Tag: rock

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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Friday’s Theme Music

Something a little lighter today, huh? A little Hall & Oates, a little song about New York City, a little 1982 sound and look, a little “Maneater”. Love that bass groove.

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Just thinking about recent news and politics and remembered the song, “This Is Not America”. The song was a collaboration between David Bowie and the Pat Metheny Group, with Bowie providing the vocals. The song was used in the movie, The Falcon and the Snowman. 

The movie is based on the true story of two young American men who become Soviet spies, selling classified information. One is motivated by disillusionment while the other needs money for drugs and partying. Released in 1985, the movie starred Sean Penn and Timothy Hutton.

I was in the military when the movie and song came out, working in a mob unit in South Carolina. Then I headed to Germany and a highly classified unit. While on that assignment, our unit was involved in a couple trials of former members who sold classified information, and several other spies exposed in the U.S. It was all very spy-vs.-spy, but it ended up with more heat on us. Although I was only a functionary, I was glad to put all that behind me after the collapse of the U.S.S.R.

 

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

This one comes completely via the memory stream, inserted their by a friend’s Facebook post.

When I was fifteen, I’d listen to this McDonald and Giles tune, “Tomorrow’s People – the Children of Today” (1971) on my old phonograph player. A quarter weighed the arm down against the needle skipping. I’d acquired some huge speakers and wired this hybrid stereo. I’d put this on, lay down, and listen to it at a soft volume. I found it relaxing and reassuring.

Bittersweet to hear this song, then and now. It’s about children playing in sunshine. One set of lines that always strikes me:

And who will open their eyes
To see what they can see
And then while looking around
Feel the warmth of reality

h/t to Genius.com

At the time I listened to this, I’d left Mom’s home and was living with my Dad. He was in the Air Force and freshly back from overseas assignments. I read and drew a lot, a loner, listening to music. I’d known families back then where the children lived in hard misery, parents who tortured their children with cigarettes or made them stay in a closet for hours in the dark. It was monstrous to think of adults treating children like that. Then, of course, I matured and discovered that there are adults who brutalize children and delight in it.

I admit, I never thought my government, the government that I joined and supported during my military years, would ever be part of the monstrosities we’re learning about in the Trump Camps. I’m ashamed and mortified.

Sorry that it’s such a downer of a post. Probably shouldn’t write this things until I’ve had at least a sniff of freshly brewed coffee to mitigate my dark side.

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Monday’s Theme Music

I began as a ZZ Top fan in high school art class in 1973. I introduced them to my friend, who became my girlfriend and then my wife when Tres Hombres came out that year. “La Grange” become a song that had her reaching for the volume knob and twisting it hard right whenever it came on.

I’ve seen them in concert three times. Today’s song came about from a dream last night. Multi-tasking in the dream, one sequence had me trying to feed the cats. They were going nuts for the food that I was offering them. I was trying to keep them out of it while putting the food in bowls for them. Meanwhile, a dozen interruptions were transpiring.

Anyway, from that feeding sequence, I started singing to them, “Gimme all your kibble, all your hugs and kisses, too,” because that’s how it seemed in the dream. My music stream picked it up and started cranking out “Gimme All Your Lovin'” from Eliminator (1983).

Never seen the video before, though. I was overseas during those years in places that usually didn’t have television available. Kind of a cheesy video. But it was the 1980s.

 

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Sunday’s Theme Music

I have another confession to make: I sing to my cats. They all enjoy it. That’s what I take from their purring. Maybe they don’t like it, but believe that I’ll stop singing if they start purring.

Level 42’s “Something About You” (1985) is part of my offerings. Some lyrics fit tight.

Now, how can it be
That a love carved out of caring
Fashioned by fate could suffer so hard
From the games played once too often
But making mistakes is a part of life’s imperfection
Born of the years
Is it so wrong to be human after all?

h/t to Lyricsfreak.com

It’s human to care about animals, to love them, to discover their personalities and flaws, and rescue them. Sometimes taking them on goes against the wisdom given to you, and sometimes force inconveniences on your life, but in the end, they frequently give so much, they’re a mistake worth making.

 

 

 

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Sometimes I feel like I’m Goldilocks, judging and assessing things for which one is just right. Yesterday was the first day of summer in Ashlandia. We had beautiful weather, if it’d been the first day of autumn. As summer weather goes, it was windy with a chilly breeze. Walking through it, I thought, seventy-one degrees is too cold for summer. It’s also a drop-off from our legit eighty-three degree average for this time of year. That would have been just right.

But, thinking about, talking to meself about summer, I thought, this is too cold. “She’s So Cold” by the Rolling Stones (1980) rushed into the stream. Good bopping walkin’ song. I did shuffle lyrics a little to, “She’s too cold.”

I like this video. They seem to be having fun.

 

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Friday’s Theme Music

How ’bout an Elton John favorite today. Let’s consider two. “Funeral for A Friend” and “Love Lies Bleeding” are often played together. They nicely complement one another. The first is an instrumental that starts with blowing winds. I can see the funereal procession of somber faces, and then the aftermath, thinking about what’s brought you to this moment. The music picks up as you think about what you’ll do next. It’s a bit chaotic, but then starts clarifying and rising, lifting your energy as you march forward, your decisions made.

“Love Lies Bleeding” begins like brisk fresh start. “Okay, this happened, but life goes on, and I’m going on.” But the words tell an unfolding story of betrayal, reflection, and exasperation.

Together, you end up thinking, “Yep, that’s life.”

Of course, the two songs came off of the fascinating 1973, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, an album about growth, change, and rock and roll’s influence on a young person’s life. Yeah, we played it a few times.

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