Required Downpour

 Song 768: This week the playlist applauds Rain Must Fall by Queen, who also wrote the song, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. My final playlist tune for April of this year has a title that gets said a lot in my region during this month. Back when Queen started to give us all a forecast about necessary precipitation in May of 1989, I had returned to the East Coast the previous September, after having spent a decade in the East Bay. In that area, the rainy season would have ended by May, but in NYC, the record's timing seemed quite appropriate. At that point, I had joined the Fast Folk circle, and I spent more time listening to my folkie colleagues than I did tuning into the radio, but certain airwave sounds would still get my attention. Back then, some folks did seem to think that others were over-dramatizing problems at work, whereas now, a lot less workers have the position to call the shots, and even for the few that do have it, into every life a little rain must fall.

Spring Arrival

 Song 767: This week on the playlist you can hear April Come She Will by Simon & Garfunkel, written by Paul Simon, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. This positive prediction came along during the frigid months of my freshman HS year, giving us all a good reason to anticipate the expected arrival of moderate climate in the spring of 1966. While I might have heard it a few times on the radio, the main place I got to hear it was at my best friend's house. My close buddy Ed had become a big fan of the folkie duo and he had acquired all of their LPs, so whenever I would visit him during our HS years, as I often did, he would spin all of those 33s on his turntable. As a result, I soon got very familiar with their entire collection of captivating musical adventures, to the point that I could have sung along with a foresight about how a romantic partner would come during a certain warming time frame, would stay the following month and then change her tune a month later, so that when the hot weather arrived, she would fly.

Whirled Imagination

 Song 766: Seven weeks after my previous personal friend song post, this week's fanned forecast Windblown Mind comes from my top CA partner Jeff Larson, who also wrote the song, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. During my decade in the East Bay, I mainly hung out with the Berkeley singer/songwriter circle, but I had one other close musical buddy that I hooked up with about a year after I hitch-hiked into the area. We saw each other do a set on a San Francisco stage and we each liked what we heard the other do, so we soon developed a chummy musical camaraderie, and we briefly became a melodic duo. I think I first heard him do this tune in 1983 or 1984, and I liked what I heard. However, I also had a song with that title and some similar lines, so I decided to change mine to Windblown Rhymes, which I included on my 1985 cassette Going My Way. Even four decades ago, I already knew I would have no way to find all the strays I've left behind, and that list has gotten a lot longer since then, but I still might at some point hear a sound to set me free.

Extended Breezy Dame

 Song 765: This week the playlist recognizes Long Cool Woman by the Hollies, written by Allan Clarke, Roger Cook and Roger Greenaway, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. Fifty-two years ago this month, as a U.K. quintet started informing listeners about a lengthy crispy female, my romance with a cool woman began another chapter, though I would not have called her long - she was about an inch-and-a-half shorter than me, so that made her three inches shorter than the tune's chilly star. While at the time I did enjoy singing along with the title, I don't think I had any idea back then about the piece's law enforcement TV show narrative. I never saw a pair of 45's that were weapons, since I never went to a bootlegging boozer on the west side, or anywhere else. The 45s that I knew about during that era were discs, NOT pistols.