Cardiac Chilling

 Song 647: Seven weeks after my previous personal friend song post, this week's cool ride Heart On Ice comes from another one of my Fast Folk colleagues Judith Zweiman (who also wrote the song) & the Answers (her backup band) and it marks her first appearance in this series. You can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. I met her soon after I accepted the responsibility of handling the booking and acting as MC for a weekly early evening acoustic set at a lower Manhattan folk club in the fall of 1988. I recall seeing and hearing her and her musical partners doing a few performances during the stretch when I did that job, and I liked the sounds I heard coming from the stage, plus I soon enough had a copy of their cassette release that got a bunch of spins on my player. I had never heard this particular jaunt until recently, but as soon as I did, it became another one of my favorites. Back in the era when I did sometimes stretch with the all night shiners hanging out in the night cub scene, I personally never felt that I had to keep my heart on ice or chill my holy soul.

Can St. Nicholas Return a Romantic Partner?

 Song 646: This week on the playlist you can hear Santa Bring My Baby Back (To Me) by Elvis Presley, written by Aaron Schroeder and Claude Demetrius, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. The last time I featured Elvis in this collection was 52 weeks ago, when I made Blue Christmas Song 594. Mr. Presley recorded this classic a few days before my sixth birthday, but I knew very little about him while growing up. My parents and grandparents opposed the devil's music and I assumed most of the rest of the older generation did as well, so I could not have imagined back then that my best friend's mother was a big fan of the Elvis guy - a fact that I only found out about in recent years, shortly before she died. I did see at least one or two performances by him on the Ed Sullivan Show, but what I witnessed didn't grab my ears the way the Fab Four had. However, when I left the fundamentalist nest and began my own life as an independent young adult, having the freedom to pursue an interest in RnR, I soon learned a lot more about the groundbreaking sounds Mr. Presley had sparked, and I came to understand why the Beatles had all named him as their primary inspiration. As I expanded my LP stack, I added a 33 that included this moving carol and then it became a regular part of the melodies that enlivened my holiday season. Personally, I also don't need a lot of presents to make my Christmas bright. You can go ahead and fill my sock with candy and a bright and shiny toy, since the Christmas tree is ready and the candles all aglow. Happy Merry, Merry Happy!

Carnivore Vision

 Song 645: This week the playlist puts the spotlight on Eye of the Tiger by Survivor, written by Frankie Sullivan and Jim Peterik, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. About a year before this tough rumbler arrived in1982, I had moved over to Berkeley, CA, after residing for 3 years in nearby Oakland. The 6-bedroom house where I rented a room had, a couple of years earlier, become the dwelling for a quintet that had originated from the singer/songwriter circle that I had hung out with, but then the band split up, and soon enough at least one member moved out, and I happily took up the available space. I liked living only a few blocks from the pizza joint basement performance arena where my creative friends routinely gathered. Most of them seemed to primarily have an interest in the folkie acoustic realm, but my housemate Bob Nichols, who had played bass for the home's band when he first moved in, did also share my appreciation for the heavier sounds of movers like this Survivor hit. As much as I rolled with this ride, though, I did not care for its connection to the film Rocky 3. I thought the first one of that series was OK, but it didn't thrill me, and I had no interest in the movie’s followups. Now, 4 decades later, I personally have not lost my grip on the dreams of the past, and I know I must fight just to keep them alive, so I intend to do that.

Mouth Your Passion

 Song 644: This week the playlist applauds Say You Love Me by Fleetwood Mac, written by Christine McVie, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. I saw a TV segment featuring Fleetwood Mac in 1974 and while it didn't excite me, I had this impression that the group did have major potential, and when the Buckingham/Nicks duo joined the ensemble the following year, the band hit a whole new level, and justifiably so. I really relished the album they released that year, which included this gem, and as I acquired the 33 and paid more attention to the quintet, I also increased my appreciation of keyboard player Christine. This marks her third appearance among this collection as the singer and songwriter of prominent Fleetwood Mac tunes, with Over My Head being Song 341 and Songbird being Song 413. I decided to once again highlight the woman who had had a Perfect last name before marrying the band's bassist, mainly because of the sad news about her demise a few days ago. Evidently she was getting weaker, weaker every day, and she was not as strong as she used to be, but I doubt it was someone using her again that was the end of her.

