Tag: comedown

Friday’s Theme Music

Many songs that I remember have specific moments attached. They follow traditional, predictable patterns of love, success, pain, and failure.

Today’s song is hotly linked to success. It was 1999. Retired from the military, I was working in a medical device startup company. I began as the customer service manager. Then the company was bought out. And on this day, the new VP of marketing from the company who bought us had offered me a big promotion, to become a product manager, and I’d accepted.

The world looked great. This was in the summer in the Peninsula portion of the SF Bay Area known as Silicon Valley. I was in my car, a vehicle I enjoyed The sky was blue, the sun was bright and warm, and the future seemed amazing.

Traffic wasn’t bad either, as I left Highway 101 and I-280 behind me and headed west toward home on highway 92. For that day, I put in Bush, Sixteen Stone, and selected “Comedown” (1995).

Here are the lyrics that drew me that day:

‘Cause I don’t wanna come back down from this cloud
It’s taken me all this time to find out what I need
I don’t wanna come back down from this cloud
It’s taken me all this all this time

h/t AZlyrics.com

(BTW, I wanted to indent the lyrics to call them out, but can’t find the indent on this new, cumbersome, tedious, loaded WP editor. This is supposed to be a quick post; I don’t want to spend a lot of time searching through blocks and patterns, widgets and menus to find what used to be a simple matter. And where is the help? Oh, let me look for that.)

Don’t have a specific reason for this song in my head today. Just awoke to that beginning from the song. Maybe it was a dream thing, or a writing thing, or my generally foolish, optimistic nature.

But that’s today’s music.

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The Comedown

You ever have a highly productive day, where you feel fantastic about what you accomplished, but then, the next day, you feel hungover, drained, and tired?

Yeah, overcoming the comedown from a natural high is tough, innit? This is when discipline, perseverance, and dedication are demanded.

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Today’s Theme Music

Back in the early 1990s, I was stationed at Onizuka, just off Highway 101 in Sunnyvale. I worked with a guy who was dating a SF rock station DJ. Bush and Pearl Jam, among others, were playing in area clubs. The DJ was often involved locally in arranging these shows, so she would take him with him sometimes, enabling him the chance to meet the bands. I went a few times and ended up meeting the guys of STP, Pearl Jam and Bush. ‘Meet’ is a generous expression. It was more like they would generally nod at me (or stare) when my name was given. Sometimes one or two would chat with me, but the meet place was usually hot, crowded and barely lit, and they were getting ready to do a show. I was just trying to stay out of the way.

Here’s the twist: my friend was dating the DJ in secret. He spilled the news to me once while we were having a few beers. Why this was secret was never explained well. I didn’t care; it was their life. If they wanted to keep their dating secret, that was their biz.

Those three bands all were on the cusp of making it big when I met them; once they did, I never met them again, but I bought their albums and enjoyed their music. I ended up making a personal favorite CD for driving around and that CD included music from them, along with the Cranberries, Blind Melon, and a few others.

Bush’s ‘Comedown’ was the first song on the CD. I’ll always associate it with blasting down Interstate 280 in my RX-7 as it played. The weather was usually gorgeous, and it was a fine time for me to be alive, and the song’s lyrics fit: “I don’t want to come back down from this cloud. It’s taken me all this time to find out what I need.”

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