Tag: rock

Thanksgiving’s Theme Music

Welcome to Thanksgiving in America. It’s not the shiny spectacle that we strive to create in the United States. In a lot of ways, today is like flipping back through history pages, and seeing an ugly time, and wondering, how did those people get through that?

Yes, Thanksgiving is a holiday, innit? My holiday vibe is a bit subdued today. I tried being upbeat, but, yes, I’m a little weary. A little pandemic’d out. A little elections exhausted, blended with hues of a little tarnished life syndrome. Gosh, this wasn’t how it was supposed to be, was it? No, not for this snowflake. As an average white American male, we’re not supposed to know shit like this. That’s for other people. Guess I have a tiny inkling about what those others endured.

Not really. No abusive parents. No food insecurities. No wondering if anyone, police or otherwise, are going to shoot me. No worrying about paying the rent or getting a job, or so much other shit that’s heaped on people through the sperm lottery. (Should the sperm lottery be called a spottery? It seems spotty, doesn’t it, hit and miss, about who has what.)

I don’t have COVID-19. I’m aging and male, so I cope with some enlarged prostate, some BHP. (I think that’s the proper letter combos.) I broke an arm in July, leaving me to rehab that arm, hand, wrist, and shoulder. (Yeah, it continues to improve…I think…) I have a lifelong pre-existing condition, hypertension, that I deal with. I’m a hopeful novelist, so I have all the angst, hope, and collective feelings associated with that.

Compiling the bottom line, I have a lot to be thankful for. Yet the blues have me today.

As it’s a holiday, I’m indulging myself with a blues favorite. Yes, it’s a repeat song, from a few years ago. Nothing like the blues to lift you, right?

Here’s Stevie Ray Vaughn and Double Trouble with “Cold Shot”. It’s a video of a live performing, as I wish he was, back when I was young.

Happy holidays. Yeah, and wear a mask, please. Time to go get some coffee cake and coffee. My wife made the coffee cake last night for today. Yeah, life’s not so bad here. Cheers

Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble – Cold Shot (Live From Austin, TX) – YouTube

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

“What do you want? What do you want?”

I was singing it to myself and the cats. One cat was keeping pace with me; he definitely wanted food. The second cat (Boo) wanted a hiding place. Boo knew that my wife was setting up her Zoom exercise class. He doesn’t like the voices, music, and moving around. Boo likes it calm.

I wanted coffee, though, so I was singing back, “I want black coffee,” as my next verse.

It was all being sung to “Rock of Ages” by Def Leppard (1982). Let’s give it a lesson. Remember, “It’s better to burn out than fade awaaay.”

Def Leppard Rock Of Ages (Remastered) – YouTube

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Sorry, but I have an ear floof pestering me this morning. It’s on a loop singing U2’s “The Sweetest Thing” (1998) or 1987 – it was a B side originally, and was then released again). Of course, it’s the same verse (with backup vocals and strings) caught in the mental music stream.

Blue-eyed boy meets a brown-eyed girl
Oh oh oh, the sweetest thing
You can sew it up but you still see the tear
Oh oh oh, the sweetest thing
Baby’s got blue skies up ahead
And in this I’m a rain cloud
You know we got a stormy kind of love
Oh oh oh, the sweetest thing
Yeah

So, I foist it upon thee to silence the singing floof in me.

Abject apologies. I’ve used this song before as the theme choice, just over thirteen months ago. It was dream fallout then. I had a multiple, vivid dreams last night, but have no reason to ascribe it to the dreams this year.

Anyway, here we go.

U2 – Sweetest Thing – YouTube

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Jackson Floofe

Jackson Floofe (floofinition) – Floofmerian singer, songwriter, and musician who gained floominence in the late 1970s. Although being very prolific and successful and being inducted into the Floof and Roll Hall of Fame, he has never had a number one hit.

In use: “One of Jackson Floofe’s early hits was “Running On Kibble”, which stayed on the charts for over seventeen weeks in 1978.”

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Monday’s Theme Music

“Faithfully” (1983) by Journey is floating on the mental music stream this morning.

They say that the road ain’t no place to start a family
Right down the line it’s been you and me
And lovin’ a music man ain’t always what it’s supposed to be
Oh, girl, you stand by me
I’m forever yours, faithfully

h/t to Genius.com

We were out on the road early this morning, hitting a local grocery store during the special ‘vulnerable’ hours, before the invulnerable and riffraff arrive with their dirty mitts. A gray morning, the song just came to me as we drove along the quiet streets.

