After feeding the cats, I read the news and skimmed social media while drinking a mornin’ cuppa. After reading a bit o’ America’s plight, the rush toward extinction of the Monarch Butterfly, some murder and scandal updates, I was ready to move on. Thinking, gotta get away from that same old, same old, I need a chance just to get away. If you could hear me thinking, this is what I’d say.
Poison’s song, “Nothin’ but a Good Time” (1988) burst into my stream. It was almost like their video.
Fixing the cats and mumbling to the coffee this morning, I streamed remembered dreams and pondered forgotten songs. The morass cleared after I ate some kibble and gave the cats some coffee. Losing its turbidity (a word of which I’m quite fond), the stream drew down into Joe Walsh with “All Night Long”, from Urban Cowboy, 1980.
Reading the news yesterday and today, I was shaking my head, partially laughing while crying. You know, it was the same old story.
That led to me streaming Aerosmith.
It’s the same old story
Same old song and dance, my friend
It’s the same old story
Same old story
Same old song and dance
It was an easy song to identify with when I was a teenager and the song was released. When you asked questions, you often heard, “That’s just how it is. That’s how it goes.” It was always the same old song and dance, no matter what you were asked.
It’s a song and dance I’m getting tired of now with politics. It’s always one thing or another. Back in the military world, you tired of hearing you must do more with less — same old song and dance. Hurry up and wait — same old song and dance. In the corporate world, it became doing more with less, and then cut expenses and increase profits, or we can’t give you a bonus or pay raise, little boy, while they spread some B.S. about us being a family, or a team, and how much they care. Same old song and dance.
“Same Old Song and Dance”. Only the voices change.
As I piddled about this morning, I compiled a mental list of stuff that I wanted slash comma needed or should do. “It’s been a while,” I kept thinking, responding to these things, and then, was like, oh, yeah. “It’s Been Awhile”. Staind. What year?
That required a neuron convention to decide. I was certain that it was 2001, based on how and where I remembered hearing the song, but it seemed like last week, pushing me to question my results, forcing me onto the innertubes to confirm, yep, 2001.
Although I was pleased to recall the correct year, I was then left baffled with, what was I about to do? Too bad I couldn’t hit the innertubes to remember that.
Today’s theme music comes via my cat, Boo. Boo is a large black cat with a minute white triangle on his chest and two long, white whiskers. Tailless, he came to us as a stray few years ago. We tried to find his people but failed, so he became part of the household. Although big and smart, Boo has issues, and it’s clear that someone mistreated him.
So, I was singing to him last night as I stroked his head and back, “Say it loud. I’m black and I’m proud.” That brought to mind the James Brown song from 1968, of course. Hell, it’s the title.
James Brown’s song is a powerful and affirmative statement of identity and clarity. I used to get goosebumps when I heard a large group of blacks singing it and clapping to the beat. It was amazing to witness.
Look a’here, some people say we got a lot of malice
Some say it’s a lotta nerve
I say we won’t quit moving
Til we get what we deserve
We’ve been buked and we’ve been scourned
We’ve been treated bad, talked about
As just as sure as you’re born
But just as sure as it take
Two eyes to make a pair, huh
Brother, we can’t quit until we get our share
Today’s song blasted out of my dreams and into my thinking stream. The dreams were wild, all good things that made me laugh or stand tall as a conquering hero. Nothing undermining, and no anxiety. Great stuff.
So why did this 1985 ballad emerge from that dreamland? I think “Broken Wings” fits it well. Like the dream ended and this was the song that played for me as the credits rolled. It was cool.
BTW, I’d never seen the video until I checked it out today. I was in Egypt, living in a tent when the song was released, part of whirlwind year that had me in stationed in South Carolina, but visiting Jordan, Guam, Korea, New Jersey, Spain, and Egypt. Interesting year.
Freddies dead
That’s what I said
Let the man rap a plan said he’d see him home
But his hope was a rope and he should’ve known
It’s hard to understand
There was love in this man
I’m sure all would agree
That his misery was his woman and things
Now Freddie’s dead
That’s what I said
I was reading about another unarmed black man killed by another white man with a gun. In this case, the black man was killed by a Walgreen’s security officer as he was walking away, shot in the back, after the two exchanged words several times.
Reading about the man’s death as the holidays are fading and the decorations are taken down and put away inspired weariness about change’s creeping nature and questions of why so many others seem eager to kill someone because they’re a different color, or the things they said. Growing up in 1960s America, race riots and violence were a nightly news staple. I keep hoping for peace, equality, and justice.
From all that, I began streaming Curtis Mayfield, “Freddie’s Dead” (1972).
As I’ve thought about what was happening and where I’ve decided to go, Peter Gabriel’s song, “Solsbury Hill” (1977) came to me. The song is about making decisions, taking risks, and changing, coming about when he left Genesis, the group he’d helped begin almost a decade before, to begin a solo career.
Many of the versus reflected his uncertainty about the decision.
This song played four times, different venues, during the last two days, so I thought, WTH, I think the Fates are demanding that it be the theme music.
Here’s Gnarls Barkley (CeeLo Green and Danger Mouse) with “Crazy” (2006).
A simple song today, streaming an old favorite. This came out in ’72, when I was just getting my driver’s license, still in high school, and living with dad. Don’t know what kicked it into the stream this morning, but I’ve always liked its sound and energy.
Let’s enjoy some Led Zeppelin with “Rock and Roll”. Rock out 2018, rock in 2019.
Michael Seidel, writer 