Tag: theme music

Sunday’s Theme Music

Today’s stream music arrived in my head because, what if?

The what if game is always a small diversion. The rules are to ask yourself to imagine how your existence would be different if you made a different decision, followed another path, or handled something in some other way than what you did.

What if you had gone to college?

What if you’d taken that job?

What if you’d married that person?

From that, in trickled Rob Thomas singing Matchbox Twenty’s song, “Real World”. It asks those questions about being in charge, or a superhero, among other things.

And it all has a direct link to writing yesterday. A big portion of my writing process is playing what if? It’s intriguing as part of the process because I’ll think that through, applying different ideas, possibilities, and outcomes, but when I sit down and write, it’s something completely different.

And that’s why writing entertains me.

Here’s the music.

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Saturday’s Theme Music

“Thunder only happens when it’s raining.”

It wasn’t raining (at least around our house) but the thunder was relentless. Half the cats did a frenzied thunder-run to hide. The other two yawned.

I listened to the thunder, waited for the lightning, and remembered songs about thunder, lightning, and rain. The mental stream finally selected the Fleetwood Mac song, “Dreams” (1977). Ostensibly a reflective song about ending relationships, the line about the thunder always resonates with me.

It’s a very mellow song.

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Friday’s Theme Music

I remembered the Killers’ song, “Human” (2008) this morning. The song has never been a favorite, and its success surprised me. Different tastes, right?

Many were enamored by the line, “Are we human, or are we dancers?” The line evolved from a Hunter Thompson throwaway line about the United States raising a generation of dancers, afraid to step out of line.

The whole thing came back to me as I noted, with some pleasure and approval, that young people were heavily involved in the Black Lives Matters protests. One of the most disheartening parts of protesting in my fifties and sixties was the absence of young people. Didn’t they care? Or were my values so out of step with their values?

Older generations often malign younger generations. My generation, the boomers, were no different. It takes time to filter the world and yourself. Bursts of rebellion against expectations and norms are required and expected, but the way each generation finds to act out and express itself remains different. Social media is the thing now, not taking it to the streets, so the protests are a throwback, old school.

Yeah, rambling. Not sufficient coffee yet to form coherent sentences. Here’s the music. See if you can spot the line (hah!).

Are we human
Or are we dancer?
My sign is vital
My hands are cold
And I’m on my knees
Looking for the answer
Are we human or are we dancer?

[Bridge]
Will your system be alright
When you dream of home tonight?
There is no message we’re receiving
Let me know, is your heart still beating?

h/t Genius.com

That is all.

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Yes, today I do have an earworm.

Cutting the grass and trimming trees last night. As I started, “Your Mama Don’t Dance” (1972) by Loggins & Messina began playing in my head. It continued throughout the evening as I sipped a beer afterwards and coped with a Hulu outage.

The song was playing like a radio alarm clock this morning. Earworm, I sighed.

So, I’m sharing it to dislodge it. It’s a trick that works. Please bear with me. I thought about going with a live version but it lacked the piano playing. I like the piano playing. I considered a Poison version, too, but, sorry, the L&M studio version remains my preference.

That is all.

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

This is one of those days when I awoke and for some unknown reason have some song snatch in the stream. Does this happen to others? Am I the only one with a playlist in my head that goes click when I get up and start thinking?

Sure, I’m not. These aren’t the same as earworms, mind you. Sometimes they are earworms, which is a song that’s stuck in your head. There’s a different feel to earworms than just a the mental jukebox flipping something on. These songs aren’t necessarily stuck, just present. I’ll heavily bet that they are related to some auditory cortex wiring, though.

Aside: remembered this WebMD post from a few years ago and dragged it into the light: “Songs Stick in Everyone’s Head”. It mentions reasons related to neurosis and obsessions, and the cognitive itch. As a writer, I become obsessed; that’s a large part of being a writer for me, getting obsessed with ideas, concepts, stories, and characters, and trying to wring them out of my head and into the world in a way that the rest of the world might understand.

Today’s song, “What’s My Age Again?” is from 1999 and a group named Blink-182. I really liked the album name: Enema of the State. Good play on words? With many people and orgs battling ‘the state’ for a variety of reasons, maybe that’s the cognitive itch that supplied my stream with this song.

Or maybe the cognitive itch is the song’s year, 1999. Seems like things really began spinning weird with Bush v Gore and the Florida hanging chads (which could be the name of some kind of group) in the next year. 1999 was a good year for me in my world. Maybe my mind lauds it as the last good year.

Well, here it is. The song, I mean, not my world. It’s a video. I’d not seen it before today, but it’s amusing to watch three naked men (except shoes and socks) running around.

That is all.

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Monday’s Theme Music

War.

Climate change. Natural disasters.

COVID-19 pandemic. Rising deaths.

Black lives matter. Police brutality. Corruption. Protests. Riots. Looting. Tear gas.

Murder hornets. Asteroid heading for Earth. Forty thousand year old worms dug up, thawed out, and living again.

2020 is seen by many to be a year of worsening situations. Many read something new happening, fill with dread and ask, “Oh, no, is another disaster about to strike the planet?”