A good power ballad, it’s been a pleasant traveling companion for many trips. I enjoy the video, and the differences in clothing, modern technology, and traveling visible from now. Look at the phones and televisions, the shoes and jeans. Beyond that, there’s the band’s hard work, sweat, and passion.

Hope you enjoy it. Cheers

Journey – Faithfully (Official Video) – YouTube

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Sunday’s Theme Music

I’ve been thinking about tomorrow. In some sense, it was about delaying something that I want to do, like rake leaves. Stagnant air shrouds the sky. The temperature floats up and down, thirty-five to thirty-eight and back. Too chilly and uncomfortable for this sugar cube. I’ll do it tomorrow, I tell myself, knowing tomorrow is forecast for more of the same. Shrug.

Then there’s the broader version of tomorrow, a new time, a new year, and not quite a new era, when Trump is out of the office and Mr. Biden takes the oath as POTUS. Come on, tomorrow.

Several songs come to mind, but the 1994 offering by Silverchair, “Tomorrow”, takes over my mental musical stream.

So here it goes, in honor of tomorrow, and its promise.

Silverchair – Tomorrow (Australian Version) (Official Video) – YouTube

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Well, this one is a baffler.

I’d fed the cats, done some dreamflecting, emptied the dishwasher (and put the stuff away), and was making breakfast (and writing in my head) when some neurons took a sidebar to discuss today’s theme music. Without any apparent deliberation, they decided it’d be “American Woman”.

Why? “That’s why,” they answered. My neurons can be so immature.

So now, “American Woman” is rumbling through my head. Which version? Oh, several. Lenny Kravitz led off, but the neurons switched back to the original version by The Guess Who (1970), followed by the Butthole Surfers’ cover (which is always interesting). In the end, the original led the way.

Here we go. I selected several of the versions as theme music at least once before, so this is a redux, but the neurons have spoken. Here we go.

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Friday’s Theme Music

I’d read a weather advisory last night about stagnant air. Got up this morning and looked; yep, there it was.

Which led to Slade’s 1984 song, “Run Runaway”, to crash my stream.

Hold on!
I like black and white
(Dreaming of black and white)
You like black and white
Run run away

See chameleon
(Lying there in the sun)
All things to everyone
Run run away

h/t to Genius.com

World seems almost black and white out there with this dense fog smothering it all. No chameleons lying in the sun, because there’s no sunshine. Just the bleah.

So, this rocking, simplistic song with this driving beat seems a fine song for a COVID-19 Friday. Run runaway.

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Ever been out, doin’ your thang, mindin’ your own bizness, when suddenly, ‘lo, an urgent need strikes? Maybe it’s urgent hunger; you’re suddenly famished. Or thirst. You need coffee — stat. Or maybe it’s the worst one, you feel the need to pee…urgently.

Such happened to me yesterday afternoon. Halftime had started for the rain. I thought I’d get some outside walking in. I’d headed up into the hills around and behind my house. One mile became two, two became three.

I was monitoring where I was and deliberately plotting my routes. I knew I was about a mile from home. Dusk was slithering in. I’d descended down to Siskiyou Boulevard. Four-forty-five, cars passing had their headlights on. I was torn between putting on more distance when the need to pee struck urgently.

Naturally, as I pondered my sit. and debated options, a song provided distraction. In this case, it was “Urgent” (1981) by Foreigner.

“Urgent! Urgent! Urgent! Emergency.” I think that’s how the lyrics go.

Enjoy your day. Wear a mask, please, and social distance. I know it’s been a while, and you’re getting weary, but the payoff by staying strong is that it’s better for us as a civilization.

Cheers

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

I was spying on neighbors this morning, verifying that they followed their regular routines. All seemed alive (although some moved like zombies) and in good health (but such appearances may be deceptive, no?). Each followed their recurring and regular, sharply predictable, Tuesday morning routines.

My routines are not predictable — in the mornings. Writing, I set my structure. As socializing and common activities like shopping or heading out for a cuppa are curtailed, my day is a freeflow form. What do I want to do, and when do I want to do it, along with what needs to be done regarding health, house, and history, right?

All that thinking about busy activities stirred thinking about insects, spiders, and ants. That invited the 1994 song, “Ants Marching”, by The Dave Matthews Band.

When all the little ants are marching
Red and black antennae waving
They all do it the same
They all do it the same way

h/t to Genius.com

What’s funny about human ant activity is how it may seem so same each day while inside, all manner of activity is happening.

Or maybe not. Maybe the thinking is like the activities, the same thing every day.

Time for my morning coffee, said the ant.

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