Tag: rock

Wednesday’s Theme Music

Hump day. It’s become embedded in me.

I don’t work nine to five. I write seven on seven, breaking for some sickness, some holidays. Mostly I write, following the words the muses strew along the paths, trying to connect the story that I glimpse.

Though I don’t work Monday through Friday, the weekend remains the week’s end, and Wednesday remains the middle, the hump that I gotta get over. All psycho, innit? Yeah, a marriage of mental, physical, and emotional energy that started when we were in school in the U.S., and then carried on through employment.

I’m going to get through it with a little Dire Straits, cause I’m doing the “Walk of Life” (1985). It’s a good walking song to stream. “Here comes Johnny singing oldies, goldies, bebob a lula, baby, what I say?”

The video is a fun look back at sports and hairstyles…

 

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Today’s music is owed to a cat. I opened a new can, put it in his bowl, and set it down in front of it. He took a step toward it, bent his head, sniffed it, looked up at me, and meowed.

“Looks fine to me,” I said. “Whatcha see is whatcha get.”

That naturally triggered the 1971 Dramatics’ song, “Whatchat See Is Whatcha Get”.

I gave another cat the rejected food. The other cat wolfed it down and then washed itself. The first cat, Boo, found kibble in the always there kibble bow.

Thinking about the song, I thought that it’s not only effective for telling the cat this is his breakfast choice this morning, but can hold to our politics with Trump. What you see, an ignorant, self-absorbed person and known cheat with a first-graders’ maturity level, and nursery-school knowledge of history and the U.S. Constitution, is what you get. That seems fine with the Trumpettes, but the rest of us are not pleased.

The song’s first words:

Some people are made of plastic
And you know some people are made of wood
Some people have hearts of stone
Some people are up to no good

h/t to Genius.com

Yes, I think that’s apropos for Trump and the Trumpettes.

 

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Monday’s Theme Music

In our world’s tiny niche, this was a significant hit when I was a teenager around 1973.

Jim Croce had been around for a few years and had several hits, like “Operator”, “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown”, and “Time In A Bottle”. Then a black crash killed him, devastating us, his fans, although it was probably harder for his family and friends. It seemed like even as they were still talking about it on the news, he had a new song rising on the charts, “I Got A Name”.

I awoke this morning still streaming several songs heard in my dreams. Among those were “Sisters” from the movie White Christmas, and James Blunt with “Make Me Better”. But “I Got A Name” was sharper and stronger. It’s silly and sentimental, but here it sits as my theme music this morning.

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Was walking and streaming to myself (of course, but who else could I be streaming to?), “No more speed, I’m almost there. Gotta keep cool now, gotta take care. Last car to pass, here I gooo. And the line of cars go down real slow, whoa. Radio’s playing that forgotten song. Brenda Lee’s coming on strong. And the newsman sang his theme song.”

Yes, it’s Golden Earring’s 1973 hit, “Radar Love”, at least how I remember it. I was pushing myself to get to nine miles for the day and reflecting on it all. Blueberry pickin’ at 6:30, the writing day at 9:30 (with forlorn results), drinks with a friend at three, then the final walking to reach nine miles. Mixed bag, you know?

The blueberries weren’t as fine and ripe this year. We came home with an ounce over eight pounds, which cost us $18.25. Long drop from those heady days of eighteen pounds for $36.

Meeting with FX was fun. He’s an established actor, most recently seen as a judge in On the Basis of Sex. After talking life and politics for a bit, we shifted to books and writing, and then movies we’d not like to seen remade, like Doctor Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. I also don’t want to see The African Queen remade, Twelve Angry Men, or Bridge On the River Kwai. I don’t think they can touch the Godfather series, but who knows what lurks in the minds of Hollywood producers?

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Chicago was a friend’s favorite group when I was a teenager. Sometimes when we hung around at his place, he’d put on one of their tapes. He bought all of their early albums, so I became familiar with their songs. One such song, “Saturday In the Park” came to mind today.

  1. It’s Saturday.
  2. I was in the park, Lithia Park, in fact.
  3. People were talking and smiling, and a man played guitar, singing for us all.

You can see how it all came together, right?

