Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
After watching David Byrne’s performance on SNL last night (very entertaining) and then viewing some clips of Concert for George (2002) (oh, a few more of them were gone), today I have Aerosmith with “Back in the Saddle” (1977). Monday morning – where else you supposed to be? Ride on.
This live version rocks, just like classic rock should. Defiant and bold, sing it loud, and it’ll take you fearlessly out into the day.
“Areofloof” (floofinition) – American floof band formed in Boston in 1970.
In use: “Although renown for hard-floof anthems such as “Floof Emotions” and “Floofs in the Attic”, Aerofloof had a crossover hit with Floof-DMC when the latter covered Aerofloof’s earlier hit, “Scratch This Way”, as a rap song.
Reading the news yesterday and today, I was shaking my head, partially laughing while crying. You know, it was the same old story.
That led to me streaming Aerosmith.
It’s the same old story
Same old song and dance, my friend
It’s the same old story
Same old story
Same old song and dance
It was an easy song to identify with when I was a teenager and the song was released. When you asked questions, you often heard, “That’s just how it is. That’s how it goes.” It was always the same old song and dance, no matter what you were asked.
It’s a song and dance I’m getting tired of now with politics. It’s always one thing or another. Back in the military world, you tired of hearing you must do more with less — same old song and dance. Hurry up and wait — same old song and dance. In the corporate world, it became doing more with less, and then cut expenses and increase profits, or we can’t give you a bonus or pay raise, little boy, while they spread some B.S. about us being a family, or a team, and how much they care. Same old song and dance.
“Same Old Song and Dance”. Only the voices change.
Two songs are competing in my stream today. I can’t remember one of them. I remember two lines and a few guitar chords and licks. I hear the vocals, know the voice, but can’t remember the vocalist, song, or group. Using the few clues I have, I’ve hunted for its identification, and I’ve failed to find satisfaction. So, screw you, song.
The other is another Aerosmith song. Reflecting on that, a room mate was forced on me during part of my assignment in the Philippines (1976-1977). Forced is the correct expression because regulations forbid people in my specialty, which involved controlling nuclear launches, from having a room mate. Yet, most of my assignments found me with a room mate for part of the time, as the local commanders would sign a waiver to the reg. Of course, the waiver was usually rescinded after the command got wind of it, and the room mate was found another place to live.
This guy, Eric, was a large Aerosmith fan. He had a huge stereo, big speakers, amp, turntable, tuner, equalizer, tape player, but only four albums. Two of them were Rocks and Toys in the Attic, so I heard them a lot. I realize, that’s why I know those albums so thoroughly.
Anyway, today I’m streaming “Same Old Song and Dance” (1974). Sure, it’s December, a brand spanking new month, the last month of 2018. 2019 and January will soon be on us. But you know, it feels like the same old story, the same old song and dance, my friends.
It’s some ol’ school rock.
When I post something, I’ve developed a practice of confirming that I haven’t posted it before. This is new to my blogging, probably started within the last six months.
Today I search for Aerosmith. I laughed when I saw how many times I’ve posted an Aerosmith song, including “Livin’ On the Edge” twice.
(As an shameful aside, seeing the errors in my posts make me blush. My posts are typically off the top of my head and written without much thought. (Obviously, right?) I could really use a second and third review of them before posting, and perhaps an editor.)
Well, I’m not posting an Aerosmith song today. Instead, I’m posting Run-DMC’s cover of “Walk This Way” from 1986, featuring Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith. “Walk This Way” is a favorite walking song, and I enjoy the Run-DMC edition a great deal.
Today’s song, “Going Down/Love In An Elevator,” came out in 1989. I was stationed in Germany with the USAF when it was released. It immediately became a unit favorite.
The album, Pump, was a damn good Aerosmith album, equal to the task for rocking old rockers and stimulating some new ones to join the ranks.
The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists’ summary noted that the Doomsday Clock was set to two minutes to midnight last January, 2018. I was thinking about that today as I streamed Aerosmith’s “Livin’ on the Edge”. The song, about the world’s sorry state, was written and released in 1993, after the 1992 Rodney King Riots, sometimes also called the LA Riots.
A quarter of century later, and I think we’re closer to the edge now then we were in 1993. Unfortunately, nobody has a tracking mechanism like the Doomsday Clock to declare how close we are to the edge. Is it a foot? A mile? A million miles? I suppose the edge is different for each of us, and varies by attitude and world events. On some days, I feel like I can stand on my toes, lean forward and look at over the edge. On other days, it’s a distant horizon.
Do you ever listen to the start of Aerosmith’s “Sweet Emotion” and think that it sounds like a cat saying meow with a prolonged techno accent? Listen to the video and see if it doesn’t sound like, “Mee-oowww,” at about the seventeen second mark.
No? Is it just me?
It’s a quiet autumn Saturday morning, a perfect day to sip coffee and listen to some nineteen seventies era American rock. How ’bout Aerosmith, with “Sweet Emotion,” from nineteen seventy-five?
This one came out while I was going through technical training. I didn’t listen to music much during that period. I basically had a clock radio in my dorm room in the Triangle on Keesler Air Force Base outside of Biloxi, Mississippi. I was there for two months, and then went to Wright-Patt for my first duty assignment, and married. With all this, it wasn’t until the next year, nineteen seventy-six, that I listened to Aerosmith.
In September of seventy-six, I reported for duty at Clark Air Base in the Philippines. “Sweet Emotion” was on Aerosmith’s “Toys In the Attic” album. I was on an unaccompanied tour and living in the barracks. I bought some stereo gear, and “Toys In the Attic.” It was available, and I knew it and liked it. I also bought Al Stewart’s “The Year of the Cat,” something by 10ccs, and Stevie Wonder’s “Songs in the Key of Life.”
Besides their hits of “Sweet Emotions” and “Walk This Way,” Toys had several songs I enjoyed, including “Sucking On My Big Ten Inch,” “Uncle Salty,” and “Toys In the Attic.” I listen to any of them, and I’m suddenly twenty-years old in the Philippines again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvKF3WQYADk
“There’s something wrong with the world today.”
When Aerosmith sang that in nineteen ninety-three, I think fuckin’ A, there’s a lot wrong with the world today. I don’t think we’ve advanced much since ’93. It feels like we’re sliding down a steep hill. It’s getting steeper, and we’re picking up speed. I can’t see the bottom, and I don’t know what’s down there, and all these things scare the hell out of me. The Doomsday Clock stayed at three minutes until midnight until twenty seventeen. Now it’s been moved to two and half minutes before midnight.
For the last two years, the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock stayed set at three minutes before the hour, the closest it had been to midnight since the early 1980s. In its two most recent annual announcements on the Clock, the Science and Security Board warned: “The probability of global catastrophe is very high, and the actions needed to reduce the risks of disaster must be taken very soon.” In 2017, we find the danger to be even greater, the need for action more urgent. It is two and a half minutes to midnight, the Clock is ticking, global danger looms. Wise public officials should act immediately, guiding humanity away from the brink. If they do not, wise citizens must step forward and lead the way. See the full statement from the Science and Security Board on the 2017 time of the Doomsday Clock.
Don’t know why it matters to me; I’m sixty-one. How long until death? Yes, but isn’t it the quality of life until death that matters? And do I not want to think the world became better while I was in it, and maybe helped make it a little, teeny-tiny bit better?
Here’s Aerosmith, with “Livin’ On the Edge.”
Michael Seidel, writer 