Tag: 1965

Wednesday’s Theme Music

Happy National Moon Day. Yes, it’s the day in America so many children relish, the one where you are allowed and even encouraged to moon people. By that, I mean that you arrange your clothes to expose your rear and – hold on, someone is trying to tell me something.

Oh. I’m told that I’m wrong about Moon Day. It’s about something else entirely.

In honor of this day, The Neurons are singing the Beach Boys 1965 cover of “Barbara Ann”. I refuse to ask them why. They’re sitting there, smirking at me, sniggering and giggling like children, and I won’t give them the pleasure of asking what on Earth prompted this song on Moon Day. I do enjoy the song. Singing it entertains me. Good way to have fun by myself, although I have other ways, too.

It is July 20, 2022, the anniversary of the first man on the moon. I do remember watching it unfold on my color TV alone in the game room and thought it pretty cool. I’d already built models of the LEM and the rest, so you know I was into it.

Today is also Wednesday. It’s currently 22 C after an overnight low of 62 F. Today’s high will reach almost 38 C today after achieving 97 F yesterday. No clouds are out there. I was outside about twenty minutes before sunrise this morning, looking for Papi as I’d not seen nor heard him all night. He didn’t show up until after 5:52, when the sun was breaching the sky in a place that I couldn’t see. Sunset will be at 8:42 PM.

You know about COVID-19 and precautions, testing, etc? I hope so by now. So, you know, do them. Okay, coffee awaits. We have liftoff.

Peace out.

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Thursday’s Theme Music

A Steve McQueen sort of quiet cool reigns today, Thursday, March 24, 2022. The sun spit some rays into the sky at 7:08 AM. Light came up but warmth is still to follow. We’re sitting at 47 F but are expecting a high of 74. Hazy blue rules over us, with a few larger clouds peeking around the ridges but it looks like we’re set for a day of sunshine. Sunset comes at 7:28 PM.

The cats are quiet today. Sick cat lingers on. He gave me a scare last night. I’d let him out the front to enjoy some fresh air. I was with him, then turned my back for a minute, and he was gone. I thought, I’ll probably never see him again. Broke my heart thinking of him out there in the cold, waiting to die. I cursed myself for my stupidity. My spouse and I donned flashlights and walked around, searching and calling for forty-five minutes. He neither showed nor answer. Then, lo’, two hours later, he was back at the front door.

I’ve been meditating on of my friend’s death, and my short history with him. I’ve only known him ten years. He was an intelligent, earnest, amiable guy. I met him through Brains on Beer, an informal group of retired scientists and engineers who like to drink beer and talk science, the arts, and politics. I was member number seven. Only one of the original six remain, but we’ve managed to expand to twelve. I advocated setting up a gofundme to take donations in his name for some of his charities, and the others agreed, so I’ll be doing that today.

These losses — the friend and sick cat’s waning battle — set me on a mental memory roadshow. Before living on Oregon, I lived in California for fourteen years. After moving to Oregon, business kept taking me to California for a few more years, so I have California on my mind. My neurons noticed and now “California Dreamin'” by the Mamas and the Papas (1965) in on the morning mental music stream’s PA system. It’s been featured as theme music before, but it’s a solid song and will work again. I like this video of it from the Ed Sullivan Show. Hope you enjoy it, too.

And now the neurons are whispering, “Pardon, sir, might we have a bit o’coffee for the blood?” Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the shots as needed. Have a better one. Cheers

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Sunrise came at 7:34 in Ashland on this twenty-first day of 2021, 01/21/21, and sunset, if the machinery works right will come at 5:11 PM. While it’s 37 F now, a high of 53 is expected. It’s a cloudy sky, which usually accompanies warmer temperatures at this time of year. It’s when the sky is clearest that it becomes coldest.

I enjoyed the musical entertainment provided the nation during President Biden’s inauguration celebrations. Several stood out for me, but I especially soaked in John Legend singing “Feeling Good”. Pow. Knocked me into the next year.

Demi Lovato covering Bill Withers’ “Lovely Day” was another performance that touched me. Bill Withers was from my area. I lived outside of Beckley, WV, for three years, graduating there, and Bill was raised there, so he’s our native son. Covers of his songs always stirs memories of him and that area and time.

What of you? Any particular song or performance touch you in a way?

The inauguration day’s celebration theme was pretty much new day, new times, right? That’s what I took. Maybe I missed the mark. I’m thinking, how do you top any of those songs as theme music.

Well, today, I don’t. I’m just listening to John Legend “Feeling Good”. I’m familiar with the Nina Simone 1965 cover, but I’m staying with John Legend’s powerful rendition.

It’s a new dawn
It’s a new day
It’s a new life for me, yeah
It’s a new dawn
It’s a new day
It’s a new life for me, ooh
And I’m feeling good

h/t to Genius lyrics.com

Hey, stay positive. Test negative. Wear a mask and get the vaccine. A new day is coming. A new day has arrived. Feel it?

