Tag: pop

Thursday’s Theme Music

I’ve always had a place in my heart for the Clash, and I like the hard-edge they bring to today’s theme music. “I Fought the Law” by the Bobby Fuller Four was a hit when I was ten. Featuring clear and easy lyrics and a fast beat, I heard it on AM radio and picked it up and liked singing it. It was a decent song.

Over twenty years later (1979), with the Clash’s almost smug, sneering, raw cover, I felt it was more correct. Then, on reflection, I recognized, no, this is more about our cultural shift regarding music, and the evolution of taste. My mother disagreed. She liked Fuller’s smoother version.

I also thought it was humorous and odd after “White Riot” that the Clash recorded “I Fought the Law”. While the subject matter, an unlawful resistance theme, was similar, the songs’ structure were different. I decided the Clash were being ironic with their cover of “I Fought the Law”.

The trigger for releasing the song into my stream last night and today was a conversation with my spouse. I said, “I’m going to the ATM for some cash. Need any?” As I went, I thought, “I needed money ’cause I had none.” Naturally, the chorus followed. Fortunately, my ATM card worked, my account had cash, the law wasn’t involved, and the only fighting was within myself about how much cash to take out.

Here’s both versions. Hope you enjoy one of them. Cheers

 

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Oh, those dreams. After those, I was hunting for an energy jolt. After reading some Dave Grohl comments about Billie Eilish, and thought, yes, she will work.

I like her work because it’s a change, although, honestly, “Ocean Eyes” (2015) was weirdly Enya-esque, prompting thoughts about cycles.

“you should see me in a crown” (2018) doesn’t remind me of Enya. It reminds me of exploration and alienation while sourly mocking invitations, judgments, and expectations.

Count my cards watch them fall
Blood on a marble wall
I like the way they all
Scream
Tell me which one is worse
Living or dying first
Sleeping inside a hearse
I don’t dream

It’s musical art, an expression about a generational segment, in my bones. Don’t mind the spiders. She doesn’t.

 

 

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

After another night of multiple, interesting dreams (some involving playing games), I was mocking myself this morning. “These dreams go on when I close my eyes,” I said to the cats, who were not looking at me nor listening to me (because, the cats were all thinking — I could see it in the spread of their whiskers, the glints in their eyes, and the tilt of their ears — “The others are here, and who knows when one of those other cats will lose it and attack me, so I must stay vigilant!”), “but it feels like I’m thinking about them every second that I’m awake.” Of course, I was close to the song lyrics from “These Dreams”,  a 1986 Heart hit.

“These Dreams” sounded different from Heart’s earlier music, IMO, but I liked the song. (Confession: I like songs ’bout dreams. It might be because I dream often, and seem to remember them.) Of course, the band’s line-up had changed, too, another reason for the different sound. Not long after buying Heart’s album, I discovered that Martin Page and Bernie Taupin wrote the song. Ah, hah.

The other aspect of this song, heavily noted during the song’s time on the pop chart, was that Nancy Wilson sang lead vocals instead of Ann, even though Nancy had a cold.

Ah, trivia.

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Friday’s Theme Music

Today’s song started streaming when I awoke and thought, “Ah, heart is still beating.” I was amusing myself, and not worried about health.

From that, though, came Huey Lewis and the News, and “The Heart of Rock & Roll” (1984). I’m not a fan of the band or the song, but one, I had friends who were (and presumably, still are) fans, and their songs proliferated on Armed Forces Radio and Television Service (AFRTS) FM stations when I was in Asia and Europe.

Now it’s stuck in my head. I’m passing it on to you. You can thank me when you see me. Cheers

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Today’s theme music is from 1984, when Madonna was a new phenom.

