Tag: 1969

Friday’s Theme Music

“Across the Universe,” written by John Lennon, and performed by the Beatles.

When I hear the song lyrics, I often think of the writing process. For example:

Images of broken light which dance before me like a million eyes
They call me on and on across the universe
Thoughts meander like a restless wind
Inside a letter box they
Tumble blindly as they make their way
Across the universe

h/t to AZLyrics.com

Things flow and bounce into us, and we write to create order from that nonsense. Sometimes, we succeed.

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Friday’s Theme Music

Boy, do I remember first hearing this song.

Nineteen sixty-nine, thirteen years old. The Rolling Stones were one of the hottest, biggest rock groups around. And this song, “Gimme Shelter,” stopped me with its opening. Haunting, arresting, it gave me pause to hear what was going to come next, revealing intense, moody, and angry lyrics.

Just like nineteen sixty-nine.

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Today’s Theme Music

Today, Monday, August twenty-first, is the great eclipse day. People in Oregon, where I reside, are almost all beside themselves with anticipation. Today’s theme music is naturally related to the eclipse.

Numerous songs about the eclipse exist. I was drawn to “Eclipse,” by Pink Floyd, from their “Dark Side of the Moon” album. It’s a life-long favorite album, well, since I was seventeen, when it came out. The final words speak to me:

All that you touch
All that you see
All that you taste
All you feel
All that you love
All that you hate
All you distrust
All you save
All that you give
All that you deal
All that you buy
Beg, borrow or steal
All you create
All you destroy
All that you do
All that you say
All that you eat
And everyone you meet
All that you slight
And everyone you fight
All that is now
All that is gone
All that’s to come
And everything under the sun is in tune
But the sun is eclipsed by the moon

It’s a beautiful way of expressing that everything is connected while capturing the irony, everything is in tune, but the moon is eclipsing the sun, so…what has happened?

But then, awakening and looking out into the backyard, where sunshine first appears, I thought, here comes the sun, and wondered how many people at different times of this day have stood, watching the sky, and will say or think, “Here comes the sun.” With those thoughts, it became my choice for today’s music.

“Here Comes the Sun,” the Beatles, nineteen sixty-nine. It’s really appropriate for post-eclipse singing.

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Today’s Theme Music

This was an interesting oddity that I found on the net.

Thirteen years old, I was just getting into groups like Cream. Cream was Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker, and Jack Bruce. I knew who Glen Campbell was, of course; being in America in nineteen sixty nine, Campbell was difficult to avoid. He was well-accomplished, with well-known hit songs like “Gentle On My Mind,” “By the Time I Get To Phoenix,” and “Wichita Lineman.” By sixty-nine, he was hosting television shows.

This video is of Glen Campbell hosting a show and introducing Cream in nineteen sixty-nine. I never saw this video before today, and it’s definitely a ride on the wayback machine. Cream, so accustomed to playing stadiums with deafening levels of sound, seem strangely muted here. The contrast between their long-haired hippie appearance and Glen Campbell’s look is striking, and can easily be a metaphor for the difference in the America that was, and the America that was coming. Look at the set’s simple production, as well. It’s a far cry from “American Idol.”

Take a look to moderately far back in modern America, to nineteen sixty-nine, with Glen Campbell, and Cream.

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Today’s Theme Music

Joni Mitchell wrote it, and sang it, but I remember the cover by CSN&Y.

The year of nineteen sixty-nine found me a budding thirteen year old rocking hippie wannabe living in a suburb of Pittsburgh, PA. My pants were bell-bottoms, and my thick hair was shoulder-length. My mustache and goatee were coming in without any prodding (Mom thought my face was dirty), and I was drifting toward the counter-culture.

I had some problems, though; can you be counter-culture and madly love cars like the Corvette, Jaguar XK-E, Ford GT, and Cobra, or the Porsche 917s and Ferrari 512s racing at LeMans, and the Can-Am and Formula 1 racers? That seems counter-counter-culture, as does being a Pirates fan and idolizing Roberto Clemente. But then, isn’t what what thirteen is all about, expanding your thoughts about where you’re at, what you’re learning, and where you’re heading?

Besides being my thirteenth year, nineteen sixty-nine is more frequently remembered in America for the Vietnam War, protests against it, President Nixon, the moon landing, “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” “Midnight Cowboy,” “Easy Rider,” “True Grit,” the Miracle Mets, and Woodstock, as in the Woodstock Music & Art Fair. I wasn’t there (at the fair), but I heard a helluva lot about it afterwards. Part of that was because of Joni’s song, so I offer it here to you, to remember or learn of that festival that began on August 15, forty-eight years ago.

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Can You Remember?

On this day, the moon landing took place.

