Tag: 1979

Thursday’s Theme Music

Wow, Thursday already. October, already. The fifth already. Come on, let’s back off the time accelerator. It’s all moving too fast.

Today’s music is “Spooky.” It was originally an instrumental. I once heard the instrumental and thought someone was playing it that way. I later learned that the words had been added after the instrumental was written and performed.

I heard the original version with words, by the Classics IV, in the late nineteen sixties, on my trusty AM/FM clock radio. But I awoke with the A.R.S. “Spooky” version looping in my head today, so that’s what I’m posting.

As a sidebar, I wonder what happens in my brain that I awake with songs streaming in my head? I’ve researched this earworm (ohrwurm) or brain itch, as different sources label it, and found that researchers believe ninety-eight to ninety-nine percent of people endure earworms. A two thousand three news article cited a study found which songs afflict most people:

He found that some 98 percent of listeners were at one time or another bothered by a tune that wouldn’t leave their heads. The study also found some common offenders, including the Kit-Kat jingle (“Gimme a break”), “Who Let the Dogs Out,” Queen’s “We Will Rock You,” the theme to “Mission: Impossible,” “YMCA,” “Whoomp, There It Is,” “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” and “It’s a Small World After All.”

The study also showed that musicians and those with compulsive tendencies are the most afflicted. The two are not necessarily mutually exclusive, though the act of repetition — in popular songs on the radio and on the rehearsal floor for musicians — plays a role.

The 559 students used in the study had lots of trouble with the Chili’s jingle for its baby-back ribs and with the Baha Men song “Who Let the Dogs Out. ” But Kellaris found that most often, each person tends to be haunted by their demon notes.

Compulsive tendencies? Moi? Perish the suggestion. I guess I’m fortunate that my ohrwurms rotate and offer a variety.

 

 

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Today’s Theme Music

We saw George Thorogood and the Delaware Destroyers in concert last night, so I thought I’d play him today. Fabulous concert. He’s a helluva showman and an entertainer. The concert began with Barry McGuire’s recording of “Eve of Destruction” with the stage dark except for some blue lights. It ended with the star-spangled banner. Of course, all of their hits were played.

I didn’t know of Thorogood and the Destroyers (Delaware was later dropped) until the mid seventies, when he broke out and started garnering national attention. “Bad to the Bone” is hugely known and popular, and the band’s covers of old blues tunes became popular. I love their coverage of “Who Do You Love,” and that’s what I’m going with.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9l-9a27uwAs

 

 

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Today’s Theme Music

Like later, in “Where’s the beef,” I missed out on what was going on with this song, because I was living elsewhere in the world. Contact with American pop culture was intermittent in those days.

I really first heard of it was when I visited Mom after returning to America. My younger sisters lived with her. They loved this song, “My Sharona.” I’d heard little of it, or the Knack. When I mentioned that to them, they replied, “I’m getting a little sick of it. It’s being played all the time.”

This was nineteen seventy-nine, the middle of the disco reign. “My Sharona” was nothing like disco of the time. It reminded me of the early Brit invasion stuff, like “Bang the Gong,” in structure, but with less textures.

The song never really caught fire with me. I was immune to its spell. But – there’s always a but, isn’t there? “Welcome to Heaven.” “I’m made it to Heaven?” “Yes, but, it’s not what you think.” Or, “I love you, but — ”

Yeah. Fear the “but.”

But, I awoke with a variation of “My Sharona” in my head. Here’s Weird Al Yankovic with his parody song, “My Bologna.” It was all in nineteen seventy-nine, when nobody needed to remind the POTUS not to look at the sun without proper eye-protection.

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Today’s Theme Music

According to wikipedia.org, the last time a solar eclipse was visible in the continental U.S. was nineteen seventy-nine. I figured a song from that era would be appropriate for today. Using Everyhit.com’s retrochart, I came up with Queen, “Don’t Stop Me Now.”

