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.

Dark Sorcery Female

 Song 627: This week the playlist recognizes Black Magic Woman by Santana, written by Peter Green, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. At the end of the summer of 1970, I returned to the Chicago area around the time this noteworthy chart-topper arrived. I had essentially evolved the basics of my own personal singer/songwriter style during the summer months while working as a music teacher at a music and arts summer camp in rural PA, influenced by fellow folkie types like Judy Collins, Leonard Cohen and that new guy James Taylor. As my sophomore year at Northwestern University unfolded, I added a few additional aspects to my creative approach, with the jazz, Hungarian folk and Latin elements of this tune helping to widen my musical perspectives. Understanding the warning in the words here, I guess I can feel glad that, as far as I know, I never had a black magic woman get me so blind I couldn't see her tryin' to make a devil out of me and turning my heart into stone.