Unrestrained Fowl

 Song 643: This week the playlist recognizes Free Bird by Lynyrd Skynyrd, written by Allen Collins and Ronnie Van Zant, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. When this anthem started riding the air waves in the winter of 1975, I had just found an available room in an apartment on the south end of the Chicago-area locality where I had spent most of the preceding 4 years, so I personally did not feel like the Free Bird that had relaxed in the Atlanta, GA, region the previous spring, but I did appreciate having a warm space to rest. As much as I initially enjoyed listening to the signature song of this septet, which marks their premier appearance among this collection, I would eventually, over the next decade, get tired of hearing other performers do their own versions of it. By the time the 1980s arrived, whenever I attended a night club show, whether by a low-level musician or a prominent star, if the singer gave the audience a chance to make a request, I always heard at least one person - and often many more - shout out Free Bird, to the point where it became rare NOT to hear that. This phenomenon continued well into the 1990s, and may even still happen these days, because, after all, this bird you cannot change.

Vibrate Your Income Source

 Song 642: This week the playlist comes around to Shake Your Moneymaker by Elmore James, who also wrote the song, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. In researching last week's Doors trailblazer Break on Through I learned that guitarist Robby Krieger has credited Paul Butterfield's version of this EJ hit as the inspiration for the riff that he used to drive the Doors' first album opener, so this seemed like an appropriate moment to feature Mr. James' rendition of the tune which he gets recognition for as the songwriter. This marks Elmore's second appearance in this group, with Dust My Broom being Song 307. When this shaker arrived in 1961, a few years before the Beatles rocked my world, I had no knowledge of such earlier heavy movers, and during my HS stretch I still found out very little about them, but as the 1970s unfolded and I had, as a young adult, the freedom to explore musical pathways that interested me, a 1950s RnR revival hit the Chicago radio waves and I got to hear many classics that had never previously crossed my ears, some of which I highly appreciated, such as this stunning rocker. As a male, I can certainly enjoy watching a woman shake her moneymaker and roll her activator, but it doesn't surprise me when she won't do a thing I tell her to do.

Fracture Barriers to Reach Opposite Conclusions

 Song 641: This week on the playlist you can hear Break on Through (To the Other Side) by the Doors, who also wrote the song, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. As the summer of 1967 arrived, some of us RnR fans scratched our heads when the Fab Four took on a very different Lonely Hearts Club appearance and sound, but around that time, a new L.A. quartet got everyone's attention with their fiery hit, and soon enough, plenty of my friends had a copy of their premier 33, so I thereby got to hear it frequently. During my final 2 HS years that disc got a lot of spins on the turntable that adorned the classroom where my colleagues and I put together the monthly student newspaper, to the point that when I remember those journalistic exercises, The Doors LP is the main - and sometimes the only - one that I associate with those gatherings, with this sizzling rocker being the opening lift on that enlivening jaunt. Last month I had the pleasure of meeting realist artist Susan Kapilow and getting to enjoy perusing the drawings she did of Jim Morrison. Not long after she received an award for a sculpture she did of his head, one day he appeared on her Manhattan doorstep, and she then had the opportunity that afternoon to sketch him as he hung out with her. Whether someone examining those images found an island in his arms and/or country in his eyes, I would say Susan's illustrations definitely made the scene!

Avoiding Discussions About Labor

 Song 640: Seven weeks after my previous personal friend song post, this week's enlivening ramble I Don't Want to Talk About Work comes from one of my Fast Folk buddies Jim Allen, who also wrote the song, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s when I hung out with the FF gang of Manhattan and regularly attended the weekly gathering at Jack Hardy's apartment, Jim soon earned a reputation as one of the standout songwriters of the group, and this jaunt arrived during that stretch, later becoming part of the FF Volume 8 Issue 7 disc that I did the cover for in 1996. I myself sure do understand a certain kind of sadness that has been driven from the door of the rich to the poor, and as the situation keeps getting worse, it's a funny kind of strange, how the weather won't change, but like Jim, I still will send my good wishes for the sucker washing dishes and one more for the drugstore clerk.

Do What? Did He?

