Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
I’d only recently learned that Dave Mason wrote this song. I knew that Traffic had performed it, but in my heart, this song always belonged to Joe Cocker. Whichever group or performer does it, the song always lifts me up. I loved it when he sang it in concert.
Hope it lifts you today, wherever you are, whatever you’re doing. Here’s Joe Cocker with “Feeling Alright” from 1969.
Staying with Argent, I enjoy one of the early songs he wrote for The Zombies, “She’s Not There.” Although it’s been covered by many others, including Santana, I like the original.
It came out in 1964, when I was eight years old. I obviously learned it through repetitive play, mostly on the radio. Its melody seems reflective about the subject, while the words are bitter and wondering. I like the yin and yang feel to the combination.
Streaming from my childhood once again. I enjoy this song for its organ solo. Because of that, I prefer the long version. Thinking about the words, there aren’t many verses in the song. Most of us know the title lines: “Hold your head up.”
Here’s Argent, with Rod Argent (formerly of The Zombies, which must count for something) on keyboards.
I’ve always enjoyed this song’s beginning. A chorus, a softly strumming acoustic guitar, and then a gentle French horn, each remarkable by themselves but coming together to set you up in an introspective mood.
When I first heard it, I thought, “Is that a French horn? Who is playing it?” Because a French horn isn’t part of the Rolling Stones’ typical composition. Later, there’s organ and piano, and wondered, “Who is on those?” I learned it was Al Kooper on them, along with the French horn. Pretty cool.
The song is, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” a well-known Rolling Stones song from that terrific album, Let It Bleed. I like the song’s story-telling style, how it touches on different political and social elements of that period, rising rises from a reflection on a female addict into a rousing anthem for rebellion and struggle.
You can’t always get what you want
But if you try sometimes you just might find
You just might find
You get what you need
It’s a stirring rallying cry: try, and you might find that you get what you need, and it may not be what you thought it was.
Although this song is about a man’s relationship with a woman, I often thought of it in conjunction with my employers. “I have become cumbersome to this job.” Hah. Or, they’d become cumbersome to me. As the song says, walls were being built. And sometimes, I thought, despite the balance, this job experience has become cumbersome.
Here’s Seven Mary Three with “Cumbersome,” 1994.
America on Coffee posted a piece about Sister Sledge and “We Are Family.” Their post triggered a memory landslide.
The song came out in 1979. The Pittsburgh Pirates adopted it as their theme song. Led by Willie Stargell, they chased down a World Series championship.
Personally, I ended one life chapter and resumed another. I’d left the military to buy a restaurant and attend college in October, 1978. It didn’t work out well, so I headed back to the military. Preparing to leave for my assignment at Randolph-Brooks AFB in Texas, my car, a signal orange Porsche 914, burned up in the driveway. Terrific. I flew out alone to live in the barracks and save some money. My wife would fly out to join me in a few weeks.
I’d arrived at R-B AFB and was in transient quarters when Pittsburgh took on Baltimore in game seven of the World Series. It was a beautiful fall day in Texas. I listened on the room’s AM/FM clock radio as Pittsburgh won the game and the championship. The following Monday, I resumed my military career and kept going until I retired in 1995.
So much is written about money, right? About needing it, hating it, not having it, and wanting it. It’s the root of all evil, yet churches are on net, television, and radio, begging for it. It’s not the money, though, right? As Marie (Bernadette Peters) said in The Jerk, “I don’t care about losing the money. It’s losing all the stuff.”
Today’s song is one of my all-time favorites. Why? I like the clashing drums, screaming guitars, and scathing lyrics. “Money. Get back. Keep your hands off my stack.”
Here’s Pink Floyd with “Money” from waaayyy back when I was young.
I like songs about change. This particular song, “Change,” by Blind Melon, has lyrics that cling to my dreamer’s mind.
So I want to write my words on the face of today.
And then they’ll paint it
And oh as I fade away,
Hey look at him and where he is these days.
When life is hard, you have to change.
Getting old
Getting gray
Getting ripped off
underpaid
Getting sold
Second hand
AC/DC rocked us through the lessons of being in a rock band in their song, “It’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock ‘n’ Roll).” For most of us, short of being some amazingly talented person or born to wealth, it’s a long way to the top no matter what we’re trying to do.
Gotta love the bagpipes.
Ever hear about others’ success and feel that green-eyed monster called jealousy choking you? Yeah, it happens to me. Made me think of the Black Crowes’ song, “Jealous Again.” Released in 1990, I picked the album up after coming back to America in 1991. I have a Sony two hundred CD player. The player divides the CD into eight sections. I set one section aside as part of my current hits catalog. It was a good section, and I enjoyed putting it on shuffle while I worked and fooled around in the house. I enjoy this particular song because it features a throwback sound to me, like something out of the late sixties or early seventies on the pop rock side of music. Good song to sing as you wonder about and ponder life.
