Category: pop culture

Monday’s Theme Music

I was at a meet and greet in Germany in early 1988 when I first heard of this group. The meet and greet was with allied military services who were in a similar business to my unit. Among them were a couple of Australians. We had a beer together, talking music as we drank. They mentioned a group called The Church.

I’d not heard of The Church but said I’d look into them. The Church was supposed to be new wave. A few weeks after this, I hear this song on the radio, “Under the Milky Way.” The DJ says it’s The Church, from Australia. I thought, I must be confusing something, because that song didn’t sound new wave. I figured I must have misunderstood someone, or two groups named The Church existed. Eventually, as the Internet developed and things could be looked up, I checked out The Church, and reconciled myself to understanding this was the group the Australians mentioned.

I like this song, but I honestly have heard little else by The Church. I always enjoy Australian pop music — which is the comment I made that night, which got the conversation rolling.

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Today’s song is from the movie, “St. Elmo’s Fire.” The song is, “St. Elmo’s Fire (Man in Motion)”.

I’ve never seen the entire film. It didn’t grab me. I found it vague, with problems manufactured by unthinking, vapid, self-absorbed characters. Perhaps I should have given it a greater viewing.

I knew the song mostly because of FM Stereo. It came out in nineteen eighty-five. I was doing a lot of traveling, then, putting over forty-thousand miles on my car during the year. So I heard it a lot. I didn’t think much of the song, but it’s stuck in my head, so I present it to you.

Cheers

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Saturday’s Theme Music

I ordered a mocha today (four shots, twelve ounces, thanks), and this song popped into my head.

It came out the week before I traveled to Paris for business with the long-gone company, LuMend. I was a marketing manager. We’d been working on peripheral and coronary products to address chronic total occlusions, and doing trials in Australia and Brazil. Now we wanted to start a marketing study in Europe.

I was in Paris for ten days, staying at the old Hilton by the Eiffel Tower. I often sang this song to myself and my co-workers. I, of course, substituted words. The song is “Livin’ la Vida Loca,” which became “Livin’ la Vida Mocha,” in my version. The switch was made because I was, and remain, fond of mocha coffee drinks.

Here’s the real song, with Ricky Martin, from nineteen ninety-eight.

Cheers

 

 

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Friday’s Theme Music

We averted a small disaster today. While walking yesterday, I heard a train blowing its horn. I instantly twisted a long-lost song in my mind:

“There is nothing like a train,

Nothing in this world.

There is nothing you can name,

that is anything like a train.”

It was a sorry parody of “There Is Nothing Like A Dame” from the musical, “South Pacific.” I know the song and the rest of the soundtrack well, thanks to Mom. She had it on vinyl, thirty-three R.P.M., and often played it on the stereo while cleaning the house. Her house was — is — spotless, let me tell you. I heard that song frequently.

My parody remained in my headstream until late last night. I thought I’d need to post about it to relieve get me out of the loop. Then Rod Stewart singing “Maggie May” replaced it.

So, here we are. That’s Ronnie Wood on guitar. Take it, Rod.

 

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Thursday’s Theme Music

“Clocks.” By Coldplay. Just because these lyrics are looping through my streams:

The lights go out, and I can’t be saved.
Tides that I tried to swim against
Have brought me down upon my knees.
Oh I beg, I beg and plead, singing

Come out of things unsaid,
Shoot an apple off my head and a
Trouble that can’t be named,
A tiger’s waiting to be tamed, singing

So here you go. Sing along. “The lights go out, and I can’t be saved. Tides that I tried to swim against, have brought me down upon my knees.”

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Wednesday’s Theme Song

Sometimes I encounter someone who insist that I explain who I am as though I perused a menu and created myself  à la carte. Sorry, but I didn’t actually have that many choices about how I was born. Although I’ve lived with myself for over sixty-one years, I still mystify myself. There are places and spaces in me that I can’t explain. So I fall back on this helpful song by Lady Gaga: “Born This Way.”

Yes, it’s a bit campy, and has been criticized for some of its words and not being fresh enough, but, damn it, it’s a good song to hear and when you’re tired of fighting with the world and just want to stand up and give it the finger. Sing along, if you feel it.

