Tag: 1971

Saturday’s Theme Music

I discovered myself humming “An Old Fashioned Love Song” (1971) performed by Three Dog Night this morning. The song came out in 1971. Cannae tell ya’ where it came from or what provoked the stream to pick it up and deliver it to my brain. Didn’t relate to anything that I dreamed last night.

The song didn’t stay with me long today, fading as I walked, but I enjoyed the visit and thought I’d share it with thee. Paul Williams wrote it. It was from a time when he wrote several romantic songs in the late 1960s and early 1970s, that others, like Helen Reddy and The Carpenters, had as hit records.

 

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Sunday’s Theme Music

A song fragment (songment?) had been trapped in my stream’s turbidity, no quite accreting enough other notes to become fully recalled, and driving me insane. All I could hear is the lead vocalist say, “Come on, move me.” Some guitar then followed.

Four A.M. this morning, the song finally fully entered my stream. It’s a little ditty called “Going Mobile” by a band called “The Who” that was released in 1971. Included on one of my favorite Who albums, Who’s Next, I don’t think of “Going Mobile” as their finest work, with interesting instrumentation lacing together some confusing and conflicting ideas.

Play the tape machine, make the toast and tea
When I’m mobile
Well, I can lay in bed
With only highway ahead
When I’m mobile, keep me moving

h/t to songlyrics.com

Being a literal sort, I always thought, how can he lay in bed with only highway ahead?

At least my brain can rest easy with the song remembered at last, and I can go on with other matters. Back to you, Jim.

 

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Apropos of nada, I awoke to the song “City of New Orleans” (1971) streaming through me. Written by Steve Goodman, made famous by Arlo Guthrie, it’s about how people pass time while riding across America on a train, what they pass, and how the train trip is a metaphor for change in America.

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Thursday’s Theme Music

4:30 A.M.

A cat’s activities brought me awake. As I tended him and then used the restroom, this song was streaming through my thoughts:

“Gypsies, tramps, and thieves, we’d hear it from the people of the town, they’d call us, gypsies, tramps, and thieves, but every night, the men would come around, and lay their money down.”

I don’t know why I was streaming Cher’s 1971 hit, “Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves”. I was dreaming, and I remember the dreams. There wasn’t a sound track, just conversations.

Was it something that the cat did? Don’t know. It sure doesn’t seem like dream music.

 

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Monday’s Theme Music

It seems like I’m staunchly streaming 1971. I’d heard “Every Picture Tells A Story” on the radio the other day and awoke with Rod Stewart singing “Maggie May” in my head.

With that, I thought about that year. Wasn’t watching much television that comes to mind. I listened to music, wrote, and drew. Infatuated with cars, I bought sketch pads and designed cars. I thought I might go into car designing, but things changed.

1976 found me in U.S.A.F. and stationed at Clark AB in the Philippines with the 3rd TFW. I was nineteen, and one of the guys I worked with was thirty-four. We were having a San Miguel beer at an office-sponsored BBQ when “Maggie May” came on the radio. He said, “Oh, I love this song.”

That surprised me. Before his confession, I’d only heard him listen to country and western music, so I started talking to him about music. We had a wonderful conversation, one that was eye-opening for me about judgments and the slide of time.

 

 

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

A classic of my youth by Marvin Gaye, I often feel this is the perfect song for the times. But as I’ve aged, read, and learned, I’ve recognized it could be the perfect song for many times and situations.

From 1971, here is “What’s Going On.”

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Alice Cooper came into my scene around 1969, when I was thirteen. Their Killer album, with its snake on a blood-red cover, was a favorite. From that album were “School’s Out” and “I’m Eighteen”. Those two songs were generally played a couple times a day at very loud volume for a few months after the album came out in 1971, but my favorite song on it was “Under My Wheels”.

Lyrics draw me, and did the same with this song. The delivery, backed by rising guitars and horns, becomes more frenetic and intense, which I thought was a reflection of some relationships. He wants one thing, she’s offering something else, and it’s all messed up.

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Monday’s Theme Music

Streaming back via the Wayback Machine to 1971, I was reminded of a lot of music that I enjoyed. The Who, Led Zeppelin, Rod Stewart, The Doors, Jethro Tull, Yes, John Lennon, Elton John…a solid foundation of future classics were out that year. Against all those albums was a simple sound delivered by Bad Finger. Right off of Straight Up, here’s “Baby Blue”.

I admit, the album disappointed me a bit. It seemed too simple and a little derivative. Once again, my exposure, through an eight-track cassette on a continual loop, came via a friend. He played this album whenever he drove his father’s Ford 500. This was about two years after the album came out. I honestly think he only had three or four eight-tracks. He played this one so often, it developed all sorts of warble.

I still laugh thinking about it.

 

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

I know exactly why and when I started streaming today’s music selection.

I went into the MBR and stripped down in front of a ginger floof. He’d been sleeping but lifted his head and watched me with sleepy eyes, to confirm I didn’t have food and wasn’t a threat. I was speaking to him, telling him what I was doing. Taking off my shirt, I inhaled my armpit essence and told my cat, “Definitely stink this evening. Know what I mean?”

Like that, here comes Lee Michaels streaming through my head with his song, “Do You Know What I Mean”. I enjoyed Lee Michaels’ offerings. This song spoke to me. Its lyrics  seem real and autobiographical. The way he sings it delivers pain and bewilderment juxtaposed against a heavy beat with brass sounds that remind me of a circus environment. It’s is an excellent vehicle to capture relationship confusion.

Back when the song came out, my friends never took to the song. Many current friends know it vaguely or not at all. Hope I’m reacquainting you with a song that you enjoy. Cheers

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Saturday’s Theme Music

I’m streaming a favorite Led Zeppelin song from a favorite Led Zeppelin album. These lyrics always speak to me, and I enjoy their delivery:

“Walking through the park the other day baby, what d’ya think I saw?”

“I didn’t notice but it had got very dark and I was really, really out of my mind.”

“You really don’t care, if they’re coming. Whoa oh, I know that it’s all a state of mind.”

This was my generation’s music (oh, great, now I’ve started streaming a Who song).

Anyway, here’s a little “Misty Mountain Hop,” from almost half a century ago.

 

 

 

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