A Meandering Walk in the Park

Song 409: Seven weeks after my previous personal friend song post, this week’s featured playlist track is Child's Play by my good friend Jeff Larson, who also wrote the song, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. We became buddies soon after watching each other perform at Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco back in 1979. As things developed over the following year or two, we performed a few times together as a duo called Dusty River, and during that era, at some point Jeff gave me cassettes of his music, which I enjoyed spinning on my player. A while back, I started making mP3s from old cassettes, including some JL ones, and I sent him copies of his early work. Doing so, I found out that he had forgotten about some of those tunes, and then, lo and behold, along came a fresh version of Child's Play. I'll admit that at first, I still preferred the original, but it didn't take too many replays for me to truly appreciate the new edition, and having heard it plenty of times in the last few years, I relish it even more. Like him, I have, at least once or twice, found myself in a place where I can't remember, the details fade/Blurry and broken, the promises made, and so I've played the game when it's easier pretending with answers always pending, but I will continue to listen for A whisper of something I've found to be real.

Still Time to Change the World

Song 408: This week the playlist salutes Chicago by Graham Nash, who also wrote the song. Having mentioned the Windy City in last week's post, this hit seems like a natural followup. I arrived in that area in the fall of 1969, just as the aftermath of the demonstrations at the 1968 Democratic Convention unfolded. Early in the course of the Chicago Eight trial, the judge denied Black Panther Party activist defendant Bobby Seale his constitutional right to counsel of his choice, and then illegally denied his right to defend himself. When Seale vehemently protested the judge's actions, he was bound and gagged, which inspired Nash's opening lines. During this stretch, while evolving my own personal singer-songwriter style from a combination of various musical and lyrical influences (and singing in Chicago), I felt the RnR scene lacked songs that applied to current events, so Graham's deft single in the spring of 1971 helped to fill that void. Back then I truly believed that it was starting to get better, but now, nearly 5 decades later, we still have a lot to do, especially in regards to war vs. peace, which was the spark that lit the 1968 convention fracas (Viet Nam). In recent years, it seems that the threat of nuclear war has increased, so the world could genuinely be dying to get better, and if We can change the world, we should Open up the door, because Somehow people must be free. I would disagree with Nash on one line, though, and that's because we actually do need rules and regulations, particularly in order to keep some people from taking away the rights of others.

Ready To Turn the Key

Song 407: This week the playlist comes around to Start Me Up by The Rolling Stones, written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. When The Stones showed up as part of the British Invasion that followed The Beatles debut, I liked what I heard from them, just as I did The Dave Clark Five, Herman's Hermits, etc., and they had a few 45s that really lit up the airwaves in that era. At the turn of the 1970s, I began my album collection, having flown from the family coop, and I added a number of older RS LPs, but I found their current ones a bit disappointing, so I generally didn’t go for their newer releases. This single did get my attention, though, when it blasted out of the radio speakers in the summer of 1981, and I heartily agreed with the reviewer my Oakland housemate Doug quoted who said it proved The Rolling Stones could still get it up. During a trip back East that summer, I remember hearing it while riding the bus near the Chicago area, which was where I had lived only a few years earlier, before moving to CA, and it fit that moment perfectly. Having become an East Bay dweller, I did not wish to linger in the Windy City, and if someone had to start me up, I would gladly Ride like the wind at double speed and never stop, never stop until I got back to the West Coast, running hot, even if I had to blow my top, because getting stranded in Chi-Town would have truly made a grown man cry.

Where the Angels Are Coming From

Song 406: This week on the playlist you can hear It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels by Kitty Wells, written by J.D. Jay Miller, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. In the summer of 1960, my family travelled to visit the Ohio relatives, as we had every summer of my life, and by that point, it had become a regular part of the stay that I would spend some time spinning favorites from the aunt and uncle country music collection. They gave me free rein, with the understanding that I would handle the records and equipment with care, which I did, and among the classics that I enjoyed was an album that included this cut. On that 1960 sojourn, or possibly the 1962 trek, when our yearly visits became once-every-two-years in the 1960s, I sat in the living room beside the console, singing along with this track, and my fervently-religious father said to my aunt, "I don't know if I like hearing my son singing those words." Aunt Mary chuckled and replied, "He doesn't know what it means!" Not wishing to jeopardize my access to the country music stash, I said nothing, but inwardly, I thought, "I do know what it means." In reality, though, as a sheltered pre-teen, I actually didn't get the forbidden implications of the lyrics, comprehending it only in terms of grade-school-level boyfriend/girlfriend tussles, which I had no personal experience with, having only witnessed them as an observer. This 1952 single became the first No. 1 Billboard country music hit for a female solo artist, paving the way for other singers like Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn. Truly, too many times married men think they're still single, and that has caused many a good girl to go wrong, but in this case, it also caused a talented young woman to top the charts.