Tag: Jethro Tull

Monday’s Theme Music

Another Monday has come around, to lift you up or tear you down, depending on your point of view, and what it is that you’re trying to do.

November 22, 2021, has broken like many other days. Bright sunshine blasting light on everything under blue skies unencumbered by smoke or cloud arrived on the Ashland scene at 7:10 AM and will swivel away, leaving us in darkness alleviated by artificial lights at 4:44 PM. Nothing of this day portends murder, death, and chaos, but it’ll happen somewhere. Perhaps the weather there is giving warning signs.

We saw freezing temperatures last night. Got up to 33 F after the sun broke, which stayed as the temp for some time. It has risen to 36. We expect something in the fifties but this feels like aunter, that season between autumn and winter when leaves are still turning and falling but winter’s advance cold marches in and chills us.

I have Jethro Tull, “Bungle in the Jungle” out of 1974, in the morning mental music stream. This came about because of granola. I decided brekkie would feature oatmeal, a pretty standard breakfast for me. I like granola on my oatmeal. Adds crunch, heft, flavor. Several granola styles are in the pantry. I thought I’d save one of them for later in the week, prompting me to remember, “Eating their nuts, saving their raisins for Sunday.” This is, you know, a line from the song. Thereafter, Ian and the gang played live in my head from the record player that still exists in brain’s teen cellar, where all things teen are stored.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax and booster when ye can. Also, coffee up. I’m going to. It’s cold morning and coffee warms me well. Also stimulates the muses to come so I can write. Muses are so fond of the coffee smell that all I need do is spritz a little ground coffee scent about and they flit right in.

Here’s the music. Cheers

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Monday’s Theme Music

Time again for Michael’s May Monday Mocha Madness! Grab your mocha and do-si-do. Except, I have no mocha at hand, alas. Well, I’ll just dance with my coffee, although Michael’s May Monday Coffee Madness lacks the alliteration the mocha provided.

No matter. Today is the third, and it’s the first Monday in May of 2021. The sun’s initial showing came at 6:04 AM, while the sun will take it’s final bow at 8:12 PM. Between those hours, evidence is accumulating that we’ll have a traditional spring day in Ashland, high on sunshine, with moderately warm temperature tempered by some cooling breezes. No clouds have shown themselves today, so far. They may have just forgotten to set their alarm or something.

Musically, are you ready for a little prog rock with flute? I’m channeling a 1969 Jethro Tull, “Living in the Past”. Isn’t that apropos for 2021 in the U.S., when so many are longing for the past, and some idyllic posturing of same?

Happy and I’m smiling
Walk a mile to drink your water
You know I’d love to love you
And above you there’s no other
We’ll go walking out
While others shout of war’s disaster
Oh, we won’t give in
Let’s go living in the past

Once I used to join in
Every boy and girl was my friend
Now there’s revolution, but they don’t know
What they’re fighting
Let us close our eyes
Outside their lives go on much faster
Oh, we won’t give in
We’ll keep living in the past

h/t to AZLyrics.com

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, and get the vax. Cheers

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Thursday’s Theme Music Twofer

An old favorite Jethro Tull song came to mind this morning as I thought of self-isolation and the coronavirus social-distance shuffle. “Only Solitaire” is a short ‘un.

Brain-storming habit-forming battle-warning weary
winsome actor spewing spineless chilling lines —
the critics falling over to tell themselves he’s boring
and really not an awful lot of fun.
Well who the hell can he be when he’s never had V.D.,
and he doesn’t even sit on toilet seats?
Court-jesting, never-resting — he must be very cunning
to assume an air of dignity
and bless us all with his oratory prowess,
his lame-brained antics and his jumping in the air.
And every night his act’s the same
and so it must be all a game of chess he’s playing —
“But you’re wrong, Steve: you see, it’s only solitaire.”

h/t AZLyrics.com

As it’s so short, my mind jumped to a 1966 Neil Diamond song, “Solitary Man”. (BTW, Johnny Cash did an interesting cover of this song in 2000.)

The song has that pop sound of transition during those days (mid sixties). Featuring a horn section that was often used as pop went electric, becoming rock and more mainstream, the song has a sound that I associate more with adult contemporary. Interesting though, that this sound is being used by several groups now as a retro sound. Think, for example, of Portugal! the Man. WTH, I’ll include that, too. You don’t get a twofer, but a threefer.

That is all. Good day.

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Sunday’s Theme Music

I’m once again streaming 1974, another year in which things happened, other things changed, and everything kept going almost as though nothing had happened. For me, I graduated high school, turned eighteen, joined the military and left home, in that order.

Today’s theme music, “Only Solitaire”, arrives via a miasma polluting the thinking stream. Jethro Tull’s Warchild album was being streamed, but thinking about a particular individual, the stream’s thread narrowed to “Only Solitaire”. It’s a short and simple song.

Brain-storming habit-forming battle-warning weary
winsome actor spewing spineless chilling lines —
the critics falling over to tell themselves he’s boring
and really not an awful lot of fun.
Well who the hell can he be when he’s never had V.D.,
and he doesn’t even sit on toilet seats?
Court-jesting, never-resting
he must be very cunning
to assume an air of dignity
and bless us all with his oratory prowess,
his lame-brained antics and his jumping in the air.
And every night his act’s the same
and so it must be all a game of chess he’s playing
“But you’re wrong, Steve: you see, it’s only solitaire.”

h/t to Collecting-tull.com

It’s a short song, a few ticks more than a minute and a half.

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

“And the love that I feel is so far away. I’m a bad dream that I just had today. And you shake your head and say, it’s a shame.”

Jethro Tull’s Thick As A Brick album was released in 1972. Sixteen years old, I bought it on vinyl and wore it out playing it. Listening to this concept album last night – concept albums were big in those years – it reminds me of some of the era’s Yes and Emerson, Lake, and Palmer music — or they remind me of Jethro Tull. Like most art, it’s a continuum of exploration and imagining, building on what’s heard and done.

“But your wise men don’t know how it feels, to be thick as a brick.”

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

I don’t surf. Okay, big deal, right? I’m probably not alone in that declaration. But sometime in my youth, I adopted a private attitude that I’m riding the waves of the day. I think this song, “Skating Away on the Thin Ice of the New Day” by Jethro Tull, directly contributed to my approach.

Skate away on the day’s thin ice, ride the waves and surf through the day. Do what needs to be done to get through.

 

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