Enlightening Someone’s Existence

 Song 726: This week the playlist applauds You Are the Sunshine of My Life by Stevie Wonder, who also wrote the song, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. As we roll into the brighter moments of the northern hemisphere's warmest season, the clarity might remind some of us about a sparkly illumination that we got to hear 51 years ago, actually beginning a few months earlier, just as the temperatures began to rise. My wife and I had found a very comfortable and affordable apartment along the south end of Evanston during the previous fall season, and as the Windy City area got shinier, we expanded our enjoyment of our community and liked hearing about Mr. Wonder's amorous admiration for his twinkling romantic partner. I appreciated the presence of the one who had become the apple of my eye, but I also felt haunted by a weird sense of something missing in the relationship, and that would eventually trigger me to not stay around her.

Scarlet Bloom

 Song 725: This week the playlist recognizes Roses Are Red by Bobby Vinton, written by Paul Evans and Al Byron, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. With graduation day arriving this week in my hometown, many of us living in somewhat rural areas have recently gotten reminded that roses are red and violets are blue. I had learned that colorful phrase during my single-digit years, and in the spring of my first double-digit year, a musical characterization of that flowery idea started regularly flying across the airwaves. While I don't remember any specific moment in the 1962 warm months when I heard Bobby's blooming anthem, it probably came across a lot of transistor radio speakers in places where I hung out with friends and played sports games, since I quickly got to know the tune's melody and lyrics. I did not have a romantic partner at that point, but I had met someone around that time who lit my fuse, and I hoped to soon connect with her and tell her, Sugar is sweet, My Love, But not as sweet as you. On a side note, as I mention in my book Expecting the Broken Brain to Do Mental Pushups, back when I lived in Berkeley, CA, during the 1980s, my singer/songwriter friend Jim Bruno said to me, "Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm a little schizzed and so am I." I chuckled at his joke but I didn't tell him that schizophrenics do not have multiple personality disorder, though people commonly did confuse the two conditions at the time. I had not yet come close to understanding my mother, but I did know that she heard voices in her head. It would take a couple more decades for me to finally realize that she had aural hallucinations.

The Sucker’s Final Distance

 Song 724: Seven weeks after my previous personal friend song post, this week's entertaining excursion The Fool's Last Mile comes from another one of my Fast Folk colleagues, a fellow named Richard Meyer, who also wrote the song, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. I have a vague memory of meeting Richard in the late summer of 1987 during a brief visit to NYC, and finding out then that he worked as the editor of the monthly Fast Folk magazine. A year later, I moved from Berkeley, CA, to Brooklyn, NY, and I soon began mingling with the FF crowd, particularly during their weekly gatherings at Jack Hardy's apartment where everyone got to share a new tune with the group. I liked a lot of what I heard coming from Richard, including this amusing lift. Along that stretch, I did a certain amount of work for FF, but I decided to move on in late 1993. However, a couple of years later I ended up doing the digital designs for the final FF issues, including Issue 8 of Volume 8 which is the collection of songs recorded at a show at The Bottom Line in Manhattan on January 27, 1996. That CD includes this ride, in which Mr. Meyer told us he had learned one of life's hard lessons. Sadly, he learned other hard lessons in the 21st century, including one that put him in pain and ended his life in 2012.

Solar Lightening of Joints

 Song 723: This week the playlist features Sunshine on My Shoulders by John Denver, written by John Denver, Dick Kniss and Mike Taylor, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. In early 1974 my wife and I left the chilly Windy City area and found a nice place to reside in Atlanta, GA, and so I soon got to enjoy feeling the Sunshine on My Shoulders as I sat on our house's porch, often with my guitar in hand. As Mr. Denver's hit climbed the charts, I felt it fit our situation very well and I would frequently harmonize with his vocal as it rode the airwaves. I got a job at a nearby pizza joint and became their featured pianist, though I didn't get paid to do any lead vocals myself. In that era, as the nefarious War on Drugs unfolded, I often felt relieved that Sunshine almost always makes me high, so I didn't have to rely on Mary Jane. A few years earlier I had shared a joint in Atlanta with a friend, and he told me that it made him wonderfully high, which surprised me because I felt no noticeable lift at all from the smoke. I did not condemn him or others for their attraction to weed - in fact, I had a lot of respect for him, regardless of what made him feel good, and I'm sure we would have agreed that Sunshine on the water looks so lovely.

Aligning With a Deity

 Song 722: This week the playlist applauds With God on Our Side by Bob Dylan, who also wrote the song, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. I learned Mr. Dylan's name soon after Peter, Paul and Mary got us riding along with Blowin' in the Wind, and then, by the time of my HS phase, I had noticed that moniker appearing on a bunch of other tunes I really relished, but I didn't actually hear his own versions until I got to college in the fall of 1969. I had a roommate change after the December recess, and with my new roommate being a big BD fan, I got to hear a lot of Bob's impressive lifts, and he quickly became possibly my top lyrical style inspiration. I added a few of his LPs to my collection, including the one that featured this hymn, and they all got plenty of spins on the turntable. In my years growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, I had also learned to hate the Russians, and I believed that the Germans had God on their side, though I later found out that during WWII, the soldiers saluting the swastika regularly wore belt buckles that had the phrase Gott Mit Uns on them, and I don't think they actually had God on their side then. Understanding that for the last 6 decades the U.S., Russia and China have all had large nuclear weapons arsenals, and that the use of too big a portion of just one of those stockpiles could potentially end human civilization on our planet, I strongly agree with Bob that if God's on our side he'll stop the next war!