U2 is hot and cold for me. I really enjoy The Joshua Tree and Rattle and Hum albums, but I was less enthused about others. This song, “Mysterious Ways” from Achtung, Baby, is my favorite track from that album. I like the mystic romantic aspects the lyrics present, and the sharp guitar hook juxtaposed against the beat and bass line. It’s a song that I crank up, and one that I sing to my cats. I sing it to myself, too, as I contemplate the world and my writing. Talk about mysterious ways.
Tuesday’s Theme Music
This was one of those who and what situations.
I heard the lyrics, “Looking for the answers in the pouring rain.” Whenever I heard the song on the radio, I tried listening for more lyrics and the name of the song and group. They used to give the song title and performers’ name on the radio; not so much, anymore. But hearing those lyrics, I did an Internet search. First I thought the song was called “Cage the Elephant.” That didn’t make sense. I didn’t hear elephants mentioned in the song. What was I missing?
Oh, Cage the Elephant is the musical group’s name. That makes more sense, right? The song turned out to be “Cigarette Daydreams.”
I was surprised by how long Cage the Elephant had been around, so I went retro, searching out their music. Meanwhile, here’s “Cigarette Daydreams.” I do like these lyrics:
You can drive all night
Looking for the answers in the pouring rain
You wanna find peace of mind
Looking for the answer
Monday’s Theme Music
I have an affinity for songs about rain. While some are happy songs (“Singing in the Rain”), many of them are about depression or mental illness, like “No Rain.” I like this particular song, “Only Happy When It Rains” by Garbage, because of the delivery, but also the statement it makes. This is a sad and bitter person who likes being sad and bitter. Hey, that’s so honest, and is such a mockery of so many other songs about being happy or morose, those, “Oh, what am I going to do?” songs.
It just happens that today is sunny, with hype that it’s going to be warmish and springish. There’s not a sign of rain.
Sunday’s Theme Music
I wasn’t enthralled with Duran Duran and their music. Some of their music hit the charts in a big way, and friends like them, so I was exposed to them. Despite that, every once a song strikes a sweet spot in the day and hangs with you.
So it happened this morning as I looked out the window. It looked deceptively warm and beautiful, deceptively because my weather station warned me that it was thirty-one F outside. But it was beautiful, yet ordinary with its vistas of far, snowy tree covered mountains juxtaposed against the local greenery and blooming plum trees and daffodils. This is our every day view, so ordinary and special. Yet, changes, from seasonal movement to economic shifts and the ways of life and death, were visible from where I was.
So I streamed, “But I won’t cry for yesterday, there’s an ordinary world, somehow I have to find. And, as I try to find my way in an ordinary world, I will learn to survive.”
In Green
I’m wearing green today, homage to St. Patrick’s Day in America.
I don’t celebrate holidays much, and celebrate them less as I age. I don’t look forward to them much. Putting out decorations rarely occurs to me.
After thinking about it, I’ve realized that I little associate with the external world. Events are remote. I live by and enjoy the internal worlds created as I imagine and write. It’s a problem, and it’s a benefit. The problem is that my wife is exasperated because I’m not all up about holidays like other people. The benefit is that I feel like I’m successfully writing, and that makes me happy. Like most things in life, the value is on a sliding spectrum, and changes often.
I suppose I could change it, or try, since I’m now aware, but I’m not inclined to do that – for now.
Saturday’s Theme Music
My cats were singing this to me last night and this morning. Okay, it may have only seemed like they were singing (or humming, or purring) it because everywhere I went, and everything I did, they were watching me.
Here are The Police with Sting’s composition, “Every Breath You Take.”
Friday’s Theme Music
I like Oasis, and found myself singing “Wonderwall” to myself this morning.
And all the roads we have to walk are winding
And all the lights that lead us there are blinding
There are many things that I would
Like to say to you
But I don’t know how
Because maybe
You’re gonna be the one that saves me
And after all
You’re my wonderwall.
Of course, I was singing it to a cat. Technically, that means I wasn’t singing it to myself. The cat seemed to like it. Of course, they were waiting to be fed.
“Plastics.”
“Plastics.”
Some of you will read that one word sentence and recognize the allusion to The Graduate. It comes to mind now as how accurate it was in the movie.
Plastics was said to be the future. The writers (novelist Charles Webb and screenwriters Buck Henry and Calder Willingham) were prescient. Plastics are everywhere, floating and polluting the oceans and other aspects of our environment, and is now found to be in bottled drinking water. What’s that mean to our health? The effects are being studied.
We’ll find out in the future, won’t we?
Thursday’s Theme Music
I dreamed last night that I was driving a convertible with the top down on an oceanside road. I was alone, and the weather was gorgeous. The road could been the stretch of Pacific Coast Highway between Big Sur and Carmel. I saw myself and the scene from different angles, like I was in a movie montage, but I don’t know what kind of car it was. No one else was seen in the dream, just me, happily driving. (Almost seems like a pretty metaphor for my writing process.) This song, “One of Us,” performed by Joan Osborn was playing on the car radio during this dream montage.
Cheers
