Adding Up the Sadness

 Song 540: This week the playlist recognizes Heartaches By The Number by Ray Price, written by Harlan Howard, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. I got to know this hit and a bunch of additional country classics thanks to the extensive LP collection of the Ohio relatives that my family visited every summer in the 1950s, and every even-numbered summer in the 1960s. Like a lot of other songs, I soon learned the chorus on this one well enough that I could sing along with it as it spun on the turntable, and I would also occasionally vocalize it by myself during moments of isolation. Sadly, due to the current pandemic situation, way too many people these days have heartaches by the number and troubles by the score, though romantic entanglements have little if anything to do with the vast majority of the problems. The disease can easily make someone feel that they can't win, but hopefully the day people can stop counting their heartaches and troubles will not be the day the world will end.

Taking Steps This Evening

 Song 539: This week the playlist features Dance Tonight by Paul McCartney, who also wrote the song, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. Similar to last week's post, I did not know this tune when it first came along in 2007, but a few weeks ago, one day I saw some music videos on Facebook that someone had sent me links for, and I liked a lot of what I saw and heard, including this one and the one from last week. Growing up as a Fab Four fan in the 1960s, I of course have an interest in any Paul music I haven't heard, and this ride definitely fits in quite well with his repertoire. As someone who also has a mandolin in my instrument collection, and has periodically cruised up and down its keyboard, I truly enjoyed the opening video sequence of the instrument delivery. Though I can't say when it might happen, I do hope that we can get beyond this pandemic situation at some point in the near future, and then everybody's gonna dance around, everybody's gonna hit the ground, everybody's gonna stamp their feet, everybody's gonna feel the beat, everybody's gonna jump and shout, everybody's gonna sing it out. I look forward to the moment when we can know that everybody's gonna dance tonight.

Moving Beyond Unnecessary Restrictions

 Song 538: This week the playlist comes around to Turn Me Loose by Loverboy, written by Paul Dean and Mike Reno, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. If this cut got my attention back in the era when it showed up in 1980, or any time thereafter, I honestly don't remember. About a month ago, someone on Facebook sent me a link to the YT video, and when I watched it, it really made my day. I truly enjoyed the entertaining old black and white movie clips, but I also genuinely relished the musical jaunt, and the way the band enlivens it themselves in their moving segments. As a musician, I feel like I'm here to please and sometimes I'm even on my knees, but of course, I gotta do it my way, even when I wanna fly, so anyone who ever tried to tie me down would need to Turn Me Loose.

Related in a Red-letter Way

 Song 537: This week on the playlist you can hear He Was My Brother by Simon and Garfunkel, written by Paul Simon, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. Not long after Sounds of Silence got everyone's attention around the beginning of our freshman year of HS, in the fall of 1965, my best friend got copies of the first 2 Simon and Garfunkel LPs, and when their next 2 albums came along, he quickly added them to his collection, so I got to know their music quite well during my HS phase. Whenever I would visit my buddy, he would play his S&G 33s while we hung out in his room. Listening to this cut, I figured that Paul had written the piece as a way to express solidarity with the brave souls fighting against racism in that era of the civil rights struggle, and I respected him for doing so. However, my research for this bit today taught me that Paul actually had been close friends with one of the three courageous activists killed by KKK-linked cops in Philadelphia, MS, in 1964, for the crime of trying to help enable African Americans to vote. At a point now where, a week after adding Won't Get Fooled Again to this playlist, we seem to have arrived at the Meet the new boss, same as the old boss moment, a certain low-level racist named Joe will soon replace a certain high-level racist named Donald, as one of the core plagues of our culture continues on with no end in sight. 56 years ago Andrew Goodman died so his brothers could be free, and yet, they still are not, and our latest election gives no indication of when, if ever, they could be.

Hip to the Deception

 Song 536: This week the playlist applauds Won't Get Fooled Again by The Who, written by Pete Townshend, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. Election week seems like an appropriate time to add this cut to the list. When it first came along in the summer of 1971, I liked the sound of it, as it seemed to amplify my belief that My Generation (song 474) had gotten hip to the political games which had given us the Vietnam War and other ridiculous BS, and we would not fall for it again. Then, the following year, as Rolling Stone described it, in a contest between Jekyll and Hyde, the country went apesh*t for Hyde. Over the decades, I've watched US politics grow more corrupt and less worker-friendly, as the rich continue to get richer and average citizens get screwed, while folks like Speaker Pelosi accrue a 9-figure net worth, partly as a reward for rigging the rules against genuine progressives like Bernie Sanders who support improvements for the lower 90 percent. The change, it had to come - we knew it all along, but in terms of the political landscape, the world looks just the same today (if not worse). Knowing the real story of the two evils facing off this week, I know what to expect (a lousy outcome either way), so I definitely Won't Get Fooled Again by the 2020 scam.