A friend related her tale of venturing out to a store. Her recounting triggered jungle songs. So here we are – “Welcome to the Jungle” (GNR, 1987), “Jungle Boogie” (Kool and the Gang, 1973, here on “Soul Train”), and “Run Through the Jungle” (CCR, 1970). I think each song speaks for its niche with its musical style, but each convey the jungle with slight variations. Behind them all, though, is the sense that the civilized human scene is a jungle of wild menace. Kind of like that out there, although I haven’t heard stories of violence. I guess it’s not as much of a jungle as it was on, say, black Friday.
Walkin’ round the southern hills of our town, thinking through writing, drifting through music and news, I considered songs that felt right for the time. They came up mostly from superficial connections. Like, “Baba O’Riley” (aka “Teenage Wasteland”) (1971) by the Who sprang into the music stream because I was up in the fields.
But then, the social distancing – hunker down – quarantine – self-isolation aspect whispered at me about songs about people knocking at the door. With those songs, I thought of Rod Stewart with “Legs” (“Who’s that knocking on the door? It’s gotta be quarter to four.”) Then came Men at Work with “Who Can It Be Now?”. Finally, my stream settled on an oldie (yes, even older than the cited songs).
Several performers have done “I Hear You Knockin'” but I went with the one I’m most familiar with through poprock radio, the one by Dave Edmunds, which was released in 1970. Other than the lyrics about hearing someone knocking at the door, and telling them they can’t come in, this blues song about being left alone has little to do with our coro sit. But still, it’s a good song.
“The trouble with you is the trouble with me,” I thought. I was dealing with a cat (“You don’t want THAT food? What is it that you want, because I don’t understand”), but it applies to life partners, politics…yeah.
With that line of lyrics, hello, “Casey Jones”. The 1970 Grateful Dead song jumped head first into my thinking stream.
Not a bad song for the day. While it’s a song about a train engineer high on cocaine with a train coming toward him on the wrong track, I always see it as a metaphor, modern warnings to all of us. Watch what you’re doing, give it some thought. Be alert because the potential for trouble remains all around us.
Walking, of course, requires a lot more vigilance than the drives are employing. This seems especially true with weather shifts. Weather shifts change energy; drivers, feeling it, become distracted. Just my theory, but I see it all the time, you know? Lot of anecdotal evidence.
With COVID-19 also traveling person to person, nation to nation and town to town, it’s a good time to be aware of that threat and mitigating steps you can employ.
I was working at the community table yesterday in the coffee shop. Another couple joined me. Plenty of space, no prob.
The community table is usually used by people powering up ‘puters. This company were only sitting and chatting. They were to my left. She was closer. He was keeping his voice low and demonstrating a pensive, almost furtive air, as if afraid of being overheard.
I don’t pay them — or anyone at the table — much attention; I’m there to do my thang. But I do often hear on some level. It’s part of the background blend of the coffee house business environment. He was complaining about another woman, and what she said and did. (Wife? Sister? Friend?) Whatever she did (his voice dropped into the bowels of softness when he addressed this) had him very upside. (Mother? But he looked in his fifties..) (Co-worker?)
Then the woman said, “You and I know what she will do, and does do. Others won’t know until they experience.”
“I still need to warn them.”
“I know, I understand, I understand.”
Drinks were consumed in silence for a little time. (Ah, secrets. Insights. The things that we know that others don’t.)
I left soon after (nothing to do with them, just finished for the day). Walking along, thinking about my writing, etc., (clouds were moving in, and the sun’s heat was missed), I slipped back onto her comment, “You and I know.” That planted the seed of an old Dave Mason song, “Only You and I know”.
I had to think a while as I walked about what year that song must’ve come out. Fitting it into my personal history, I struggled – ’69, ’70, 71? Had to wiki it upon my return: 1970.
That prompted a death check to confirm Dave Mason is still kicking (he is, seventy-three years old). I enjoy the song (along with the Bonnie and Delaney version) but haven’t heard it in a looonnng time. So I fixed that last night, and share it with you today.
This one came into the stream out of nowhere. I call it nowhere, but it’s connections in my brain, innit? Sometimes, the how and why of deliveries to the stream is self-evident; other times, the connections are deep or nebulous, or too esoteric for the conscious mind to easily hunt down.
Either way, I like to go with the flow. So, today, from 1970, we have John Fogerty with “Long As I Can See The Light”. It’s post CCR, but an interesting cover, from 2010.
I was outside, watching light seep out of the day. Purples and grays stole in, and then darkness. Solstice – the longest night for us northern dwellers – was almost here. And as I watched, thinking about the fading daylight and growing night, I remembered a song.
Several groups made “(I know) I’m Losing You”, but it was the Rare Earth’s version from 1970 (when I became fourteen years old) that sprang to mind. “Your love is fading. I feel it fade.”
No, it wasn’t love fading; just the light, and it’s going to be coming back soon.
Ah, an old favorite, from about fifty years ago. Here’s Humble Pie with a 1972 cover of Jr Walker’s “Road Runner”. It speaks to being on the road yesterday, and then doing some hard hiking.
Some days I wonder and worry about it all. Then comes a day when I decide, screw it; let it roll.
From 1970, The Doors with “Roadhouse Blues”. Keep your eyes on the road and your hands upon the wheel. The future’s uncertain and the end is always near.
Began streaming this 1970 song yesterday afternoon during my après-writing walk-about. “For united we stand, divided we fall, and if our backs should ever be against the wall, we’ll be together, together, you and I.”
Although I often get down (trigger a background streaming of Kool & The Gang performing “Jungle Boogie” (1973)) by world events, especially with the rise of white supremacy and a growing impression that large segments of America’s population are concerned about only themselves, leading to a de facto policy of screw everyone else, and the Earth, too, singing “United We Stand” by Brotherhood of Man (1970) lifted my spirits.
Reading news about the Middle-East puts me in a martial mood. Military.com wondered if war between the U.S. and Iran is inevitable, and have thoughts on how that war would play out.
*snark alert* I know that most believe that war with Iran can be avoided because John Bolton is on Trump’s team. One of the architects of PNAC, Bolton was a prominent voice in demands for the U.S. invasion of Iraq. He thinks that went well. He also wants preemptive war with North Korea. With Bolton in place, surely the lessons of other wars will be learned and war will be averted. *end snark*
All that reflecting introduced a 1970 Black Sabbath tune called “War Pigs”. A taste of the lyrics that Ozzie sings:
Politicians hide themselves away They only started the war Why should they go out to fight? They leave that role to the poor
Time will tell on their power minds Making war just for fun Treating people just like pawns in chess Wait ’til their judgement day comes Yeah!
Michael Seidel, writer 