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.