I mean, these lyrics. Come on. How can you resist these lyrics?

Yeah, I’m a rocket ship on my way to Mars
On a collision course
I am a satellite I’m out of control
I am a sex machine ready to reload
Like an atom bomb about to
Oh oh oh oh oh explode

I’m burnin’ through the sky yeah
Two hundred degrees
That’s why they call me Mister Fahrenheit
I’m trav’ling at the speed of light
I wanna make a supersonic woman of you

h/t to lyrics.comlyrics.com

Enjoy your eclipse. Brought to you by Doritos. When you want to make it a special day.

 

 

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Today’s Theme Music

Today’s music is dedicated to my muse, or muses. I’m not sure if I have one, or a madhouse, within me. And on that subject, shouldn’t a muse be external to me? Perhaps my problem is that the inner voices that j’accuse of being the muse(s) are not muses. Let’s not speculate on what they might be, if the voices don’t belong to the muse(s).

(I know that if I’m writing voice as plural – voices – I’m implying there are multiple voices. There are. But I can’t rule out that the voices aren’t from one source, pretending to be many voices. See the problem? I could have a muse like Robin Williams or Jonathan Winters doing multiple voices in my head.

Returning to the song, here is Pat Benatar with “Heartbreaker,” from nineteen seventy-nine.

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

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Today’s Theme Music

You hear it said so often. I was pleased and impressed that someone finally put it to music.

When I was growing up, the expression, “That’s the highway to hell,” was commonly heard. When someone disagreed with a position, it wasn’t surprising to hear them say, “I think that’s the road to hell, if we do that,” or, “You know what they say: the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

It took that Australian band, AC/DC, to turn the expression into a hard-rocking hit. Between its standing as a rock music staple, and use in video games, television shows, and movies, few in the western world have probably not heard the song, or at least its opening guitar riff, or chorus. It’s a good anthem to stream in your head as you tramp around. Singing with it is good for releasing some angst.

From nineteen seventy-nine, here we go.

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Today’s Theme Music

Another from the past, and perhaps a repeat. This one springs from my days in San Antonio, Texas. I was stationed there for various needs three times. This song comes from my third iteration of military life there.

Assigned to Randolph-Brooks AFB and Air Training Command, working in the command post in the building called the Taj Mahal, we lived in base housing. We said it was San Antonio but in actuality, it was Universal City. San Antonio seemed like a much smaller, more relaxed town back then. When you drove the loops around the city, you rarely encountered a business and few other vehicles. Not like now, where all the land is filled in.

It was a pleasant assignment, not taxing at all, and quite boring. We were in base housing in a two bedroom/one bath place on the first floor. My cousins were regular visitors, a cool deal. It was Glen who brought the new Pink Floyd album, ‘The Wall’, to my attention. Besides Pink Floyd, Glen was a large fan of Steve Martin and ‘Star Wars’. He now lives just outside of Philly in PA.

So here it be, as heard in 1980, the year after the album was released, as we drove my brown Pontiac Firebird up to Stinky Falls to ride the cold river on inner tubes on a hot summer day, Pink Floyd and ‘Another Brick in the Wall’.

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Today’s Theme Music

Did anyone else feel that last night? Felt like a giant rubber band had been stretched to its limit. Now, snap, it was released. A shift took place.

Perhaps it’s only a personal shift. I awoke this morning feeling fantastic, like I’m twenty years younger. I slept well and experienced deep and clear, OMG amazing dreams. Feels different for me today, though. I hope others encounter this feeling of change, too. It’s a fine elixir and an awesome way to start a day. Yes, even better than coffee.

In honor of the changes I feel, I searched the mental cloud for a song that felt right and pulled on out of the file marked ‘Feb, 1996’. One of the hot groups then was Smashing Pumpkins. This song of theirs, about Billy Corgan’s coming of age when he was twelve, feels about right. It was a different sound for the Pumpkins; I like it.

Here is ‘1979’.

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