Monday’s Theme Music

We’re sitting under a robin’s egg this morning. That’s how blue and clear the sky is today. The smoke has cleared for now. Warnings that it’s returning. But now, air quality is hovering around 11. Good air. You can see it. You can breathe it.

Today is September 20, 2021, a Monday. Ten more September days remain. Then we slide into the final quarter of 2021. Cool this morning. 42 F. The furnace kicked on as the sun crested the mountains at 6:56 AM. With this lovely air, we expect highs in the mid to upper seventies. A good day to get outside.

As it’s Monday morning, a Monday song called “Monday Morning” from 1975 has permeated the Monday morning mental music stream. At least it’s not a manic Monday. That would then be a manic Monday morning mental music stream. Anyway, the song came about just because it is Monday. Lindsey Buckingham wrote the short and straightforward Fleetwood Mac song. My awareness of it came about through a female friend. She was a big Lindsey Buckingham fan, always talking about how willing she was to bear his children. She and I served together at Clark Air Base in the Philippines. Wonder if she ever met him?

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax. Coffee is ready. Breakfast is served. Here’s the music. Cheers

Saturday’s Theme Music

Sunshine kicked out the clouds at 5:34 AM on this blue spring day in Ashland, Saturday, June 12, 2021. Temps immediately jumped up ten degrees and cheered. The back door was thrown open to warm air. Tails up, the cats jaunted out and sniffed, whiskers moving with appreciation for what the day had brought. The temps tell me they’ll be testing the upper edges of sixty (maybe seventy, a few whisper), before the sun gives a final glance over the valley and walks away at 8:47 PM.

Dreams of gold kept awakening me. It rained gold in one dream segment. Surprised by the golden shower, I put my hand out and looked up into the forbidding dark sky. I didn’t feel threatened, just non-plus by this change. Why was it raining gold. Then I laughed. It’s raining gold. And awoke.

Out of that and another gold-themed dream came echoes of “Gold Dust Woman” by Fleetwood Mac, 1977. Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax. Cheers

Saturday’s Theme Music

“Thunder only happens when it’s raining.”

It wasn’t raining (at least around our house) but the thunder was relentless. Half the cats did a frenzied thunder-run to hide. The other two yawned.

I listened to the thunder, waited for the lightning, and remembered songs about thunder, lightning, and rain. The mental stream finally selected the Fleetwood Mac song, “Dreams” (1977). Ostensibly a reflective song about ending relationships, the line about the thunder always resonates with me.

It’s a very mellow song.

Saturday’s Theme Music

Today’s song is due to a Andy Greene article in Rolling Stone about Peter Green. Peter Green was the founder of a little group called Fleetwood Mac, named after Mick Fleetwood (on drums) and John McVie (on bass). After reading the article and listening to the video, I went in search of Peter Green and re-discovered his rendition of The Supernatural. A comment said it was recorded in 1966.

I don’t know. I remember hearing it somewhere as a teenager and wondering, who is that? It was brilliant guitar work. I eventually learned that it was Peter Green. After buying the album used at a head shop, I started playing it at home.

Friends and family weren’t impressed. “There’s no one singing,” was the comment lament. “What’s it about?” “It’s just a guy playing guitar.” These questions and comments left me speechless. Didn’t they hear what he was doing with that guitar?

Peter Green’s skills fell out of my mind as he disappeared from public life after some bad drug experiences. Good of Mick Fleetwood to pay tribute to him and remind us who Peter Green is.

 

Saturday’s Theme Music

Today’s music comes from visiting Mom last week. Whenever I’d talk about driving to my sister’s house, Mom would ask me which way I was going to go and then tell me which way she was going to go. My route varied by time of day, what I was seeing along the way to fill in memories, and what I’d learned about the road construction and congestion during my stay. Mom always took the same route. By the third day of this, Fleetwood Mac’s “Go Your Own Way” (1976) was in my stream.

Fleetwood Mac’s song is about relationships. In a way, that’s how it was for me, when thinking of Mom and remembering this song.

Although I like the studio version of this song better, I chose this live version. I like the nakedness and clarity of the band members. Seeing them reminds me of the people behind the song. The song had a lot of personal reasons behind it as Nicks and Buckingham had broken up; this song was written out of his pain.

Beyond that, I love watching Mick pounding away on the drums. Wow.

Today’s Theme Music

Although this song was released and charted in nineteen seventy-six, people probably know it, thanks to President Bill Clinton. He used it as the music for his campaign theme in nineteen ninety-two, and then at his inaugural ball after winning. Since then, it’s played whenever he shows up to speak at a Democratic National Convention.

And it’s good for that purpose. Before Bill Clinton used it, I used it, too, to keep myself moving forward, dreaming and hoping. It’s a rousing damn song. Here it is, Fleetwood Mac with, “Don’t Stop.”

 

Today’s Theme Music

Pulling one out of the memory cloud, I came up with a classic. ‘Black Magic Woman’ was written by Peter Green and performed by Fleetwood Mac.

I did not much care for that song and rarely heard it.

Two years later, Carlos Santana put it on ‘Abraxas’. I think that’s the one most people know. Most people think Santana wrote ‘Black Magic Woman’, and are unaware of Fleetwood Mac’s version. I’m speaking of the people I know in America. Other peoples in other countries, or or other ages and persuasions, may know differently.

The differences, IMO, is that Green came up with the lyrics but he and his band couldn’t provide it with the musical structure needed. Carlos, on the other hand, with his powerful licks set against that soft, mysterious organ, a steady bass that sings the lyrics at times, a Latin beat, and Gregg Rolie’s vocals, seems like a much more fully realized vision.

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