Pleasure to the Planet

 Song 700: This week on the playlist you can hear Joy to the World by Three Dog Night, written by Hoyt Axton, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. About halfway through my college sophomore year at N.U., in the middle of the frigid Windy City winter months, a certain canine evening trio got a lot of notice with a tune that might have originally seemed like a belated holiday anthem. While I didn't listen to the radio as much at that point as I had in my HS years, I did still give it some attention, and I liked hearing this expression of happiness. During that second month of 1971, I took a train trip downstate to visit a just friends female correspondent. As we strolled around her university campus, surprisingly, at some point our two lips touched, and that sure felt like Joy to the World. In addition, it brought Joy to… me, particularly since that was her name. The sudden romance turned me into a rainbow rider, but around six weeks later things took another turn, and after that, Joy would no longer enlighten the world where I took a spin. Shortly after the affair ended, I wrote a song about it, adding a d to her name, and I included Jody in my 1985 cassette Going My Way, which I released a CD version of in February of 2023. You can see and hear a YouTube lyric video of that song by clicking on the title.

Matching Audible Perceptions

 Song 699: This week the playlist puts the spotlight on Do You Hear What I Hear? by Jim Nabors, written by Gloria Shayne and Noël Regney, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. A few years after the group who did last week's song got a lot of folks to start applauding a young male percussionist in late November, those singers also got people to begin asking a particular simple question around then as well. As the 1960s unfolded, I regularly watched the Andy Griffith Show, which at a certain point introduced its audience to a character named Gomer Pyle. The actor who portrayed that fellow soon got a lot of notice, and five years after the Harry Simone Chorale had sold a quarter-million copies of their 45 of this song, which had originally gotten crafted as a plea for peace during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Jim Nabors put out his own rendition of the tune, and I thought it sounded good. It was a song, high above the trees with a voice as big as the sea - do you hear what I heard? The message applies to today as much as it did six decades ago - Pray for peace, people everywhere!

Small Male Percussionist

 Song 698: This week the playlist applauds Little Drummer Boy by Harry Simone Chorale, written by Harry Simeone, Katherine Kennicott Davis and Henry Onorati, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. I started hearing this Yuletide carol regularly around this time of year, back during my single-digit stretch in the late 1950s. While I don't recall seeing the 1959 segment from the Ed Sullivan Show that appears in the YouTube video, I may very well have done so because during that era, the family and I usually watched that show on Sunday nights. Back in the late 1950s and early 1960s, as December unfolded, I would join friends and schoolmates to mouth favorite noel anthems, and this one became part of the collection. A few months before that 1959 holiday season, I had become a little violin boy, and I could enjoy fiddling Christmas melodies, but because I was a poor boy too, I also had no gift to bring that would have been fit to give the King. However, I would have happily played my best for Him, even though I could have never made any pa rum pum pum pum sounds with my strings.

Savory Urban Female

 Song 697: This week the playlist comes around to Sweet City Woman by The Stampeders, written by Rich Dodson, and you can find a cool YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. As the warmer weather months arrived in the course of my sophomore college year in May of 1971, so did an enjoyable romantic anthem about a sugary urban dame. Even though I spent my school year time living in the city, I still considered myself a country guy. During the previous summer, I had given up on the possibility of a romance with a gal from my semirural hometown, and then, between February and April I had a brief fling with a young female who I had formerly been just friends with, and who I would again become just friends with. While I really liked The Stampeders piece, and I enjoyed singing along with the chorus, I expected at the time that I would eventually hook up with a rural young lady. I did appreciate getting to see lots of attractive metropolitan chicks, on campus and nearby, but I did not expect then that when I returned to the Chicago area at the end of the summer that I would meet and soon start embracing a Sweet City Woman. She had a pretty face that would shine her light on the city nights, and before long, I knew for certain that she had a way to make me feel shiny and new.

