Thursday’s Theme Music

In 1971, I was fifteen years old, and entering high school. Richard Nixon was president. The Vietnam War continued, and the Pentagon Papers were printed while the U.S and U.S.S.R. continued their arms race. Protesters marched against the war and the bomb. Although it was a new decade, we hadn’t turned the page socially. The summer of love, Watts riots, and Chicago ’68, among many events, all still resonated through our awareness.

Peace was a major topic. From it came songs, like this one, “Peace Train.” Cat Stevens wrote and released it. He’d soon add to the national conversation by becoming a Muslim and changing his name to Yusuf Islam after almost drowning.

He’s an interesting, talented person.

February 8, 2018 0

Tuesday’s Theme Music

New Year. Don’t know about you, but on a personal quantum level, I feel good about it. Feel like I’m in tune.

Which is a nice segue for today’s music. Here’s Daltry and the Who with the Pete Townsend composition, “Getting In Tune,” from 1971, as fine a year as there is. The song starts soft and then rises and quickens, a perfect metaphor for 2018.

January 2, 2018 2

New Year’s Theme Song

A reminder from the past.

Forget about the past and all your sorrows,
The future won’t last,
It will soon be over tomorrow.

“It Don’t Come Easy,” by Ringo Starr.

January 1, 2018 0

Sunday’s Theme Music

Burton Cummings and the Guess Who were an impressive group. After making it in their home nation of Canada, they hit the international scene. We loved them in America, with songs like “American Woman,” “Bus Rider,” “Undun,” “No Time Left for You,” and several enjoyable albums. Cummings went on to a solo career, and the band broke up. Out of that rose Bachmann-Turner Ovedrive (BTO), also a successful band.

But one Guess Who offering started streaming in me head last night. “Hang On to Your Life” ends with some verses from Psalm 22. It used to amuse me to tell others these verses. I selected this song today, though, because I thought it was a good song to end 2017.

December 31, 2017 0

Friday’s Theme Music

We averted a small disaster today. While walking yesterday, I heard a train blowing its horn. I instantly twisted a long-lost song in my mind:

“There is nothing like a train,

Nothing in this world.

There is nothing you can name,

that is anything like a train.”

It was a sorry parody of “There Is Nothing Like A Dame” from the musical, “South Pacific.” I know the song and the rest of the soundtrack well, thanks to Mom. She had it on vinyl, thirty-three R.P.M., and often played it on the stereo while cleaning the house. Her house was — is — spotless, let me tell you. I heard that song frequently.

My parody remained in my headstream until late last night. I thought I’d need to post about it to relieve get me out of the loop. Then Rod Stewart singing “Maggie May” replaced it.

So, here we are. That’s Ronnie Wood on guitar. Take it, Rod.

December 22, 2017 0

Friday’s Theme Music

The temp has hung around thirty degrees F. for hours, locked into that position by an inversion layer that invited freezing fog in. The freezing fog accepted the invitation – have you ever known fog to turn down an invitation? – so here we sit, freezing and foggy. These energy leeching conditions must be countered. With what can I counter it? Pancakes for breakfast and French roast coffee failed. Let’s drag in some music to shift my ass out of my chair.

I’m sure each of you have a favorite that does it for you. I have a catalog of them, myself, but today, it’s the Allman Brothers Band doing that old Blind Willy McTell song, “Statesboro Blues,” as captured live at the Fillmore East, in all their glory. I wore out this album listening to it in nineteen seventy-one and -two.

December 1, 2017 0

Thursday’s Theme Music

So much has been written about this song and its lyrics. After it became a hit in America, our local newspaper, The Pittsburgh Press (or maybe it was the Post-Gazette) had an article with the song’s words in it. My sister, two years younger than me, told me that she’d memorize the lyrics. She seemed proud of doing that. The lyricist himself, Don McLean, has avoided analyzing the lyrics. He says they’re poetry. I recall McLean once said something like, the artist should put it out there and then keep a dignified silence when others ask what the song is about.

I but into that. People often uncover their own meanings in books, stories, movies, songs, and poetry. I like that, that people can take words, sounds, and images, anchor them to their lives and events, and affix unique interpretations to them.

Here it is, “American Pie,” from nineteen seventy-one. It’s a piece of Americana.

November 2, 2017 0

Wednesday’s Theme Music

Awoke with these words nibbling my ears. “Well, I just got into town about an hour ago.
Took a look around, see which way the wind blow.”

Ah, yes, that’s a song from my youth. “L.A. Woman,” nineteen seventy-one, The Doors. I was unfettered by fears and worries in those days, except rioting, the Vietnam War, air and water pollution, nuclear or chemical attack, equal rights, and civil rights.

Ah, the good old days. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

October 11, 2017 2

Today’s Theme Music

Going with a simple, memorable song today, “Imagine,” by John Lennon. As a fiction writer, I enjoy imagining characters, settings, places, et cetera, along with a better existence for all of us.

Hope you’re familiar with the song. If not, listen and hear something new. Being sentimental, I decided to go with Chris Cornell‘s acoustic version, recording in twenty fifteen. His suicide this year was something I never imagined.

August 7, 2017 0

Today’s Theme Music

Here’s a Friday two-fer.

I’d planned for a celebratory song today but this one dominated one of my dreams last night. “When the Levee Breaks” is an old blues song. I became familiar with it through Led Zeppelin’s cover of it in nineteen seventy-one.

In my dream, it was my wake-up song, playing every day on my radio at seven in the morning. I know this because I was explaining that to other people. I told them, I’d begun doing that in June, so I’d been doing it for a year. During that time, I’d found a new shortcut, I explained. While explaining that, I pointed out a window at a new white concrete highway that was alongside a shoreline. The sky was so blue and the sun was so bright, it awed you into silence. Vehicles were on the road. It looked like typical commuter traffic.

We joked a while about hearing that song everyday. I know it was “When the Levee Breaks” because one other asked, “What is that song?” Then he answered himself as I answered him, “”When the Levee Breaks,” by Led Zeppelin.” He nodded, laughing along as we spoke. He said, “It’s a good song. I don’t know if I’d want to hear it all the time.” I answered, “I only hear it in the morning.” He replied, “Well, even that might be too much, if it’s every day.”

I awoke from that and the other two remembered dreams feeling like a dark cloud had been lifted. You decide, though: will hearing this song every morning be too much?