Tag: 1991

Friday’s Theme Music

Warning This album contains extreme sounds which could damage musical equipment when played at high volume

That’s from Jesus Jones’ “Doubt” album, from nineteen ninety-one. It gave me pause when I read that. And yeah, there is some stuff on the album that prompts the eternal musing we each encounter, “What the hell?”

They are several songs on the album that I enjoy. I was streaming “International Bright Young” thing, for some reason, but the far more mellow song, “Right Here, Right Now,” came into play. I think it’s more known, at least in the U.S.A., so I’m going with it. I always like these lyrics from the song:

I saw the decade in, when it seemed
the world could change at the blink of an eye
And if anything
then there’s your sign of the times

A sidebar, probably only amusing to me, is that my friend, Randy, loves the Van Halen song, “Right Now.” Whenever I’d mention “Right Here, Right Now,” he’d be confused, and tell me, “I don’t know that song. Do you mean “Right Now,” by Van Halen?”

That always cracked me up.

 

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Today’s Theme Music

Today’s theme music streams in from the fall of the Berlin Wall and the massacre in Tienanmen Square.

The Berlin Wall wall was first a fence and then a guarded concrete wall. Built in 1961, it made East Berlin an island of Soviet Union totalitarianism and communism amidst western culture, democracy and freedom. I traveled through East Berlin by train while the wall was up. Still scarred by the tanks and guns of World War II, the streets were ghostly empty avenues behind crumbling concrete and rusting steel.

The massacre in Tienanmen Square is sometimes called the June Fourth Incident. The People’s Republic of China was experiencing a spring of democratic thought in 1989, with its people hoping for greater freedoms and independence. They dissented with their government’s position and were killed by their government for their ideals.

Now, in 2017, the Berlin Wall has fallen. The Union of Soviet Socialists States has fragmented into smaller nations, dominated by Russia. The PRC, often just called China, remains. While shifts have occurred there, it remains a nation of oppressed people with little freedoms.

Here in America, a billionaire has been elected POTUS with less than the popular vote. He wants to build a wall to protect us. As a child and adult who lived with a wall as a symbol of political differences and repression, I’m dubious of his motives and ideals, and leery of what might come to pass.

The events of Tienanmen Square and the fall of the Berlin Wall inspired Seal to write this song. Let’s hope this song inspires us and we avoid becoming the people behind the wall.

Here, from 1991, is Seal with ‘Crazy’. We’re never going to survive unless we get a little crazy.

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Today’s Theme Music

Ah, Sunday morning.

An overcast sky hides sunshine. Temperatures in the upper forties keeps the light rain from becoming something more, and daffodils and blossoms on trees are powering serious Spring imagery. The coffee is brewed…soon pancakes will be prepared. Something light is required for such a serene sense of home and harmony.

Naw. Fed by dreams of insistence and resistance, the soul is hungering for something with a meaty beat. Enter Metallica. ‘Enter Sandman’. Enter 1991.

This song was released a few months after my arrival back to the United States. Living in the super-expensive SF Bay area, we were signed up for base housing. Meanwhile, we lived in a large one bedroom apartment on Mathilda Avenue in Sunnyvale, less than two miles from Onizuka Air Station, where I worked.

That area of Mountain View, Sunnyvale and Los Altos enjoyed gorgeous weather nine months of the year. By May, the standard forecast called for sunshine, blue skies, and a temperature of seventy by ten AM. We enjoyed our Sunday mornings with the SF Chronicle and a light repast. Frozen unbaked croissants were purchased at the Milk Pail Market at the corner of California and San Antonio in Alta View. We defrosted them and let them rise overnight, baking them early in the morning. Add some fresh fruit from De Martini Orchard in Los Altos, a cup of Peet’s coffee, and three sweet cats to supervise the meal, and it’s the ingredients of wonderful Sunday mornings and pleasant memories.

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Today’s Theme Music

I’m sorry for today’s selection. I apologize. I don’t know where my head is. My focus is scattered. I’m left with fractal thoughts that don’t seem to begin or end anywhere.

This may be a repeat of an earlier post. I don’t know. Sorry if it is.

What else should I write? What else should I be?

Never mind. I’m just babbling on. Sorry.

Here’s the song. From 1991, Nirvana, with ‘All Apologies’. 

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