The Spencer Floof Group had several major hits, including, “I’m A Floof” and “Gimme Some Tuna” in the 1960s.”
