I have a habit now of waking up and reminding myself of the day and date. Just wanna ensure I don’t forget them.
We played dance music yesterday and danced around as we finished the jigsaw puzzle. Not so easy for many others out there. So, in a sappy way, this is for them.
From a simpler time (and another decade), here’s the wonderful Whitney Houston with “I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)” (1987).
Clock strikes upon the hour
And the sun begins to fade
Still enough time to figure out
How to chase my blues away
I’ve done alright up ’til now
It’s the light of day that shows me how
And when the night falls
Loneliness calls
Social distancing has been around for a while. Why, The Offspring were singing ’bout it way back in the last century, circa 1994. “Come Out and Play” was partially about keepin’ separated — there’s always a reason, it’s just the logic that’s different. As they noted in their lyrics, learn from your mistakes (I’m interpreting) or you’re gonna repeat them.
It goes down the same as the thousand before
No one’s getting smarter no one’s learning the score
Your never-ending spree of death and violence, and hate
Is gonna tie your own rope, tie your own rope, tie your own
Hey man you talkin’ back to me?
Take him out
You gotta keep ’em separated
Well, from sometime yesterday, out walking in the hills, admiring the sunset’s effects on the northern mountains, came some lines from the Styx song, “The Best of Times” (1981).
The headlines read, “These are the worst of times”
I do believe it’s true
I feel so helpless like a boat against the tide
I wish the summer winds could bring back paradise
Yes, the helplessness and frustration that seems to permeate so much of life sometimes can make it seem like the worse of times. It’s not for me, of course, but stress, and that sense, comes from that lack of control and the inability to steer things, to be able to take action and change the course before we wreck.
I’m sure most of us have experienced it at least once in a lifetime, where we said, “I know where this is going, and you’re not going to like it.” Then it happens, and all the misery you predicted comes to pass and others ask, “Who could have seen this was going to happen?”
Well, hell, many of us do see these things, but we’re ignored. We don’t get used to that; it’s just frustrating.
Then it all passes, and the courses that you thought should have been taken are, and things go great for a while.
No, I’m not a master prognosticator. I just color my memories with the best of times.
Just riding the day this morning, surfin’ the news and the web, maintaining my balance, trying not to wipe out and crash.
From that, yeah, “Surfin’ Safari” by the Beach Boys (1962) plunged into my mental musical stream. It came out when I was six. Don’t know when I first heard it. Simple lyrics, etc., so it was easy to learn and memorable. Today, it seems like music from a kinder era. But then, I peruse my limited memory of U.S. history at time, refreshing myself with, oh, yeah, those protests against that war, and that war, itself, and that cold war, and an assassination the next year, and the air pollution.
So, back to surfin’ the wave of the day, trying not to wipe out.
Planning the day, thinking about doin’ a little drivin’, I thought of Sniff n’ the Tears.
Don’t know much about this band. I could look them up, but I didn’t. I remember listening to the radio somewhere on a Texas Interstate, coming back from Austin (we lived in on Randolph Air Force Base, just outside of San Antonio) and hearing this song, “Drivers’s Seat” on the radio. And the announcer – it was the weekly countdown – said, “That was Sniff n’ the Tears moving up in the countdown.” My friends and I, hearing that band’s name, started laughing, and then we were coming up with other band names.
Anyway, the song mentions being doin’ a little drivin’ on a Saturday, which I’ll be doing. I’m sure many others will be out there. As they used to say on Hill Street Blues, “Let’s be careful out there.”
A double-whammy brought this song into the stream this morning. First were dreams about photographs. Then, as I’m sitting at my desk thinking about the dreams, I see a photograph of my wife on the desk. Taken of her in Christmas, 1981, it was our first Christmas in Okinawa, Japan. A note on the back in her writing says, “I was sick as a dog.” She looks wonderful, though, in a bright purple short-sleeved top. Her hair is bobbed short, as she wore it for a number of years.
Between the dreams and memories, Ringo Starr’s old hit song, “Photograph” (1973) arose. About the only thing in common between the song’s lyrics and sentiment, the dream, and the photograph on the desk is that word, photograph. Everything else is quite different.
