Tag: memories

Wednesday’s Theme Music

Well, time was up.

Past ‘up’.

I was supposed to have departed the fix about fifteen minutes before, so I was now behind my schedule. Couldn’t help it. Couldn’t stop writing. Coffee was gone, butt was uncomfortable, and my sciatic nerve was causing pain issue from being perched on the coffee shop’s new hard chairs. All the signs were aligned, time to go, mo-fo.

But —

Yes. Closing up with a stern order, go now, I packed it all up, strapped on the backpack, and headed into the sunshine. It was doing little good against the wintry air, but it was in the low 40s, a better place to be than, say, single digits that some in Alaska are enduring, and it’s better than Australia’s fires and blazing heat. So, couldn’t complain.

Walking up the hill, the distinctive piano playing of the Moody Blues cover of “Go Now” (1964) arrived in my stream. It’s a wondrous juxtaposition when the thing you’ve been doing, memories of places and events, and what you’re now doing come together in a perfectly mellow mood. I usually need a beer, a glass of wine, cup of coffee, or the toke of a joint to arrive in such a state.

But here I was, just me and the small town, with myself and music in my head, cold in the air, and sunshine on the other side of the valley.

 

 

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

For some reason, my mind pivoted through several holiday songs this morning. Then one — by the Scorpions, of course — what other group leaps to mind when you think holiday, right? — lodged in the stream.

It wasn’t so much as the holiday as it was the cold friggin’ air, air that felt it belonged up in Alaska, where a friend mentioned that it was twelve degrees. We weren’t nearly that low, hovering at just under 30 F, with clear skies and sunshine, but that sun was all light and no heat, ya know?

That’s where the Scorpions wiggled into the stream.

Let me take you far away
You’d like a holiday
Let me take you far away
You’d like a holiday
Exchange the cold days for the sun
A good time and fun

h/t Metrolyrics.com

So you see how it all worked out – holiday, cold, sun, heat, Scorpions, going away?

I thought you would. Cheers

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Saturday’s Theme Music

I was outside, watching light seep out of the day. Purples and grays stole in, and then darkness. Solstice – the longest night for us northern dwellers – was almost here. And as I watched, thinking about the fading daylight and growing night, I remembered a song.

Several groups made “(I know) I’m Losing You”, but it was the Rare Earth’s version from 1970 (when I became fourteen years old) that sprang to mind. “Your love is fading. I feel it fade.”

No, it wasn’t love fading; just the light, and it’s going to be coming back soon.

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Friday’s Theme Music

This song popped up from the memory banks into the active stream yesterday as I was hurrying along. I have to get this done so that I can get home and get that done, I thought. Better get running. (It’s a mode that I dislike – run and get things done – anathema to my general philosophy.) A second later, JoJo Gunn’s 1972 song, “Run, Run, Run” was there.

Not much to the song, really. Some pleasant slide work, a fast beat, lyrics about running.

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Thursday’s Theme Music

A flashback morning took place. Had an early morning appointment down the highway. I avoid early mornings and appointments. I don’t mind getting up as long as I can leisurely sip coffee, read, goof-off, and dress. If you force me into the shower and clothes early, I’m a recalcitrant beast.

Did that for years. Military periods in command posts in the winter meant I’d go into the building before dark and come back out after dark, a day without sunshine. Marketing years meant hitting the road for early flights, slumbering and working on planes, and then into a rental car to hunt my way around the city. Meanwhile, there was always The Commute, the buzz along highways filled with like buzzing drones, racing to our work hives like frantic little bees.

So being in the car on the road before sunrise (which isn’t that early, between the time shift and time of year) (so, setting the stage with more specific info, this was 7:30 AM), zipping through rain and lumbering along with other traffic (what the hell is going on up there? Why aren’t we moving?) made it seem like old times.

