Although this song was released and charted in nineteen seventy-six, people probably know it, thanks to President Bill Clinton. He used it as the music for his campaign theme in nineteen ninety-two, and then at his inaugural ball after winning. Since then, it’s played whenever he shows up to speak at a Democratic National Convention.
And it’s good for that purpose. Before Bill Clinton used it, I used it, too, to keep myself moving forward, dreaming and hoping. It’s a rousing damn song. Here it is, Fleetwood Mac with, “Don’t Stop.”
We’re experiencing unseasonably strange cold, wet weather in Ashland, southern Oregon, this week. It feels like late November, an odd juxtaposition against the full green trees, lush grasses and arrays of colorful blooms. It feels like it might snow, your mind whispers to itself, setting you into a groove of wondering what this rain is doing to the seasonal snowpack. Perchance this colder, wetter weather will diminish the wildfire season. Maybe, this year, we won’t have drought and water rationing.
But on a Sunday morning, it also settles coziness. What better things are there for cold summer weather but leisurely breakfasts inside, reading books by a fire while sipping coffee and tea, and, for us, going to an afternoon movie?
All this kicks the mental streams into retro-mood. From that morass of signals emerges an album from nineteen seventy-six.
Married less than a year and separated from my wife, nineteen years old, and experiencing my first overseas assignment in the Philippines, this album helped me keep my focus and balance. “Year of the Cat” wasn’t Al Stewart’s first album, but the song by the same name was one of his highest charting songs. Its piano-heavy folk-rock sound with mystical lyrics spoke to me as I walked around Clark Air Base and the surroundings Filipino cities and towns.
It’s a good song for a cold, quiet morning. Here’s “Year of the Cat.”
I’ve been a Led Zeppelin since I first encountered ‘Whole Lotta Love’ on their second album in nineteen sixty-nine. After hearing it and the rest, I went back and found the first album. Then I bought every album whenever they came out. At first, it was on vinyl, but I also recorded them on open real and cassette, and then replaced it all with remastered CDs.
Zeppelin’s album, ‘Presence’, came out in nineteen seventy-six. I was stationed at Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio. Another airman, Jerry Martell, and I listened to this album so many times as we drove around in his Mustang. My favorite song is ‘Nobody’s Fault But Mine’. I didn’t know it then, but since learned, this was an old Gospel song. I’ve come to enjoy musicians putting their interpretation and flourishes on old music. It’s taken me a lot more time to come around to accepting changes to old movies and television.
Anyway, for your Friday listening enjoyment, something to stream in your head as you conquer the world, Led Zeppelin with ‘Nobody’s Fault But Mine,’ from nineteen seventy-six.
Feel like something energetic today. Maybe it’s the sun. It’s actually visible when we get up, and there’s sunshine until almost seven thirty in the evening.
Hooray for sunshine.
It’s warmer, too. Got up to the low sixties yesterday. Winter is drawing out his departure but each day leaves us with less evidence that he was here.
All of this calls for something older, something with a little guitar action. From out of the streams of thinking came one from 1976, during my tour of duty in the Philippines.
Here is Thin Lizzy with ‘The Boys Are Back in Town’.
When I was young, I sought better sound in my stereos.
Whether from imagination or real ability, I often detected hums and distortion that irritated me. Conducting trail and error set-ups in those pre-Internet days of the mid 1970s, I separated power wires and speaker wires and ensured I had solid connections between everything. I bought gold wires to improve the sound and kept searching for better equipment. Vinyl had the best initial sound IMO but it was a fragile state that would begin deteriorating with play. Cassettes and eight track players always introduced warble and distortion as the tapes stretched. Muddiness would creep in.
I ended up buying an open-reel system. I developed a habit of recording my vinyl on an open reel. Although a cumbersome system, open-reel maintained the best sound quality. I would record the album on open-reel for my home use and cassette for my portable use and store the vinyl to protect it. Once the cassette quality began diminishing, I would record it anew.
But while noticing the sound difference on my systems at home, I also discovered that some albums came out sounding better in the beginning. Their colors were sharper, finer and clearer. A few of those albums mesmerized me with the beauty of their sound. Some combined that with wonderful lyrics and melodies, becoming astonishing, special albums.
The first of these that struck me in such a way was Pink Floyd’s ‘Dark Side of the Moon’, a now classic rock album. But it was only one album, not much of a data set. The second album that established itself as having high production values (as I learned it was called) was ‘Songs In the Key of LIfe,’ by Stevie Wonder. I don’t know much about music production, then or now, but I thought that Stevie’s album was beautiful in and of the ways I mentioned. I was stationed in the Philippines, at Clark Air Base with the 3rd Tactical Fighter Wing, when the album came out. Intent on staying active, reading and saving money, I did a lot of walking.
‘Sir Duke’, from this album, was my favorite walking-around sound for that era’s mental playback system. It’s a good theme song to bring on Friday.
(As an aside, I wince at hearing this digital version; it sounds way too tinny to me. But that’s me.)
Michael Seidel, writer 