Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
Still streaming from way back in the last century.
I like the light and peppy feel of today’s theme music. It tells a story, and the story-telling invokes a sense of place and life that I identify with whenever I hear it. But the story isn’t completely told. Gaps remain. That’s how I like my story-telling, with gaps that cause you to wonder even after hearing the story.
Here is Paul Simon with “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard,” nineteen seventy-two.
This is another from the latter days of my childhood. I guess David Cassidy’s passing juxtaposed with the holiday season has opened the memory stream onto that era of my existence.
I learned of Shel Silverstein through Playboy magazine. People would throw them out for recycle pickup; we’d ferret them out of the piles while we were waiting for the school bus. I didn’t know he was a song writer. I enjoyed several of his songs without being aware that he’d written them, not learning about his part in the musical portion of my childhood until Shel died in nineteen ninety-nine.
Streaming today is a Shel classic. Written by him and performed by Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show, “The Cover of the Rolling Stone” was ubiquitously played and referenced in every sort of social media available in nineteen seventy-two and seventy-three. Why not? The satirical lyrics about the meaning of success substantially differed from other songs out there during that era, and the band played it way over the top. Fabulous.
Listen for yourself and decide.
Today’s theme song choice is a little…odd…for me. David Cassidy’s death triggered the choice.
When I was growing up and noticing girls, I began going to their houses. I wasn’t stalking them; they invited me.
This was around the same time that music was more interesting to me, say sixth grade. When going to their houses, though, I found their music preferences were different from mine. Whereas I leaned toward Uriah Heep, Humble Pie, Alice Cooper, Pink Floyd, the Stones, the Who, etc., they had the Monkees, Herman and the Hermits, David Cassidy, the Jackson 5, Osmonds, and other music that I disdained as bubble gum pap. Yeah, I was a snob.
One of those albums that I often encountered was David Gates and Bread, and their albums. The one I most remember was “Baby I’m-a Want You,” with the hit single by the same name. I was almost sixteen when this album came out. I’ve nothing against it (or the group), but that it seemed too mellow and sappy for me. Please forgive my judgement; I was a young rebel.
Those are all remembered generalities. Melissa was very into the Who. Of course, the irony that I didn’t realize until later was that my music preferences developed because I was listening to my older sister’s music.
Drifting further back along the memory stream today, back to nineteen seventy-two, I stumble over one of my favorite artists, a person named David Bowie.
Bowie’s song, “Changes,” came out when I was in high school. My most vivid memory, though, was talking about the song during my first permanent duty assignment in nineteen seventy-five, three years later. I was with the 2750ABW at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. Permanent meant that I was assigned to the place, and would be there for a while. I was a command post emergency actions controller for the base and HQ Logistics Command. Three of us were on duty at a time, for twelve or eight hour shifts.
One night, I was on duty with Dale and Sistrunk. Studying, as we were often doing, I was singing the song to myself. “What is that you’re singing?” one asked. I explained what it was, and who performed it. They knew Bowie, but not that song, which surprised me. It was a youth’s surprise. I thought we all inhabited the same universe in America, where we all listened to rock music. But Sistrunk didn’t listen to music in his car or at home, and Dale preferred light jazz. I didn’t know the light jazz performers he enjoyed, and was amused, thinking of him as dated, when he shared their names.
That’s why “Changes” is perfect for that memory, and this time. As years passed, windows opened on myself, but they still remained small and few. I stayed in my personal garrison, spying on others, wondering what they think of me, as I thought of them. I think about the child I was, and then the man I was, and now, the person that I became, and wonder who I’ll be next.
Bowie’s lyrics capture the sentiment. “Every time I thought I’d got it made, it seemed the taste was not so sweet. So I turned myself to face me, but I’ve never caught a glimpse of how the others must see the faker. I’m much too fast to take that test.”
We think of the universe, world, and its inhabitants in terms of static existences, but really, we have snapshots of moments that we consider permanent. Almost everything is always changing. We’re just not fast enough to comprehend it.
As a bonus, it was Rick Wakeman on the piano in “Changes.” Wakeman was already known for his session work on many albums, but had formed Yes with others, another group I greatly enjoyed.
I woke up in a Foghat state of mind.
I’d had an exciting and interesting dream about a recent dream. Without disclosing more, it was tremendously uplifting, bolstering my self-confidence to scary levels. I will note that I dreamed about the number eight again, which makes, unofficially, but what I can remember and enumerate, seven times. I’m waiting to see if I’ll dream of eight an eight time to end the series.
Back to Foghat. Those of you of certain ages and inclination will remember this song. “I Just Want to Make Love to You” is a blues staple that’s been well-covered by some great artists. But I encountered Foghat’s version first. It was nineteen seventy-two, and I was sixteen, a wonderful combination. By then, I was enamored with rock and guitars. Foghat’s cover of this song opens with rocking guitars, and doesn’t let up. What else needs said?
I had a song selected for today. Then I saw episode eight of “The Handmaid’s Tale” last night.
The episode, ambiguous, powerful and emotional, full of shifting insights, was highlighted with a Nina Simone song. Man, I love her music. It was a perfect choice to mark the scene’s denouement.
