Tag: 1975

Friday’s Theme Music

I always liked this band’s vocals and harmonies on this song, not so interested in the synthesizers. Not anything against synths; I enjoy them with Yes and Kansas, and other rock bands. Part of it is that I think the opening is just too long, becoming a little tedious.

Anyway, this morning found me streaming “Never Been Any Reason” by Head East from 1975. But remembering a time when I was young and the present sucked and the future looked depressing brought the song into my stream. Made it through that time, you know, obs, head down, plow through, just hold on and take one step at a time, just breathe, all that.

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Monday’s Theme Music

You know, in the U.S. of A., it’s winter. Because of that, many towns are having beer festivals. At least, this is true out here in Oregon and California.

Some places call the beer festival a collaboration, a beer walk, or, if the organizers are feeling more stylish, a brewery tour. SF’s Beer Collaboration isn’t starting until Feb. 1. They have a theme, you know, like they do at a prom, Game of Thrones. I’m sure that some high school has had a Game of Thrones themed prom. That seems like it would be something like the red wedding or the prom from Carrie.

Anyway, in honor of beer strolls everywhere, I’m streaming Tom T. Hall’s 1975 classic, “I Like Beer”. Pretty self-explanatory what the song is about.

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Sunday’s Theme Music

I’d heard about friends breaking up as a couple, and the difficulty one was experiencing afterward. Their story prompting Neil Sedaka’s song, “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do” to stream into my mind. I wasn’t thinking of his bouncy original from 1962, but the slower 1975 ballad that he released. I thought the latter showed a more adult approach to the lyrics and sentiments of breaking up. Anyone who’s gone through it knows how hard it can be.

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Black Friday’s Theme Music

Black Friday began a few weeks ago. I received word on a Tuesday when a mailer arrived announcing that every Friday was Black Friday was Black Friday. Others didn’t start Black Friday until Wednesday or Thursday, but many vowed to continue it until January 1, with one chain declaring that every day is Black Friday.

For some reason, all this Black Friday chatter delivered Steely Dan performing “Black Friday” (1975) to my theme song stream. Steely Dan’s version of the day is much different than the buying extravaganza of this year. Steely Dan’s song relates more to the Black Fridays of financial and social collapse.

Think of Black Friday as you will.

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

The memory stream plucked this blast from the past and delivered it straight to my head.

I don’t mind. “Golden Years” by David Bowie (1975) is a song that I enjoy. I’m going into my golden years, I’ve decided. They’re not the golden years of many people’s thinking, which translate to twilight years, but good years. Unlike the Bowie song, I’m not running for the shadows, either. Life’s taking me somewhere, angel. I’m just a hazel-eyed optimist.

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

This song’s release and popularity in 1975 began changing my thinking. While I’d always tried to see others’ point of view, I often failed, and slipped easily into the comfort of being me, sure of what was going on, and surer about how others live. I had some inklings that all was not as I thought from newscasts about riots, war, politics, and social upheaval, and I knew from friends, movies, and reading that lives often appear to be fine on the outside but it was rank darkness behind the scenes.

Then came this Janis Ian song, “At Seventeen”. As a boy, I thought the girls had all of the breaks. They controlled it all. We boys were the ones struggling with social graces and talking to girls. I didn’t know what it meant to a girl to meet a boy who seemed to like who and said he would call her, and then didn’t. I didn’t know what it meant for her to watch others being chosen, or how difficult it was, coping with body changes, and struggling with social perceptions and self-perception.

Life is usually more nuanced, layered, and complicated than many realize. We think everyone is the same, that all words mean the same, that every action carries the same weight. That these things aren’t true are lessons I keep learning and forgetting.

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Sweet Meow

Do you ever listen to the start of Aerosmith’s “Sweet Emotion” and think that it sounds like a cat saying meow with a prolonged techno accent? Listen to the video and see if it doesn’t sound like, “Mee-oowww,” at about the seventeen second mark.

No? Is it just me?

 

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Soft rock isn’t my bag. I always enjoy that expression, ‘my bag’. When I was a child and heard it, I asked, “What’s that mean?” When adults explained it, I asked, “But why a bag?” Because we carry baggage, they explained. Took me a while to understand until a sixth grade English teacher clarified the whole metaphor.

Today’s soft rock is by Orleans. “Dance with Me” features a melodica solo. When I first heard the song, I thought, “Is that Stevie Wonder?” It’s one of those riddles that stayed with me through the years until I finally hunted down an answer. No, it’s not Stevie Wonder, it’s Larry Hoppen, Orleans’ lead vocalist, who committed suicide half a decade ago. He was sixty-one. I don’t know why he committed suicide. It seemed to be depression.

Of other Orleans’ hits, I much prefer “Still the One” (which Larry also sang) but this is the song that was streaming through me. Sometimes, I just take what I’m given.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4ggEyx9dKc

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Getting old

Getting gray

Getting ripped off

underpaid

Getting sold

Second hand

AC/DC rocked us through the lessons of being in a rock band in their song, “It’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock ‘n’ Roll).” For most of us, short of being some amazingly talented person or born to wealth, it’s a long way to the top no matter what we’re trying to do.

Gotta love the bagpipes.

 

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Friday’s Theme Music

“Time,” by Pink Floyd, was one of those songs that I liked to listen to while laying flat on my back in the dark with headphones on. I did that with of the entire album, Dark Side of the Moon.

The discordant beginning of alarm clocks and bells ringing that starts “Time” is a satisfying, *ahem* wake up call. Then the heartbeats begin….

Later in life, I often streamed it in my mind as I awaited events, made plans, or traveled.

And you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it’s sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way, but you’re older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death

Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over, thought I’d something more to say

Of course, I always continue listening (or streaming) on through the next two songs.

 

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