Tag: pop

Tuesday’s Theme Music

The song, “The Year of the Cat” (Al Stewart) was released in 1976. A mellow pop-rock song, I was stationed on an unaccompanied tour with the USAF when it came out. The song appealed to me, and I sometimes played it while sitting in my barracks room burning candles in a straw basket to create shapes.

On a morning from a Bogart movie
In a country where they turn back time
You go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre
Contemplating a crime
She comes out of the sun in a silk dress running
Like a watercolour in the rain
Don’t bother asking for explanations
She’ll just tell you that she came
In the year of the cat

I was a little bored. I’d usually sip wine or cognac while I was doing this.

Another’s post had reminded me of the song. As it streamed through my mind, I thought that cats measured time differently than we do. We establish a calendar and a clock based on what we observe. Cats declare, “This is my year,” and ignore the calendar. The year of the cat when we had Jade lasted twenty years. Pogo had a year that went for four, his year cut short by a car, while cancer ended Quinn’s year of the cat after twelve years. So it goes.

We have three  cats. Each has declared their own year. Tucker’s year began four years ago, while Boo and Papi are each into about twenty-four months of their year. I hope each has a long year of the cat.

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Monday’s Theme Music

Good mornin’, from my perspective. Good day, good night good afternoon, whatever, from yours.

Monday here. Not talkin’, no not Monday talkin’. I mean that today is Monday. Monday doesn’t speak. Monday is sullen, sighing a lot amidst deep, multiple frowns, but not talkin’. Everyone blames Sunday for that because people on Sunday are often cursing Monday. “Oh, no, tomorrow’s Monday already.” Already, as if it’s a surprise, as if this doesn’t happen every week.

Eventually, those negative comments have added, and Monday’s down. Calendar bullying. It’s not pretty. Is there a bullying that is pretty? Of course, not.

You’d think, after this, that this song will be about Monday. It’s not. I was singing to a cat this morning. This revelation probably surprised you. You’re probably sayin’, “He sings to his cats. I’ve never heard of anyone singing to their cat.” I know. Unusual, right?

I was singing Taylor Swift’s song, “I Knew You Were Trouble” (2012) to ginger Papi. He was dancing and hopping all about, very full of himself, going up to the other bigger and older cats in a challenging manner.

Well, he went up to Boo, anyway. Challenges were discussed. I said some words ’bout the squirt gun. Papi backed away.

Papi considered Tucker but Tucker is all action, no words, so Papi didn’t get too close and only said one thing to Tucker. Tucker didn’t answer. Like I said…

Here’s the music. Happy friggin’ Monday. (Sorry, Monday.) I can do without the story-telling at the video’s beginning. Just wanted the music. It doesn’t start until about two minutes.

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Today’s song came out in 1955, a year before I was born. Mom played it a lot, so I learned it.

The carries the sound of that era, with a heartfelt delivery of the song’s sentiments. The lyrics are timeless. It’s a song that I think everyone should think is about them.

Only you, can make this world seem right
Only you, can make the darkness bright
Only you, and you alone, can thrill me like you do
And fill my heart with love for only you

O-only you, can make this change in me
For it’s true, you are my destiny
When you hold my hand, I understand the magic that you do
You’re my dream come true, my one and only you

Read more: The Platters – Only You (And You Alone) Lyrics | MetroLyrics

I guess some nostalgia has slipped into my stream. Here’s the Platters with “Only You (and You Alone)”.

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Thursday’s Theme Music

I greatly admire the late Prince (Rogers). Talented and creative, the world is better for his music.

I’d been reading about the 2019 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremonies. I didn’t watch anything but I recalled Prince’s performance one year. After watching the video of that again, I reminisced about his music. From that, this morning, I found myself streaming “Raspberry Beret” (1985). A song about teenage sex and a chance encounter that changed a boy, the imagery is evocative throughout the lyrics. It’s a story to music.

Its jaunty beat makes it an ideal walking song on a warming spring day.

