Reading the news today, Sonny and Cher’s big 1967 hit, “The Beat Goes On”, sprang into the mental music stream. I’m sure we all know why that song deserves to be today’s theme music.
Friday’s Theme Music
Showered. Shaved. Teeth were brushed. Headed out to make breakfast and thought, yeah, feel like steppin’ out. Which, you know, can be done, but with risk. How much risk? Some; we’re trying to flatten the curve, conserve resources, and buy time until we have a COVID-19 vaccine or we’ve developed herd immunity. Both are expected to require some time to pass. We hope, by social distancing and isolation, we’ll keep the illness and death down in the meantime.
While walking into the kitchen after those thoughts, Joe Jackson’s 1982 song, “Steppin’ Out”, began its fast-paced melodic beat in my mind. That opening track, with its humming vibrancy, captures the anticipation of going out at night to meet people and have fun.
Maybe on another day. Not today, but it’s a good song to help pass the time until then.
Cheers
Thursday’s Theme Music
Such a simple mind have I. Watching the sunset pulling into the day, my mind punched the buttons for a 1984 Don Henley song, “Sunset Grill”.
Let’s go down to the Sunset Grill
We can watch the working girls go by
Watch the “basket people” walk around and mumble
And stare out at the auburn sky
There’s an old man there from the Old World
To him, it’s all the same
Calls all his customers by name
h/t to Google.com
I was feeling nostalgic. We’d hit 75 degrees F, and summer was strolling through, teasing us with looks and smells. Also, it was Wednesday, when my buddies and I meet to chat about science and the world and quaff a few pints.
It would’ve been a perfect day for the Sunset Grill.
Bruce Floofsteen
Bruce Floofsteen (floofinition) – Floofmerican vocalist and songwriter, leader of the Floof Street Band.
In use: “Among Bruce Floofsteen’s many songs are “Thunder Feet”, “Born to Bark”, and “Playin’ in the Dark”, but ask one of his many fans and they’d probably name a dozen more.”
Tuesday’s Theme Music
This came straight up the memory pipe into the music stream this morning, right out of Canada and 1983 in my head in the U.S., 2020. I don’t know what resided down in the memory wells that said, “Let’s fire this mutha back into conscious memory.” Nothing leaps out as an ignition moment. But here we are with “Hot Girls in Love” by Loveboy.
Monday’s Theme Music
Gosh, for some reason, while reading blog posts, coronavirus news, and red state/blue state slants, a Pink Floyd song called “Us and Them” (1974) popped into my mental music.
Us (Us, us, us, us, us) and them (Them, them, them, them)
And after all we’re only ordinary men
Me (Me, me, me, me, me) and you (You, you, you, you, you)
God only knows it’s not what we would choose to do
It’s all about war and its senselessness, apt to me. It seems like it went urban/rural divide > culture divide > culture wars > political contests > red state/blue state > coronavirus front. What was it that Governor Kay Ivey (Alabama – R) said a few weeks ago? ““Y’all, we are not Louisiana, we are not New York State, we are not California. Right now is not the time to order people to shelter in place.”
Goodness knows what California and New York had to do with facts and information. At the time of Ivey’s speech, Alabama led California in per capita cases of coronavirus.
But anyway, the song… It starts out mellow but then cranks up the crescendo in time for you to hear, “Forward he cried, from the rear, and the front ranks died.”
And I won’t even go into expanding on that line.
Today’s Theme Music
Dreamed about a Chev. Corvette last night. My Dad and I were in it. I was driving it first. We stopped at a store. People complimented us on the car. I told everyone that it was his, and most people said, “Yes, I had that impression.”
I’ve had similar Corvette dreams before, but it put a Corvette song in my head. Prince’s 1983 song was “Little Red Corvette”, but that’s what came to mind this morning as I was thinking about the dream.
I vividly remember hearing “Little Red Corvette” while stationed on Okinawa. (I was assigned to the 603d MASS on Kadena AB, 1981-1985.) We’d gone to McDonald’s on a whim because we were going to have some corn soup. Standing outside in sunshine afterward, “Little Red Corvette” was playing on a car radio beside us. We were talking about going to the American Bakery for dessert. It’s a strangely vivid moment in life.
R.F.M.
R.F.M. (floofinition) – Early alternative floof-rock (flock) band formed in Athens, Georgia in 1980.
In use: “Best known for floofstream songs like, “Losing my Digestion,” alt-flock band R.F.M.’s hit, “Floof on the Moon” was a tribute to comedian Andy Floofman.”
Saturday’s Theme Music
Song lyrics got their tiny little vise grips in my mind.
“You’ve been selling, what you don’t want to buy.”
The rest of the song is “What About Love” by Heart (1985). I can’t trace anything specific to kicking this song into the mental music stream this morning. I’m sharing it to let it go, so it can run free across the Internet, burrowing into others’ ears as it has done with me.
Go, little song, be free! Fly away, and let me be!
Van Floof
Van Floof (floofinition) American hard floof-rock (flock) band led by guitarist and keyboardist Eddie Van Floof, inducted into the Flock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007.
In use: “People continue to argue whether Van Floof was better with David Lee Floof as the vocalist, or Sammy Floofgar.”
Michael Seidel, writer 