Tag: 1977

Thursday’s Theme Music

I love the association of things. Smells and good times, music and friends, books and places. This song came to me last night as I recalled a friend. I worked with him in 1977 in the Philippines. I’d always wondered what happened to him, and have used the Internet to look for him, but have never had success.

He had a girlfriend for a short time, about a month, that I recall, and she played this album by Bob Marley and the Wailers. Bill would say, “Can we listen to something else?” I liked the album. It was a different sound, and interesting.

The album was Exodus. It had a number of wonderful songs. Side two – yes, we listened on vinyl, and there was a side two – had songs that turned out to be memorable hits. I always wondered what happened to, the girl, Melissa, too. That’s the way it was in the military back then. You’d meet someone, and then probably never see them again.

Here’s “Jamming.” Once, when we lost power during a typhoon, a group of us sat in a room drinking strawberry wine, and sang this song to pass the time in the dark. I hope you like “Jamming”, too.

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

On this throwback Tuesday, I found myself in the kitchen streaming an old favorite in my head.

“If you got bad news, you want to kick those blues, coffee. When your day is done and you want to run on, coffee. She don’t lie, she don’t lie, she don’t lie. Coffee.”

No doubt I’ve posted this before. It’s a rainy day, and it calls for coffee, stat. What better song than Eric Clapton’s cover of the JJ Cale classic, “Cocaine”? While “Cocaine” is an anti-drug song, my version of “Coffee” is not anti-coffee.

Cheers

 

 

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Ah, from 10CC, in honor of my illness, “You Got A Cold,” from 1977.

Your nose is runnin’
And your eyes are red
Your head is achin’
You’d be better in bed
From the bottom of your fever
To the throbbing in your toes
You’ve got a cold

h/t AZlyrics.com

 

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Friday’s Theme Music

I was in the military for twenty plus years before moving into the corporate business world. After leaving the military, I worked at startups on the SF Bay area peninsula. Corporations swallowed the startups, and I ended up with IBM, where I stayed for fifteen years.

I preferred the military over the corporate world most of the time. Corporations paid better and demanded less work of me. The pay is a benefit, but the less work meant the jobs were less satisfying and less spiritually, emotionally, and mentally rewarding. Our sense of time in the military was much different. Now meant NOW in the military. For civilians, now was a blob of indeterminate time that can stretch from a day to a year.

Other differences were noted. Corporate employees had less sense of unity. Morale seemed worse. There was a greater sense of malaise, of “Here we go again.” Civilians had far less accountability, too. In the military, screw up, and the laser beam of ownership and explanation found you fast.

I liked the ownership and accountability, because they also quickly recognized you. The other good deal to me when I was in the military were assignment rotations. Every two to four years (it varied by rank and assignment), I moved to somewhere else. While on assignment, I could change duties and responsibilities, and even units. That kept things fresher and more interesting. Keeping it all coherent was a strong understanding of the mission. The mission didn’t change.

It wasn’t so in the civilian world, except when I left companies and joined another. My job at IBM changed three times, but I had many, many bosses in those years. IBM did a lot of restructuring and re-organizations. They started many projects (and most of them faded away). They had great ideas but poor execution. New products were often exciting, but the finished product rarely seemed to fulfill the initial promises.

That was my life with the corporation. Your results may vary, but I found that with U.S. Surgical, Tyco, and ISS, as well.

Anyway, wherever I was, I often thought of this song as I left one job and went to another. Here’s “Take This Job and Shove It,” by David Alan Coe, performed and released by Johnny Paycheck in 1977.

 

 

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Thursday’s Theme Music

My mind works in a stream of connections that’s difficult to corrall. Sometimes they hit and fire neurons into expected directions.

Like today. Out of the fire streams “Psycho Killer” by the Talking Heads. Interesting song. Anything to do with Thursday? No. Thanksgiving? Not that I recall. Dreams, or writing? Nope, and no.

It just pops in. Maybe I heard a fragment of sound or glimpsed a word or image that fired the song back to life in my head. Yeah, it’s a Frankenstein existence up there.