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Sunday’s Theme Music

I was streaming several songs this morning, including “Timothy Leary” by the Moody Blues, but looking out the window at the emerging spring day and the hopes for more pleasant weather, I selected another oldie for today’s theme.

Here’s Friends of Distinction with “Grazing In The Grass” (1969). As Harry Elston sings, “What a trip just watching as the world goes past.” Perfect for a mellow-ish Sunday.

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Saturday’s Theme Music

I stole this song off of John Scalzi’s post from earlier this week.

I’d never heard of Burning Sensations or their MTV hit, “Burning of the Whale”. I listened to it and was intrigued. It appears to be about a guy living in a whale, and the production is a bite out of the eighties, just in a slightly different direction. I figure it’s a good theme song because it’s an artistic attempt, and it’s different, and they tried, and these things are what art is about, no matter which venue we pursue. Have a dream, apply some imagination and work, and put it out there.

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

I thought my cats were singing today’s theme music. As I did the morning rituals of feeding cats, dressing, and foraging for coffee, they took turns stalking me, rubbing against my legs, sitting on my feet, giving me adoring gazes, and purring like mad. They wouldn’t relent, and I picked up that they were singing, “I got my mind set on you.”

You might recall the 1987 George Harrison cover of the 1962 song, “I’ve Got My Mind Set on You,” released by Harrison as “Got My Mind Set on You”, or the Weird Al parody, “(This Song’s Just) Six Words Long”. According to the feline streams hitting my music stream (a wholly telepathic thing), the cats were singing the Harrison cover.

I’ll go with it, just to purge it from my stream.

 

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Monday’s Theme Music

I have stones on my mind today. Probably will for for several more days to weeks. Hard to say with kidney stones.

With those as my guide and inspiration from another blogger, Kenneth, I started streaming some Bob Dylan this morning. Of course, it’s the 1965 classic, “Like A Rolling Stone”. It felt like it took years to understand the lyrics, but as a kid, I always liked the intonation of, “Like a rolling stone.”

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Monday’s Theme Music

Sunshine lit the valley from the west, splashing through lazy swatches of stretched grey clouds outside our windows. Could’ve been early summer by its deceptive appearance, but it was March 3.

Ill with a sore throat and dribbling nose, I alternated between reading (Fear: Trump in the White House, Woodward) and napping whereupon a song found the stream and played in my brain.

You see, she was gonna be an actress
And I was gonna learn to fly
She took off to find the footlights
And I took off to find the sky

I couldn’t fathom why Harry Chapin’s “Taxi” (1972) was streaming in these circumstances. I often don’t understand how my mind words but I decided that “Taxi”, about the dreams that age into nostalgic memories, would be today’s theme music.

Cheers

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Saturday’s Theme Music

We went to see Beehive at the Oregon Cabaret Theater last night. The link is to a newspaper review of the show. Music interspersed with some narrative to set or change the tone, along with clothing, hairstyles, and dancing that evoke the 1960s, is what it was all about.

It was called Beehive for the hairstyle that dominated the era for a long period. That prompted me to wonder what they’d call a musical named after our current error. Fake News? Smart Phone? Fragmented?

The show started in 1960. Most of the early years featured girl group or all female ensembles. Intermission came at the end of 1963.

With ’64 came the Brit pop-invasion, but what really changed the music was America’s evolving politics. If you were present in the mid to late 1960s, you know about the protests, the Vietnam war body counts, the civil rights movement, rioting, discontent, assassinations, and the growing power and influence of television and entertainment.

The subject matter for songs changed from simple, almost naive and innocent about meeting the right boy and falling in love to They did a fantastic job in last night’s show of portraying those changes through dance and music, highlighting singers like Aretha Franklin, Diana Ross, and Janis Joplin, and their diverse styles and mind-blowing performances.

Performances of “Where the Boys Are”, “You Don’t Own Me”, “To Sir with Love”, “Me and Bobby McKee”, and “Chain of Fools” stood out for me. But for today’s theme music, I went with a group of four young women from New Jersey who were there at the beginning.

Wherever these singers, musicians, and songwriters came from, thanks for the ride.

 

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