Muddled by Illumination

 Song 637: This week the playlist puts the spotlight on Blinded by the Light by Manfred Mann's Earth Band, written by Bruce Springsteen, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. I don't recall whether songwriter Bruce's version of this ride crossed my ears when it first arrived near the beginning of 1973, but I do remember that this MMEB rendition rode the airwaves quite often 4 years later and I definitely enjoyed taking that melodic trip whenever it came out of the speakers. While I've included a few other Springsteen movers in this bunch, such as Pink Cadillac (Song 299), this hit marks the first Manfred appearance in this collection. During its charting phase, as I prepared step-by-step my plan to head to the West Coast the following year, I felt certain that I would relish checking out the weather chart in the San Francisco region much more than doing so in the Chicago area where I had resided. When I started pointing my thumb westward the next summer, I needed a ride a few times, including shortly after I visited a childhood friend in Denver on the way, but soon enough, with hitcher's good fortune, I got what it takes to get a very close view of the SF Bay.

Endless Adoration

 Song 636: This week the playlist recognizes Never My Love by The Association, written by Dick and Don Addrisi, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. This marks the premier appearance of this particular sextet among this collection. I think the first time the group crossed my ears happened in the summer before my sophomore HS year when they let us know that Along Comes Mary. During that school year, at some point I managed to acquire a modern music song book, and I spent a lot of time with it, learning how to play songs on my home piano, including one called Cherish that I hadn't yet heard. Then, in the summer following that school year, these six fellows shared their NML perspective. Whenever this 45 comes to mind, I always picture the barber shop where my parents regularly took me to get my hair length shortened, so I must have heard it there, and really enjoyed doing so. If you ask me if there'll come a time when I finally grow tired of a melodic ramble that I have relished for over 55 years, how could you think my love for this hit will end? Never will my love for Never My Love ever come to an end!

Unavoidable Clutches

 Song 635: This week the playlist applauds Hands All Over by Soundgarden, written by Chris Cornell and Kim Thayil, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. I don't think I knew about this rumbler when it showed up on the quartet's 1989 album Louder Than Love but it definitely got my attention when it appeared in their 1997 hit compilation A-Sides which I added to my collection soon after the disc came along.  During that era I gave the record a spin for at least a few times every week. Back then, I did not perceive a striking motion where trees fall down like dying soldiers, but a few years later, not long after the New American Century arrived, suddenly I got stunned watching the huge greedy hands all over western culture who kept ruffling feathers and turning eagles into vultures.

Don’t Caress My Appendage

 Song 634: This week on the playlist you can hear Don't You Feel My Leg (Don't You Make Me High) by Maria Muldaur, written by Blue Lu Barker, Danny Barker and J. Mayo Williams, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. When this wild ride caught my ears in the late summer of 1973, I truly relished the direction where the lyrics took my imagination. Inspired by the attractive images of Maria that adorned her 33, as a young man in my early 20s, I could easily picture myself trying to do what she was melodically attempting to forbid, particularly since I had, starting in my teenage years, leaned towards the legs vs. breasts side of the sensual divide - the nylon-enhanced limbs of my female HS classmates had always grabbed my eyes much more than their chest growths. Interestingly enough, I just found out that this gem first hit the blues charts in 1938, but learning that didn't surprise me - the blues singers of that era could, and often did, mouth erotic phrases that white audiences had no permission to hear at the time. Of course, I can now openly admit that back in my elevated-testosterone phase, if I did get to feel her leg, then, as she correctly asserts, I would want to feel her thigh, and then I'd wanna move up high. If I did say I'd take her out and buy her gin and wine, I would have had something different on my mind, and while I could have told her we'd have a lovely time, perhaps she might not have felt the same way about it.

Thoughts of Departure

Song 633: Seven weeks after my previous personal friend song post, this week's striking ballad Mind to Leave comes from one of my Berkeley cohorts Carol Denney, who also wrote the song, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. Back in the fall of 1978, not long after I discovered the La Val's Pizza singer/songwriter circle that I soon joined, I got to hear Carol do a set, and I still remember some of the songs I heard that night, though she did not perform this one then. I quickly became a fan of Carol's music, as well as a few other members of the group, including Jim Bruno and Bob Nichols, and over the next few years, I would get to hear each of them pioneer a new composition at the pizza place. I think I got to hear Ms. Denney introduce this ramble one night there shortly after a visit to her family in L.A. She had grown up in southern CA, and we, her northern CA creative colleagues, could easily comprehend her having a Mind to Leave her home town. However, the lyric also takes a more disturbing direction. I had previously heard Carol unveil another remarkable ride that seemed to suggest experiencing depression, and though I didn't know much about the condition at the time, I did sense that it could give someone a Mind to Leave this life. For that reason, I had avoided adding this gem to the list until now, because I really don't want Carol to leave this life until necessary. She may have lost a lot of friends in some way, but when she asserts I'm not as entertaining, I strongly disagree with that line. On a side note, by the early years of the new millennium, I came to understand the basics of brain chemical imbalances that trigger disorders like depression, and I wrote a book called Expecting the Broken Brain to Do Mental Pushups - I hope to have my more-enlightened 2nd edition finished and released in a few months. 

Beneath the Wooden Promenade

 Song 632: This week the playlist comes around to Under the Boardwalk by The Drifters, written by Kenny Young and Arthur Resnick, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. This marks the first appearance of The Drifters among this grouping. When their mover started jumping across the airwaves a few months after the Fab Four rocked my world, it didn't really get my attention very much. It did seem to grab other folks, though, with this rendition and other variants by The Rolling Stones and The Beach Boys climbing the charts. At first I didn't understand the lyrical ramble and I thought it might contain some clever word-play reference to a certain Monopoly property. Later, as a young adult, I came to realize that the game card I had imagined when hearing this piece might very well have gotten inspired by the physical beach adornment pictured in the track's title and chorus line. As the 1970s unfolded and the Chicago area radio stations began a 1950s revival, they also featured this gem quite often, to the point that my female companion at the time remarked one day that she didn't care to hear it again because she had just heard it not long before, and I strongly agreed with her. However, a decade later, as I savored residing in the pleasant warmer climate of Berkeley, CA, I noticed that whenever this hit got played, I relished it much more than I previously had. Four weeks ago, we rode On a Carousel (Song 628), and when you hear the happy sound of a carousel, sometimes you can almost taste the hot dogs and french fries they sell. Whether in or out of the sun, we still have a couple more warm weeks in store, and we'll be havin' some fun.

Moving the Contour

 Song 631: This week the playlist puts the spotlight on Draggin' the Line by Tommy James and the Shondells, written by Tommy James and Bob King, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. I had spent much of the summer of 1971 acting as a summer missionary for the Southern Baptist Church in an outreach center in Atlanta, GA, and then around mid-August I headed back to my parents' place in upstate NY for a short visit before returning to my college apartment in Evanston, IL. I really relished the fresh TJ hit topping the charts then, and I have a memory of hearing it as I walked along a rural road a couple of miles from my childhood home. I don't recall if I had a transistor radio with me that played the tune, if I walked with a friend who had one, or if the sound came from one of the few nearby houses, but ever since that experience I have associated that country road area with this melodic excursion. Of course, that connection makes sense when you imagine Lovin' the free and feelin' spirit of hugging a tree, when you get near it. On a different note, during that era 5 decades ago, a lot of average folks were Makin' a livin' the old, hard way, Takin' and givin' by day by day, whereas these days, far too many of the working class are not gettin' the good sign, no matter how they try.