Kris Kringle Thief

 Song 696: Seven weeks after my previous personal friend song post, this week's humorous spin Pick-Pocket Santa comes from one of my closest Fast Folk buddies Jeff Tareila, written by Jeff Tareila and Christian Bauman, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. Surprisingly, this marks Jeff’s first appearance in this collection - I thought I had included one of his tunes earlier and just found out that I didn't do that. With the Claus guy due to arrive 3 weeks from tonight, this seems like the right moment to share JT’s caution about a certain fancy-dressed thief. I had connected with the FF circle not long after moving to Brooklyn in September of 1988, and I quickly became close friends with Jeff, so when this funny piece graced FF Volume 6 Number 8 in December of 1992, it soon got me chuckling. Having resided for a decade in CA before I got to Brooklyn, I understood that California smells like popcorn and that New York smells like a beer. In different places where I've lived, I've also seen the lights of Christmas time upon my neighbor's lawn, but no matter where I've been, Santa NEVER bumped into me on the corner.

Farewell to Amber Pavement

 Song 695: This week the playlist recognizes Goodbye Yellow Brick Road by Elton John, written by Elton John and Bernie Taupin, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. During my younger years in the 1950s and 1960s, my family and I every year got to see the famous film The Wizard of Oz on TV, I think around this time in the autumn. As soon as we learned the date that it would appear, we all made plans to watch it. When Elton started catching people's ears with this engaging saunter back in the spring of 1973, those of us who had regularly seen Judy Garland strolling along with a scarecrow, a tin man and a cowardly lion as they tried to get to the Emerald City understood the suggestive sarcastic message conveyed by the hit's lyrics. Throughout that year, I lived with my wife in an apartment in southern Evanston, so no one could plant me in a penthouse at the time, and I had already decided that my future also had to lie beyond the yellow brick road.

Tasty Romance

Song 694: This week on the playlist you can hear Yummy Yummy Yummy by Ohio Express, written by Arthur Resnick and Joey Levine, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. Since a holiday arrives this week that people in the U.S. commonly honor with a shared family banquet, it makes sense to have a spicy anthem that celebrates savory nutrition become the song of the week. This appetizing treat came along in the early spring of my junior HS year, and it didn't take long to learn the chorus lines. I hadn't known what to make of it when, the year before, the Fab Four and other British invaders started heading in the psychedelic direction, and so at that time, I appreciated even more the hits of the era that followed the previous styles, including this delicious feast. As silly as it may seem, love can actually taste sweeter than sugar, and thereby, love can satisfy.

Lively Transportation

 Song 693: This week the playlist puts the spotlight on Rocket by The Smashing Pumpkins, written by Billy Corgan, and you can find a cool YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. Given how a certain holiday arrived and ended a couple of weeks ago, this seems like an appropriate moment to share a creative ramble by Smashing Pumpkins, in light of how much people in various parts of the U.S. have lately spent some time pulverizing large decorated round orange squashes. When this fiery carrier took off in the summer of 1993, I had lived in Brooklyn for a few years, and while I don't recall seeing the entertaining video that came along with it, I did get picked up by the moving sounds that it rolls and rocks around. In the evening, when the moon is out and the stars invite, I think I'll see if something takes off tonight. Whatever happens, though, I doubt I shall ever be free of those voices inside me.

Switchboard Manager

 Song 692: This week the playlist applauds Operator (That's Not the Way It Feels) by Jim Croce, who also wrote the song, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. As the warmer months of 1972 unfolded, my romantic partner and I spent a lot of time traveling, hitching a few times and also driving her parent's car on at least one major excursion. During those journeys, we got to hear a bunch of radio hits, and although the majority of chart toppers in that era didn't move me, a few of them did get me going along with their rambles, including a handful by a new guy with the initials JC, and this marks his first appearance in this collection. When he needed some assistance from a switchboard technician, it sounded pretty convincing that he had overcome the blow and had learned to take it well, so the telephone assistant probably did give him the number when she/he could find it. Sadly, just before the summer of the following year came to an end, as my wife and I lived in an apartment on the south part of Evanston, Jim's life came to an end via a plane crash, so whether or not he got the number, the company obviously did keep the dime.

