Tag: music

Today’s Theme Music

Stevie Nicks has lived an interesting life and presented memorable music. I have many favorites out of her catalogue. Her music usually has a story behind its creation.

The story behind this one is what makes it one of my favorites. Newly married, she and her husband were driving somewhere when Prince’s ‘Little Red Corvette’ came on. Stevie really enjoyed it. Humming it, she began coming up with her own song and actually went into the studio and did a demo that night, even though this was her honeymoon. Then she called Prince and told him about the song and how his song inspired it. He came over and helped her finish it.

That story of inspiration firing her creativity resonates with me. The final touch is Prince’s unattributed (on the album) assistance. Here’s ‘Stand Back’.

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Today’s Theme Music

We’re split on so many issues these days. It’s always been so, I think – remember slavery? Our history is full of repression, divisions, social rifts and strife. The establishment remains entrenched and opaque. Callow politicians and business leaders too often lie to us to promote private agendas, and those agendas are usually about taking care of themselves to the detriment of our nation and its citizens. It’s difficult to read the news and not become frustrated and depressed.

In memory of our history and all that’s going on now and forever, I offer something a little lighter that demonstrates a small sliver of some of the differences that have always existed. Webizens, here is ‘Uneasy Rider’ by Charlie Daniels, 1973.

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Today’s Theme Music

I have Sirius XM in my car. I don’t pay for it. It came with six months free when I bought the car almost two years ago. They want me to pay for it, so they send me deals to entice me to return. The deal is usually two free weeks but they often leave it on.

When I have the deal, I take advantage. That changes my listening patterns. My wife and I enjoy the blues, so we put it on BB King’s Bluesville and leave it there for days.

I end up missing the current music. One of the more recent hits I enjoy is The Weeknd’s ‘In the Night’. It has something of a Michael Jackson sound to it from one of his periods.

Since it’s the weekend, here it The Weeknd, in the morning, with ‘In the Night’. 

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Today’s Theme Music

Alright, let’s start the week with a little attitude.

Cee Lo Green had a hit with ‘Forget You’.  Clever words and a throwback Motown sound infuses the song with a get up and move beat, but he had another version. A clever young person, Anna, made it a jewel. In her comment when she uploaded it to Youtube, Anna wrote,

“My name is Anna and this is my final for a college level sign language class. I am not deaf and still learning sign language and encourage others to learn sign language as well! Thank you so much for all the love”

Sometimes the song’s attitude is just the energy needed to leap out of a funk.

I love it, myself.

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Today’s Theme Music

Quiet rain plays with the material world, and I’m feeling it in my spiritual world. The soft beats heighten the sounds of silence, so here we are….

I saw Disturbed’s rendition of ‘The Sounds of Silence’ on the net. The original song is powerful, and the words are inspirational, but Disturbed’s presentation is infused with a sense of outrage and dismay. I selected their appearance from Conan’s show.

Music to think about.

 

 

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Today’s Theme Music

I thought something uplifting is appropriate for this first Saturday in October and turned to Zucchero.

I first heard another song, ‘I Lay Down’, with John Lee Hooker, from Zucchero’s 2005 album and immediately went out and purchased it. Then I heard this song, ‘Diavolo in Me’, with Solomon Burke.

 

It’s a good jam to chase away some self-defeating spirits. Cheers

 

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Today’s Theme Music

‘The Full Monty’, starring Robert Carlyle, Tom Wilkinson, Mark Addy, Leslie Sharp and others, was released in 1997. I enjoyed the movie, and it has acquired that special status for me as a movie I watch again and again, and still enjoy. From one of my favorite scenes, here is Joe Cocker and ‘You Can Leave Your Hat On’.

Let the music carry you through the day.

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Nevermind

When I was a teenage, I vowed not to be like my parents, and keep trying to open myself up to our younger generations’ trends. Music is easy enough, as is literature. Fashion isn’t bad, except for all the tattoos and piercings. I applaud their willingness to dismiss being concerned about body images even as I fret about them being overweight. I don’t get what they enjoy about some television viewing, movies and humor, but sometimes I manage to appreciate what they enjoy.

The classic Nirvana album, Nevermind, was released twenty-five years ago. Memory calls out details about borrowing it from a young friend, Tim, and listening to the CD at home. I was in my mid-thirties and enjoying the music from The Cranberries, Pearl Jam, STP, and Bush, along with Nirvana and others, but I had a number of friends who didn’t like it. They avoided hip-hop and rap, dismissed young country, and listened faithfully to AC/DC, Led Zep, Boston, ZZ Top, Ozzie, Aerosmith and the Grateful Dead. I laughed at them, chiding them for being like our parents, deriding music that wasn’t like the music of their younger days.

