Category: pop culture

Thursday’s Theme Music

This is a twofer Thursday post, featuring a dream and a song, because this song started in my dreamstream.

It was a turbulent stream, with multiple vignettes and one-act plays. I think the music made this one memorable.

“Conquistador” began playing in the dream. Hearing it, I said, “Hey, I know this song. “Conquistador”. Procol Harum.” After remembering hearing the song’s live version in high school in the early seventies, and talking to my friend, Bob, about it (in the hall in front of the art classroom, by my locker, where he was talking overly loudly and enthusiastic, trying to catch some girl’s attention), I thought about other Procol Harum music I know and wondered where the music was coming from. I couldn’t identify its source.

All that was backdream. I was in my most recurring dreamscape, which is dark green, slightly rolling hills. I seem to know or I remember such hills most often out of dreams. Accompanied by several friends, we were admiring two exotic hyper cars, a Lamborghini and Ferrari, that belonged to others, and discussing their styling, price, and performance capabilities.

My friends were envious, but I said, “Yes, but my car is faster than either of them, and costs more.”

They were skeptical. So was I. I thought my ride would be there by now. As it wasn’t, I didn’t think my ride was going to arrive, and was becoming anxious.

“Conquistador” ended, and my ride arrived, a stunning silver Aston Martin. “Wow,” I said, along with my friends. “Wow.” I never believed it would arrive.

Then, it was just there.

 

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Today’s theme music emerged from my dreamlands. As I stumbled around feeding the scamperbeasts and making coffee, I remembered the little I know about the song

It wasn’t much. An AM radio hit in the mid 1960s, I was troubled by the title. I thought it was “Hang On Snoopy”. When I discovered it was Sloopy, I thought, “Who’s Sloopy?” I knew who Snoopy was. I understood why they were urging Snoopy to hang on, seeing that he slept on his back on top of his dog house and battled the Red Baron, but who was Sloopy that they were telling them to hang on? It made no sense to me.

Thanks to Wikipedia, I discovered that the version of “Hang On Sloopy” by The McCoys came out in 1965, so I was nine. Sloopy is rumored to be Dorothy Sloop, a jazz singer.

All interesting stuff, but surprisingly, the McCoy’s vocalist on the recording is Rick Zehringer. The group performing the music was not his group from Rick and the Raiders, but another group called the Strangeloves. Rick and the Raiders’s name was changed to the McCoys for the release of “Hang On Sloopy”, and Rick Zehringer, who was eighteen when he sang “Hang On Sloopy”, changed his name to Rick Derringer, under which he continues to perform pop, rock, and blues and playing with people and groups from Edgar Winter, Johnny Winter, Barbra Streisand, and Meat Loaf,  to television jingles for Budweiser beer commercials.

That’s a lot of pop history from one song. Anyway, hang on…whoever you are.

 

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

My spouse was busy making Christmas crockpot candy, which involves melting a lot of almond bark and chocolate together with some nuts, and then spooning it out into balls and letting it cool.

Christmas music was on, but this was a Christmas blues album. We have it on a CD that we picked up for a dollar about twenty years ago. The album was probably recorded in the sixties. It hasn’t been remastered.

Anyway, that CD ended, and a Motown Christmas album was launched. A CD of Motown hits from 1971 followed. A twelve minute version of “Papa Was a Rolling Stone” by the the Temptations stayed in my stream overnight.

What can I say? It’s great music, cool music, telling a story through voice, lyrics, and instruments.

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The Commercials

Watching television yesterday, I saw a McDonald’s commercial. It’s surprising that I heard and saw the commercial. I’m fond of muting the commercials or leaving the room as they play. But I decided to stay and watch a few.

In this commercial, the young customer was celebrating as if he’d done something great, in this case, making a basketball shot from half-court. As he celebrated that fantasy, McDonald’s employees said were trying to get his attention to tell him his order was ready.

So, essentially, my takeaway is that you have to be delusional and living in a fantasy world to enjoy McDonald’s.

Next up was an Amazon ad. This one told me that the problems at work, such as being marginalized, can be solved by work, by Amazon. Yeah, really? Fuck me, isn’t that amazing? They’re touting that the businesses and industries that created the problems will now turn around and solve them, and that Amazon can help.

Right, I believe that.

The other commercial that made me groan aloud was a Dodge Ram commercial. In this one, a voice-over talks about how Americans love sports as different games and athletes are shown. Then, rhetorically, we’re asked, “What’s America’s favorite sport?” Their astounding answer is, paraphrasing, “None of the above. Work is America’s favorite sport.” They said, “We were born to work.”

*snark alert*

Yes, that’s what I’ve always heard from others. “Play football, baseball, or golf? Heck, no, I want to go to work. Go to see the Olympic games? No, I’d miss work. Watch the SuperBowl when I can go to work? No way.” 

Perhaps only truck owners think this, though. I honestly can’t say that I’ve ever encountered someone driving a truck, Dodge or otherwise, who said, “My favorite sport is work.”