Chimney Flashes

 Song 691: This week the playlist features Smokestack Lightning by the Yardbirds, written by Chester Burnett (Howlin' Wolf), and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. With the final day of October about to arrive in two days, this striking blues rocker seemed like an appropriate ride to feature now. The Mike Harrison version (song 158) sparked my regard in 1972 and because it did, I soon found out about this 1964 Yardbirds cover of it and also the original rendition by songwriter Howlin' Wolf from January of 1956. As someone who grew up in a house close to a railroad line and developed an interest in trains at a young age, I immediately understood the implications of the tune's title. However, the engines that I saw passing by in the era of this version no longer had smokestacks or attached coal cars, so the flashes of lightning I had seen had already become a spark of my memory, and where I lived, I would never see them no more. On the other hand, my family did do visits to a few tourist railroads, such as the one in Strasburg, PA, so then I did get to see a few flashes shining like gold and I got to go for a ride with family members. The trains still roll on the tracks in Strasburg, so there's no need to say good-bye to them.

Top Dark Card

 Song 690: This week the playlist recognizes Ace of Spades by Motörhead, written by Eddie Clarke, Lemmy Kilmister and Phil Taylor, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. As I began my third year living in Oakland, CA, in October of 1980, a notable new rocker hit the airwaves and got my housemate Doug and I to ride along with it. In the enjoyable moderate weather of the East Bay, we often spent time on the small front porch of our place while listening to the radio. The card that the singer focuses on here had earned a reputation as the key dead man's hand element in the late 19th century, and still gripped that status 104 years after a certain Wild Bill fellow reportedly grasped such a card at the moment when a bullet ended his life. Interestingly enough, I have a piece called Uptown Down that will appear on my next album CD Rock Ave. (which I hope to finish in about a month) that has a line where I ask the question How do you bet on snake eyes? While there are probably other songs that use that term, this one here is the first other one I've found that does mention it. In this case, snake eyes watching you might tell you that gambling's for fools, but when you play the game, you win some AND you lose some - that's how it goes.

Freshly-adorned Aged Footwear

 Song 689:  Seven weeks after my previous personal friend song post, this week's lively stroll Brand New Laces (Same Old Shoes) comes from my Boston-area buddy Terry Kitchen, who also wrote the song, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. It appears on his 2021 CD Lost Songs, which he sent me a copy of soon after he got it released. While Don't Kick the Cat (Song 584) got the biggest share of my attention during the initial spins of the disc, this ramble also stirred some notice as well, with Rebecca Lynch doing the lead vocal on it, instead of Terry. There's a thousand explanations for his absence at the mic, maybe there's a hundred reasons why he couldn't vocalize, and I don't yet know the details, so right now I can't say who's the one out of time.

Requesting Transportation

Song 688: This week the playlist puts the spotlight on Hitchin’ a Ride by Vanity Fare, written by Mitch Murray and Peter Callander, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. A few months before the 1970s arrived, I began residing in Bobb Hall at Northwestern U., and doing so, I soon got to expand the musical horizons that had faced major limits while growing up in a family that maligned the devil's music. All of my new friends enjoyed sharing with me their favorite rockers and rollers, plus I could openly listen to a lot more of the radio stations that caught my attention, and around the days when the weather started getting warmer, a new rumbler about stretching out the thumb started grabbing my ears and taking me along its rhythmic excursion. While I could imagine myself making such a move, I don't think I had ever done so up to that point, and I could not have guessed then how many times in the next few years I would go Hitchin’ a Ride, often on my own, but also a bunch of times with my romantic partner. On top of that, in July of 1978 I would stand by a freeway entrance a bit west of Chicago, my thumb would go up, and soon enough, I was on my way to the SF Bay area, because, thankfully, a few drivers DID stop and help a guy get to where he (I) wanted to go. Ride, ride, ride. 