 Song 639: This week the playlist comes around to Do Wah Diddy Diddy by Manfred Mann, written by Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. Two weeks ago I featured a Mann ensemble in this collection for the first time, highlighting a melodic ride that his Earth Band did, and since I have planned for years to add to the list this particular enlivening ramble, I figured I might as well get around to that too. I don't recall whether I heard this hit as it climbed the charts in the summer following the icier season when the Fab Four first rocked my world, but I do remember my neighbor buddy from across the street mouthing the words one afternoon during that sunny stretch, and I soon joined him, at least in part motivated by a lyrical simplicity that didn't take long to grasp. He was just walkin' down the street singin' "Do wah diddy, diddy, dum diddy do" while snappin' his fingers and shufflin' his feet. Perhaps it was a good thing that we did not know at the time that the same condition which led to Woody Guthrie's demise also lurked inside his system, all too soon haunting his entire existence and bringing him to his final chapter. I share a few of the details of his Huntington's Disease story in my book Expecting the Broken Brain to Do Mental Pushups, and I intend to have an updated second edition of that paperback available in a few months.

The Conflict Scam

 Song 638: This week on the playlist you’ll find The War Racket by Buffy Sainte-Marie, who also wrote the song, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. Over the last decade, I've learned a lot about WW1 hero Smedley Butler who wrote a book in the late 1930s letting us all know that War is a Racket, and that volume probably provided some inspiration for the lyrical direction here. Back in 2018, Buffy released the album that uses this anthem as its title track. I just found out about the song a week ago, thanks to a cool FaceBook post, and it really grabbed me the first time I heard it. This actually marks the premier appearance of Ms. Sainte-Marie among this collection. I became aware of her in the early 1970s as I got around to crafting my own personal singer/songwriter style, influenced by fellow folkies like her, Donovan, that Bob Zimmerman guy, etc., and Buffy's hit Universal Soldier soon got my attention, so this recent ride adds another layer to the foundation she set 6 decades ago. Back in the 1980s, I wrote a song called Getting Dark which will appear on my upcoming release Rock Ave. and which expressed my concern about U.S. leaders trying to move the nation in the direction of endless war. As the New American Century began, the Bushes and billionaire bullies started to put war on the masses so they could clean out the purse, and the D.C. leaders have continued to increase the numbers of the dead and impoverished by playing their little patriot game. On a side note, I have a lyric video for my Elder Statesman song New American Century Part 1 which illustrates what I have to say about how this murderous racket unfolded 2 decades ago, and you can check that out by clicking on the title.

Muddled by Illumination

 Song 637: This week the playlist puts the spotlight on Blinded by the Light by Manfred Mann's Earth Band, written by Bruce Springsteen, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. I don't recall whether songwriter Bruce's version of this ride crossed my ears when it first arrived near the beginning of 1973, but I do remember that this MMEB rendition rode the airwaves quite often 4 years later and I definitely enjoyed taking that melodic trip whenever it came out of the speakers. While I've included a few other Springsteen movers in this bunch, such as Pink Cadillac (Song 299), this hit marks the first Manfred appearance in this collection. During its charting phase, as I prepared step-by-step my plan to head to the West Coast the following year, I felt certain that I would relish checking out the weather chart in the San Francisco region much more than doing so in the Chicago area where I had resided. When I started pointing my thumb westward the next summer, I needed a ride a few times, including shortly after I visited a childhood friend in Denver on the way, but soon enough, with hitcher's good fortune, I got what it takes to get a very close view of the SF Bay.

Endless Adoration

 Song 636: This week the playlist recognizes Never My Love by The Association, written by Dick and Don Addrisi, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. This marks the premier appearance of this particular sextet among this collection. I think the first time the group crossed my ears happened in the summer before my sophomore HS year when they let us know that Along Comes Mary. During that school year, at some point I managed to acquire a modern music song book, and I spent a lot of time with it, learning how to play songs on my home piano, including one called Cherish that I hadn't yet heard. Then, in the summer following that school year, these six fellows shared their NML perspective. Whenever this 45 comes to mind, I always picture the barber shop where my parents regularly took me to get my hair length shortened, so I must have heard it there, and really enjoyed doing so. If you ask me if there'll come a time when I finally grow tired of a melodic ramble that I have relished for over 55 years, how could you think my love for this hit will end? Never will my love for Never My Love ever come to an end!

Unavoidable Clutches

 Song 635: This week the playlist applauds Hands All Over by Soundgarden, written by Chris Cornell and Kim Thayil, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. I don't think I knew about this rumbler when it showed up on the quartet's 1989 album Louder Than Love but it definitely got my attention when it appeared in their 1997 hit compilation A-Sides which I added to my collection soon after the disc came along.  During that era I gave the record a spin for at least a few times every week. Back then, I did not perceive a striking motion where trees fall down like dying soldiers, but a few years later, not long after the New American Century arrived, suddenly I got stunned watching the huge greedy hands all over western culture who kept ruffling feathers and turning eagles into vultures.

