Tag: Lynyrd Skynyrd

Frida’s Theme Music

Greetings again, world. It’s time again for Frida. Today is April 11, 2025. Those of you in ‘Merica might note the date and say, “Oh, yeah. Taxes.” I finished mine back in early Feb but held off submitting because I owe, I owe. Submitting them is on tonight’s agenda.

It’s 54 F at this point. Feels like it to me. Sunshine is a light version of itself today. Mmm, yeah, cloudy. Might rain. Might not. Might get up to 60 F. Then again, might not. This is Ashlandia spring weather.

Been reading and digesting the news. I know what I make of things. I see that on the political spectrum’s right side, they’re either cherry-picking info or hiding it. Cherry-picking as in, “Look how strong the market was Wednesday.” Hiding, as in, crickets about inflation and the price of eggs. Eggs bounced up into record realms. Rising prices were offset by Trusk Regime imports from Turkey and South Korea.

“Turkey and South Korea,” my wife said. “Wonder if the tariffs will change that.”

Looking out the window, I noted the weather change. The Neurons perversely seized the weather change and fired up “Call Me the Breeze”. They had the 1974 Lynyrd Skynyrd cover of the JJ Cale classic going in the morning mental music stream in short order.

“Ain’t no change in the weather
Ain’t no change in me
Ain’t no change in the weather
Ain’t no change in me
I ain’t hidin’ from nobody
Ain’t nobody hidin’ from me

h/t Genius.com

I enjoy the LS version but we’re not all the same, so here’s Eric Clapton and JJ Cale doing another offering.

And then we have an offerin’ by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

I find them fine but in different ways. Hope one suited your Frida taste buds.

Coffee and I have metaphorically joined hands once again. Hope your Frida is going strong and just gets better and better, and I’m not being snarky when I say that.

Cheers

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Overture, hit the lights, this is, the night of nights.

Yes, it’s book club Wednesday. K is hosting. The house is clean as a whistle. I don’t understand that expression but know it from older people using it in my youth. As a developing elder, I feel it incumbent to carry the tradition forward so that future generations can ask, what does that mean? I understand it from context and use, sure, the eighteenth-century expression doesn’t seem straightforward to my mind.

The vegan brownies are done and turned out great. She used the same recipe and materials used for the disastrous test brownies. Shrug. The other little vegan cream cheese with cranberry sauce and orange zest with puff pastry will be baked later today.

We picked up four bottles of wine for the book club but this isn’t a wine drinking book club. One or two will have a glass of wine. This just gives them options. Our wine stand’s stock declined in the last two years. We usually had twenty to thirty bottles on hand. We were down to twelve. The beverage predictions are that one bc member will drink decaf, three will drink water, and the rest will drink hot tea.

White fog envelopes the sky out of the house’s west side today. New snow fell. Just two inches but enough to cocoon our land in white. White pine branches protect scattered patches of green grass. Black asphalt and dark wet cement rivers through. But bold sunshine is skating in from the east from its rising time of 6:35, blasting our eyes off the snow when we look out the windows on the other side. It’s 35 F now but we expect 41 F before the sun puts us in its rearview at 6:09 this evening.

This is Tuesday, March 8, 2023.

The last original member of Lynyrd Skynyrd, Gary Rossington, died a few days ago. Skynyrd was part of my youth’s broad musical tapestry and his passing brings that period and their songs to mind. The Neurons selected a humorous song from 1973 for the morning mental music stream, “Gimme Three Steps”. Song is derived from a true story which happened to a band member.

Okay, coffee is at hand. Stay pos. This is Wednesday. Act like you own it. Like you got dreams and you’re gettin’ after ’em. Time to do it. (A phrase which encouraged The Neurons to kick in a song by the Black Eye Peas, “I Got A Feelin'”.)

Here’s a terrific live version of “Gimme Three Steps” from ’76. Cheers

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Center stage was the sun’s at 7:05 AM in Pittsburgh, and she used it to full, rousing effect.

Today is called September 20, 2022. I awoke thinking about dreams and then shifted to news, feeling concerns about all the storms hitting. Japan. Alaska. Puerto Rico. How are things there? Is help on the way. Politics are a little suspended as I wait for pieces of information to be released, and wait for mid-terms. Wait. Read. Listen. Think. Wait.

I feel like I’m on a low boil here in PA as the stout sunshine finds my skin. 19 C again, high of 77 F expected before the sun’s curtain falls at 7:21 PM. Clouds lurk and plot, meeting and muttering with one another, but the sun owns the stage in my zone.

Since it’s Tuesday, The Neurons have planted “Tuesday’s Gone” by Lynyrd Skynyrd in the morning mental music stream. First heard it when it was released in 1973 and I was a high school junior at Shady Spring High School. The song strikes deep chords in me, sealing another longing fit for what was and what never came to be. ‘Tis always been that way.

So, you know, have some coffee and enjoy Tuesday before it’s gone. Stay pos, test neg. Cheers

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Friday’s Theme Music

Zounds. It’s already Friday again — Friday, December 17, 2021, to use its fully nomenclature. I’m staggered that it’s already Friday. What happened to the week? And, just two weeks remain in the month. Just two weeks remain in 2021. We are bolting toward 2022.

Okay, many respond. That’s how calendars work. How we hooman beasts track time for physical needs, work, and play. Why are you surprised that all this has transpired, Michael? Have you not been paying attention?

Nah, I think I pay too much attention. Maybe I need to let go about.