Carnivore Appendage

 Song 687: This week on the playlist you can hear I’ve Got a Tiger By the Tail by Buck Owens and the Buckaroos, written by Harlan Howard and Buck Owens, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. I began paying more attention to local music radio stations after the Beatles rocked my world in February of 1964, and about a year later, a guy named Buck started grabbing country music listener ears with a tale about seizing a body part of a member of the largest living cat species. Most of my friends listened to RnR and pop stations, but I had a few buddies who also shared my interest in country tones as well, so as Mr. Owens' 45 climbed the charts, I did get to enjoy it at least a few times. In addition, since my parents did not disparage the C&W sound the way they did the RnR one, I could freely catch this BO hit from the transistor radio at home during my second junior high year, and if I did, it would not set off the kind of negative reaction that the devil’s music would trigger from family members. Back then, I already understood how romantic attraction to someone who had no response could make a person feel as helpless as a leaf in a gale.

Locality Shades

 Song 686: This week the playlist applauds Statesboro Blues by the Allman Brothers Band, written by Blind Willie McTell, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. When I got on a plane in Chicago in June of 1971, I had never heard of the Allman Brothers, and neither had any of my Evanston companions, but soon after I got off that plane in Atlanta, GA, I started hearing about the group, and hearing some of their recordings, since most of the neighborhood folks I hung out with that summer knew about and really liked their local RnR heroes. I enjoyed the ABB sounds crossing my ears, and less than a month after I arrived, the six put out a new double disc that gave us all some additional reasons to appreciate them. This striking ride opens the excursion around the live LP that raised the sextuplet to a whole new level of public appreciation, which those of us paying attention to the band got to hear plenty of in the stretch following its release. When I got back to Evanston shortly before fall arrived, I found out that I didn’t need to tell my buddies there about a remarkable Atlanta-area rock gang because the spinning At Fillmore East 33 had captured their ears as well. Now, over five decades later, once again, I woke up this morning and I heard them Statesboro Blues.

Backwoods Heritage

 Song 685: This week the playlist applauds Down in the Boondocks by Billy Joe Royal, written by Joe South, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. The Fab Four had rocked my world in the middle of my seventh-grade year, and initially I mostly paid attention to them and their fellow British invaders, but by the time the summer arrived the following year, I had heard a few sounds coming from the western side of the Atlantic Ocean, including one written by a guy with the name South and performed by a fellow with a Royal name that had a bit of country flavor in its tone. While my school teachers never spoke about class differences in U.S. society, I did understand the message about the side of town that I grew up in and how coming from Down in the Boondocks might give someone a reason to put me down. I enjoyed singing along with the chorus lines on this anthem when it lit up the transistor radio during the warm weather months before I started HS, and four years later I got a way to move from the old shack.

Loyalty Expressed

 Song 684: This week the playlist recognizes Faithfully by Journey, written by Jonathan Cain, and you can find a cool YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. Around the time this moving road song arrived in the early spring of 1983, I had begun a close friendship and budding partnership with a very talented lead guitar player, and soon after I did, he mentioned that his grandmother wanted to sell her 1967 car for a really good price. I took advantage of that deal, and after having spent 5 years living in the East Bay without owning a vehicle, I now had a reliable set of wheels that, during the second half of my CA decade, transported me to remarkable destinations like Yosemite National Park and also assisted my participation in a few performing musical groups. Along that initial stretch when I first got to sit in the driver's seat, this Journey jaunt rose out of the radio speaker at least a few times, and lit up my traveling experiences. I don't remember if I ever took a highway run into the midnight sun, but my wheels sure did go round and round quite often as I headed right down the line, and I got through space and time so I could share a stage and do another show with my tuned-in comrades.

