Tag: Tracy Chapman

Twosda’s Theme Music

Mood: Coffeemollified

This is it, 2024’s final day. Twosday, December 31. Seems ordinary in every way when I just look out the window.

Winter has descended. Our temperature is muscling to 30 F. The high will be 42 F. Sun shimmers through fog’s pearly teeth. Frost crisps grass blades into white shoestrings. No snow or rain falling. While walking in late afternoon yesterday, though, I looked across the valley. A fog line huddled against the mountains at about three thousand feet. Above the fog, a snowy mountain ridge turned apricot by the setting sun stood sentry. Now that, I thought, looks cold.

My Neurons took to quizzing me as I took care of brekkie duties, asking me who starred in different televsion shows and movies. Yes, I agree, it’s an odd thing to be doing. Then they pivoted, “Okay, who sang the ‘Friends’ theme music?” Easy peasy, the Rembrandts, right? “Now name the Supreme Court Justices, smart guy,” The Neurons returned. Before coffee? I protested. That’s hardly fair.

Today’s music was brought in by The Neurons when my wife and I were driving home from a shopping expedition yesterday. The radio played Luke Combs’s version of Tracy Chapman’s song, “Fast Car”. My wife commented that it revitalized her sales, especially after the Grammies, when Combs and Chapman performed the song together. We then talked about how good her first album was. That resulted in The Neurons installing another song from the album, “For My Lover”, in the morning mental music stream (Trademark tariff protected).

Coffee is now approaching The Neurons with a peace offering. Yes, it’s caffeine. Usually sufficiently mollifies The Neurons into being more companionable. Hope your final day of 2024 is memorable for you in good ways. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Sunday’s Theme Music

The basics are, it’s Sunday, July 17, 2022, 19 C with a clear blue sky. Sunrise was established at 5:49 AM. The world’s turning gives us an 8:44 PM sunset. They say the local high will be 89 F. For the week, we’re looking at highs in the high 80 F to low 90s rage, eminently livable.

Beyond those basics, it’s not looking good for local produce. The weather was just too wacky and misaligned from the growing season. Nothing showed up on our neighbors’ peach and cherry trees beyond leaves. No blossoms and fruit ever arrived. We’ve heard similar tales from others. The blackberries, which are generally plentiful, disappeared after a week. Meanwhile, heat and flooding is afflicting crops elsewhere in the U.S. and Europe is enduring a killer heatwave. Triple digit temps are challenge Texas’ and their ability to cope with increased heat. China is facing extreme heat. What are the connections to these things? Health risks. I suspect climate change, but this is one year. More data is needed. I suggest the patterns and data of other years clears the situation and shows the trends. But I’m not a scientist.

The Neurons planted Tracy Chapman’s 1988 song, “Talkin’ ’bout a Revolution”, into the morning mental music stream. The song’s genesis on this morning can be traced back to a Friday conversation about electric cars and their growing prevalence. As Le Neruons awoke, they caught on to someone commenting about a revolution, which brought up Chapman’s lyrics:

Don’t you know?
They’re talkin’ about a revolution
It sounds like a whisper

h/t to Genius.com

Got my coffee. I urge you to stay positive and test negative. Hard during our trip, honestly. While social spacing was the norm, recognized and respected at almost every venue and moment, the unmasked to masked ratios at most locations was about ten to one. Our traveling companions weren’t masked. But we — my spouse and I — were masked. But then, our traveling companions were not. So, while eating and driving, we were exposed. But to what were we exposed? Nothing? Or the virus? Which variation? My writing has ground to a halt because I’m not going to coffee shops to write. Frustration has reached eleven (see This is Spinal Tap for greater understanding.) Writing at home becomes debilitating as interruptions pile up and continuity is fractured.

Well, I must persist. He’re the music. Cheers

On a WP side note, WP kept removing ‘Talking ’bout A Revolution’ after I added it to the tags. Don’t know why, but it happened SIX TIMES.

