Tag: 1981

Tuesday’s Theme Music

This song popped into a dream last night. It wasn’t streaming when I awoke, but as I was in the kitchen making coffee and considering breakfast options, the song began streaming.

Won’t you take me back to school
I need to learn the golden rule
Won’t you lay it on the line
I need to hear it just one more time

Portions of the dream drifted in with the smell of coffee brewing. The dream had been about school. Not many fragments endured the transition to consciousness. The gist of what was recalled was that I was a distinguished person teaching people. I don’t know what the hell I was teaching them, nor where. I do recall it was more of a Socratic method, and that the dream ended, and the song began, like it was part of the closing credits. I felt joyous, liberated, and satisfied at that point. As I think about it, I could characterize my reaction as triumphant, as I felt like I’d achieved something that I’d worked on for a long period.

And how many words have I got to say
And how many times will it be this way
With your arms around the future
And your back up against the past
You’re already falling it’s calling you
On to face the music
And the song that is coming through
You’re already falling
The one it’s calling is you

h/t to lyricsfreak.com

The song’s title, “The Voice,” is apropos to the dream, as it seemed like an ethereal voice was instructing me on how to teach the others. Not enough survived to do more than ponder the shards like a forensics team seeking clues. It’s odd how many times I seem to dream of others instructing me, or of me, passing on instructions. I also dream frequently of receiving and passing on warnings. Nothing ever comes of them, at least in this dimension.

Here are the Moody Blues, from 1981. Cheers

 

 

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Monday’s Theme Music

Ah, they’re always pestering me, calling from phone numbers that I don’t recognize, and sending me emails with sensational deals, deals that will make me wealthy, or is such an amazing travel bargain, that I’d be a fool to take it up. Never mind that the travel bargains are going to places that I don’t want to visit. It’s such a good deal.

Although this song, “Who Can It Be Now?”, by Men At Work, came out while I was stationed on Okinawa, I always think of Mom and my family. In the days before caller identification, Mom established the number of rings as a primitive IFF – Identification, Friend or Foe – for when friends and relatives call. “Ring twice, hang up, and call again. I’ll know it’s you, and answer.” Or maybe she won’t. But when the phone rang more than twice, “Who can that be? Should I answer it?”

The same was true with someone knocking on the door or ringing the bell, or  stopping in the driveway or in front of the house. “Who is that? What do they want? Who can it be now?” Mom passed it on to the rest of us. “Who can it be now?”

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Today’s Theme Music

It’s July 4 in America. Probably that date in many other parts of the world, too. For Americans, though, it’s associated with Independence Day, a holiday commemorating the signing of the Declaration of Independence. So, what the hell. With that in mind, I started streaming this song from nineteen eighty-one:

“America”

Far,
We’ve been traveling far
Without a home
But not without a star

Free,
Only want to be free
We huddle close
Hang on to a dream

On the boats and on the planes
They’re coming to America
Never looking back again,
They’re coming to America

Here’s Neil Diamond with the rest of the song.
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Today’s Theme Music

This one is dedicated to all those dreamers out there, all those writers, singers, poets, actors and artists who have a hope and won’t stop believing.

Here is Journey – with Steve Perry on vocals (instead of, say, Peter Griffin) – with “Don’t Stop Believing” from nineteen eighty-one.

 

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Today’s Theme Music

I know I’ve posted this song before. I’m being indulgent. It’s a song I enjoy, a product of talented people who I admire. A couple of them have passed away so the song returns with a patina of bittersweet nostalgia.

‘Under Pressure’, created by David Bowie, Freddie Mercury and Queen, came out in 1981. I was stationed on Okinawa, Japan, when it did. Armed Forces Radio and Television Services provided us with our television and radio entertainment while providing time for the Armed Forces Network Okinawa to provide us with news and weather. Air time was divided among multiple needs and demands as the outlet strove to provide everything to everyone.

I didn’t hear much of ‘Under Pressure’ on the radio because of all this, but I liked it. Most of my friends had no idea what song I was talking about whenever I mentioned it. Years later, it was included in the movie, ‘Grosse Pointe Blank’. GPB, starring Minnie Driver, John Cusack and his sister, Joan, Alan Arkin and Dan Ackroyd, only receives 79% on Rotten Tomatoes. But it’s one of those movies that I stay to watch when I encounter it, one of my secret vices.

‘Under Pressure’ has been used in other movies, sports events, commercials and trailers. Others have covered it, so most people know it, even if this isn’t their style of music or if they were born decades after 1981.

I believe the last time I posted this, I may have used the Annie Lennox and David Bowie cover. I’m going with the originals recorded performing live this time.

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