Ah, it’s sunshine streaming through blue skies obscured with filmy white ribbons. Fog is struggling to establish control, attaining some success among the trees in the mountain’s folds. Snow still reigns over the peaks and ridges, presenting them with a friendlier white majesty. Sunrise kicked in at 7:34 AM and is due to kick out at 4:40 PM. The temperature has climbed to 31 F. Should reach 44 F, which is about where we went yesterday, and is all in accordance with average expectations.

I was watching a small bird threading on and off a tree’s naked branches, a little sparrow beast. Neurons said, “I appreciate what that expression, ‘free as a bird’, means.” Because he was just going wherever, flitting about. Of course, he — or she — couldn’t see the sex from where I was — was in the elements, looking for food, a-flying and a-flittin’ to remain alive.

All that neural activity prompted a song to jump into the morning mental music stream. “Play ‘Free Bird’,” is a shout parodied in movies, but my neurons started jumping up and down, shouting, “Play ‘Free Bird’.” “Free Bird” is a song by Lynyrd Skynyrd that came out in 1974. 1974 is my high school graduation year, so this rocking song was my theme music for that year.

Keep rockin’, stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vaxes and boosters when ye can. I have my coffee, so if you’ll excuse me, destiny awaits. Cheers

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Friday’s Theme Music

“Should I try to do some more? Twenty-five or six to four.”

That’s how it briefly felt (befuddled and dazed), trying to scope the time when a dream’s sharp end poked me suddenly awake. Turned out to be 2:33 AM. A trip to release some fluids was in order, followed by a need to add more fluids. Cats, curious about what I’m doing up, seeing an opportunity for a meal, cosied up with purrs and mips. I opened the back door and let cool mountain air and clear starlight seduce me for a few minutes before regular programming was resumed.

Sunrise on June fourth Friday of 2021 came a few hours later, 5:46 AM. We ended up over ninety F yesterday. The weather masters all insist that today will top out in the high eighties, same claim as yesterday, so I believe we’ll peek into the low nineties before the Earth’s movement takes the sun out of our sky at 8:43 PM.

While ambulating about the hills yesterday, “I Ain’t the One” by Lynyrd Skynyrd (1973) started playing in my mind. I’d been thinking about conspiracy theories, partly because, news, reading of the fiction and non-fiction type, and partly, you know, fiction writing. In fiction land, I’d just finished reading “The Searcher” by Tana French a few days ago, and am now into “The Long Way Home” by Louise Penny along with “A House in the Neighborhood” by Bob Mustin, enjoying them all. Before that lot, I’d read several Lee Child books from the Jack Reacher series, and a few by each by Jonathan Kellerman, Craig Johnson, and Keigo Higashino. Parallel to them, I read “The Grammarians” and just finished reading “The Fifth Risk” by Michael Lewis. Almost all these feature some conspiracy theory thinking. Happens naturally when things happen in fiction and explanations are tasted for what and why. Over in the non-fiction side, “The Fifth Risk” is about DOE concerns about the U.S. electric grid and the Trump administration’s approach to things. Their approach included conspiracy theories about what bureaucrats and political appointees are up to. An interesting albeit painful read.

I queried my head about what conspiracies have to do with “I Ain’t the One”. It took a while of noodling to realize that buried at the song’s end was the clue. Here’s the song’s final lyrics.

Got bells in your mind, mama
And it’s easy to see
I think it’s time for me to move along
I do believe
I must be in the middle of some kind of conspiracy

Lynyrd Skynyrd – I Ain’t the One Lyrics | Genius Lyrics

I muttered a bit at my mind about that feeble connection. I mean, come on, man.

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYochfJIknQ
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Thursday’s Theme Music

Lock downs, quarantine, self-distancing, isolation, and every other way you can think of saying “We’re staying inside” is still in effect in many places. Restlessness is grabbing people. They’re suffering urges to hit the road, get their nails done, go bowling, or just stroll the streets and have a drink with friends. Some of them are thinking of escape.

Which brought to mind, “Gimme Three Steps” by Lynyrd Skynyrd from 1973. Bet that’s more than a few out there, thinking, gimme three steps, and I’ll be out the door ‘fore you know it.

Here’s some music for your thoughts.

 

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

I thought, “Tuesday,” and Lynyrd Skynyrd’s ballad, “Tuesday’s Gone,” streamed in from their first album, released in nineteen seventy-three.

It’s a relaxing, reflective song. I was in my last year of high school when I first heard it. It feels like a song that’s right for going into your final year. After a final year of anything, everything is changed, which is the sentiment I infer from “Tuesday’s Gone.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvWADo6KPzA

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Today’s Theme Song

Accumulating steps and miles for my Fitbit in Ashland’s downtown yesterday, I heard a busker belting out an acoustic version of “Simple Man.” Remembering it from my high school years, I started singing along to myself. Lynyrd Skynyrd was part of the rising southern rock movement in the seventies, along with ZZ Top, the Charlie Daniels Band, and the Marshall Tucker Band.

The song, with its clear vocals and power guitars, reminded me of those years and a simpler period of life when my main concerns were getting gas money and passing tests in school. When the song stopped abruptly yesterday, I hunted the busker down in an unused business entrance on Main Street where he was changing a guitar string. We chatted a bit and I donated a few bucks to his cause.

The song, of course, hijacked my mental stream and stayed, so I pass it on to you. Here’s Lynyrd Skynyrd with “Simple Man,” from their first album in nineteen seventy-three.

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