Tag: 1969

Sunday’s Theme Music

My dreams were were story dreams, basically telling of times when I seemed to live in other times and places. Some were futuristic, which were more interesting. I remember looking thinking in one dream, is this a dream, or knowledge of another life? It was fun and thrilling.

All that, on waking, took me on a walk through my characters’ happenings as I’m finishing April Showers 1921 (first draft). I’m tying final plot and action strings together. Some of it’s a little knotty.

From those musings popped the Neil Diamond 1966 song, “Solitary Man”. That song amused me because those characters don’t know that song and would never think of it, or apply it to their lives and situations.

Then, though, I sat down to drink my coffee and read the news. One story was about an alligator in Florida attacking a woman. Into my mental music stream jumped old song lyrics, “Gator got your granny. Chomp. Chomp, chomp.”

I had several things wrong with that song. I thought Jim Stafford performed it, but no, it was Tony Joe White. I thought the song’s title was “Folk Salad Annie” but it was “Polk Salad Annie”.

Geez. At least I had the year right, 1969. I decided that “Polk Salad Annie” was my choice for Sunday’s theme music.

Sorry, Neil.

 

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Sunday’s Theme Music

I was streaming several songs this morning, including “Timothy Leary” by the Moody Blues, but looking out the window at the emerging spring day and the hopes for more pleasant weather, I selected another oldie for today’s theme.

Here’s Friends of Distinction with “Grazing In The Grass” (1969). As Harry Elston sings, “What a trip just watching as the world goes past.” Perfect for a mellow-ish Sunday.

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Today’s music popped into the stream out of my dreams. An old favorite from 1969 by the Who, the song came out when I was thirteen. I was singing it to myself when I went into science class. Melissa, the girl behind me, said, “Do you like the Who?” Sure, yes, etc. Melissa invited me over to her house to listen to music.

Here’s “Pinball Wizard”. The song and memory all seem innocuous now, but it was a big deal when I was thirteen.

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Nathaniel Taylor, an actor who I knew from his role as Rollo on “Sanford and Son”, passed away a few days ago. He was eighty.

Many actors, politicians, writers, and sports and rock stars have passed away throughout my lifetime, along with cats, friends, family members, and people that I didn’t know. Some of them were killed in ways that we don’t like to think about.

Nathaniel Taylor’s death was another death. We all understand that death is gonna get us. Now, what happens beyond the door that death opens, well, we don’t know. We have a lot of theories, and we think that we have intangible proof that once we die, that’s it, game over. Then again, many ancient people believed that the sun revolved around the Earth, until we learned how to prove otherwise.

The death of someone who acted on a show when I was young triggered a stream of thought about how time seems to pass and prompted me to think, wow, 1969 was fifty years ago. Ain’t that somethin’?

Not really, right? It’s as arbitrary as weather in March, 2019, predictable but still surprising. Thinking ’bout all that nonsense kindled reflections on the music from then. Pop goes the song and out came the Rolling Stones with “Honky Tonk Women”.

Seems ’bout right.

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Remember the expression, sock it to me? Maybe yes, maybe no. Our culture, especially the pop side, is an ever-changing amoeba. We’ve populated our language with expressions. They catch fire, flash through, and die. Sometimes they’re distantly remembered, especially more often now, as technology aids her ability to look back and remember.

In this case, I thought of sock it to me as part of streaming “It’s Your Thing” to myself. I was singing to myself about the things I do, and the cats for the things that they do, and mentally, to my wife, in regard to the things that she does.

“It’s your thing.” We mostly address life through avenues as individual as ourselves, seeking to do our thing. Sometimes the things seem weird to others. They can’t deviate from their paths and doing their thing to acquire the freedom to understand that you’re doing your thing. If it’s not offensive and not inflicting pain on others, why do they want us all to conform and not do our thing?

So, I want to thank The Isley Brothers for doing their thing and performing this song. They were good at doing their thing, giving us some memorable funk. Sing along. Don’t worry; the words are easy to learn.

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

I didn’t recall when today’s theme music came out. I guessed about 1966, ’67. I was wrong. It was 1969. I remembered it the other day, when I was reading about Oregon’s marijuana glut a few days ago. Oregon has grown about one million pounds of surplus weed.

“Little Green Bag” by the George Baker Selection sounds weirdly like it’s from several different eras of pop-rock. Its beginning is often used to define cool in a movie or television show. A group moves in slow music, typically turning toward the camera as the music plays. This was done in Reservoir Dogs and the BBC television show, Red Dwarf. That song’s beginning, with its  bass line and isolated percussion, is cool.

I always remembered the next lines, though, thinking, hey, he’s looking for a bag of grass, as in marijuana. It sounded like he dropped it and has gone back for it, except he wasn’t singing bag, he was singing back, like, greenback. Which, I realized in one history leson in school, was dollars. So he was looking for dollars, not grass. That amused me, but perplexed my friends, who didn’t know what the hell song I was singing.

I’d never seen the video before today. They look very uncomfortable to me, like they’re self-consciously cringing inside.

Here it is, though. This is how we used to roll.

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Today’s theme music will not be for everyone. I’ll be surprised if anyone likes it, because that’s King Crimson’s nature.

The song, “21st Century Schizoid Man” (1969) was once said to be dedicated to Spiro T. Agnew.

I was biased against Agnew because my eighth grade civics teacher talked at great lengths about him, and didn’t like him at all. She particularly didn’t like how he attacked the press and its coverage of him. You might remember Agnew if you study twentieth century American politics or lived through the times. Agnew was Nixon’s first Veep until he was indicted and resigned after a criminal investigation into Maryland corruption. Whether the song is dedicated to Spiro T. “Ted” Agnew,  the song’s lyrics are few but memorable. Here’s a sample for you.

Cat’s foot iron claw
Neuro-surgeons scream for more
At paranoia’s poison door
Twenty first century schizoid man

h/t azlyrics.com

I’m thinking of this song today because I feel a little bit like a twenty-first century schzoid man on some days. Not today, particularly, but you know, some days.

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Sly and the Family Stone gave us a lot of awesome music when I was young. Today’s theme song, “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) is a favorite. This song’s deliberate mondegreen in its title delighted me. I always knew it as just “Thank You.” When I bought the greatest hits album (actually, on an eight-track tape that the machine ate within a year, but not before torturing the sound into a strange warbling), the full title baffled me. I’d always heard the lyrics correctly, not something that always happened with songs, but did happen at the time. That’s when I was first introduced to mondegreens.

That greatest hits album deserved that title, and that’s why it was worn out. That was common for that time, to wear music out because of its medium, whether it was tape or vinyl. Digital has made a huge difference.

Onward.

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Monday’s Theme Music

Monday o’memories – I stumbled across some ol’ Grand Funk Railroad stuff while browsing today, and remembered their first live album. It was my sister’s album, but I really enjoyed it, another step in my rock music education. It was a 33 RPM vinyl record that I played on Mom’s big Magnavox stereo that resided in the living room of our thirteen-hundred square foot ranch-style home in Penn Hills, PA. I only did this when I was home alone.

GFR was basic and almost primal in their early years before moving on to more of a pop sound. This first song, “Are You Ready”, epitomized their first year, I think – frenetic musical energy.

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Still slipstreaming on a nostalgia stream, I sang along to this 1969 hit. Released by Tommy James and the Shondells (I always wondered what a Shondell was), “Crystal Blue Persuasion” triggered some controversy during its time on the charts. Some believed that it was promoting or popularizing using crystal meth or a blue LSD that was popular at the time. I later read that it was inspired by the Bible!

Hah! Go figure.

 

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