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Coffee Quotes

I stumbled across a page of quotes about coffee today as I navigated the labyrinth of the web. My favorite is the Sinclair post I set as my featured image. Here are the others, and a link to the page, found at WritersWrite. h/t to Amanda Patterson for coming up with this selection.

  1. Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee? ~Albert Camus
  2. I have measured out my life with coffee spoons. ~T.S. Eliot
  3. It is inhumane, in my opinion, to force people who have a genuine medical need for coffee to wait in line behind people who apparently view it as some kind of recreational activity. ~Dave Barry
  4. I like my coffee with cream and my literature with optimism. ~Abigail Reynolds
  5. Coffee is the best thing to douse the sunrise with. ~Terri Guillemets
  6. No matter what historians claimed, BC really stood for ‘Before Coffee’. ~Cherise Sinclair
  7. Many people claim coffee inspires them, but, as everybody knows, coffee only makes boring people even more boring. ~Honoré de Balzac
  8. I’d rather take coffee than compliments just now. ~Louisa May Alcott
  9. That’s something that annoys the hell out of me- I mean if somebody says the coffee’s all ready and it isn’t. ~J.D. Salinger
  10. In Seattle, you haven’t had enough coffee until you can thread a sewing machine while it’s running. ~Jeff Bezos

Do you have a favorite coffee quote, writers?

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Monday’s Theme Music

Today’s song, “Tin Man,” was released in nineteen seventy-four. Among the trillion events happening that year, I graduated high school and joined the U.S. Air Force.

The next year found me married, and the year after that, I was stationed  at Clark Air Base in the Philippines. Our news sources were mostly the Pacific Stars & Stripes newspaper and the Armed Forces Radio and Television Services. Our local affiliate was the Armed Forces Network (AFN) Philippines. The big thing that always stood out about AFN is that they were constantly warning us about habus and finding unexploded ordinance.

I enjoyed “Tin Man” and America’s other offerings a great deal. I learned more about them because the group met because their fathers were serving in the Air Force. Thus, The Stars & Stripes and AFN carried quite a bit about them.

Here’s “Tin Man.” It’s a mellow song. Hope you’re having a mellow day, and not deeply into the many messes going on in the world.

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Saturday’s Theme Music

*snark alert* I’m plagued with Christmas music for some reason today. I heard some good songs yesterday. They’re good to me; your preferences are probably different. The performers included Burl Ives, Johnny Mathis, and the Eagles. The person I was with said, “I like this song. They’re playing good music today.” Like they were telepathic, innit?

“Yes, I like Burl Ives and his cover of “Frosty the Snowman,”” I said.

“I don’t know who that is,” the other said. He’s about thirty-five years old. “Is that who it was?”

Oh, generation dagger! I’ve slipped it into others, when I was young. Now I try keeping it sheathed. I asked him about the previous two songs, by Johnny Mathis and the Eagles. They knew who the Eagles were, but didn’t know that was them playing. Johnny Mathis was another dagger.

Out of this morass, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts arrived with a song for the day. Her group hit the music scene as we were living on Okinawa. Music coverage by AFRTS was split among all the genres, so information was sparse. Most rock/pop tidbits were delivered via Casey Kasem and American Top 40, played on Sundays. When I eventually returned to America (after a few years) and saw Joan Jett on MTV at a friend’s house, I realized that she’d been part of the Runaways. Yes, that’s how slow I can be.

“I Hate Myself for Loving You” is one of my favorite J2 offerings. It has fine hard-rock harmonics, with ironic lyrics that are revealing about human nature, and the nature of our desires and attractions. You can hear Desmond Child’s influence, and recognize the similarity of the songs he wrote/co-wrote for Kiss, Aerosmith, Bon-Jovi, and others. Give it a listen.

From nineteen eighty-eight.

 

 

 

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Friday’s Theme Music

George Benson had taken us with earlier albums and hits, but his take of “On Broadway” always enlivened the scene when it played. Released in nineteen seventy-eight, when it came on, everyone jumped up, dancing and singing along with it, and trying to scat with Benson.

Good song for a chilly Friday.

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