I can’t help it. Music jumps into my head when I hear a specific word. And it sits there until I find something else to take up that earworm place in my brain.
Brain.
I got tested for cognition, but they didn’t let me have a mouse. I think I missed half the questions because of the strange device I was supposed to use. Whatever happened to point and click? This was clearly designed for the computer under-achiever. They need to rethink the testing and use actual computer tools for people who actually use computers.
I’m sure Garry would NEVER have passed that test because he’d still be there trying to figure out how that circular twirly device that was supposed to take the place of a mouse was supposed to work. If you don’t come in stupid, the bad design will finish you off!
Meanwhile — Lovely Rita Meter Maid is wriggling between my earlobes. Oh look! It’s dancing, too!
I didn’t bother to add the lyrics. We all know them, right? You don’t? You must be young.
I saw this prompt and I thought “Run for your life …” and then went to find the song. Which proved not as easy as I expected. There are a bunch of versions of it by long-forgotten (and deservedly so) groups. A few by the Beatles so bad that I couldn’t even listen to them. Considering the quality of this recording, imagine how bad the rejects had to be.
Let’s flee with the Beatles and run for our lives down memory lane. This is “Run For Your Life” from Rubber Soul (1965), the first of what I believe was the Beatles “great” era.
Now that Spring has officially arrived, we are thinking more of enjoying the sun. You may have told someone that “You Are The Sunshine Of My Life” or that you wanted to share the “Sunshine Of Your Love,” but you may be looking at this differently than we are. Of course, “There Ain’t No Sunshine When You’re Gone,” but “Don’t Let The Sun Catch You Crying.”
If it remains cloudy were you are, don’t believe “The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore.” Just keep telling yourself, “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me” and you will soon have your “Seasons In The Sun.” Just be sure to stay away from the “House Of The Rising Sun” and you will be fine.
So let me be your “Sunshine Superman” and offer my top 10 Sunshine Songs to brighten up the beginning of Spring:
10. You Are My Sunshine, The Pine Ridge Boys. This 1939 “standard” has been covered by so many artists it is hard to say where I heard it first. Originally performed as a country song, it has received a lot of musical treatments.
9. California Sun, The Rivieras. The 1961 song by Joe Jones became a big hit when The Rivieras covered it in 1964. The 1977 Ramones version also became a hit and showed up on various albums.
8. Walking On Sunshine, Katrina and the Waves. The 1985 hit was a consistent seller for the record company and pure gold for the artists who retained the publishing rights and songwriter royalties.
7. Soak Up The Sun, Sheryl Crow. It’s her only number one hit and you can probably sing along with the chorus. The 2002 release was written by Crow and Jeff Trott.
6. I’ll Follow The Sun, The Beatles. The Paul McCartney, John Lennon composition was written as early as 1960 but the Beatles hit was released in 1964 with lead vocals by McCartney.
5. We’ll Sing In The Sunshine, Gale Garnett. This happy pop tune was released in 1964 and won the Grammy for Best Traditional Folk Recording in 1965. Yes, it was the era for Folk Rock.
4. Good Day Sunshine, The Beatles There was no plan to add multiple Beatles songs. I made up a list and then gave them a ranking. This 1966 Lennon, McCartney composition also has McCartney on lead vocals. Paul played piano on the track and later overdubbed his bass part. I could not find a Beatles performance, but Sir Paul can still bring it.
3. Let The Sun Shine In, The 5th Dimension. The recording by the 60’s pop group is actually a medley of two songs from the musical, Hair. It was at the top of the charts for 6 weeks in 1969. Opening with “Aquarius,” the sound was sometimes called “Psychedelic Pop.”
2. Sunshine On My Shoulders, John Denver. Co-written and recorded by Denver for his 1971 album Poems, Prayers & Promises, it was released as a single in 1973. By early 1974 it reached number 1. When the album came out, I recall singing this song over and over with a friend. I think our performance may have been fueled by adult beverages. It will always hold great memories from a youth well spent.
1. Here Comes The Sun, The Beatles This time it is a George Harrison composition that brings The Beatles back to the list. Recorded in 1969 for the Abbey Road album, it was never released as a single. Nevertheless, the track received critical acclaim and has been played and downloaded often.
Click on any title to go to the You Tune video, or let all of these songs shine down on you from playlist here.
Not so long ago, I bought a bunch of Beatles albums and one by John Prine. The day before yesterday, just in time for Christmas, I got this email:
And when I opened my Kindle last night, what to my wondering eyes should appear but three Beatles albums and the John Prine, ready for my listening pleasure. I didn’t even know I was entitled to the download. Golly.