When Reaching a Destination

 Song 683: This week on the playlist you’ll find By The Time I Get To Phoenix by Glen Campbell, written by Jimmy Webb, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. When this entertaining GC excursion started coming across the airwaves near the end of the summer of 1967, just before my HS junior year, I had been scratching my head about the new psychedelic direction that the Fab Four and some others had started heading towards, and so I had a better initial reaction to the more conventional tones that came along from certain sources. I had gotten roped in by Mr. Campbell's lifts - particularly Gentle on My Mind (Song 368), and this followup sounded like another good trip to take. I have a vague memory of hearing the tune, probably from a transistor radio, while outdoors with my mother, and it brought a smile to her face. My parents and grandparents despised the devil's music and some of the rougher sounds that came from the radio might trigger strongly-negative reactions, but sometimes a gentler feel would get a favorable response, which might surprise me but then would make it easier for me to hear the song another time. By the time I actually did get to Phoenix, I had almost reached the end of my twenties, and that made me appreciate the sunshine there and the remarkable views even more than I might have a decade earlier.

Pursuing Reverberations

 Song 682: Seven weeks after my previous personal friend song post, this week's ringing excursion Following the Echoes comes from my East Bay comrade Jeff Larson, who also wrote the song, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. In 1979 we met in a small San Francisco club after each doing short sets on stage, and we soon developed a close friendship and musical solidarity. For the rest of the decade that I resided in the East Bay area, we would often share songs, riffs and ideas, providing each other with melodic inspiration. When, back in 2016, I started posting one of my songs every month on SoundCloud, after hearing a CDBaby podcast that mentioned another independent musician doing so, I soon began hearing this tune on SC every time after I played my monthly release, and it didn't take long for it to become one of my JL favorites. A year or two ago, it got replaced by a piece called Matter of Time that I featured here 7 weeks ago, but that did not effect how much I continue to enjoy this one. I certainly did not get too close for comfort on this ride, and I can't imagine how anyone possibly could ever do so.

Your Deceiving Ticker

 Song 681: This week the playlist puts the spotlight on Your Cheatin' Heart by Hank Williams, who also wrote the song, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. During my single-digit years, my family would visit my father's relatives in western Ohio every summer, and around the time I hit age 7, when we made that visit, my aunt and uncle would give me access to their stereo and C&W record collection. I remember getting to hear a bunch of Hank classics, and I soon developed plenty of respect for the guy and his multiple talents. It didn't take long to learn this ramble, and after having done so, I think my older brother and I sang it together in the car while on that lengthy ride back home, which took nearly a whole day, back in the era before the interstate highways got built. I recall my father at some point having a negative response to this melodic drive which carried intimations of infidelity, because such action would reek of immorality to someone with strong fundamentalist values, so after his criticism, we avoided that musical lift while in his company, and similar ones as well. Sadly for Mr. Williams, this recording came from his last studio session, and he died before getting to see it top the charts. These days I do know someone who all too often will try to sleep, but sleep won't come the whole night through, though in her case, when she has to toss around, the problems seem to stem mainly from her nasal and/or intestinal issues, NOT from love she threw away.

Urging Silence

 Song 680: This week on the playlist you can hear Hush by Deep Purple, written by Joe South, and you can find an entertaining YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. The DP quintet started catching everyone's ears during the summer of 1968 with their directive for someone to quiet down, and it might have sounded familiar, since a different version had appeared a year earlier, but this rendition came across as much stronger and got more notice. The Fab Four and Rolling Stone 5 had both headed in a psychedelic direction the year before, and I didn't know what to make of those moves, but I appreciated the rougher tones coming from types like the DP 5, even though, in a fundamentalist religious home that disparaged the devil's music, the heavier rock conveyed a more evil message. I tried to be a good boy, but the beat really moved me. At the time, a certain young woman was on my mind, and I thought she looked so fine, despite how she soon turned my attraction to her into quicksand. When I found out about the ring she got from a different guy, that broke my heart, and I had to tell the emotions encircling me to hush, hush!

