Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
Today’s music comes straight out of Facebook. A friend mentioned it was Meat Loaf’s 72nd natal day, and linked to some of Meat Loaf’s music. “Bat Out of Hell” (1979) leaped into my mental stream. It’s a sort of bombastic, over-the-top progressive rock song, just the sort that sucks me in and rocks me back, a good theme song for this first November day of 2019. I don’t think it got any chart action in the U.S., but who cares?
I probably heard this song yesterday while traveling, but it popped into my head this morning when I was dealing with Boo.
Boo is a big black cat that’s missing his tail. He showed up in our backyard several years ago. Nobody claimed him or reported him missing. We think that’s because Boo has PTSD. Somebody seriously abused him and left him permanently freaked out. He’s a challenge to love, even though he wants love. So, speaking to him this morning, I mentioned my sweet little psycho.
Boom. Ava Max’s 2018 song, “Sweet but Psycho” leaped into the stream. Perfect for the Halloween theme sweeping the day.
Today’s song was invited in by the group’s name. Traveling and planning, I was mapping a way through time squeezes. With squeeze in my mental stream, Squeeze’s 1981 song, “Tempted” soon began flowing.
Enjoy.
Today’s theme music is “Havana” by Camila Cabello (2017).
A lovely song about a brief love affair, it’s in my music stream this morning, background to routines, but I don’t know why. I had a smattering of dreams that felt inchoate. Little is clearly remembered except for an instance of awakening in alarm with the urgent question, “What was I supposed to do?” occupying me. Leaping up, I hunted for clues in a blended zone of sleep and consciousness. Anxiety ebbed back as I realized it was a dream, but I wondered about its roots.
So how does the salsa-influenced, bouncy “Havana” figure into this? Call me clueless in the morning.
As I enjoy the song, I played the video after Cabello’s SNL appearance a few weeks ago, chuckling at the reality send-up that bracketed the song.
I was with family yesterday. Two of my little sisters are grandmothers. One of them has been dubbed Bebop by her granddaughter. I was trying to remember a specific bop song and could not. I half-heard it in my stream. Everyone thought that I must mean “Bee bop a lou, she’s my baby.” No. I gave them the rhythm.
Oh, yeah, they said, “Unskinny Bop.” Two of us – older people, thought, White Snake? No, the young corrected us: Poison.
Here you go, from 1990 — before sis was Bebop.
Today’s music emerges into the stream from interactions with others – hearing tales and stories, wondering about the truth, searching for nuances of understanding about who they are and what they’ve gone through.
Pictures of the situations pool and splash, shifting with more, diluting with doubts. Just one clear moment, you know?
That invites the old Little Feat song, “One Clear Moment” (1989).
I see you cryin’ and I don’t know why
The way you look you should be flyin’ high
In that one clear moment
Little Feat was already in my head, as one of the members Paul Barrere, passed away. Some reflection is always demanded when one of those that provided the music to our lives departs the scene.
Dreamed about being ‘slathered in yellow’ — again — so I awoke with “Yellow” by Coldplay (2000) in my stream.
Today’s music choice is a song that keeps stirring during my writing thinking session this week. I’m mulling three different novel ideas. One of them ends up with this song, “Kashmir” by Led Zeppelin (1975) in my stream.
I have some vivid impressions of this song on the album that it came from, Physical Graffiti. Nineteen years old, I’d completed basic training the year before, and technical training at the beginning of the year. After that, I was assigned my first duty assignment at Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio. I met two other guys there. One of them had a Ford Mustang Mach I. He used to play Physical Graffiti on his car’s eight track or his room’s stereo almost all the time. He especially loved “Kashmir”.
Haven’t seen him since 1976, when I left for the Philippines. Wonder what he’s been up to.
As I landed in Pittsburgh last night, a Smith cover of a Beatles/Shirelles song began streaming. I haven’t lived in Pittsburgh, PA, since the early seventies. I usually visit the city for about five days at a time every two or three years. But it offers that energy that says, home. My soul feels more settled among the neighborhoods nestled among the western PA. rivers, mountains, and bridges.
Here’s “Baby It’s You” (1969), written by Burt Bacharach, Luther Dixon, and Mack David, and performed by Smith.
Michael Seidel, writer 