So I decided to put them on this computer, too. I downloaded the Amazon App for music.
Quick as a wink, I created play lists … and realized I have thousands of album cuts and single songs in my library that I don’t remember acquiring. Obviously, I did. In my sleep maybe?
Merry Christmas to me! There are days … many days … when I really love Amazon.
Once upon a time, music was very different. The Beatles hadn’t played yet. We hadn’t heard them. Sure, there was rock and roll … but not like now. Not like it became after the Beatles. They made sounds we’d never heard before, not anywhere. Maybe sounds that had never even existed on earth.
They didn’t only play instruments and sing. They played a recording studio. They literally introduced completely new sounds, mixing guitar, Dobro, drums, vocals, synthesizers to change music forever.
Younger generations … even my son’s generation, the Gen Xers … they were born after it all changed. They don’t get it, that before the Beatles, music was different. The world was very different.
Music was much more important to us … me, my friends, my whole generation … than music is now. We lived and died with the music we loved. Maybe you had to be there.
The Beatles changed our music and music changed our world. And we, my generation — we changed everything.
We are in a slow news period. It’s not as if nothing is going on. It’s just that nothing is going on in which anyone is especially interested.
2014’s elections were the usual vicious, contentious, nasty business. We used to get outraged, upset, furious about elections. Now, they come. They go. Everything changes, but nothing is different. This time, when the elections ended, it got quiet in a hurry. Bring on Christmas.
The holidays came and went. All through February, the weather (pardon the pun) has been the hot topic. And who Prince Harry is (or isn’t) dating. “Deflategate” is being beaten to death on the sports networks, but is anyone listening? Do we care? As memories of the Super Bowl fade, spring training begins. Can the Sox pull themselves out of the tank? Is there hope for 2015? That’s the most interesting question on the news horizon.
We’ve had a lot of snow.
I’m sure a national calamity was predicted for this year, but I forget what it was. Rumors to the contrary notwithstanding, the sky isn’t falling, unless that’s really what all that white stuff is … the sky falling, I mean.
So there are no fresh disasters. Whichever huge controversies were with us last year and the year before are still lurking, along with a few tired, sleazy scandals. It’s the same old, same old. Back to the everyday struggles of a tired population hoping things will get better and suspecting they won’t. A new year is rolling along. Oo-bla-di, oo-bla-da.
It was an interesting year, in the sense of that apocryphal Chinese proverb, “May you live in interesting times.”
“May you live in interesting times” is actually an English expression which pretends to be a translation of a traditional Chinese curse. Despite its having become so common in English as to be known as “the Chinese curse”, the saying has no actual Chinese source. At least none anyone has ever found. The nearest related Chinese expression is “宁为太平犬，莫做乱世人” (níng wéi tàipíng quǎn, mò zuò luànshì rén) which suggests it’s “better to live as a dog in an era of peace than as a man in times of war.”
Last year was the definition of an interesting time. From its beginning, waiting for my heart surgeon’s schedule to free up so he could fix me — and I needed a good deal of repair — to the long-running (tickets still available) show titled “Marilyn’s Recovery,” to the melodrama of our well going dry. Also known as “Jack and Jill went up the hill, but came down with an empty bucket.” From the miracle of friends to the rescue to the subsequent resurrection of the well. Never a dull moment.
There were long weeks of glorious autumn as we traveled through a glorious New England. Two great concerts. Friends from the past, new friends from afar. Good friends we laughed with and the lost friends for whom we mourn.
I posted nearly 1000 times, passed 200,000 views. Took an uncountable number of photographs. Bought another computer. New Kindles all around. Bonnie’s teeth took on a new shine.
Today, the calendar has flipped. It is 2015. Like the opening on a thousand sleazy movies, I’m living in an un-imagined future.
I remember being a kid and learning about how Haley’s Comet would be coming around the year I turned 39. I couldn’t imagine being as old as that. Nor could I ever have imagined I would see the comet on my 39th birthday from a rock in the Judean Desert, just outside Jerusalem.
I certainly never imagined 2015. The big movie of my young adult years was 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). That year came and went 14 years ago. 1984, Aldous Huxley’s dystopian future, has come shockingly close to reality yet life trudges on. At some point, I got kind of old. Which surprises me less than realizing my friends are old, too. How did that happen?
The Beatles sang about “When I’m 64” and I’ll turn 68 in a couple of months. Gee. Life is a lot stranger than any fiction I might have written.
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