Thumb Conveyance

 Song 679: This week the playlist comes around to Hitch a Ride by Boston, written by Thom Scholz, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. In the middle of the 1970s, while going through the brutal frigidity of a Windy City icy season, I found out about the milder climate of the SF Bay Area and started making plans to head that way. However, I had a bad tooth situation occur that meant that I’d have to spend two more years in the Chicago region before I could aim west. Around that time, I also had my first 16-track 2-inch-tape recording session, and when the Boston album arrived in the late summer of 1976, I thought the songs sounded good but the studio rock ring Mr. Scholz had given them made them reverberate in a much more engaging way, which I appreciated after my own studio experience. In the early warm months of 1978, I knew I was gonna hitch a ride, head for the other side, leave it all behind and never change my mind. I hoped to not have to face the coldest winter ever again or have to crack the ice and fly, and not long after I pointed my thumb westward, I got the lifts I needed to convey me to the West Coast.

Not Your Personal Concern

Song 678: This week on the playlist you can hear It Ain't None Of Your Business by Missing Persons, written by Terry Bozzio and Warren Cuccurullo, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking here. When a group of Missing Persons decided to start letting everyone know in the early fall of 1982 that no one in particular had to pay attention to their activity or behavior, I had had the good fortune of residing for a year in an attractive house in Berkeley, CA, only a few blocks from the pizza joint that had become the HQ for a bunch of singer/songwriter types that I had hooked up with a few years earlier. I don't remember if anyone else from that circle got roped in by this moving ramble, but a certain handful of us male members of the gathering did get our rhythms set off by a female associate with flashing eyes, who I would have called our very own love gangster (a term I learned from David Crosby). Of course, we couldn't possibly have known what it was like to be inside of her, and for a while a few of us just couldn't leave her alone, but eventually, this kind of thing did have to stop.

Nitwit Statement

Song 677: This week the playlist comes around to Somethin' Stupid by Nancy Sinatra and Frank Sinatra, written by C. Carson Parks., and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. I never cared at all about Mr. Frank, but I did like a couple of tunes that came from his daughter Nancy, including the one where she explained that These Boots Are Made for Walkin' (Song 352), and when she put out a 45 in the spring of my sophomore HS year that she did with her father in early 1967, I really relished that one too. During that stretch, one of my HS classes did a visit to NYC that I participated in, and I don't recall the reason for the excursion or its primary focus, but I do know that it had some connection with Times Square, and that we students had some free time to explore the area. In doing so, I walked by a clothes store that had a radio playing, and I heard this song as I hung out by the place, with the tune giving me a good excuse to linger there. I had also heard the bus radio play the piece at least once on the 4-hour trip to Manhattan, I think I heard it again on the way back upstate, and it felt fine every time the father/daughter duo crossed my ears. On that ride, the stars did get red and the night was so blue but I didn't see expressing affection for someone as being a sign of ignorance. 

Constructing an Urban Basis

 Song 676: This week the playlist recognizes We Built This City by Starship, written by Bernie Taupin, Martin Page, Dennis Lambert and Peter Wolf, and you can find an entertaining YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. This loud rocker arrived around the middle point of my 7-year stretch in Berkeley, CA, in the summer of 1985. When it did, I felt that we the members of the pizza joint singer/songwriter circle could have made a similar claim about laying the musical foundation for our particular metropolitan dwelling - we had built our East Bay residence on RnR, with strong side-notes circling around the additional folkie singer/songwriter angles. As well as the pizza stage, we would also often perform at People's Park, but of course, no matter what we did, the West Bay folks got a lot more notice. Back then I would not have guessed that 2 decades into the future, this piece would top a list of The 50 Worst Songs Ever. We might wonder who counts the money underneath the bar? Perhaps the same one who rides the wrecking ball into our guitars? All too often, when police have got the choke hold, those of us who try to melodically spread the truth will have lost the beat.

