Want to Make Rhythmic Moves?

 Song 764: This week the playlist puts the spotlight on Do You Wanna Dance? by The Mamas and The Papas, written by Bobby Freeman, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. The Mamas and The Papas had roped me in during the spring of 1966 with their chart topper about the first work day of the week. I had struggled for over two years to try to avoid the devil's music if possible because of my family's religious disapproval of it, but when that Monday, Monday (Song 302) saga came along, I could no longer resist the captivating sounds. A few months later, when my family went to visit my father's relatives in Ohio, we spent one night staying with his brother and family, as we usually did. However, this time around, the place had a very different appearance. My father's brother had built the home's basement many years before, and previously when we visited, we stayed in that basement along with all of his family, but since our trip two years earlier, he had finally constructed a very impressive two-story house on top of that basement. On this visit, at a certain point, my cousin welcomed me into his nice new bedroom and put his If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears LP on his turntable. I relished hearing the whole record, which included this pleasing question. Of course, I could never admit to anyone in my family, other than my younger brother, that I might wanna dance, because fundamentalists also disparaged that activity as a sinful move, and you could only make romance and squeeze a lover all through the night after you had a legal wedding that the church approved.

Cherished Aspirations

 Song 763: This week on the playlist you can hear Dreams by Fleetwood Mac, written by Stevie Nicks, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. As the temperatures started to get warmer in the Windy City region in late March of 1977, I began to have Dreams about heading to the West Coast, but I also knew that I couldn't turn such fantasies into a reality until the next year, due to dental problems that would take some time to repair. Because I planned to leave the Chicago area the following year, I did not add Rumours to my LP collection, as much as I would have enjoyed having the disc, but I sure did appreciate hearing the record's shining tales on the local radio station. During that period, I spent a lot of time behind the driver's wheel, and part of that time got enlightened by the radio sounds, while thunder only happened when it was raining. Often I would see the crystal visions of where I planned to go, and then, in July of the following year, I did get to stretch my thumb out in that western direction.

Mode of Transportation

 Song 762: This week the playlist applauds Vehicle by Ides of March, written by Jim Peterik, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. I greatly widened my musical horizons on the very day that I got to my university dormitory in the fall of 1969, soon becoming good friends with other male students on my floor in that facility who had very impressive disc collections. On top of hearing some amazing classic rockers that I hadn't previously known about, though, I would also sometimes tune in to the local hit radio, since I only shared my living space with one other guy who liked rock, rather than residing in the home of a family that disparaged the devil's music. When this remarkable mover started riding the airwaves around this time of year in 1970, sometimes I had pictures, I had candy and of course I considered myself a lovable young man, but I did not have a vehicle, so I could not take someone to the nearest star, or anywhere else that they might wanna go.

Meandering Replies

Song 761: This week the playlist comes around to Blowin' in the Wind by Peter, Paul and Mary, written by Bob Dylan, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. Back in my single-digit years, I would sometimes hear.a song I liked coming from a radio nearby, but I didn't generally pay much attention to them. However, early on during my second decade, a musical trio started getting plenty of recognition in the summer of 1963 from an anthem about rambling answers to major questions, and it soon became the first current hit that got a lot of my focus. The folkie style wouldn't have bothered my parents the way the devil's music did when it showed up six months later, and the values expressed in the lyrics seemed to align with basic Christian concepts, so I saw no conflict between my religion and the hit. I quickly learned the songwriter's name, and over the next few years I would notice that moniker a few times, such as with Mr. Tambourine Man (Song 326), but I wouldn't actually hear his voice until I got to my college dormitory. When I first heard the breezy song, I didn't know how many roads I'd have to walk down before people would call me a man, but even now, no matter how many times some of the cannonballs did fly since then, I don't expect them to get forever banned any time soon! 

500 Years from Now

 Song 760: This week the playlist recognizes In the Year 2525 by Zager and Evans, written by Rick Evans, and you can find a cool YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. Around the time that I went to the graduation ceremony where I got my HS certification in June of 1969, I started hearing a folkie duo expressing their musical predictions of the distant future, and while I had no way to evaluate the validity of their prophetic assertions, I did enjoy listening to their melodic foresights. Actually, still living with a fundamentalist family at the time, I believed that the rapture would come along at some point in the near future, and I did not expect human civilization to even make it to the first quarter of the 21st century, so back then, I felt certain that humans would never get to that same point in the 26th one! Now I don't really know, and I do not dismiss the threat of nuclear armageddon, but currently I do know that sometimes when you have something to do, maybe some machine's doin' that for you, and possibly humanity will advance to the point that if someone wants a child, they can pick a son and pick a daughter too from the bottom of a glass tube.

Amusement As the Only Option

 Song 759: Seven weeks after my previous personal friend song post, this week's entertaining ramble All You Can Do is Laugh comes from another one of my Fast Folk colleagues, Jeff Tareila, who also wrote the song, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. Not long after I moved from Berkeley, CA, to Brooklyn, NY, in September of 1988, I found out about the weekly songwriter gathering at Jack Hardy's Manhattan apartment, and that soon became a regular part of my schedule. Getting into the FF circle, I became good friends with JT, to the point that when he had a wedding a few years later, my romantic partner and I got to attend that marriage ceremony. For much of my adult life, both before and after that event, some people have told me that certain difficulties I experience stem from my hair, and if I would just cut it all off, I would really get somewhere. How does someone respond to such advice? All you can do is laugh!

Unable to Purchase Passion

 Song 758: This week the playlist puts the spotlight on Can't Buy Me Love by The Beatles, written by Paul McCartney and originally credited to him and John Lennon, and you can find a cool YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. About a month after the Fab Four rocked my world in February of 1964, they had another amazing chart topper getting everyone's attention. It didn't take long to learn the chorus lines and melody of the anthem about the lack of a connection between cash and affection, so I could soon sing along with it when the radio featured it. During those school years, a class I attended would sometimes do a field trip to NYC to visit places there such as the Bronx Zoo, and on those trips, we would get to hear the bus's radio station playing the Top 40. On one of those excursions, which I think happened in the spring of 1965, while riding on a freeway in Manhattan, we riders got to hear this Beatles classic, which at that point had already become a golden oldie. Growing up in a working-class family back then, I would truly have appreciated a romantic partner that valued the kind of things that money just can't buy.