Today reveals that I’m in a nostalgic, wistful mood. I stepped outside onto the back patio. Buds are on the trees, and the air smells rain-filled. Not a new rain nor a close rain, but hints that rain was nearby. Which, after a bit of talking to cats and thinking about the rise of spring (like it’s a rebellion in the air) reminded me of other times and places that seemed. Out of that came a Rolling Stones song, which, I guessed after a bit, would’ve been heard in 1973. Getting back into the house, I looked up “100 Years Ago”, confirming, 1973, from the album Goats Head Soup. Not quite a hundred years ago, but at least most of a lifetime ago.
“The buds were bursting and the air smelled sweet and strange,
and it seemed about a hundred years ago.”
I was singing today’s song because it’s Tuesday, and I was ruminating over my dreams. Had to look up the date of when the song was released. It’s one of those songs that’ve been around for almost all of my life.
Turns out that “Ruby Tuesday” was released in 1967. I turned eleven years in ’67. Good years for cars. I enjoyed the ’67 Ford Mustang’s looks, along with the ’67 Chevy Camaro and the ’67 Mercury Cougar. I also like the ’67 E Jag, but it was little changed in its looks from previous years.
The lyrics (besides the main chorus) that came up with the sun today were toward the song’s end:
There’s no time to lose, I heard her say
Catch your dreams before they slip away
Dying all the time
Lose your dreams
And you will lose your mind.
Ain’t life unkind?
Somehow, Mick and the Stones make this work. One of the things that go through my head while watching this video is the thinking, okay, what am I going to wear today, that must have progressed. Yet, being a boy from the sixties, I often dressed like this.
Preparing to depart the coffee shop yesterday, I bused my table. Looking into the roasting room, I saw one of the Noble employees back there. My jaw dropped.
He’s a spitting image of Chuck Negron of Three Dog Night back in the late 1960s.
Negron, Wells and Hutton of Three Dog Night in 1969
Thinking about that as I walked the town, I went through a few TDN songs – “Eli’s Coming”, “One”, “Joy to the World”, “Mama Told Me Not To come”, and “Liar”. The song that arrived to stay in the stream was one where Negron was the featured lead vocalist. That would be TDG’s cover of “Easy to Be Hard” from Hair.
Not only was it fittin’ to have Negron, the secret coffee roaster (maybe he cloned himself) singin’ a song, but the song whose lyrics fit these times of rollbacks in how we treat one another to the point of open hostility and cruelty.
How can people be so heartless
How can people be so cruel
Easy to be hard
Easy to be cold
How can people have no feelings
How can they ignore their friends
Easy to be proud
Easy to say no
Especially people who care about strangers
Who care about evil and social injustice
Do you only care about the bleeding crowd
How about a needy friend
I need a friend
Clear night last night, after a quasi-balmy day. That’s a day when warmth and cold — spring and winter — have repeated rounds, looking for victory. Walk in sunshine and it’s so warm, and yeah, baby, spring is almost here. Then, stepping into the shadows, wintry winds slash your cheeks and hands and you’re, like, geez, that’s friggin’ cold. Even the smell between these experiences is different, with one offering a definite winter scent to the air.
Back to last night, it was clear, feeling like winter settling in for the night, but I was out, looking for stars and the moon. No moon was found, which made me cycle through what I remembered from seeing the moon (oh, yeah, we had that big full moon weekend earlier this month) (was that this month?) (how many weeks ago?). Then I spotted her, a waning crescent, by my guess, just peeking past trees, houses, and mountains, shy, like she’s uncertain of her role here.
All that released song lyrics into the stream. I had to strike a pose to remember. (Something about the moon and crossing…who was that?) I vaguely heard the guitars and vocalist…the voice seemed familiar.
More lyrics were found, and then I remembered, that’s REO Speedwagon. With a little more coaxing, other lyrics came, and finally, the name, “Ridin’ the Storm Out”.
Here’s the initial verse that I was trying to recall regarding the moon (thanks, Metrolyrics.com)
And I’m not missing a thing
Just watchin’ the full moon crossing the range
Ridin’ the storm out, ridin’ the storm out
Michael Seidel, writer 