Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
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.”
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
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.
Ever experience something unexpected that turns out to help you? Sometimes it’s a friend, an encounter with a stranger, or a pet, but you end up telling them, “You’re just what I needed.”
Yes, had that last night with my beer buddies. My time with them was just what I needed, prompting today’s theme song by the Cars, “Just What I Needed” (1978).
Cheers
Once again, I found myself humming along and singing along to a song that I’d started streaming, a song that just sort of blending into the general streams flooding my thinking.
This is a Phillip Phillips song, “Home” (2012). Here the lyrics that hooked me this morning:
Settle down, it’ll all be clear
Don’t pay no mind to the demons
They fill you with fear
The trouble—it might drag you down
If you get lost, you can always be found
I’d be reflecting on the big lie, fleshing more of its manifestations. The big lie is that we’re all the same as humans. Need to lose weight? Diet and exercise. Want to get ahead? Well, the answer to that one includes some references to God, love, and Jesus, as well as get an education or work hard, and you’ll be rewarded.
Sometimes, it happens, and sometimes it doesn’t. The big lie is that it will. And the big lie keeps us trying, because sometimes the big lie works, and that aspect keeps us hoping and striving.
I’m getting off track. Thinking about others, not myself, I was reflecting upon life’s complexities and how people can get lost, indeed, how easy it is to become lost, through bad fortune, misinformation, trusting the wrong others, or tricks of your body or mind. Many people are sick or ill, but won’t let it show until it’s forced into the light. Others will play up every sickness or slight to get attention and help, but end up taking advantage of the situation. Yet, sometimes, that’s a sickness in itself.
We create ruts and chase habits that form addictions, blinding ourselves, or permitting ourselves to lie and mislead ourselves, sometimes more than we mislead others. And others see it but don’t know what to say or do.
What a world, what a world. It’s all too deep, and yet that depth invites greater exploration — is that another addiction?
Give me another cuppa coffee. Oh, wait —
When I think of “Jungle Love”, I usually think of Steve Miller first. His song came out in 1977.
But today, I’m mentally streaming a song that came out over six years later. Performed and released by the Time, “Jungle Love” is a funk-pop rock tune with a terrific chorus and Prince playing several of the musical instruments. The song’s beat always gets me moving, which was useful for today. Two cups of coffee wasn’t enough to get me dressed and out of the house. “Jungle Love” pushed me further.
Hope you enjoy it (enjoy it), (oh we oh we oh).
I was thinking about the our entanglements through love and sex, blood and money, politics and hopes, and all the other ways we become entangled. Crazy dreams played a part, as did my writing process as I work on April Showers 1921, coupling and uncoupling plot twists and character arcs.
And lo, a song did rise in my stream, a song from 1975, when I was but nineteen and serving in the military in the Philippines.
A true legend and Nobel Prize winner (the accepting of which became another facet in the complex musician’s life), here’s Bob Dylan with “Tangled Up in Blue”.
Listening to it always makes me nostalgic for what I thought was going to be.
I don’t know what dislodged in my stream last night that led this song to stream in as I sipped my coffee this morning.
“Guitar Man” was by Jerry Reed (1967). In this version, he’s playing with Glen Campbell. Both of these players have passed away, but a large sense of Jerry Reed’s personality shines through in this song. We’d call him a good ol’ boy.
I remember watching this. I would have been ’bout eleven. Guess I was an impressionable kid.
Today’s theme music is a surprising turn for me. I blame my dreams.
I had a cluster of dreams last night that shared the theme of saving. I saved some people and animals in a few dreams, but I was also saved, most memorably once by a Jack Russell terrior. The dog led me out of what appeared to be a benign situation. After I thanked him, he left.
Keeping with the weirdness of all that, I awoke thinking, “And it said so in my dreams.” I immediately knew that line from “Candida”, a hit song by Tony Orlando and Dawn back in July 1970. I never had one of their albums, but they were immensely popular in the early seventies. That popularity translated to a lot of AM and FM radio play and appearances on television shows — or did the radio play and appearances on television shows lead to immense popularity? Either way, I heard them often. Pop culture tends to be like that.
Today, thinking, through it all, I’ll rise and fall, (and laughing at myself with a small head shake as I did), I thought that those words sounded familiar. My mind stumbled around for a while, tripping over other songs, almost tripping over cats, sipping coffee (and almost spilling coffee) until, wait, wait for it, wait for it…
A face appeared. A guitar riff followed. A voice popped into the stream.
Ah, yes. Having clues, I dashed to the Internet! A little later, the answer was mine: My Chemical Romance, “Welcome to the Black Parade” (2006).
Well, after that time dredging the stream for what it was, I had to feature it. Besides, the video is interesting, don’t you think? The whole thing is a little pop, a little rock, a little punk, a little drama, and a little surreal, don’t you think?
