“Stay with Me” by the Faces (1971) popped into this morning’s stream. This type of bluesy rock, with so many musical elements heard complementing one another, remains my favorite style. Ronnie Woods plays a wicked guitar. Love that opening. It’s good air-guitar stuff. Ian McLagen is awesome on the piano, and then that singer, with the gravelly voice, what’s-his-name? Yeah, Rod Stewart, did a damn fine job with the vocals.
Good walking song. Don’t trust me on there. Get out there and walk and do your Rod Stewart imitation. You know you got one.
I love the beach, and I miss the beach, so I’m trying to make plans to go to the beach. Challenge number one is timing; number two is finding trustworthies to feed the cats.
Hunting for beachy accommodations on the net, I began streaming a popular beach song. I like “Rockaway Beach” by the Ramones (1977) for its raucous fast pace and lyrics. I especially enjoy those opening lines, which are later repeated:
Chewin’ at a rhythm on my bubble gum
The sun is out, I want some
It’s not hard, not far to reach
We can hitch a ride to Rockaway Beach
I laugh at the first because I used to chew rhythms on my gum, which infuriated Mom, my sisters, and later, my wife. They all consider it noisy. Mom also thought I was like a cow chewing my cud.
I tried chewing my gum to “Rockaway Beach” — you have to, right? — and failed. Guess I need to keep working on it.
I know multiple versions of today’s song, but a little background to coming to it.
I dreamed of ear wax and getting rid of this morning. That apparently opened a direct channel to the mid-sixties in my head (that’s the 1960s, boys and girls, in case, you know, you were wondering…) because I was channeling sixties music this morning. Some early Beatles, Beach Boys, Lovin’ Spoonful, Richie Valens, Little Rascals, Monkees, Paul Revere and the Raiders, the Supremes, Dave Clark 5, Stevie Wonder… Whole songs didn’t playing. A snippet would begin, I’d identify it, and the stream moved onto another song. You can see from the list that it was mostly American pop, with a little Motown thrown in.
After a bit of this, “(I’m Not Your) Stepping Stone” settled into the stream. Although I enjoy the Sex Pistols’ version, in keeping with the stream, I chose the Monkee’s 1966 version. You should watch the video just for a taste of 1960s TV pop America.
The song’s sentiment, though, resonates, which is probably why the stream settled on it: “You’re tryin’ to make your mark in society, you’re using all the tricks that you used on me.” I like that declaration: I know what you did, and we’re done.
Ah, 5150, the album that ignited the Van Halen wars: who is better, David Lee Roth, or Sammy Hagar?
I didn’t care. 5150 (1986) was a rockin’ album. I listened to it enough that when I hear song from it even in me head, the rest of the album continues in sequence.
Of course, I always mess around with lyrics, and that’s how “Why Can’t This Be Love” entered my mental stream. I was looking for something to eat. While plucking at some melon pieces and thinking about what to have for lunch, I asked myself, “Why can’t this be lunch?”
After staggering out of bed and then using the bathroom, I started feeding the cats. “I Am the Walrus” by the Beatles from waaayyy back in 1968 when I was twelve, began streaming in my head. “I am the eggman — woo — they are the eggman — woo — I am the walrus. Goo goo g’ joob.”
WTH? Why? It’s another mind mystery, innit, a nonsense song in a nonsense world after some nonsense dreams. Guess it’ll work for a quiet summer day that seems like a warm autumn day, as though the seasons have been turned into a jigsaw puzzle that need to be assembled.
Listen to it. Let me know what you think. Goo goo g’ joob.
Some days I wonder and worry about it all. Then comes a day when I decide, screw it; let it roll.
From 1970, The Doors with “Roadhouse Blues”. Keep your eyes on the road and your hands upon the wheel. The future’s uncertain and the end is always near.
Gonna tell you a story. About a kitty I know. When it comes to loving, she steals the show. Ain’t exactly pretty, ain’t exactly small.
Well, she was small of body, but big of mind, and HUGE of will.
Anyway, back to the theme music. Going with AC/DC. “Whole Lotta Rosie”. 1977. You either know it, or you don’t. That’s how stuff usually works.
You may not know this, but I was born in 1956, so 1977 was part of my extended childhood. Truthfully, my extended childhood will probably end within a few years. I’m holding on, but all good things must end.
Go in for more work in Peckerville today. Wish me luck. Cheers
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…
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.
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.
Michael Seidel, writer 