Chuckling to myself over this today, Europe’s song, “The Final Countdown” (1986) entered my musical memory stream.

The song is about leaving Earth, but you know, just pause a mo’ and shift words around, and it’ll work for this year.

If we need a theme song for this year, maybe this is it. Maybe it is the final countdown, not to leaving, but to another crisis.

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Sunday’s Theme Music

A quiet day for me, providing an interlude for reflection. After watching the news, contemplating history and contrasting them with current events, Neil Young’s song, “Old Man” (1972).

Old man look at my life,
I’m a lot like you were.
Old man look at my life,
I’m a lot like you were.

Old man look at my life,
Twenty four
and there’s so much more
Live alone in a paradise
That makes me think of two.

Love lost, such a cost,
Give me things
that don’t get lost.
Like a coin that won’t get tossed
Rolling home to you.

Old man take a look at my life
I’m a lot like you
I need someone to love me
the whole day through
Ah, one look in my eyes
and you can tell that’s true.

Lullabies, look in your eyes,
Run around the same old town.
Doesn’t mean that much to me
To mean that much to you.

I’ve been first and last
Look at how the time goes past.
But I’m all alone at last.
Rolling home to you.

h/t to AZLyrics.com

I picked this acoustic version for its simplicity, and because Young is young in it, and alone, unvarnished, on the stage with his guitar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=An2a1_Do_fc
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Saturday’s Theme Music

Fed the cats, used the restroom, woke up (yeah, that was the order, to the best of my recollection, your honor), and realized I was humming “My Hero” by the Foo Fighters (1998). Thought it a good song for these times, when people need everyday heroes to manage commonplace matters.

[Chorus]
There goes my hero
Watch him as he goes
There goes my hero
He’s ordinary

[Bridge]
Kudos, my hero
Leaving all the mess
You know my hero
The one that’s on

h/t to Genius.com

Find a hero. Find yourself a hero. You don’t need to worship them; just support them.

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Friday’s Theme Music

Many songs that I remember have specific moments attached. They follow traditional, predictable patterns of love, success, pain, and failure.

Today’s song is hotly linked to success. It was 1999. Retired from the military, I was working in a medical device startup company. I began as the customer service manager. Then the company was bought out. And on this day, the new VP of marketing from the company who bought us had offered me a big promotion, to become a product manager, and I’d accepted.

The world looked great. This was in the summer in the Peninsula portion of the SF Bay Area known as Silicon Valley. I was in my car, a vehicle I enjoyed The sky was blue, the sun was bright and warm, and the future seemed amazing.

Traffic wasn’t bad either, as I left Highway 101 and I-280 behind me and headed west toward home on highway 92. For that day, I put in Bush, Sixteen Stone, and selected “Comedown” (1995).

Here are the lyrics that drew me that day:

‘Cause I don’t wanna come back down from this cloud
It’s taken me all this time to find out what I need
I don’t wanna come back down from this cloud
It’s taken me all this all this time

h/t AZlyrics.com

(BTW, I wanted to indent the lyrics to call them out, but can’t find the indent on this new, cumbersome, tedious, loaded WP editor. This is supposed to be a quick post; I don’t want to spend a lot of time searching through blocks and patterns, widgets and menus to find what used to be a simple matter. And where is the help? Oh, let me look for that.)

Don’t have a specific reason for this song in my head today. Just awoke to that beginning from the song. Maybe it was a dream thing, or a writing thing, or my generally foolish, optimistic nature.

But that’s today’s music.

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Thursday’s Theme Music

I’m in the midst of a rebellion this morning. It began when my mind shouted, “No more news! Just back away for a little bit. Please do it. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Carefully, I backed away from my mind, eyeing it as I did, trying to gauge its temperament. “Is everything okay?” An innocuous question, I thought.

Too innocuous. “Is everything okay?” My mind launched into a rant that went in every direction at once. I let it rant, biding my time, until the rant petered out for lack of oxygen.

“Okay,” I said. “Okay. No Facebook for a bit.”

“For the day!”

“Fine, fine, and no news? Really? You want to — “

“Stop.” My mind’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t try to guilt me, dude. I won’t have it.”

“I’m not trying to guilt you.”

My mind scoffed. “Sure. Who do you think you’re talking to? Your asshole? I’m your mind, baby. I know you better than you know me.”

I’ve been in these situations before. Time and space were demanded, needed. I would accommodate my mind. “Okay, then. What sort of theme song should I use today?”

My mind glowered for moments. Dark emotions flit over its face. Suddenly, like sunshine had burst through, he brightened. “Spin Doctors. “Little Miss Miss”, 1992.”

“Really?” I remembered when it came out. I was stationed at Onizuka AFB, then called an Air Station, in Sunnyv —

“Stop.”

“What?”

“No trips down memory lane. I don’t want to do any of that bullshit today. Just play the song and write the post.”

I nodded. “Okay, chum, you got it.”

My mind faked a gag. “Don’t call me chum.”

And that’s how today’s theme music selection was made.

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