Friday’s Theme Music

Had beers with friends the other night. I hadn’t seen one of them for a few weeks as he’d been traveling to visit family. I asked him how they were, and he said, “Well, they’ve seen better days.” His sister’s caregiver said the doctors thought his sister would go into hospice soon.

Then, as we spoke, “She hadn’t really seen better days. She spent most of her life taking care of her parents.” She’d lived in their house, serving as their caretaker. When they died, about ten years ago, she thought she could finally start living. By then she was sixty and had a chronic disease. Now, five years later, she was going into hospice, even though she was ten years younger than him. All of it terribly upset her.

I thought about it a lot the last few days. She’d never married, never seen better days. She’d a boyfriend for a long time but she was taking care of her parents and didn’t think it would be fair to him so they stayed as semi-serious companions. Then he was killed in a motorcycle accident.

As I walked around, thinking about her situation, I kept humming “Better Days (And the Bottom Drops Out)” by Citizen King (1999). I’ve done this song before, but it’s been over a year, and I think it fits the days. Most of us have seen better days.

Then the bottom dropped out.

Wednesday’s Theme Music

This one came from yesterday’s walk. The song, “Iris”, by the Goo Goo Dolls came out in 1998. I was walking past a bed of gorgeous bearded irises. My brain said, irises, and the stream, like some weird Siri/Alexa, said, “Playing “Iris” by the Goo Goo Dolls.” I finished the walk with that last bit thrashing through my head.

And I don’t want the world to see me.
‘Cause I don’t think that they’d understand.
When everything’s made to be broken,
I just want you to know who I am.

Tuesday Theme Music

Sometimes a song comes to you. I wonder if they’re like food cravings, coming to you to fill a need you feel. Maybe they’re just reflections of states of mind, a mirror on the present, and a glance back at the past.

Today’s song was written and released by one of my all-time preferences, Bob Seger. Most of us have used that expression in retrospect about something or someone, saying, “Even now, I’d go to them, if I could.” “Even now, after all we went through, I still miss them.” Bob was always good about writing about relationships, looking back at them, and wondering.

That’s what this one is all about. I don’t have any suspicions ’bout why I’m streaming it in my head. Sometimes a song just comes to you.

“Even Now”, 1983.

Monday’s Theme Music

I was checking the weather – it’s thirty-eight F right now, suny and clear – when I noticed the neighbors. Monday has begun. The weekend is over. Elementary and high school students walk down to catch buses or walk to school. The college students leave next. Neighbors drive off to work. Each departs at the same times Monday through Friday, except for Holidays.

The slow but regular daily exodus reminds me of the 1982 Loverboy song, “Working for the Weekend”. Loverboy was a hot flash in the early 1980s, coming out of Canada to storm the world with a number of hits. I was living on Okinawa, and I can tell you, they were very popular in the music clubs there. It has that eighties techno-rock sound to me.

Anyway, from the looks on the faces most people had today, most looked like they were sighing and trudging. They seemed more energetic last weekend.

Saturday’s Theme Music

Today’s little ditty was released by a small, unknown band came out in 1981. It had some small chart success in America and maybe a few other places in the world. You may have heard it because presidential candidates like using it, as do professional sports teams and television networks. I think it might have been in an obscure television show called The Sopranos. For reasons that defy easy tracking and explaining, my mind used it as my wake-up music.

Here’s Journey with “Don’t Stop Believin'”. If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands.

 

Friday’s Theme Music

I’m streaming the original Beatles’ version of “With a Little Help from My Friends” (1967). Don’t know. My streaming began with Ringo singing the third verse.

“Would you believe in love at first sight?”

“Yes, I’m certain that it happens all the time.”

Why this, today? Don’t know. Some inhibitor breakdown in the stream, a word caught in the wind, a flash in the brain, or maybe a neuotransmitter collision. I usually imagine my neurotransmitters as little sports cars racing through my head on beautifully constructed highways and country roads. Lately, though, ala Sim City, my neuro landscape is more like a hot and humid city under constant expansion, construction, and repair. There’s a lot of jackhammer and bulldozer noise. Big rigs transport loads of information as commuters struggling to get to work in their part of the brain creep along in traffic.

Sorry, side bar. On with the music.

 

Tuesday’s Theme Music

“Smile Like You Mean It” by the Killers was released in 2005. I always took it as a song about putting on a brave face when you run into the ex or something goes wrong. We have so many other expressions to cover it, like don’t let them see you cry, never show weakness, and never let them see that you’re hurt. That’s pretty much how I was raised, to keep pain private, to always be tough and strong. Part of that seemed to be all about being manly, but it was also about not letting others take advantage of you through a perceived weakness.

Monday’s Theme Music

I’m picking up good vibrations today. Spring has sprung. Tulips and daffs are fading, shedding, and drooping (sounds like I’m talking about my hair and body), but the rest of our area is richly green. Trees are coming into their fullness.

The vibrations could be coming from my coffee, though. Its rich smell triggers a wonderful vibration deep in my nethers. The taste accentuates it, and then, when that caffeine arrives, it’s like, take it home, baby.

Or, it could be the productive results of a good night of rest, some wild and interesting dreams, a pleasant morning work-out, or a contact air from the neighbors smoking some early morning marijuana.

There’s a good chance that it’s all these things. Whatev, the Beach Boys’ 1966 hit, “Good Vibrations”, immediately piled into the stream. Absolutely one of my favorite songs, I enjoy it for the multiple changes, the theremin’s use, the quick but delicate bass line, the harmonies, and the lyrics. It came out when I was ten years old as well, so I float back into some finer times when the melody is in my stream.

Here we go.

Sunday’s Theme Music

To begin, today’s song has an interesting video associated with it. Beginning with a clothed woman under water in the bathtub and held down by a breezeblock, you think, what? Then everything goes backwards, and the story is revealed, and it’s not what was expected.

The song hooked into my stream because the stream is fond of repetitive lyrics. The song’s final words go,

Please don’t go, please don’t go
I love you so, I love you so
Please don’t go, please don’t go
I love you so, I love you so
Please break my heart…
Please don’t go, please don’t go
I love you so, I love you so
Please don’t go, please don’t go
I love you so, I love you so
Please break my heart…

[Outro]
Please don’t go, I’ll eat you whole
I love you so, I love you so, I love you so
Please don’t go, I’ll eat you whole
I love you so, I love you so

h/t to genius.com

From 2012, here’s alt-J with “Breezeblocks”.

 

Friday’s Theme Music

Today’s music comes right out of my dream.

To begin in the dream, my older sister and I were in a walk-in closet. No reason ever became clear as to why we were there. She was chattering, as she’ll sometimes do, which irritated me. A song was playing. The song was muffled, as though it was being heard through walls. I knew the song but I couldn’t place it because of her chattering.

Then I was in a car, driving. My car was fourth in line. We were on a street with a double-yellow line. The three cars ahead of me were on the left side — the wrong side — of the road. I didn’t know why. They were going very slowly. The road was in excellent shape but the fact that we were on road’s wrong side annoyed me. No signs were visible to account for that. I wanted to change over to the right side but not knowing why they were on the left side – what did they know? – kept me behind them, following. I was hugely irked.

Music played then, something about going straight. Then the song, “Amber” by 311 played. I thought amber is all about warning, as in amber flashing lights. “Amber” didn’t end, but “Forty Days and Forty Nights” began. That song, covered by Steppenwolf, was what I’d heard in the closet with my sister.

It was still streaming in my head when I awoke, so here it is, today’s theme music, the Muddy Waters classic as Steppenwolf did it in 1970. Enjoy a little bluesy rock.

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