Tag: 1969

Today’s Theme Music

We…sometimes face moments and events that drive us to think and compare the best and the worst. It seems like a daily ritual for some. Others are able to take these thoughts and inspect them and present them as something that’s at once pain, and a salve for the pain.

That’s what I hear in this song. It’s almost a stream-of-consciousness examination of a realization that’s been growing and building until she can no longer turn away. That leaves her with facing a truth.

Truths are hard to face.

Here is Etta James with ‘I’d Rather Go Blind,’ from 1968. It’s a good, reflective song to sing as you walk and wonder about the state of yourself and the state of the world, and what has been, and what’s to come.

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Today’s Theme Music

It’s a springly day again. Yes, Winter still wields a razor edge wind. Circling and prowling the valley, his blade sometimes scores your cheeks and hands. The sunshine helps keep him away. Everyone believes there is one Winter but there are several. The more aggressive ones that roam the U.S. have gone East. The one remaining with us makes many threats but he’s mostly benign. Sunshine intimidates him and drives him into the shadows.

Sunday, of course, is quiet. This area, southern Oregon, is a realm of traditional American values that developed in the last century plus as trade unions successfully campaigned for having weekends off. Sunday mornings are not for working unless it’s an essential service. The list of essential services has grown, and fewer people dress and go to Church, but Sunday remains a quieter and more relaxed morning than the week’s other days.

Into that scenario, I introduce a little Led Zeppelin. From ‘Led Zeppelin II’ and 1969, it’s time once again to ‘Ramble On’, a very good walking song.

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Today’s Theme Music

“This is a song Charles Manson stole from the Beatles. We’re stealing it back.”

I was thirteen in 1969. The Tate-LaBianca murders exploded over the news. I remember newspaper headlines, photographs and television news coverage of the Manson Family actions and the subsequent investigations as clearly as I remember the assassinations of RFK, JFK and MLK, the Watts riots, or the Apollo moon landing. Helter Skelter became the symbol of the murders because the words were written in blood at the scene. The murders became books and movies under the name ‘Helter Skelter’.  It wasn’t an accident. Charles Manson believed and taught the Beatles’ ‘White Album’, including ‘Helter Kelter’, contained coded messages for him and his followers.

If you can escape the murderous connection, the lyrics are good to sing as you’re walking around:

When I get to the bottom I go back to the top of the slide
And I stop and I turn and I go for a ride
And I get to the bottom and I see you again

The song, written by Paul McCartney, would never be heard the same for many of us. Here is U2, trying to change it back for us in 1988.

 

 

 

 

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