Radio selection helped turn it into a jumpback in time. When “Roam” by the B52s hit the air, I cranked it up and motored like it was 1989. ‘Course, it also reminded me of Ricky Wilson’s passing (1985, 32 years old), kicking in reflections about what age is considered acceptable to die? I concluded, we’re all going to die, but that doesn’t make it okay, at any age, for any reason.

Yeah, tilting against death, nature, etc., It’s a quixotic mission.

 

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Another song which entered my stream this morning and just lodged itself. A worthy song, sure, and one that I’m familiar with, but not my ‘type’ of preferred music. Of course I know it; pop music was less divided back in 1976 when this song came out, with fewer stations. Generally, in the places were I was, there were two or three news/talk format, two or three pop/rock stations, a local NPR station, a sports station, light adult contemporary, a jazz station, several religious stations, and a couple of country and western. My car had six presets, so I had my favorites on there and went back and forth, punching the button with a finger when something I didn’t want to hear came on.

Nevertheless, so songs were overpowering popular, that they were heard everywhere, all the time. Besides hearing them on the radio, they’d be on television. People played them on their car cassette players, record players at home, and 8-track players.

This song, “Don’t Cry Out Loud”, performed by Melissa Manchester, seemed like it was one of them.

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Friday’s Theme Music

Still raining.

Still walking in it.

Still fun — or pleasant — but a little less so than yesterday or the day before.

Smoke was rising from the hillside, leftover from the controlled burns in the watershed the other day. But I thought, yeah, maybe someone set fire to the rain.

So then I was thinking about Adele’s song, “Set Fire to the Rain” (2011), a powerful, powerful song about love, relationships, and re-birth. I (probably like many) enjoy her refrain:

But there’s a side to you that I never knew, never knew
All the things you’d say, they were never true, never true
And the games you’d play, you would always win, always win

h/t to MetroLyrics.com

That’s what you find as you go through relationships, the pieces that aren’t revealed, whose revelations (when found) fundamentally shift your thoughts (and feelings) about the other, leaving you to ask yourself (as you search), what do I do?

Sometimes you walk on, sometimes you stay, but the relationship has been changed.

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

A mellow tune for today, one that I thought of while looking at the mountains across the way. Cold and clear, we were in the shadows on a mountain on the northern side. Over on the southern mountains, sunshine looked warm and inviting. It seemed like two worlds.

I wondered what could bring those worlds together, knowing that those “two worlds” that I saw were one, divided by who was in the shadow. It seemed a proper metaphor for life. People live in the shadow of the information and myths – and sometimes, disinformation and lies – that dominate our world. Amazing how the shadows can affect it.

From that came thoughts of songs about people coming together. There’s a bunch of them that were made in the 1960s, a time when trying to come together seemed important to many artists. Out of the pool, “Get Together” by the Youngbloods (1967) rose to the top and took over the stream.

 

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Harry Nilsson was a tremendously talented songwriter and an entertaining rock star. I don’t know what prompted “Jump Into the Fire” (1972) to jump into my head yesterday afternoon. It’d been another wonderful day of writing. The day was windy and drizzly but pleasant, and I was thinking about how fortunate I was in so many ways. Out of that and into my stream came this song. He was young, of course, when he died, 52, but we still have his music.

Let’s jump into the fire and make each other happy.

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Thursday Theme Music

I was fortunate by when and where I was born. Pop music with all of its manifestations and variations had started booming, a boom that has continued. Being able to hear marvelous talents demonstrating their talents and skills via a turn of knob, the push of a button, the click of a link was and is amazing.

The Beatles were a huge part of that development. Their breakup…well, it happened, like a favorite couple being divorced. But they continued as individuals, adding to the musical treasure.

Ringo Starr was the Beatles’ drummer. I always thought of his song, “It Don’t Come Easy” by Ringo Starr (1971) as almost like an anthem. For a few lucky folks, things come easy. But for the rest of us, this is an enduring theme song.

Cheers

 

 

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