The other choice, the original song, is “School’s Out,” by Alice Cooper.
There’s a striking dichotomy between the two songs, and the thinking behind them. The Simone song was about choices and the road being taken. The Alice Cooper song is a spiteful, joyous celebration of celebrate children’s ‘freedom from school’. I wanted to play “School’s Out” not because I go to school, but with school out, we don’t need to slow down for the school zone. Almost every major road in this small town goes through a school zone, forcing traffic into a tedious crawl. It’s a small, but annoying price, for safety, right? But hooray, speed! We can go five, sometimes ten miles per hour faster. Woo-hoo!
After some thought about it while brewing coffee this morning, I went with “School’s Out” because I didn’t want to debase the use of the Simone song in “The Handmaid’s Tale.” That powerful and shocking cautionary story shouldn’t be dragged down into the meanderings of a mindless blog like this.
Besides, Alice Cooper was part of my first concert I ever attended. The other two acts that day at Three Rivers Stadium were Uriah Heep and Humble Pie. Excellent concert. Memorable.
Here it is, from nineteen seventy-two, “School’s Out.” Crank it up and sing along, if you know the words. Just fake it, if you don’t. Nobody cares.
The stream has shifted. Into the flow comes an all-time favorite by a little band called Derek and the Dominoes, with help from a guy named Duane Allman. Eric Clapton and Jim Gordon wrote the song, “Layla,” as a love ballad about Eric’s love for George Harrison’s wife, Patty Boyd. Duane entered the picture and changed the song to its more familiar rock sound.
Back in those days, I didn’t know about the confusion arising over the name of the group. I knew when I heard the song, I loved it and sought it out. I thought it was Eric Clapton playing, but if it was this guy, Derek, I didn’t care. Being a slow witted animal, I eventually grasped that it was Eric playing and singing, with help from the great Duane Allman – which explains the similarity to the Allman Brothers’ music of that period, right? It all eventually came together.
To me, this is a triumphant, feel-good song that ignites my creative energies. Pick up your air guitar. Time to jam.
I moved in with Dad in nineteen seventy-one. I was fifteen. He was in the U.S. Air Force, and had returned from Vietnam by way of Germany (where he had a gorgeous blue Mustang convertible). Now assigned to DESC, Wright-Pat AFB provided administrative support. We lived on Page Manor military base housing.
That lasted about three months. Presented with an opportunity and having his years in, Dad retired from the Air Force. We moved to southern West Virginia. After moving into a place, it burned down. If we didn’t lose our possessions to fire, we lost them to smoke and water damage. He and I spent a month living in a friend’s home but it was small and cramped. Unable to find anything else, Dad bought a seventy-foot long, fourteen foot wide mobile home and rented a space in Doy Mobile Home Park.
In retrospect, Dad lived through an interesting period then. He re-married when I was sixteen, almost seventeen. New offspring soon followed. Graduating high-school, and with a second child on the way to join Dad’s household, I joined the military and left.
Dad had two young sons by the year’s end. One of them was killed in a car accident. The loss destroyed his marriage. He ended up having an affair with a co-worker. Her marriage was disintegrating. Her husband was already suffering emotional issues, and committed suicide. Dad moved in with the widow. That all took place in a six year run.
From that era comes a song that makes me laugh. Ranked as one of the greatest pop songs of all time, it came out in nineteen seventy-two. Carly Simon’s song, You’re So Vain’, stays in conversations about who the song is about. She’s given clues. Others claim she’s confided in them. Men like Warren Beatty insisted the song was about him.
Whatever. Here it is.
I was listening to Uriah Heep for years. My wife didn’t know anything about them but began listening to my albums extensively while I was on a fifteen-month unaccompanied tour to the Philippines a year into our marriage.
Like a lot of albums from that era, I played the whole album extensively. That’s how it was done in my youth. We had one segment, it seemed, who liked to load and listen to forty-fives. I was of another school. We put on one side of the thirty-three LP, listened to it, turned it over and listened to the other side. As my memory functions, that means that I will often automatically recall and begin streaming the next song from the album in my head.
Now, of course, with downloads, it’s way different.
Originally part of their ‘Demons and Wizards’ album, Easy Livin” was a song released by Uriah Heep in 1972. It became their only U.S. hit, and only reached something like the high twenties on the top forty playlists. I don’t think I ever hear it, or anything else from Uriah Heep, played on the radio. But this one, with its hard pressing guitar, fast pace, quick bass and spread of organ has taken a place in my heart.
Another song was lined up for today’s theme music but the streaming cortex bumped into shuffle.
Stumbling and mumbling through dream fragments scudding across my thinking, the routines of feeding cats, pondering cold therapy, and contemplating breakfast and rain, a wash of first world self-pity swept me. Out of the melange of thoughts emerged an old familiar:
“Yeah, you go back, Jack, do it again – wheel turning around and around. You go back, Jack, do it again.”
Yep, let’s go back, Jack, and do it again. Let’s do it all again. Here’s Steely Dan with ‘Do It Again’ from 1972. Maybe it’ll alleviate some first world rainy Tuesday blues.
Michael Seidel, writer 