Tag: rock

Saturday’s Theme Music

Today’s theme music is a 1971 song by Yes called “I’ve Seen All Good People”. It came to me as I wearied through news last night and this morning. Some good people ignored masking and distancing guidance, had a wedding, and COVID-19 spread, with those good people at the center of a superspreader event. A couple who were identified by friends as good people boarded a flight to Hawaii knowing they had COVID-19. A worker who knew he had COVID-19 didn’t tell others and kept working, spreading it through an organization.

Cynical me muttered, “I don’t want good people. I want disciplined people. I want team players who understand that part of their role is to pay fucking attention, stop being selfish, grit your teeth, wear your masks, and maintain social distance.”

Then I read of the Medford school board writing a letter to the Oregon governor to increase. This while hospitals and ICUs are filling up. Positivity is rising. Cases are rising. Death are rising. By all means, now is the perfect time to send children to school.

Topping that off was news about Mike Pompeo planning a big party at the State Department, after telling State Department personnel not to have large gatherings. And I read of the Austin Mayor tell people to stay home and stay safe, doing this from his vacation in Mexico, where he’d gone to celebrate his daughter’s wedding. On top of this —

Well, that was enough. The news had me gritting my teeth, SMH, and wondering if there is anything like instant karma. (“Instant karma: just add hot water and serve!”). Which took me to a line from the Yes song. Buried in the middle, they sing:

Send an Instant Karma to me
Initial it with loving care
Don’t surround yourself
Cause it’s time, it’s time in time with your time

h/t to Genius.com

The song is a crazy collection of harmonizing play on words and ideas. I remember it well because I listened to it often.

Please be a good team player. Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, and show some discipline. Yeah, it’s hard. We get it. But there are other things that are worse. I’ve read of too many good people falling sick and quite a few of them are dying.

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Friday’s Theme Music

Today’s theme song choice was released in 1970, and is influenced by Mom. I’m thinking of her this week due to holidays and snow. She lives in Pittsburgh, PA, and they had a snowstorm. She told me via FB messenger that they had seven inches on the ground yesterday.

She was a big band and swing fan, but listened to a spectrum of music, with torch songs being her favorite, I think. As pop music expanded and changed, she became more particular about what she listened to as I did the same. She wasn’t a fan of the British invasion or rock. As far as 1970 pop went, she liked Glen Campbell and Neil Diamond.

Today’s song is a Neil Diamond one. Mom loved “Cracklin’ Rosie” and would sing it whenever it came on the car radio. I used to ask her what a ‘Cracklin’ Rosie’ was but she said she didn’t know. When I learned it was wine, I passed that on. Didn’t matter; she still enjoyed the song, although the words now made more sense.

Anyway, that’s today’s theme music. Remember, stay positive, test negative, and wear a mask. Cheers.

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Yes, this song was featured as theme music back in 2016. Four years later, it seems more appropriate.

“Riders on the Storm” by the Doors was released in 1971. I was ninth grade. The baseline, lyrics, and keyboard mesmerized me. I later ended up taking a philosophy in pop culture class in Japan where this song and its line, “Into this word we’re thrown,” was discussed. Ah, good times.

Seems like we’re riding a storm of uncertainty now as much as ever. The song came to me in the middle of the night, when I surfaced out of a dream. While I was reflecting on the dream, the song just rose up as a soft, subtle background. Later, we were out shopping just after sunrise. The song came to me again as I stepped out of the store into the silent parking lot and faced the sun illuminated the valley, mountains, and valley to the north. After I was home, I listened to it.

It’s an evocative tune. Hope you enjoy it. Remember, stay positive, test negative, and wear your mask. Cheers

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Back in 1992, when this song came out, I’d listen to it on the car radio while commuting and think, WTF are they singing?

My commute was short in those days. Assigned to Onizuka Air Station in Sunnyvale, CA, I lived in NAS Moffett base housing in Mountain View. Using the base roads and back gates, it was about a five or six minute drive to work. I didn’t get to hear much of the song.

The net was growing then, but had a long way to go. It was years before I was able to find the lyrics for “Ignoreland” by R.E.M. and verify that it was a political scree, mostly against Republicans, but also against the press for regurgitating whatever was fed to them.

The lines which brought the song to mind this morning were:

I know that this is vitriol
No solution, spleen-venting
But I feel better having screamed
Don’t you?

h/t to Genius.com

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Lot of mornings in the last four years have featured spleen-venting mental rants for me — or rants to my wife, who ranted back at me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. As an antidote, I always look for humorous, non-political stuff or take refuge in sports, or warm animal stories. Anyway, it seems like a song that’s a political scree about ignoring what’s really going on and just voting for a party seems apt as a theme song.

Why’d the song come up today? Trump fatigue. He rants on without evidence about the same crap, apparently doing his own spleen-venting. He never seems to feel better for venting, carrying a bitter, hostile expression on his face and vowing to never change his mind.

