Tag: 1974

Tuesday’s Theme Music

“For the Love of Money” by the O’Jays was released in 1974, the year I escaped high school by way of a bar of soap carved to look like a diploma. Like a zillion other people, I immediately took to the song’s funky sounds, hip lyrics, and the message that money corrupts. I started singing it then, and I still sing it now.

For the love of money, people will steal from their mother
For the love of money, people will rob their own brother
For the love of money, people can’t even walk the street
Because they never know who in the world they’re gonna meet
For that mean, oh mean, mean green
Almighty dollar, cash money

h/t to genius.com

It seems like this song is more relevant today than it was over a quarter of a century ago. If you don’t have money, you have to get it, and if you have it, you hold onto it. If you have a lot of it, it becomes a disease to hold onto what you have and get more. Money inspires corruption, power, selfishness, and greed. It’s a simplistic take in a complicated world.

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Someone shared this vocals & guitars only video of Queen on FB. I enjoyed it and thought, let’s share it as today’s theme music.

Hope you enjoy this recording of Freddie Mercury and Queen performing “Killer Queen” as much as I do.

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

I’ve always enjoyed War. Their music speaks to me. Today’s song, “Why Can’t We Be Friends”, is an excellent accompaniment to walking about town. As part of the writing practice, I walk and think about where I’m at with my writing and editing projects. Once freed of that, I drift into other things. This song, though, was heard coming from a Toyota pickup truck as it trundled by. Picking up on it, I sang it and some other War songs, like “Smile Happy”, “Low Rider”, “The World Is A Ghetto”, and “Spill the Wine”. Such classics.

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Wednesday Theme Music

Thinking about music from 1974, the year that I celebrated my eighteenth birthday, I recalled “Smokin’ In the Boys’ Room”.

I like the song’s rocking simplicity of being in school, breakin’ rules, and our permanent records. Brownsville Station did it in 1974; Mötley Crüe covered it almost a dozen years later. Not bucking the normal status quo, the younger folks often prefer the Mötley Crüe version. That’s how it is, right? Newer equals better, or preferred. I, tsk, tsk, prefer the original. Not surprising, either; I’ve heard that from older people about things that my generation later re-interpreted.

(I like that cycle. Didn’t use to, but I’ve come to enjoy, admire, and respect it.)

But 1974 was the year I heard the song, my formative era, if you will, and all that I associate with it. That’s the year I graduated high school, became an adult, moved away from home, and joined the military, so I’m loyal to Brownsville Station’s version.

Let’s celebrate.

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Friday’s Theme Music

Hope the day finds you well.

I saw a spotlight show on the Eagles at Camelot Theater last night. A local band, East Main Band, played the Eagles hits while the Eagles story and anecdotes were related to the audience.

I wasn’t originally a big fan of the Eagles musical group. Their early music were too mellow and country-oriented. I admired their harmonies, and they had memorable lyrics about relationships and living, but they didn’t do much for me. That didn’t stop me from hearing them on AM and FM radio, or at parties, and learning their songs. Eventually, the Eagles acquired a harder sound that appealed to me more. That’s when I actually acquired the music. Their shift culminated in their hyper-hit album, Hotel California. 

The song that hung in my stream from last night was “James Dean”. This was my favorite Eagles song from their first four albums. So here we go, with the departed Glenn Frey on rhythm guitar and lead vocals. Happy Friday.

 

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Knowing the root of a morning stream would be welcomed, because, sometimes those choices stream in from nowhere in my cerebralsphere. Today’s surprise visitor hails from my graduation year, 1974. A television and A.M. radio mellow staple, I can sing every word to “Come and Get Your Love” by Redbone. I remember it being used to sweet effect at the beginning of Guardians of the Galaxy, but I haven’t seen that movie in a few years. The streaming began as I was popping through my trends, feeding the cats, making my coffee, and worrying over my writing, an average morning at home on the Michael Scale.

It’s just one of those things.

 

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Sunday’s Theme Music

I awoke streaming an old song, which led to another and another. My brain was like a golden oldies station, if you can respect that golden and oldie are subjective terms. How you relate to them depends upon where you reside on the age spectrum.

Among the songs streamed today:

Sly and the Family Stone, “I Want to Take You Higher” (on the Mike Douglas Show – remember it?)

The Turtles, “Happy Together”

Dobie Grey, “Drift Away”

Sly and the Family Stone, “Dance to the Music” – such a lively and imaginative song

After posting this partial list, I can see how my mind pivoted through common words, themes, and times. I finally settled on this song because its signal strength had more bars. Here is “Life Is A Rock” by Reunion from 1974. It’s a novelty song, but it’s fun to listen to the lyric’s references. Enjoy.

 

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Friday’s Theme Music

I enjoyed Bowie and his music, and lament his passing. Fortunately, technology and memories serve well to keep the music playing.

Today found my mind shuffling and streaming old Bowie songs like “Diamond Dogs,” “Suffragette City,” and today’s offering, “Rebel, Rebel.” No particular reason for singing it today, except I like the song for its laid-back approach and the amused, disdainful sense of observation and discovery heard in the lyrics.

You’ve got your mother in a whirl
She’s not sure if you’re a boy or a girl

Hey babe, your hair’s alright
Hey babe, let’s go out tonight
You like me, and I like it all
We like dancing and we look divine
You love bands when they’re playing hard
You want more and you want it fast
They put you down, they say I’m wrong
You tacky thing, you put them on

h/t azlyrics.com

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Monday’s Theme Music

This John Lennon song, “Whatever Get You Through the Night,” is energetic and peppy, and struck me as much different from his other offerings. I like the extensive, enthusiastic sax in it, which, with the piano, makes the song feel like it’s from a different era, and the twist on the lyrics that becomes “Whatever gets your through your life.” That’s how a lot of us live, somewhere between dreaming and striving, grabbing and holding on to what comes our way.

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Monday’s Theme Music

Today’s song, “Tin Man,” was released in nineteen seventy-four. Among the trillion events happening that year, I graduated high school and joined the U.S. Air Force.

The next year found me married, and the year after that, I was stationed  at Clark Air Base in the Philippines. Our news sources were mostly the Pacific Stars & Stripes newspaper and the Armed Forces Radio and Television Services. Our local affiliate was the Armed Forces Network (AFN) Philippines. The big thing that always stood out about AFN is that they were constantly warning us about habus and finding unexploded ordinance.

I enjoyed “Tin Man” and America’s other offerings a great deal. I learned more about them because the group met because their fathers were serving in the Air Force. Thus, The Stars & Stripes and AFN carried quite a bit about them.

Here’s “Tin Man.” It’s a mellow song. Hope you’re having a mellow day, and not deeply into the many messes going on in the world.

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