Today I’m streaming a song out of 1970. I’m a Joe Walsh fan. Before he went off to perform on his own or with the Eagles, he was part of the James Gang. I’m streaming their best-known song today, “Funk #49.” Wondering how and why it was called “Funk #49”, I read in an interview that it was a jam that the James Gang used to do. They figured they’d done it at least fifty times, but the band’s engineer said that they hadn’t. So, they called it forty-nine.
Thursday’s Theme Music
Alice Cooper came into my scene around 1969, when I was thirteen. Their Killer album, with its snake on a blood-red cover, was a favorite. From that album were “School’s Out” and “I’m Eighteen”. Those two songs were generally played a couple times a day at very loud volume for a few months after the album came out in 1971, but my favorite song on it was “Under My Wheels”.
Lyrics draw me, and did the same with this song. The delivery, backed by rising guitars and horns, becomes more frenetic and intense, which I thought was a reflection of some relationships. He wants one thing, she’s offering something else, and it’s all messed up.
Wednesday’s Theme Music
It’s a lovely spring southern Oregon day. The dogwoods are living up to their pink and white hype, splashing delicious contrast against the valley’s spring green. A day like this calls for a little metal. “Breaking the Law”, Judas Priest, is currently streaming through the cerebellum. It’s a direct cause and effect stream, triggered by watching drivers try to drive, while talking on their cell phones, eating food, and applying cosmetics. It’s a circus act!
Look at her, putting her lip stick on, weaving in her lane, speeding up and slowing down, breaking the law, breaking the law.
Look at him, wheeling that eighties era Chrysler around the corners, one hand holding a phone, the other holding a cigarette and hanging onto the wheel, breaking the law, breaking the law.
And look at her, meandering through the traffic instead of bothering to use crosswalks, forcing everyone to stop and wait for her, breaking the law, breaking the law.
Yeah, I got an uptight, fucked up mind.
Tuesday’s Theme Music
This one came to me in the bathroom this morning.
In there to do the morning toilet, I sniffed my pits (I don’t know why, nor why I write it), and said, “Damn, I’m a dirty white boy.” Click. My mind began streaming Foreigner’s “Dirty White Boy” from 1979.
As a felicitous coincidence, the local rock station played the song on the radio as I drove downtown. I thought, “That seals it! The song was predestined to be my theme music today.” Because, you know, coincidences are always omens.
Monday’s Theme Music
Streaming back via the Wayback Machine to 1971, I was reminded of a lot of music that I enjoyed. The Who, Led Zeppelin, Rod Stewart, The Doors, Jethro Tull, Yes, John Lennon, Elton John…a solid foundation of future classics were out that year. Against all those albums was a simple sound delivered by Bad Finger. Right off of Straight Up, here’s “Baby Blue”.
I admit, the album disappointed me a bit. It seemed too simple and a little derivative. Once again, my exposure, through an eight-track cassette on a continual loop, came via a friend. He played this album whenever he drove his father’s Ford 500. This was about two years after the album came out. I honestly think he only had three or four eight-tracks. He played this one so often, it developed all sorts of warble.
I still laugh thinking about it.
Without A Net
I was without a net last night. For about two and a half hours (nine twenty to eleven fifty), I couldn’t jump on the net to look up information, check on the Zuckerberg Machine (trademarked by J.R. Handley), or find the weather. More, I don’t have cable or satellite T.V. All my television is either O.T.A. or streaming. Without the net, streaming wasn’t available.
To the O.T.A.! That was an interesting experience. Infomercials, religious information centering around Jesus Christ, and old movies and television series saturate commercial airwaves that I can receive (about twenty). Circling through them, I found an episode of the original Star Trek series. It was “The Enterprise Incident”, and involved the Romulans.
The Roumlan commander was a female. I didn’t recall seeing the episode before, but I expected her and Kirk to start a romance. That’s how it used to go, wasn’t it? I was surprised that it was Spock who became intimate with her.
The opening credits said the episode was written by D.C. Fontana. Chances are, if you watched a popular television series between 1960 and 1999, you probably know her work. More important to Star Trek, I recalled that Fontana is credited as a strong early influence on fleshing out the Vulcan culture. A clever writer, she’d probably already seen the trend toward Kirk romancing women and had deliberately thrown this twist. I’m just guessing.
It was fun throwback viewing. The ST franchise has come a long way from those early Romulan costumes.
Sunday’s Theme Music
This morning found me awakening with a song streaming in my mind. How unusual! I don’t believe that’s ever happened before (*snark*).
The theme du jour was being delivered by Sammy Hagar on vocals as part of the amplified group called Van Halen. The song, “Why Can’t This Be Love”, was released during my formative years. 1986 found me moving from South Carolina to Germany. I was a wee lad of thirty years old, and full of wide-eyed wonder and innocence. My new friends introduced me to this interesting musical genre called rock. That changed my thinking forever.
I really associate this with Randy, though. After Germany, my next assignment took me to California, where I met Randy. Now dead of cancer at fifty-nine, he was a huge Van Halen, Boston, and Atlanta Braves fan. Go to his home, and it wouldn’t be unusual to find him on the patio smoking, windows open and drinking coffee or beer, with Van Halen, Boston, or the Atlanta Braves on.
Crank it up. You know Randy would.
Sweet Meow
Do you ever listen to the start of Aerosmith’s “Sweet Emotion” and think that it sounds like a cat saying meow with a prolonged techno accent? Listen to the video and see if it doesn’t sound like, “Mee-oowww,” at about the seventeen second mark.
No? Is it just me?
Friday’s Theme Music
A good one out of the eighties, a reflection that, no matter what happens or who you appear to be, you have a core of who you are. In this case, Sting is the “King of Pain”, part of the new wave rock movement. I don’t know why, but this was the song streaming in me this morning as my cat curled up on my pillow and purred against my head.
Thursday’s Theme Music
I always have enjoyed convertibles. Named spyders and spiders, roadsters, rag tops, I include the targas and tee tops in this group. The top down lets the world in when you’re motoring along.
I was trying my best to emulate that yesterday. A gentle spring sun warmed the day into aspirations of summer. Our little town was an idyllic verdant green. Sunroof and windows open, I was cruising home like it was yesteryear. To help me on that journey, the radio station played C.C.R.’s eight plus minute version of “Suzy Q”. Turning it up, I felt like a teenager for the six minutes that I listened as I drove home.
Not too much to the lyrics. Very straightforward, but I enjoy the guitar work and the variations on the drums and cymbals that arise.