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

I was vacuuming yesterday and writing in my head when a song, “You Got Your Troubles”, plugged into the ol’ mental stream. Although I knew the lyrics and melody, looking up the year and artist was required. I guess it was the 1960s but that’s a broad range. Wikipedia informed me that the performing artists were The Fortunes, and it was a hit in 1965, when I was nine. The Fortunes had two other hits that I recognized, so I’m pretty embarrassed that I didn’t know who they are.

“You Got Your Troubles” is a song despairing a romantic breakup. Those words, though, you got your troubles, I’ve got mine, slip nicely into the 2020/2021 maelstrom. ‘Bout the only folks who don’t seem to have troubles are the super wealthy, who are becoming superwealthier as others cope with their troubles. My troubles, of course, aren’t deep. I’m more like a cat who’s dissatisfied with the treat offered to them, or a writer disappointed in how a story is going. Nothing deep or serious, other than irritation that we have an outgoing POTUS living in an alternate reality attempting to drag more in with him. There are trombies who eagerly swim along with him, exclaiming, “Yes, let’s go to the alternate reality and everything will be happy! Give me more Kool Aid.”

Stay positive (as I do, ha, ha), test negative, wear a mask, and vaccinate. Here’s the music.

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Time for slide back Sunday.

With time slipping away (fewer markers out there to force me to pay attention), I often find that another day has fled. Muddering about it, I thought about how day flows into night and night flows into day, distinguished by weather and light changes, sleep cycles, eating, and clothing changes.

Out of that came a 1965 song by the Kinks, “All Day and All of the Night”, which amused me. (Easily amused? That’s me. Check.) Trawling the Youtube uncovered a 1965 television appearance where they played it. Seeing that black and white footage, hearing that sound quality, admiring their haircuts definitely slides me back to a more relaxed time (primarily because I was just a wee shithead at that point).

Here we go.

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Sunday’s Theme Music

“This Diamond Ring” (cover by Gary Lewis and the Playboys, 1965) began playing in my head as I reconstructed and evaluated my dream, which was about theater, wine, food, and clothes. Why that song, I wondered, going over the lyrics. It’s all about broken promises and lost dreams, and gathered, that must be what the dreams were about, a depressing thought at its face.

Anyway, now the song is lodged in the stream. Sharing it will release it, so here you are. Watch the video, as their performance is interesting. (So is the setting.) (Such a simpler time.) Several of those musicians look like, “Where am I, where am I,” is caught in their thinking streams.

Cheers

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

This one is courtesy of Hyundai Sonata’s “Smaht Pahk” Superbowl LIV ad. Here’s the ad:

 

As the commercial ends, the strands of “Dirty Water” by the Standells (1965) started playing. It squirted into my stream and scythed into an infinity loop. A share is required to release the song back into the wild.

 

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Someone’s overheard comment (complaint) about their daily-weekly-monthly routines about doing the same thing and wondering where have all the good times gone brought home today’s theme music.

I’ve selected “Where Have All The Good Times Gone” for today, and went with the Van Halen cover (1982). A friend of mine who was a big VH fan liked this song but thought it was a little simple. I told him that I thought it was better than the Kinks’ version, which was the original, from somewhere in the mid-sixties. (Turned out to be from 1965.) He wasn’t aware that it was a cover, thinking that it was a VH original, but decided, that’s why it was such a simple song.

On reflection, each version represents how pop rock sounded at the time of their release.

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

I’d been blue last week, you know, a few days of WTF and WTH coursing through me as I read news, experienced disappointment and weariness, took a jaunt down what’s-the-point lane, and pouted a bit in the pity-poor-me cul-de-sac. Yeah, a helluva neighborhood. Other streets include, who-cares boulevard and nobody-gives-a-damn avenue. We share drinks at the I’m-tired-of-this-shit cafe.

Some blues music periodically trickled through the street. Eventually, a song that was released in 1965, when I was nine, gained momentum in the stream. That would be Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues”. I listened to covers from Red Hot Chili Peppers, Harry Nilsson, and others, good work all, but the original’s rhythm and tone carried me most.

So here it be, from me to thee, courtesy of technology and Youtube. Gotta admit, watching young Bob and his signs puts a smile on my face.

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Out walking after my writing session yesterday, I spotted a woman walking across the street. I don’t know why, but a Beatles song tripped into my stream.

The song, “Day Tripper”, was released in 1965. I was nine. It’s one of my favorite fab four songs. It’s the first of their songs that I attempted to play on a guitar. I was nine and not a focused person. When I couldn’t immediately play it like it was on the record, I quit.

I don’t know what the song is about, whether it’s drugs, traveling, or just relationships. Maybe it’s all of the above. I still enjoy it, all these years later.

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