Tag: Kate Bush

Tuesday’s Theme Music

‘Fire season’ officially started on June 1 for 2022. This is the June 7; I’m a little late in reporting it. Guess I was beguiled by the cool temperatures and generally damp conditions. Essentially, certain activities are curtailed during fire season, or potentially curtailed. It gets down to the local level and the fire threat/danger depending on the soil and vegetation conditions, humidity, and air temperature. It’s all about being alert and ready, vigilant, and cautious.

Despite sunrise at 5:35 this morning, the temperature remains a springish 56 F right now, but a high of 76 is anticipated before the sun dips at 8:45 PM. This is Tuesday.

In other news, we’ve set up appointments for our COVID-19 booster shots. We’re starting to socialize more, cautiously creeping out of our shells, and we have some travel plans for this summer, so we decided, do it now. Like most people, I have collected a list of friends and relatives who have contracted COVID-19. My relatives are all distant. Only four that I know died; the rest have survived but we’re waiting to see if they’ll experience long COVID. Four friends tested positive for COVID-19 last week. Four more were exposed. One tested positive and was rushed to ER with a spectrum of issues. All of these people had vaccinations and boosters. Most were diligent about masks and social distancing. As the CDC and virologists note, vaccinations help deal with the viral load, but your results can vary.

I’m repeating a song that I’ve used before. It’s a good song, though. I haven’t watched the new season of Stranger Things yet, but I hear that Kate Bush’s song, “Running Up That Hill” from 1985 is featured in the show. Well, my neurons caught wind of that and just launched it into loop in the morning mental music stream. Thus, I need to share it to get it out of my system. I don’t make the rules.

Stay positive, test negative, etc. Coffee? Why, yes, of course. Here’s the music, there’s the day. Seize it. Cheers

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

As the coronavirus, economy, and politics dominate the days in negative ways, I thought of Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush performing Peter Gabriel’s quiet and hopeful “Don’t Give Up” (1986).

The song is about struggle, trying, getting beaten, and trying again.

Though I saw it all around
Never thought that I could be affected
Thought that we’d be last to go
It is so strange the way things turn
Drove the night toward my home
The place that I was born, on the lakeside
As daylight broke, I saw the earth
The trees had burned down to the ground

Don’t give up, you still have us
Don’t give up, we don’t need much of anything
Don’t give up, ’cause somewhere there’s a place where we belong

Rest your head, you worry too much
It’s going to be alright
When times get rough, you can fall back on us
Don’t give up, please don’t give up
Got to walk out of here, I can’t take any more
Gonna stand on that bridge, keep my eyes down below
Whatever may come and whatever may go
That river’s flowing, that river’s flowing

h/t to Genius.com

Thought it fit today’s mood well.

 

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Thinking about disasters as I was walking yesterday. Australia is struggling to catch a break this year, going from bushfires to rain to flooding. Indonesia continues having a tough time, quakes in Puerto Rico, and flooding in Chicago.

Then there’s the snow. A winter storm passed through here, giving us a couple inches. Trudging through the aftermath, we’re grateful because it helps the snowbanks, an important source of summer water, even while many mildly rue and curse the snow. Come on, it’s snow, and disrupts our easy ways and pleasantries with its cold intrusion.

It’s impressive how tiny flakes can add up. Our flakes went from normal or average sized to supersized flakes, back to normal before dropping into tiny. All still added up.

These thoughts took me to a Kate Bush 2011 song, “50 Words for Snow”. I enjoy her but I’m mostly aware of this song because Stephen Fry is the one giving the words. Fry delivers them like he’s tasting the expressions. Then Kate goes on with a chorus, “Come on, man,” telling him how many more words he has to go. I don’t hear this song often, originally hearing it by chance on NPR (“Is that Stephen Fry?”) but have since listened to it on the ‘puter, trying to understand all the words for snow. I find it satisfying and contemplative.

Like snow.

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Sunday’s Theme Music

I was running up a hill the other day, so Kate Bush’s song, “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)” (1982) popped into the stream. While running up that hill and thinking of her song about relationships, I thought about how easy it is for “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)” to be about trying to change your life or achieve something, just get somewhere.

I’d be running up that road
Be running up that hill
With no problems

h/t Genius.com

Running up a hill seems more apt as a metaphor over something like running in place. The exertion needed to run up a hill makes it different, as well as your attitude. When you’re running up that hill and begin tiring, breathing harder, sweat bursting out of your body, your attitude changes. You thought, “I can do this,” when you began. It seemed like a friendly challenge for yourself. Now, as the hill goes on, and your teeth grit and your muscles flail, you wonder. Your body flags, will flags, your heart pounds, and you breathe harder and faster, reaching a point where you decide, “Can I make it? Should I go on or give up?” Attendant thoughts, like, “Why am I doing this,” and, “Nobody else cares, nobody else would know if I stop,” enter.

But I knew, and I kept running, although I gotta tell you, I was a lot slower for much of it until I issued a final hard, determined burst and made it. Then I walked, hands on hips, gasping and sucking air, perspiration all over me, enjoying the view…and recovering.

Going back to that song, though, I often think of it when I know of someone I love that’s suffering, and think, “If only we could swap places, so I could take that on for you, and relieve you of your pain and suffering.” But if there is a God, it doesn’t seem like God likes to make deals.

Naturally, it relates to writing, too. Most writing days are stoic, persevering days of going on, like running on a flat. Some days become more powerful, days when I get a special wind and feel like I’m running faster than light. But there are days and times when I’m running up that hill and it seems endless and pointless.

At least for me.

 

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