Dodge — and the other companies — have gone into deep holes of delusion. Maybe it’s just me. Maybe I don’t know what’s going on.

Maybe there are millions of Americans who do think that a six dollar McDonald’s meal is so fantastic that they dance and celebrate. Maybe there are millions of people buying the idea that Amazon can help solve the vexing problems of pay inequity, being marginalized, and glass ceilings. Maybe millions of people agree with Dodge, that their favorite sport is work. Or perhaps, these companies believe that if they say it enough, they’ll convince people of the truth behind their visions.

One, I hope no one is buying this new wave of shit.

Two, I really doubt that they are.

I believe most American sit back, watch these commercials and think, what bullshit. Most of them, getting ready to go to work, sigh, and think, one more time.

 

 

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Monday’s Theme Music

Don’t know why I’m streaming today’s music. Are you surprised? Shocked, I am, totally shocked.

Anyway, today’s theme music was a pop hit that came to be part of my life music stream via my sister. I was nine when this song was a hit. Two years older, my sister was a popster and a big fan of the forty-fives. The Dave Clark Five were a Brit invasion pop group. Sis loved them. No surprise, then, that their 1965 hit “Over and Over”, has escaped my brain’s shields and entered my stream.

What’s perhaps more surprising is how little I hear this song on the radio. After remembering it, I looked the group up on that Internet. There, through Wikipedia, I discovered the Dave Clark Five had a run of hits, disbanded in 1970, and were inducted into the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame in 2008.

Love the video’s dancing display. Ah, those were the days, hey?

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Sunday’s Theme Music

With another throwback via the wayback stream, I found myself listening to the Elvis Presley’s biggest-selling single, “It’s Now or Never”.

The song was released in 1960, according to Wikipedia. I would have been four, according to the math. It being Elvis, I know the song well through pop saturation, where the mantra is, if a little bit is good, massive amounts are fantastic. 

Why is it streaming today? Sometimes there’s a direct causal stream identified, but that’s not today. I was going about, making plans for eating, dressing, and rushing out to walk and write. I think I may have thought, I gotta get going, it’s now or never, and there you have it, a wayback stream opened.

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Saturday’s Theme Music

I discovered myself humming “An Old Fashioned Love Song” (1971) performed by Three Dog Night this morning. The song came out in 1971. Cannae tell ya’ where it came from or what provoked the stream to pick it up and deliver it to my brain. Didn’t relate to anything that I dreamed last night.

The song didn’t stay with me long today, fading as I walked, but I enjoyed the visit and thought I’d share it with thee. Paul Williams wrote it. It was from a time when he wrote several romantic songs in the late 1960s and early 1970s, that others, like Helen Reddy and The Carpenters, had as hit records.

 

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Friday’s Theme Music

More weather dictated theme music. I’m planning to dress, looking out the window, checking the temperature and forecast. Hey, fifty-one, windy as hell, but sunny. So, I’ll be walking in sunshine.

It was an easy jump in the stream to Katrina and the Waves and “Walking On Sunshine” (1985).

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Thursday’s Theme Music

I was humming this song to myself today. Actions are connected to thoughts and thoughts are connected to memories, and memories yield songs. I was quoting Popeye, “I yam what I yam”, which introduced thoughts about changing, providing the opportunity for a song to stream in:

But I’m here in my mould, I am here in my mould
And I’m a million different people from one day to the next
I can’t change my mould, no, no, no, no, no

Read more: The Verve – Bitter Sweet Symphony Lyrics | MetroLyrics

I was living in Mountain View and working for PAS in Palo Alto when the song came out in 1997. Two years later, another company acquired PAS. My new boss, the director of marketing, came out on a meet and greet. I drove him to a restaurant. This song was playing in the car, and he said, “I love this song.” Music became our bond.

He was a good guy to work for, a person I wouldn’t hesitate to work for again.

 

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

I can’t trace the roots of why I’m streaming this song today. Didn’t have the record, or any of this group’s albums. I knew the song came out sometime in the mid to late 1970s, but had to look it up to find it.

The airways often shaped the musical landscape then, with television giving musical groups and their hits a step up via Soul Train, American Bandstand, and a few other shows like that. FM stereo was growing in popularity, with multiple stations dedicated to rock, soul, R&B, and country genres going on air. Once songs began getting air time, they would move up the charts, gain more air time. Suddenly they were in your ears.

Nothing wrong with that, of course. When I first started driving in 1974, our area had three FM stations. You’d punch the buttons and move around between them. I don’t punch buttons now, but gently tap them to move ‘tween stations, or use my thumb on a rocker button my steering wheel to advance to the next setting. I have five FM stations that I prefer in my area, but I also play satellite FM. The satellite capability offers about a zillion stations, but I listen to eight primary music stations when I’m drivin’ ’round town.

This song, “Baby Come Back” (1977) by Player, came to me by radio saturation. The song reminds me of Hall & Oates. I was stationed in the Philippines when it was released. We only had one station, the Armed Forces Network Philippines (AFN-P). It’s an okay song, doesn’t stir me in any particular direction, but it’s part of my memoryscape.

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