Don’t Caress My Appendage

 Song 634: This week on the playlist you can hear Don't You Feel My Leg (Don't You Make Me High) by Maria Muldaur, written by Blue Lu Barker, Danny Barker and J. Mayo Williams, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. When this wild ride caught my ears in the late summer of 1973, I truly relished the direction where the lyrics took my imagination. Inspired by the attractive images of Maria that adorned her 33, as a young man in my early 20s, I could easily picture myself trying to do what she was melodically attempting to forbid, particularly since I had, starting in my teenage years, leaned towards the legs vs. breasts side of the sensual divide - the nylon-enhanced limbs of my female HS classmates had always grabbed my eyes much more than their chest growths. Interestingly enough, I just found out that this gem first hit the blues charts in 1938, but learning that didn't surprise me - the blues singers of that era could, and often did, mouth erotic phrases that white audiences had no permission to hear at the time. Of course, I can now openly admit that back in my elevated-testosterone phase, if I did get to feel her leg, then, as she correctly asserts, I would want to feel her thigh, and then I'd wanna move up high. If I did say I'd take her out and buy her gin and wine, I would have had something different on my mind, and while I could have told her we'd have a lovely time, perhaps she might not have felt the same way about it.

Thoughts of Departure

Song 633: Seven weeks after my previous personal friend song post, this week's striking ballad Mind to Leave comes from one of my Berkeley cohorts Carol Denney, who also wrote the song, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. Back in the fall of 1978, not long after I discovered the La Val's Pizza singer/songwriter circle that I soon joined, I got to hear Carol do a set, and I still remember some of the songs I heard that night, though she did not perform this one then. I quickly became a fan of Carol's music, as well as a few other members of the group, including Jim Bruno and Bob Nichols, and over the next few years, I would get to hear each of them pioneer a new composition at the pizza place. I think I got to hear Ms. Denney introduce this ramble one night there shortly after a visit to her family in L.A. She had grown up in southern CA, and we, her northern CA creative colleagues, could easily comprehend her having a Mind to Leave her home town. However, the lyric also takes a more disturbing direction. I had previously heard Carol unveil another remarkable ride that seemed to suggest experiencing depression, and though I didn't know much about the condition at the time, I did sense that it could give someone a Mind to Leave this life. For that reason, I had avoided adding this gem to the list until now, because I really don't want Carol to leave this life until necessary. She may have lost a lot of friends in some way, but when she asserts I'm not as entertaining, I strongly disagree with that line. On a side note, by the early years of the new millennium, I came to understand the basics of brain chemical imbalances that trigger disorders like depression, and I wrote a book called Expecting the Broken Brain to Do Mental Pushups - I hope to have my more-enlightened 2nd edition finished and released in a few months. 

Beneath the Wooden Promenade

 Song 632: This week the playlist comes around to Under the Boardwalk by The Drifters, written by Kenny Young and Arthur Resnick, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. This marks the first appearance of The Drifters among this grouping. When their mover started jumping across the airwaves a few months after the Fab Four rocked my world, it didn't really get my attention very much. It did seem to grab other folks, though, with this rendition and other variants by The Rolling Stones and The Beach Boys climbing the charts. At first I didn't understand the lyrical ramble and I thought it might contain some clever word-play reference to a certain Monopoly property. Later, as a young adult, I came to realize that the game card I had imagined when hearing this piece might very well have gotten inspired by the physical beach adornment pictured in the track's title and chorus line. As the 1970s unfolded and the Chicago area radio stations began a 1950s revival, they also featured this gem quite often, to the point that my female companion at the time remarked one day that she didn't care to hear it again because she had just heard it not long before, and I strongly agreed with her. However, a decade later, as I savored residing in the pleasant warmer climate of Berkeley, CA, I noticed that whenever this hit got played, I relished it much more than I previously had. Four weeks ago, we rode On a Carousel (Song 628), and when you hear the happy sound of a carousel, sometimes you can almost taste the hot dogs and french fries they sell. Whether in or out of the sun, we still have a couple more warm weeks in store, and we'll be havin' some fun.