Saturday in the park
I think it was the Fourth of July
Saturday in the park
I think it was the Fourth of July
People dancing, people laughing
A man selling ice cream
Singing Italian songs

[Chorus]
Eh Cumpari, ci vo sunari
Can you dig it (yes, I can)
And I’ve been waiting such a long time
For Saturday

[Verse 2]
Another day in the park
I think it was the Fourth of July
Another day in the park
I think it was the Fourth of July
People talking, really smiling
A man playing guitar
Singing for us all

h/t to Genius.com

If you’re looking for me, I’ll be in the park.

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Friday’s Theme Music

Happy post Independence Day to any United States citizens reading. We’ve survived another.

Happy Friday to the rest. We’ve survived another Thursday. The typical work week is ending.

Let’s have a little victory song. Just imagine: you’ve scored the winning goal. You aced a test. Graduated. Retired. Finished writing a novel, short story, or poem. Published something.

Here’s a 1972 offering by Gary Glitter to help you celebrate. It’s a bit repetitive but that beat’s helpful for asserting yourself and cheering yourself on.

Cheers

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Today’s song is another that my mind kicked into my mental stream this morning, where it’s been going around like a washer on the rinse cycle. Maybe thoughts about who I am, or my wife, or the cats caused it. Perhaps something in my writing and editing process ignited the song’s entry into my stream. Don’t know.

Let’s do “Something About You”, Level 42, 1985.

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

John Mayer sang about his frustrations with the world and the pace of change, and the difficulty associated with it, back in 2006 in a song called “Waiting On the World to Change”.

Now if we had the power
To bring our neighbors home from war
They would’ve never missed a Christmas
No more ribbons on their door
And when you trust your television
What you get is what you got
Cause when they own the information, oh
They can bend it all they want

That’s why we’re waiting (waiting)
Waiting on the world to change
We keep on waiting (waiting)
Waiting on the world to change
It’s not that we don’t care
We just know that the fight ain’t fair
So we keep on waiting (waiting)
Waiting on the world to change

Now if we had the power
To bring our neighbors home from war
They would’ve never missed a Christmas
No more ribbons on their door
And when you trust your television
What you get is what you got
Cause when they own the information, oh
They can bend it all they want

That’s why we’re waiting (waiting)
Waiting on the world to change
We keep on waiting (waiting)
Waiting on the world to change
It’s not that we don’t care
We just know that the fight ain’t fair
So we keep on waiting (waiting)
Waiting on the world to change

Read more: John Mayer – Waiting On The World To Change Lyrics | MetroLyrics

Pretty well sums up my frustrations as well.

 

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Monday’s Theme Music

Back in my military days, it was a thing to hit a base club for a few drinks with peers. The clubs were usually segregated by ranks – Airman, NCO, and Officers’ Club, or Open Mess. Food and drinks were cheap, and then there was happy hour.

In 1980, I was stationed at Randolph AFB in Texas. One co-worker and friend used to immediately hit the jukebox when we hit the club, even before ordering. He’d always select this Triumph song, “Lay It On the Line”. Then he’d sit there, pensive, waiting for the song. When it came on, he’d sit there, singing it to himself, lips moving, absent of where he was and what was happening around him.

Never saw him again after Randolph. Looked for him but never found a trace.

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Another blogger posted about taking his son to see Lynyrd Skynyrd and Status Quo in concert. I thought that’d be a rockin’ thing for a father and son to do together, and he wrote about it in his usual charming and humorous, slightly weary way. Skynyrd was part of my formulative southern rock education. I came across Status Quo much later, hearing quite a bit of them when I lived in Germany for a few years and criss-crossed Europe on different assignments. I don’t recall hearing much of them in America. It helped, I guess, that I had Brit friends who were big Status Quo fans for a while.

Thinking of Status Quo, I began streaming “Beginning of the End” (2007). It’s a regular walking tune for me. Lyrics like, “Is this the beginning of the end, or the end of the beginning. The way you got me goin’ tells me I don’t know. I don’t understand any song that you are singin’. The jury’s out, we’re gonna let you know.” They play crisply against a hard rock, fast moving beat. Good video to my eye. The London Eye fascinates me, and the band looks like they’re enjoying themselves, like proper rockers should.

Hope you enjoy the tune.

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