Cool song, though. fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa far better than many others.

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Monday’s Theme Music

Dropping back into the seventies again. I’ve always enjoyed the southern rock style. Although the blues draw me like the sound of a can opening draws cats, the likes of Marshal Tucker, the Charlie Daniels Band, and Lynyrd Skynyrd all provided some smooth Top 40 enticements. This one, “Heard It In A Love Song,” by M.T. is one of those.

The song’s lyrics talk to me. The main chorus is about hearing truth in a love song, while the rest of the stanzas regard moving on after being with a woman for a while. That seemed like a popular romantic nature for men: I love you, but I gotta go, because of who I am. Led Zeppelin’s “Ramble On” is a little similar, except the lyrics call for him to ramble on to find the queen of his dreams.

I guess it’s all about restlessness, searching, and the inability to search if you stay in one place. Bruce Hornsby plays piano on this while that’s Eubanks with that sweet flute.

 

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Something from nineteen seventy-seven. Billy Joel had already established himself as a star by this year, but his album, “The Stranger,” gained him critical acclaim, awards, and increased popularity.

I enjoy the album. It came out the year I returned from my fifteen month assignment in the Philippines. The album seems like rock and roll and Americana. My favorite song is one called “Scenes From An Italian Restaurant,” but the album includes “She’s Always A Woman,” “Just The Way You Are,” and “Only The Good Die Young.”

However, I woke up streaming, “Movin’ Out.” The song expresses Joel’s disappointment with people moving up by buying consumer grades and making purchases to impress others. It’s a favorite theme for me, so here we are.

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Monday’s Theme Song

Having a beer last Wednesday night with friends, we toasted Fats Domino. With his death as our hinge, we talked about old rock, old pop, and old beer (PBR, Hamm’s, Rolling Rock, and Iron City, among them). Conversation veered to Buddy Holly and Richie Valens’ deaths, along with the other two band members that night. We couldn’t remember who’d given up their seat. The net was consulted; Waylon Jennings was the answer.

That surprised us. As Chris put it, “I wouldn’t have guessed Waylon Jennings in two thousand guesses.” No, we didn’t know that Waylon had played with the Crickets.

Anyway, I ended up inflicted with nostalgia. I awoke today with “Luckenbach, Texas,” streaming through my mind, “Luckenbach, Texas (Back to the Basics of Love),” to acknowledge its full title. It’s a song about being remembering a simpler life, and the dissatisfaction that success can sometimes bring.

Stream along with me, if you know it. Fake it, if you don’t.

 

 

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Today’s Theme Music

In nineteen seventy-seven, I was a long, long way from home. It feels like I’ve been a long way from home every since. It’s funny how often we refer to the place where our parents live, or where we were raised, as “home.”

As an aside, my wife and I were talking about a friend’s plans. She was flying to SoCal for her elementary school reunion. This astonished us. My wife was certain that if she went to a elementary school reunion, she wouldn’t recognize anyone except family. I agreed, I wouldn’t, either. My other problem was that I attended several elementary schools, because my family moved around America. Mom finally settled in Pittsburgh, and now calls that home. I lived there for about a while in my youth, so I call it home.

Anyway, this Foreigner song came out in nineteen seventy-seven. Twenty-one years old, I was in the Philippines, ending a military assignment, and heading for Texas, for my next assignment. I was going by way of Pennsylvania and West Virginia to pick up my wife. The song, “A Long, Long Way from Home,” starts out with its second line, “I left a small town for the apple in decay,” a reference to moving to New York. The song is subsequently about feeling lonely and being far from home. And although it was my choice, I often felt the same as I traveled the world, even while enjoying myself and seeing historic sights.

 

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Today’s Theme Music

Reflective mood today from dredges of disturbing dreams. Today’s selection is a double offering from Jackson Browne’s 1977 album, ‘Running on Empty’.   Here’s ‘Load Out/Stay’.

The first song begins as a quiet and pensive reflection on touring before shifting into something more triumphant and uplifting in ‘Stay’.  They’re pleasant accompaniment to walking through the day while thinking about what is and isn’t.

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