Tag: rock

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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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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