I remember it. I was a newly-minted thirteen-year-old. I watched the historic event downstairs. Downstairs was the cellar, or basement, as we called it, in Penn Hills, Pennsylvania. That’s where the family room, laundry room, garage, and my bedroom were located. It used to flood when it rained hard. Fortunately, the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, suburb only experienced rain about half of the year.

The lights were off in the family room, and cool air bathed the space. Sitting on the couch, the one that used to be upstairs before we bought new living room furniture, I watched Eagle land on the moon on a big Magnavox console color television. I always thought the television was stolen and purchased from a fence. Even when new, it had a small area in the upper right corner where the picture tube – televisions had picture tubes, back then – appeared cracked. At least, what it showed was a distorted bubble of rainbow colors.

It was good enough to watch the moon landing, though. There wasn’t even a need to rotate the outdoor antenna or adjust the rabbit ears. All three major networks were carrying the event. We only had the three, then. Cable news wasn’t carrying it, because cable hadn’t proliferated around the nation like a blackberry bramble gone wild, and there weren’t any national cable news channels. They were still in our future.

We were excited about the future, despite what was happening and had happened. Perhaps I was only excited because I was young. The Vietnam war still continued, and Nixon was in the White House. Watergate was still a few years away. So was our first gasoline crises since World War II. Microwaves were only emerging, and we mostly played music on forty-five and thirty-three R.P.M. vinyl records. We also listened to music on radios, especially in our cars, especially A.M. It was pretty impressive that our old Dodge had a push-button radio. Later on, after the first man walked on the moon and made his famous utterance, I went outside and gazed up at the stars, wondering what the future would bring.

All in all, it was a pretty cool night.

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Today’s Theme Music

It’s a funky Friday, perfect for those funky musicians, Sly and the Family Stone.

This was a perfect song to sing along when I was thirteen in nineteen sixty-nine. It’s even better now as a joyful anthem for an adult. Still, there were always questions about what in the world was he actually singing. I spent time when that song came on, to pause and listen, trying to decode the lyrics. They still don’t make a sense to me, but I still love them:

Stiff all in the collar
Fluffy in the face
Chit chat chatter tryin’
Stuffy in the place
Thank you for the party
But I could never stay
Many thangs is on my mind
Words in the way

Other lyrics made perfect, beautiful poetic sense to me:

Flamin’ eyes of people fear
Burnin’ into you
Many men are missin’ much
Hatin’ what they do
Youth and truth are makin’ love
Dig it for a starter, now
Dyin’ young is hard to take
Sellin’ out is harder

h/t to MetroLyrics

Let’s get funky with “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Again).” It was years before I learned the correct title and the reveal that it was a mondegreen. So sue me; I was a kid.

 

 

 

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Today’s Theme Music

I dreamed I was in 2025. I’ll tell you, I looked good for 2025.

With some friends, we were discussing something that had happened in 1985 involving them. Their news amused and astonished me while it depressed and frustrated them, as a clerical error from the beginning of their military career in 1985 had just been found in 2025 and needed to be fixed.

Meanwhile, we were getting ready to party. Guests were already arriving. I don’t recall hearing any particular music in the dream. Awakening, I remembered this old hit, from 1969, ‘In the Year 2525’. Although I remember all the words and the melody, I realized that I didn’t know who performed the song or anything else about it. For this, I trusted Wikipedia.org.

Zager and Evans are the performers. This was their only hit. Rick Evans wrote the lyrics. His words, about what’s going to happen to Humans, are fascinating to contemplate. At least they were for a thirteen-year-old reading science fiction in 1969. This was the number one song in the U.S. when Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon.

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Today’s Theme Music

I put the mental music cloud on shuffle. ‘Fortunate Son’ by CCR was one of several songs that came up.

I know it from its initial release in 1969, when I was thirteen. CCR is an awesome band that gave us a hellabunch of memorable hits like ‘Suzie Q’, ‘Heard It Through the Grape Vine,’ Who’ll Stop the Rain,’ and ‘Run Through the Jungle’. Many of later generations know this ‘Fortunate Son’ because it’s been part of so many movies and video games about war or that era in America’s history, or from one of the many other performers who have covered the song. ‘Fortunate Son’ reflected the country’s mood as the Vietnam War raged and body bags came back. It also mirrors the trend that the world’s wealthy and powerful start and sustain war, but it’s the poor, minorities and those beguiled by their desire to do their patriotic duty that end up carrying the burden.

I was one of those last, joining in 1974, serving until 1995.

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Today’s Theme Music

An old favorite, Steve Winwood wrote this song. Blind Faith with Winwood on vocals, recorded and released the song in 1969. Others covered it multiple times. I like this live version from Guitar Crossroads, with Steve Winwood, Eric Clapton, Derek Trucks and Doyle Bramhill.

It’s a good walking song, and easy to sing in your head. Enjoy.

 

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