What a way to go through life, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Wear a mask, stay positive, and test negative, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Tuesday’s Theme Song

I was thinking about change. Part of this came as I watched NFL quarterback Tom Brady and wondered whether his skill sets and strengths are in decline. Part also came as I watched various politicians make statements.

Change comes. Some of the changes forced onto your body by nature and circumstance can’t be resisted. But damn we try. Some of us remember staying up late partying and studying, rushing to work, and then doing it all again. We remember thinking, “I’ll go for a run,” and taking off for three miles, letting the sweat pour out. The blaze of intensity of what we were fades until what we are flickers and sputters.

Gave me a chuckle, pondering those things. I know some who also shrug at being seventy and eighty. You’d never know their true age. Seems like it’s another spin of fates wheel, which way you’ll come out.

From all those morning mental maundering came a song about change and what was, Coldplay’s 2002 wistful tune, “The Scientist”.

Wear a mask, stay positive, and test negative. Cheers

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Monday’s Theme Music

I awoke in the early hours with a cat tapping at the pet door and a dream lingering in my head. After peeing (my bladder said, “Well, since you’re awake,”) and drinking some water (because I’d just peed, obviously, right?), I returned to bed (after letting the cat back in because it was cold outside). In the moments before falling asleep, I thought about the dream I’d left. In that time, too, my brain started singing, “When you close your eyes and go to sleep, everything about you is a mystery.”

It took a few moments of sleep-fogged thinking to identify it as The Romantics song, “Talking in your Sleep”. I thought it was released sometime in the early 1980s, which led me on a mental chase of other facts from that era to pin it down. (Like, where was I living when I heard that song? Okinawa?)

I looked it up this morning because I needed to know (1983). So, that’s the music for today.

Stay positive, test negative, and wear a mask. Cheers

The Romantics – Talking in Your Sleep – YouTube

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Today’s music comes from 1994 and REM. “What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?” was a phrase repeated when two men attacked newsman Dan Rather in New York. It was a person’s refrain who wasn’t connected to reality.

So it’s a perfect song for now. We had an election in the US. Joe Biden won 80,000,000 votes, which translated to 306 electoral college votes. Trump won 74,000,000 votes and 232 electoral college votes. The U.S. government declared these the most secure elections ever. Yet, Trump keeps making declarations about fraud and cheating. His legal team took that to court in several dozen cases. Unable to provide any evidence of fraud, the cases were tossed again, again, again. Appeals were made, and the cases were again rejected.

Despite all this, Trump’s administration refused to participate with transitioning the government, trying to weasel out of the facts. They questioned the meaning of traditional phrases, like, ‘president-elect’. The madness and insanity was broad; the connection with reality and facts were nebulous.

Trump lost; of course, he lost. There was and is no fraud. But, as always, that man, that low-class, clueless ‘grab-them-by-the-pussy’ fraud, liar, and con man, has his supporters echoing, “What’d the frequency, Kenneth?”

Stay positive, test negative, and wear a mask. Cheers

R.E.M. – What’s The Frequency, Kenneth? (Official Music Video) – YouTube

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Saturday’s Theme Music

The holiday season is striking the U.S. once again. Technically, we’re celebrating several religious holidays, with secular, commercial spins. Christmas is the biggie, as wish lists and black Friday sales begin in October and run through New Year’s Day. Buy, buy, buy, you know. I have friends and family who had their Christmas decorations up in November this year. SMH, you know?

I always become introspective in holiday periods. This morning’s introspection after Thanksgiving brought up the 2019 Maroon 5 song, “Memories”. My stream was hooked on this verse:

There’s a time that I remember, when I did not know no pain
When I believed in forever, and everything would stay the same
Now my heart feel like December when somebody say your name
‘Cause I can’t reach out to call you, but I know I will one day, yeah

Everybody hurts sometimes
Everybody hurts someday, ayy-ayy
But everything gon’ be alright
Go and raise a glass and say, ayy

h/t to Lyricsvyrics.com

Stay positive, test negative, and wear a mask. Cheers

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Friday’s Theme Music

I was outside at midnight last night, just checking the sky. Clear, hovering around thirty degrees F in my backyard, moonlight flooded the area like Klieg lights. After a while of checking on Jupiter, the stars, and the moon, songs about moonlight and the moon swung into my musical mental stream. I imagine that, like me, a plethora of them shot right to the forefront of your minds. But as I took my final breaths, shivered, and wondered why I wasn’t wearing shoes (or at least slippers or socks) on the cold patio cement, the “Dancing in the Moonlight” cover by King Harvest (1972) won out.

So here we go. Have a good Friday, or whatever day you’re on. Wear a mask, please. Cheers

Dancing in the Moonlight (Original Recording) – King Harvest – YouTube

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Floofen Reddy

Floofen Reddy (floofinition) – Flooftralian-Floofmerican floof pop (floop) singer and songwriter, who was also an author, actress, and activist, from Floofbourne, Floofstralia.

In use: “Achieving international success, Floofen Reddy became well known for her song, “I Am Floofy”, a song which the floofinist movement quickly embraced.”

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