Ultramarine Enticement

 Song 805: This week the playlist recognizes Crystal Blue Persuasion by Tommy James and the Shondells, written by Eddie Gray, Tommy James and Mike Vale, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. About a month after my senior classmates and I celebrated our graduation in June of 1969, Mr. TJ and his Ss started capturing our ears with their colorful method of convincing listeners. It didn't take long to sing along with a tune that told us a new day was comin' and people were changin', and I think we graduates agreed with those lines. As this classic rode the charts, near the final week of July, I got on a plane with a group of high school choir mates for a ride to Switzerland, and we felt sure that when the plane landed, we were gonna see the light. After that new vibration, we had an enjoyable performance tour, heading back home around the third week of August. On the bus ride up to our hometown from NYC, in the Bethel area we saw a lot of hitchhikers and the bus driver told us that a major music festival had just happened in that area. Later I would learn that the Woodstock Festival had focused on peace and good brotherhood.

Dark Rhythmic Moves

 Song 804: This week the playlist comes around to Shadow Dancing by Andy Gibb, written by him and his brothers Barry, Maurice and Robin Gibb, and you can find a cool YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. While I basically did not have much attraction to disco music when it came along in the 1970s, a few exceptions to that disinterest did spark some attention. This message started climbing the charts shortly before I began pointing my thumb in the westward direction in the Chicago area in July of 1978. Although I might not have heard the mover before the lifts I got that took me to the East Bay, after I arrived in the Golden State, I soon began to hear some rhythmic advice about how to do it right in attempting certain steps and I really did enjoy that sweet sensation that came from a radio speaker.

Numbered Amorous Brew

 Song 803: This week the playlist puts the spotlight on Love Potion Number Nine by The Searchers, written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. The first version of this numerical gem arrived in the summer before my ninth birthday, and I might possibly have heard it then. Whether I did or did not actually catch it during that stretch, this British Invader variant definitely grabbed my attention around the end of the year where the Fab Four had rocked my world eleven months earlier. Back then, I was a flop with chicks, but I feel certain that if I had encountered a liquid that smelled like turpentine and looked like Indian ink, I would not have wanted to take a taste of it, especially since, when growing up, I felt very fussy about my nutritional intake. Even if someone tried to convince me at the time that having the liquid would make it easy for me to start kissin' everything in sight, they still might not have persuaded me to have a sip of an affectionate drink.

At the Outset

 Song 802: This week on the playlist you can hear From the Beginning by Emerson, Lake & Palmer, written by Greg Lake, and you can find a cool YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. It makes sense to feature, as the first song for this year's collection, an anthem about initial experience. Around a year before the tune climbed the charts, I began a romantic partnership with an attractive young woman, and as we two inexperienced adults struggled to figure out some basic elements of life a year later, one of my closest hometown buddies, after getting drafted into the U.S. military, started to rent an apartment in the Nashville, TN, area. His place had an extra bedroom, so he offered to let us become his roommates in August of 1972, and we felt pleased to do so as it gave us a comfortable background when we floated along with this ELnP excursion riding the airwaves, feeling that it was all clear that we were meant to be there from the beginning.