An Issue With the Stretch

 Song 675: Seven weeks after my previous personal friend song post, this week's engaging ramble Matter of Time comes from one of my East Bay colleagues Jim Bruno, who also wrote the song, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. He still lives in the SF region where I met him back in 1978. He and his musical partner had both moved to The West Coast from IL, just as I had and around the time I did. Soon after I started hanging out at the Berkeley pizza joint, I mentioned to him that his duo might enjoy that scene, but their first evening there did not get much notice, though I never understood why. I did suggest a few months later that they give it another try, and when they did, they got a lot more attention and they soon joined the circle. I liked plenty of Jim's songs that I heard during that stretch, though I don't recall this one crossing my ears at the time. At some point in late 2016, I followed a suggestion I heard from a CD Baby podcast about joining SoundCloud and doing a monthly release, and by doing so, I came across a few personal friend releases, including this moving ride, which eventually became the automatic followup that I hear after checking and listening to my upload. Having heard it as often as I have in the past few years, it has definitely risen on my radar. I do think it's a good idea to keep your eyes on the road but also remember that the end is confusing and it's only a matter of time.

Religion Founder

 Song 674: This week the playlist applauds Mr. Crowley by Ozzy Osbourne, written by Ozzy Osbourne, Randy Rhoads and Bob Daisley, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. In October of 1980, when the live version of this rocker, which got captured in the linked YT video, started making people wonder whether a certain guy did, or did not, talk to the dead, I had lived in a very nice spot in Oakland, CA, for a little over 2 years. I enjoyed hearing the question, but I did not know that it referred to the founder of the Thelemite religion - I thought it might be a general criticism of anyone who claims to talk to the dead. I had walked away from religion 8 years earlier, but I do not dismiss those who follow the principles of their mystic belief and I don't claim to have all the answers. When I was growing up, my grandfather worked for a local milk company named Crowley, though I doubt it had any connection with Aleister. Shortly after he died in early 1994, I felt as if I sensed the old man's presence a few times - that was what went on in my head, though I did not try to talk to the dead. Regarding religion, I have noticed similar phenomenon most of my adult life, so it did not surprise me in 2016 when the majority of evangelicals evidently believed that God had chosen for POTUS a guy who 2 decades earlier had characterized those who try to follow the principles of The Sermon on the Mount as idiots, fools and schmucks. I also noticed that an older woman who I knew DID try to follow and exemplify Christian values did NOT think God had picked the Donald, even though she did identify as a Republican. She probably felt, as I do, saddened by those who found themselves standing with their backs to the wall.

Young Men Return

 Song 673: This week the playlist puts the spotlight on The Boys Are Back in Town by Thin Lizzy, written by Phil Lynott, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. As the 1970s rolled around, I generally felt disappointed by much of what came across the airwaves, as it seemed to ride more on commercialism than on the punchy creative angles that had inspired much of the RnR scene in the previous decade. However, a few notable exceptions did catch my ears, including this anthem which came along in the summer of 1976. Over the preceding Windy City frigid season, I had learned about the moderate weather patterns of the West Coast and I decided I wanted to head that way during the warmer months, but then I got some bad news about my teeth and I knew I'd have to postpone the westward venture, so that compliance made me appreciate hearing some moving musical rhymes and rhythms that could enliven my final 2 Chicago-area years. At the time, the nights were gettin' warmer and it wouldn't be long 'til summer came along as I got to hear a jukebox in the corner blasting out my favorite song.

Prickly Playground

Song 672: This week on the playlist you’ll find Itchycoo Park by Small Faces, written by Steve Marriott and Ronnie Lane, and you can find an entertaining YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. About three and a half years after the Fab Four rocked my world, when they disguised themselves as a Lonely Hearts Club Band, I didn't know what to make of their move in the psychedelic direction, which didn't interest me at the time. I did like an L.A. rocking quartet that got everyone's attention by asking for a match to Light My Fire (Song 490), and some other movers got notice in those warm months before my junior HS year, including this ramble into a tingling recreation space. Of course, living with parents and grandparents who did not approve of the devil's music, the drug implications of a few of the tune's lines did spark an occasional creepy echo when I soaked in the words, but during that stretch I wasn't that hip to many of such expressions anyway, so I didn't give much thought to phrases I didn't understand. I could not have guessed then that in the summer two years later I, and a bunch of my singing classmates, would actually get to visit The Bridge of Sighs in Venice, Italy. To get there, we did have to get high and touch the sky, riding on a plane from NYC, and being there was really cool!