Moving the Contour

 Song 631: This week the playlist puts the spotlight on Draggin' the Line by Tommy James and the Shondells, written by Tommy James and Bob King, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. I had spent much of the summer of 1971 acting as a summer missionary for the Southern Baptist Church in an outreach center in Atlanta, GA, and then around mid-August I headed back to my parents' place in upstate NY for a short visit before returning to my college apartment in Evanston, IL. I really relished the fresh TJ hit topping the charts then, and I have a memory of hearing it as I walked along a rural road a couple of miles from my childhood home. I don't recall if I had a transistor radio with me that played the tune, if I walked with a friend who had one, or if the sound came from one of the few nearby houses, but ever since that experience I have associated that country road area with this melodic excursion. Of course, that connection makes sense when you imagine Lovin' the free and feelin' spirit of hugging a tree, when you get near it. On a different note, during that era 5 decades ago, a lot of average folks were Makin' a livin' the old, hard way, Takin' and givin' by day by day, whereas these days, far too many of the working class are not gettin' the good sign, no matter how they try.

An Additional Partition Slab

 Song 630: This week on the playlist you’ll find Another Brick In The Wall, Part Two by Pink Floyd, written by Roger Waters, and you can find an entertaining YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. The Floyd four got a lot of notice in the later 1960s, initially for their psychedelic approach that included sonic experimentation in extended compositions. My first roommate at N.U.'s Bobb Hall in the fall of 1969 really liked his PF 33s, but when he played them, they didn't impress me. However, when their Dark Side of the Moon ride arrived in 1973, that one quickly grabbed my ears, and I especially savored Us And Them (Song 415). I admired the way Mr. Waters illuminated the divisive strategy behind warmongering, and in recent years he has also made public statements exposing nefarious U.S. imperialism, which I highly respect him for doing. That being the case, I decided to feature another one of his gems today due to similar recent events, this one coming from late 1979, a little over a year after I hitched out to the East Bay of CA. Earlier this month, in a CNN interview, Roger called POTUS Joe a war criminal fueling the fire in Ukraine while lambasting NATO for pushing right up against the Russian border. Telling those truths resulted in him getting added to a notorious Ukrainian website list of people it accuses of spreading anti-Ukrainian propaganda. Critics refer to this collection as its kill list, which sounds disturbing to me. I hope that Mr. Waters will not lose his life as a consequence of his moral integrity. He told us all 5 decades ago that we don't need no thought control, and that's just as true today - it's just another brick in the wall.

Feline Existence Expectancy

 Song 629: This week the playlist applauds Nine Lives by Aerosmith, written by Steven Tyler, Joe Perry and Marti Frederiksen, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. About nine months before the album that features this title track arrived in early 1997, my father left the land of the living, but of course, like all of his fellow humans, he only had ONE life. I don't remember exactly when this rocker grabbed my ears, but when it did, I certainly respected its feline purrspective. A few years earlier I had written my song It Takes a Cat and around the time Aerosmith started telling us all about multiple survival epochs, I began the recording project that would include my furry anthem. Unfortunately, that venture ran into several obstructions, but finally last year around this time I released my cat single Purrfection, which opens with the short version of ITaC. Soon I hope to complete the album that I started working on 24 years ago, and But Really will include the extended take of the tune. When I get that CD done, I'll let everyone know there's a new cool and that, no doubt about it, the moment of truth has arrived.

Merry-go-round Expedition

 Song 628: This week on the playlist you can hear On a Carousel by the Hollies, written by Graham Nash, Allan Clarke and Tony Hicks, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. I had planned for a few years to add this classic to the group, at some point during the warmer months, and I finally got around to it at what has become a very relevant moment. FWIW, this marks the Hollies' first appearance in the bunch. When their merry spin caught my ears amid the winter season of my HS sophomore year, it quickly became a favorite. In 2010, soon after I returned to my childhood home, I found out that the area I grew up in has a reputation for its collection of remarkable carousels. Appropriately, this ride rolled through my mind during the magical warm-weather moments along my grade 10-12 years when I had the pleasure of sitting in the saddle of a wooden equine as it went up and down while moving around a circle. One of the best spins in the neighborhood sat in a park that also featured a wildlife zoo, and that still does. I had relished my visits and merry-go-round rides there growing up, and in the last few years have made a stop or two there again. I recently learned that I will make another visit there this coming Saturday, this time because The American Civic Association will present their 2022 Garlic Festival at Ross Park, rather than at their HQ building on Front Street in Binghamton, where the previous ones that I performed at were held. My set will start at 4 pm, and after I finish my songs, I intend to then spend some time going round and round and round and round and round and round and round, and, of course, up, down, up, down, up, down too.