You know, sometimes, no matter what you do, you end up getting stuck somewhere where you don’t want to be.
I’m happy to report that there’s a song for that, called, “Stuck in the Middle With You”, Stealers’ Wheel, 1973. I often think of Reservoir Dogs when I recall this song. Its bounciness, with Mr. Blonde (Michael Madsen) dancing around as he cut off another man’s ear and doused him in gasoline, offered an interesting counter-balance to the scene’s gritty intensity and violence.
I guess I’m fortunate that when this song comes to mind at social gatherings, parties, or standing in lines at stores and airports, that nobody is cutting anything off of me.
I started this morning by streaming some old ELP, “Welcome back my friends, to the show that never ends, we’re so glad you could attend, come inside, come inside.” Any ELP fan recognizes that opening from one of the Brain Salad Surgery “Karn Evil 9 Impressions” (1973).
But the stream drifted, bringing in “Still…You Turn Me On” from the album. I also enjoy thinking about the song’s enigmatic lyrics. It’s like they’re singing about trying to understand someone, and failing while guessing at who they are, and despite that, being attracted to them.
Many of us find ourselves in like situations in life, trying to understand others, and sometimes loving or hating them for reasons that we can’t explain.
A week out from election day, 2018, I find myself streaming an old Stevie Wonder song from 1973.
His hair is long, his feet are hard and gritty
He spends his life walking the streets of New York City
He’s almost dead from breathing in air pollution
He tried to vote but to him there’s no solution
Living just enough, just enough for the city…yeah, yeah, yeah!
We’re at a crossroads in America, where the divisions are strong and stark. We have white supremacists insisting that things need to change, and they’re willing to change it by lying, cheating, intimidating, and killing. Their hate knows few boundaries, becoming directed at liberals, minorities, women, science, education, and just about every other nation in the world.
At the head of this monster is a clueless POTUS consumed with self-adoration, an empty vessel that mouths calls for unity as he leads chants for violence and threatens everyone who doesn’t support his claims. Instead of seeking a brave new world of social justice and equality, he promotes greater divisions of wealth, opportunity, and hope. He builds more borders with words and threats, and builds walls with his mindless rhetoric. He places his optimism in a time that’s passed him by, but bolstered by people living in a hopeless fantasy existence, he remains empowered.
We end up, again, with people barely hanging on, coping, as Stevie Wonder wrote and sang, with just enough for the city.
I have mixed thoughts and emotions about today’s theme music, “Bad Motor Scooter”, by Montrose (1973). It’s an energetic song, but when I listen to the lyrics, I sometimes cringe. Then again, escaping on my bad motor scooter is really appealing on some days. Just race up through the gears and away from cares and civilization.
What the hell. It’s music. Love the rock attitude (rockitude?) on display in this video.
I awoke streaming this song, “Is It in My Head?”, in my head this morning (ha, ha).
I often wonder about the truths of perceptions, impressions, and memories. I don’t wonder about just mine, but how others came to their beliefs, and how difficult it can be to dislodge an idea after it’s burrowed into you. We’ve been exposed to evidence that the winners write history. History is often propaganda to justify and moralize decisions and sustain political or popular support. We all love heroes and myths.
So I wonder with myself about whether I remember something correctly, whether I’m too deeply embedded in silos and bubbles to perceive the truth and grasp it, and often, if I’m conning myself into hoping and believing that my writing efforts amount to anything. It’s a perpetual cycle of challenging, searching, and thinking.
Today’s song selection, made by my mind (and probably invited in by the latest rounds of dreams), “Is It in My Head” is from Quadrophenia by the Who. The album was released in 1973, when I became seventeen years old. I’d been searching and wondering well before I heard this song.
I continue searching and wondering today, almost fifty years later.
I guess this is a throwback Thursday. Of course, many of my days are throwbacks. Some are throwaways.
I found myself streaming some ZZ Top as I walked this morning.
Jesus just left Chicago and he’s bound for New Orleans.
Well now, Jesus just left Chicago and he’s bound for New Orleans.
Yeah, yeah.
Workin’ from one end to the other and all points in between.
Took a jump through Mississippi, well, muddy water turned to wine.
Took a jump through Mississippi, muddy water turned to wine.
Yeah, yeah.
Then out to California through the forests and the pines.
Ah, take me with you, Jesus.
Why this song, today? I don’t know. Maybe a smell that I didn’t consciously notice triggered a memory, or two neurons ran into each other on an axon and reminisced about the old days. Perhaps I whiffed someone toking up and connected that to ZZ Top. Perhaps, in worrying about the present and future, I subconsciously longed for the past, and dredged up times that were simpler and happier for me. Maybe there’s no logic at all, but just random impulses.
I’m streaming Captain & Tennille as part of my hello to the past week. Their music wasn’t my style, but it was ubiquitous, par for American pop-culture, where the love is big until it’s not. There was much made of their backstory and his nickname, and songs like “Muskrat Love” and “Shop Around”. A television show followed, and then society moved on to other performers. It is the American Way.
Here they are with their cover of Neil Sedaka’s offering, “Love Will Keep Us Together,” which came out during our era of relative bliss (if you discount the wars, air and water pollution, the energy crises, the threat of nuclear annihilation, and Tricky Dick) that we index as 1973 A.D.
Today’s theme music is a personal favorite from the seventies. I thought Elton John’s song, “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting” (co-written with Bernie Taupin) was a rocking song. Featuring a rocking edge with pleasurable guitar work by Davey Johnstone, I considered it perfect for going out and throwing down some drinks with friends.
Still do, I think. “Saturday! Saturday, Saturday! Saturday, Saturday, Saturday, Saturday, Saturday’s alright for fighting.”
Hot off the stream is Seals & Crofts’ “Diamond Girl” from 1973. I was friends with three girls. They had the Diamond Girl album and played it often. Again, it’s a little mellow for me. I was listening to ZZ Top, The Who, Led Zepp, Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd, and groups and performers of musical style during that period. Still, with exposure from visiting with those three girls, I grew very familiar with Diamond Girl.
I don’t know why it’s streaming in my head today, but there it is, another mystery of the mind’s connectome.
So, reading and listening to news reports (“He was only shot three times in the back, not eight, with three shots in his side” — doesn’t change that he was armed only with his cell phone and was in his own backyard), an old Rolling Stones song started streaming through my mind.
The police in New York City
They chased a boy right through the park
In a case of mistaken identity
They put a bullet through his heart
Heartbreakers with your forty four
I wanna tear your world apart
You heart breaker with your forty four
I wanna tear your world apart
This song was released in 1973, over forty years ago. Pathetic how little has changed, with police shooting black men for little or no probable cause in America, a trend that’s being carried over to homeowners, who fear fourteen-year-old black boys asking for directions. Sad. Sickening.
Here it is, with the bizarre title “Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)” by the Rolling Stones, from 1973.
Michael Seidel, writer 