Zis and Zat

Song 820: This week the playlist recognizes Zor and Zam by The Monkees, written by Bill and John Chadwick, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title.  As the spring of my junior HS year unfolded in 1968, it did disappoint me when this primate quintet who had done TV segments that I had enjoyed for a year and a half hit the end of their tube career in late March, so when their fresh chart-topper arrived soon after, it didn't take long to learn a lot of the lines that I could then sing along with when the piece emerged from a nearby radio. At the time, the U.S. leaders called for war at the rise of the sun. I read news pieces and heard news shows warn us about how the dominoes could fall, as the MIC fashioned their weapons, one upon one, ton upon ton. For no real reason, that era's war actually continued for about another 7 years! 

Fierce Existence

 Song 819: This week the playlist puts the spotlight on Wild Wild Life by Talking Heads, written by David Byrne, and you can find a cool YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. In the summer of 1986, I had a comfortable room in a 6-bedroom house in Berkeley, CA, that I shared with a bunch of my singer-songwriter friends. While the SF Bay Area has milder temperatures overall, the summer months are still the best time to do visits to special places like the Yosemite National Park, and that summer I had a car, so I drove myself and a good friend over to see and visit our favorite peaks. At this point, I don't remember if the radio shared this gem during that excursion, but I do know that when we got on that mountain top, we certainly did get to see some wild wild life.