I started streaming it because of a dream. In the dream, people were constantly chastising me for crossing the border, or crossing the lines, or crossing the borderlines. At first, I responded with confusion, telling them, I didn’t see, or, I didn’t know. Sometimes I apologized because they were upset. But as I grasped what they meant about borders and lines, I realized that they were the offensive ones with their false conformity-based or racially/sexually biased borders. As I encountered more people, I discovered more ridiculous borders and demands to recognize and accept the borders. That all pissed me off because their borders were predicated on childish fears and outlandish ideas. I was prompted to declare that I was against their borders, and I was going to cross them. That led to a huge, ugly, hostile confrontation.

So, awakening and thinking about the dream, I streamed a few things involving borders, like Taco Bell’s old commercial line, “Run for the border.” I then streamed a little CCR, “Better run through the jungle, and don’t look back to see.” But then, out of the morass came Madonna’s “Borderline”, which stayed and soothed.

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Today’s theme music comes from the “What the hell was that?” file. It’s a general file in my head. The major category is “What the hell?” Besides the mystified “What the hell was that?” sub-category, there’s “What the hell did he/she just say?”, “What the hell did he/she just do?”, and the ever-popular, “What the hell was I going to do/get/say?”.

The song’s wild musical break began streaming in my mind this morning but I can’t identify a trigger. The song was released in 1966, but I began aware of it later, hearing it on my AM/FM alarm clock a few years later. So different, it immediately went into the “What the hell was that file?” It then took a few years to determine what it was, and hear it fully. Hearing if fully, the Yardbirds and Beach Boys inspirations become clear.

Judge for yourself. Here’s “Psychotic Reaction” by Count Five, in black and white.

 

 

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

“Forever in Blue Jeans” started splashing through my memory stream this morning. I’m not certain what called it in. My dreams didn’t feature blue jeans or Neil Diamond, so I don’t blame my dreams.

Thinking about the lyrics, I infer from them that blue jeans are okay. From that, and maybe I’m stretching, but blue jeans are the po’ people’s clothing.

If so, that’s from a completely different era, in my mind. Even by the time Neil and his guitarist wrote this song in the late seventies, blue jeans had moved up in income brackets. Way back around two thousand, I recall reading an article about wealthy folks having tailored blue jeans made for them. Although poor and lower classes still wear them, blue jeans are more about being hip and casual now.

Anyone, here’s Neil with his song.

P.S. – what is “baby’s treat”?

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Today’s song emerged from the dream stream. In this song, they say that they drive Cadillacs in their dreams. In my dream last night, I drove a Ferrari.

The song has a simplistic sound. I enjoy its harmonies, lyrics, and the sentiments that it delivers as a soft rebuke. When I hear this song, I often pause to soak it in.

From 2013, Lorde with “Royals”.

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Friday’s Theme Music

One of the cats followed me around this morning because I hadn’t fed him yet. “Hungry, buddy?” I said. “Want some kibble? Anticipating brekkie?” Naturally, I started singing, “Anticipation, anticipation is making me late, is keeping me waiting.”

That made it today’s theme music. Here’s Carly Simon, “Anticipation”, 1971. Those were the good old days.

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

I didn’t recall when today’s theme music came out. I guessed about 1966, ’67. I was wrong. It was 1969. I remembered it the other day, when I was reading about Oregon’s marijuana glut a few days ago. Oregon has grown about one million pounds of surplus weed.

“Little Green Bag” by the George Baker Selection sounds weirdly like it’s from several different eras of pop-rock. Its beginning is often used to define cool in a movie or television show. A group moves in slow music, typically turning toward the camera as the music plays. This was done in Reservoir Dogs and the BBC television show, Red Dwarf. That song’s beginning, with its  bass line and isolated percussion, is cool.

I always remembered the next lines, though, thinking, hey, he’s looking for a bag of grass, as in marijuana. It sounded like he dropped it and has gone back for it, except he wasn’t singing bag, he was singing back, like, greenback. Which, I realized in one history leson in school, was dollars. So he was looking for dollars, not grass. That amused me, but perplexed my friends, who didn’t know what the hell song I was singing.

I’d never seen the video before today. They look very uncomfortable to me, like they’re self-consciously cringing inside.

Here it is, though. This is how we used to roll.

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