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Thursday’s Theme Music

If you heard a sharp screeching sound earlier this week, it may have come from our area. The seasons hit the brakes on the weather. We had been warmly progressing toward summer. Nice weather, if you can get it. But then, some power shouted, “Hit the brakes! Reverse.” Temperatures scaled down the thermometer overnight, taking us into the mid thirties. Rain stormed in. Clouds unfurled, mocking the sun’s 5:45 AM arrival. While the sun is expected to hang until 8:30 PM, the temperatures won’t go much over fifty, they say. Enjoying the rain, though, and the snow in the mountains. We haven’t had enough of either. Give us more, please.

This is Thursday, May 20, 2021, in the valley where Ashland is homed, where I am homed. Our vaccination rate keeps climbing (knock on wood). We’ve climbed over fifty percent of peeps with at least one shot. Our local Family Y has set up a J&J one shot clinic, no appointment needed, all day when they’re open. As with most of these things, it’s not advertised well. All of my local friends and acquaintances are fully vaxxed, but I tell them so they can tell others. Pitter-patter, let’s get ‘er at ‘er, and get this thing done.

Reading about why people aren’t getting vaccinated brought Tracy Chapman’s 1995 song, “Give Me One Reason”, to mind. Vax hesitancy usually falls in four groups. Dominating it are those individuals who don’t believe that COVID-19 exists or have convinced themselves that it’s not that bad. A lot of them defiantly demand, “Give me one reason.” But, what’s the use? You don’t believe the news stories about survivors and deaths. What one reason can I give that’ll change your mind? I fear that if you’re one of those people, your mind won’t be changed until you’ve personally experienced COVID-19 hell.

For the music, I’ve selected a collaboration between Chapman and Eric Clapton recorded in 1999. It’s a different take, a little fatter on Chapman’s gem of a song. Stay positive, test negative, mask as necessary, and get the vax. Please. Here’s the music.

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Blame Paul Krugman for today’s song.

I was reading his post about zombies. You’d conclude, then, that today’s music features music by or about zombies.

Nope.

Krugman addressed Republicans et al who won’t or can’t change their thinking about unemployment compensation, the social safety net, and the economy despite decades of validated data that the Republicans are wrong. I then widened my scope of thought to include civil rights and equality. Voting rights. Police force and violence. Eventually my aperture narrowed to change.

Raise your hand if you’re convinced change is easy. For most, it isn’t. Change messes with psychology and comfort zones, habits and vices, and the way it’s always been versus the way we’d like it to be. Trump and his followers are already demonstrated that they’re mired in tar pits; they can’t and won’t change.

All this brought me to songs about trying to change. There are numerous musical releases about seasons and change. I went with Tracy Chapman’s 1988 song, “Fast Car”.

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Tracy Chapman’s first album came out while we were living in Germany. This song, “Talkin’ ’bout A Revolution,” was one of several favorites from the album. We quickly became Chapman fans, and her second album cemented her status in our minds.

“Talkin’ ’bout A Revolution” seems apropos for this mild winter Wednesday. The White House released its budget. Since a budget was signed a few days before its release, the WH budget does little as far as being a law, but it provides insights into their thinking, and the thinking seems to be feed the rich, starve the poor, cut the arts, and increase the world’s largest military and nuclear forces into a larger force. Depressing thinking.

I think Chapman understands the gist:

While they’re standing in the welfare lines
Crying at the doorsteps of those armies of salvation
Wasting time in the unemployment lines
Sitting around waiting for a promotion

h/t azlyrics.com

In short, as larger numbers of common Americans have less to gain by maintaining the status quo, and the status quo moves into more conservative modes that favor wealthy individuals and corporations, there’s less vested interest for the multitudes to maintain the status quo.

There will eventually be change. History shows that revolution and change is a dance. The time and beat vary, as do the moves. Sometimes it’s a structured box step, forward, sideways, backwards as changes take place.

That seems to be the dance we’re doing now.

 

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

This is a good rainy Wednesday song. It starts slow, and builds.

“Give Me One Reason” by Tracy Chapman came out while we were stationed in Germany in nineteen eighty-eight. Her style and voice struck me as astonishing. The lyrics are poetic and insightful. I find this song boils down the complexities of a relationship, and how currents and energies swim around words and hope. When all is said and done, just give me a reason to stay. I want you, and you want me, but I need a reason to stay.

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