Now, twenty-five years later, the music, which was then the young people’s music, is older than the baristas and college students. Young music has moved on to Pit Bull, Adele, Twenty-One Pilots, DNCE, and a thousand other groups and artists. Listening to the music in the car and chatting to the baristas later, I think, it will be interesting for you in twenty-five years, when you’re forty-five to fifty years old, listening to young people’s music.

What will you remember as your own?

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I’m All Right

Once upon a time, there was a movie, ‘Caddy Shack’. Starring Michael O’Keefe, Bill Murray, Chevy Chase, Ted Knight, Rodney Dangerfield and others, it was released in America in 1980. Not high brow, it had some memorable lines and scenes,  and was fun. Rotten Tomatoes gives it 75%, which seems right to me.

It’s noteworthy that Rotten Tomatoes didn’t start until eighteen years after ‘Caddy Shack’. I always wonder how the mood of an era supports a movie’s reception. The same goes for books, music, politics, and other aspects of pop cultures. Like, did you know American cars of the late 1950s and early 1960s sported huge fins, huge, tremendously useless, fins, as a styling gimmick. The fins were popular, reminding people of jets and flight. Can you imagine, though, those fins on cars now? My rambling’s point is, what would we have rated ‘Caddy Shack’ if we’d had Rotten Tomatoes back in the day? Wonder if that’s been studied?

My favorite part of the movie was about the gopher that Bill Murray is attempting to kill as one of the sub plots. The gopher survives, and begins dancing to a song by Kenny Loggins. Kenny Loggins was good at that kind of music movie, performing  ‘Footloose’ (the original) and ‘Danger Zone’ for the movie, ‘Top Gun’. The ‘Caddy Shack’ song is ‘I’m All Right’. The song gets you moving – or gets me moving. I don’t think Mom and Dad liked it, frowning and saying, “That’s not real music.” Today’s young listeners might be as amused by the song as I am by ‘A Bicycle Built for Two’.

So, talking with the baristas today, I asked these youngsters (ha – love utilizing that expression) if they knew the song or the movie. Both believed they’d heard of both but had never actually seen the movie and couldn’t place my rendition of the song. Not surprising, as both came out twelve years before the oldest barista present was born.

That’s amazing about our technology, that it exists and helps us create a present and past, by extension, influencing our future, and that these youngsters, if they want, can experience some of our collective past quite easily by watching that movie, just as I did when growing up and watching movies on TV.

There are differences. Today’s movies (and television shows) have made a move toward more realism. Two, it’s easier to select what we want to watch. Whatever was presented on one of three channels back in my youth was what we watched, which was beneficial. I saw movies and genres that I would have never otherwise watched. Some of them were terrible, and some of them were made again, like ‘The Fly’.  

Which, to complete this circle, had me wondering, are they planning on a ‘Caddy Shack’ remake? Well, of course. Numerous people have been associated with such a product and in blogs, some refer to it as ‘inevitable’. Which seems true. I mean, have you seen ‘Star Trek’?

Which one?

 

 

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The Roomba

“Get out of that corner,” my wife yelled at the Roomba as it circulated the office this morning. “Why do you keep going back to that corner?”

Responding to that rhetoric, the Roomba sang, “I need to go where I want to go, do what I want to do.”

Wouldn’t it be neat, I thought, if the Roomba was rigged to play music as it went through its noisy cleaning processes? Better, why haven’t they developed a Roomba that kids can ride, one that the kids could steer? Then Mom or Dad could say, “Kids, why don’t you get on the Roomba and vacuum the house?” Riding the Roomba around and vacuuming could be part of their daily chores, for which they receive an allowance.

I’ve seen videos online of cats, children and dogs riding Roombas. I’ve shown these to my cats. Quinn wants nothing to do with it, fleeing the house as soon as the Roomba stirs into action. Tucker watches it, moving out of its way. Boo, likewise, takes to high ground to observe the mechanical creature. None of them display interest in mounting the machine.

Perhaps, to improve the cost/benefit ratio of owning and using a Roomba, we could have modifying kits. For example, a kit that attaches a four foot tall pole to the Roomba. Atop the pole is affixed a circular tray. Drinks and snacks could be put on the tray and the Roomba can go around, offering drinks and food to people, while it sweeps the house.

I don’t know. My imagination is too limited to come up with good ideas, but there must be something they can do. Maybe someone with more creativity can solve this conundrum  of what else to do with the Roomba.

At least we could put flowers on it and dress it up, or come up with mobile art designs.

There must be something.

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