This song started streaming into my head this morning. Part of my Bay Area experience, when I lived at Moffett, Mountain View, or Half Moon Bay, this song was on repeat for a while for my daily commute.
I enjoy its soft beginning:
Drivin’ faster in my car
Falling farther, from just what we are
Smoke a cigarette, and lie some more, these conversations kill
Falling faster in my car
Time to take her home, her dizzy head is conscience laden
It’s September. What are you doing, surfing the net? Aren’t you a writer? Then shouldn’t you be writing something, editing, or some other activity associated with your writing dream?
Come on, get busy. “No Excuses”. 1994. Alice In Chains.
Slipstreaming through the streaming flow that sometimes seem to be my thoughts (and other times seem to belong to others), I come across a cache of STP, shorthand for Stone Temple Pilots (and not Scientifically Tested Petroleum or something else).
There are several jewels in the cache. Demonstrating its own affinity, my mind goes with “Interstate Love Song”. Released in the music-rich environment of the SF Bay Area, the song quickly became a favorite commuting tune. Coming out in 1994, it saw through retirement from the Air Force into the transition to being a civilian and finding a job in 1995.
“Shine” by Collective Soul was playing in the coffee shop when I stopped writing like crazy today.
Released in the early nineties, Collective Soul’s CD became one of my car collection recordings for dealing with traffic and the work day. Maybe strangely, but I always thought of the song as almost like a hard rock prayer, alternating between speculation about existence — “What will I find?” — and then a request to know more — “Heaven, let your light shine down.”
Supine in bed, I would feel the mucus shifting. It moved with a soft snapping and crinkling sound, like it’s trying to sneak around my head. From that, I began singing, “Mucus stream,” to the tune of Bush’s “Glycerine,” from Sixteen Stone. I was making up whole verses for it by the time I stole into sleep.
That’s not to denigrate “Glycerine.” I like the song, and enjoyed the album. It still lives in the shuffle space dedicated to that era.
(My CD player holds two hundred discs. They’re divided into eight sections. Sections are assigned genres, eras or purpose. Like, one section is for the blues, and houses Buddy Guy, Albert King, B.B., SRV, etc. Another section is home to classic rock, with Cream, Blind Faith, Traffic, Led Zep, The Who, and so on. Bush lives in the section I call post disco rock, along with Def Leppard, the Scorpions, later Van Halen and ZZ Top, and STP. My wife has a section of her favorites, and I have a section of my favorites. Since my punk and alt offerings are small, I just mix them in with other sections. Anal, aren’t I?)
(And of course, the CDs are stored alphabetically by group or performer’s last name, and I’ve indexed them on an Excel spreadsheet. Yes, anal.)
Returning to the song, the lyrics fascinate me, and I thought the video reflects the song’s mood.
Although this song is about a man’s relationship with a woman, I often thought of it in conjunction with my employers. “I have become cumbersome to this job.” Hah. Or, they’d become cumbersome to me. As the song says, walls were being built. And sometimes, I thought, despite the balance, this job experience has become cumbersome.
In this throwback stream, I visit with the Blues Travelers. I haven’t heard a lot of their music outside of air play, and this is the song I know best. It’s a light ditty with some pleasant harmonica play.
I feel fortunate to be listening to this song. When I read of Dolores Riordan’s death, I reflected on the group and their music, and her. My favorite Cranberry offering is “Zombie,” but “Linger” lingered with me throughout the day until “Run Around” dislodged it. I credit the song’s opening line for that feat: “Once upon a midnight dreary, I woke with something in my head.” I’d been writing in my head, as I often do, splash writing, when something splashes out of containment and into my consciousness.
I don’t get stoned, just buzzed on beer, wine, and coffee, sometimes simultaneously.
“Basket Case” by Green Day came out in nineteen ninety-four, the year before I retired from the Air Force. I instantly took to those lyrics, driving others crazy as I wandered around singing them. But you only live once, according to our current data set, so sing when you can. That’s my philosophy.
Feeling a little tired, a little numb, unthinking and unresponsive. Just a little N.E.S.*
To suit my condition, I offer Dolores Riordan and the Cranberries with our composition, “Zombie,” from nineteen ninety-four. The song was written in memory of two children killed in the nineteen ninety-three IRA bombing in Warrington.
The song hit the waves as I contemplated my military career faced some choices. Stationed at Onizuka Air Station, home of the infamous blue cube in Sunnyvale, California, I was part of the Air Force Space Command. After I’d been there a few years, I was invited to join Space Command’s Inspector General Team. My wife didn’t like the situation’s dynamics. First, it would require a move from the SF Bay Area to Colorado. Second, I would be on the road about ninety percent of the time. Those conditions stirred her ire. Not being zombies, we said, “No.”
Disliking that answer, the Air Force informed me they would move me to Whiteman AFB, Missouri. Deciding I didn’t want to go there, I submitted my paperwork. Onizuka became my final duty location, and I became a civilian and Air Force retiree.
This is a song about relationships, but those who write, work, or do other things can relate these words: “The more you suffer, the more it shows you really care.”
The song, “Self-Esteem,” by the Offspring, came out about year before my retirement from the Air Force. I used to quote that lyric to peers complaining about the military. They didn’t find it as amusing as I did.
I enjoyed all of the lyrics to the song. The song begins, “I wrote her off for the tenth time today, and practiced all the things I would say. But she came over. I lost my nerve. I took her back, and made her dessert.”
I enjoy how lyrics like that capture the angst of being in a relationship, resolving to change dynamics, and then lacking the will to make the desired change.
I see that in writing, too, people making plans and resolutions to write and publish more, to work harder, and then…losing their nerve, or in my case, succumbing to doubt.
Here it is, from nineteen ninety-four, the Offspring with “Self-Esteem.”
Michael Seidel, writer 