Elevated and Distant

 Song 659: This week on the playlist you can hear Over the Hills and Far Away by Led Zeppelin, written by Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, and you can find an entertaining YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. The aircraft quartet got a whole bunch of us climbing the Stairway to Heaven (Song 288) in late 1972, and early along in the following year, they then took us on this high and scenic lift, and though it didn't quite break through the way the flight of steps had, it still did cover a lot of attractive-sounding territory. My wife and I lived in my Chicago-area college town during that stretch, and we had adopted a feline brother and sister to enliven our home. When we took in that duo in December of 1972, we originally prevented them from entering our bedroom at night when we went to bed, and after about a week, by the time we got up one morning, Joker (the male) had disappeared. As far as I could tell, the only way he could have left would have been to climb to the roof in the fireplace chimney, and soon after I mentioned that possibility to our upstairs neighbor, she knocked on our door and told us she heard a cat meowing on the roof, which we then heard. While I did not enjoy rescuing him from the building topper, I could feel grateful that he had not gone Over the Hills and Far Away, and luckily, for the year and a half that we resided in that apartment, that would be the only time when we had been missing him. In early 1974 we moved to Atlanta, GA, and while living there, both of our furry companions had the chance to walk a while with me and my darling.

Working Class Heritage

 Song 658: This week on the playlist you’ll find Daddy Never Was the Cadillac Kind by Confederate Railroad, written by Dave Gibson and Bernie Nelson, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. In the early 1990s I listened a lot to a NYC New Country radio station, as well as a RnR one, and by doing so, I got to hear a bunch of memorable movers, including this ride that came along around the time that spring arrived in 1994. In that era I moved from my Brooklyn apartment over to a scenic farm in nearby NJ, which was the place I featured in my As Long as Merle is Still Haggard video (which you can hear and see on YouTube by clicking on the title) and which included scenes with my landlord. While living there, I had a decent set of wheels, but I Never Was the Cadillac Kind, and neither was my Daddy (or grand-Daddy), so the message of this tune resonated with me the first time I heard it. Soon after moving into the farm, I began a romance with an attractive young woman who also Never Was the Cadillac Kind, and getting to know her parents a while later, I could tell that her Daddy Never Was the Cadillac Kind either. Over the next few years, I came to clearly understand the class divide that my teachers had denied during my school years, and which the lines of this excursion slyly reference. I didn't know then what I know now, but I did appreciate all that my father and grandfather did to make sure we the family were NOT ever going hungry, and I felt thankful that they taught us that love was the one thing money couldn't buy.

Combustion Location

 Song 657: This week the playlist comes around to Fireplace by R.E.M., written by Bill Berry, Peter Buck, Mike Mills and Michael Stipe, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. On an evening in June of 1983, my band Victims of Technology performed as the first of two opening acts for a quartet that had given themselves a name which I thought slyly referred to the dream stage of sleep. I had only begun to hear their music, and I hadn't come to any conclusions about it before that show. After their set, however, I felt certain that I had to pay more attention to their sounds, which I soon did. When their Document LP came out 4 years later, I quickly had a copy in hand. This marks the fifth appearance of a gem from that disc among this collection, and I might quite likely feature 1 or 2 more in the next year or 2. The One I Love is Song 36, It's the End of the World is Song 322, Finest Worksong is Song 419, and Welcome To The Occupation is Song 571. As much as it might have seemed like a crazy crazy world and crazy crazy times during the mid-1980s, truth is much stranger than fiction now than it was 4 decades ago, so today we can ask the question about if we should shake the rug into the fireplace and/or should we believe that The U.S. Should Show It Can Win a Nuclear War (an April 2022 WSJ headline)? Even POTUS Reagan understood back in 1985 that the only winners of a nuclear war would be THE COCKROACHES, but today a national security advisor can openly advocate for ending human civilization, which is WAY CRAZIER than trying to throw the walls into the fireplace.

Posterior Approach Fellow

 Song 656: This week the playlist recognizes Back Door Man by Howlin' Wolf, written by Wiilie Dixon, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. When the Beatles rocked my world in February of 1964, I quickly became a fan of the British Invasion, but living in a fundamentalist home, I had no idea about the origin of the devil's music. I listened to Top 40 radio whenever I could, and I liked all the punchy sounds I heard, as well as the melodic and harmonic ones, but I didn't have a clue about where the heavier beats had arisen. I wrongly believed the Fab Four and their so-called imitators had created RnR, and I didn't know the real story until I hit the age of 18 as a college freshman. Then, residing in a university dormitory, I soon learned about where the rhythm really came from. As the 1970s unfolded and I got to hear a lot more earlier rockers, I found out about the guy who had done the first presentation of a song I strongly relished. The Doors' debut album became probably my favorite 33 during my HS stage, and I added their version of Back Door Man to this collection as Song 608. When I finally got to hear the original rendition of the rumbler, I immediately appreciated its heavy soundprint and the groundwork that it had created. I felt that even when everybody's tryin' to sleep, I might want to go somewhere making my midnight creep just to hear a beat like this that I enjoy.

West Coast Aspiration

 Song 655: This week on the playlist you can hear California Dreamin' by The Mamas and The Papas, written by John and Michelle Phillips, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. Growing up in a fundamentalist home, I soon found out, when the family saw the Fab Four arrive in February of 1964, that the parents, grandparents, and my older brother perceived the rocking sounds as being the devil's music, and only my younger brother and I liked what we heard. I tried to be a good boy as much as I could, but it felt difficult to curb my attraction to RnR, and in the spring of 1966, when Monday, Monday (Song 302) hit the charts, I could no longer resist that captivation. A few months later, on a visit to our Ohio relatives, I got to hear my cousin play the entire If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears disc, and I really enjoyed every song I heard, including this sparkler that opened side 2. When, a few years later, I moved to the Chicago area to become a college student, I had much greater freedom to dive into the music I relished, and I soon acquired the M&P debut album. Experiencing the frigid winter weather of that region got me to appreciate this piece's message even more, and when I found out about the moderate West Coast temperatures, I began my own California Dreamin', which I finally had come true in the summer of 1978. In the neighborhood where I reside now - the same one I grew up in - currently All the leaves are brown and the sky is often grey this time of year, although not always, and considering how chilly it can possibly get, I can't complain about any winter's day in the last month when I had to go for a walk.

Frosty Descension

Song 654: Seven weeks after my previous personal friend song post, this week's cool dive Snow is My Downfall comes from a fine melodic crony Patti Rothberg, who also wrote the song, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. I got to meet her a year after she put out this single, and while I had not known about her music previously, I soon got very impressed with the sounds and words riding my ears that came from her. Not long after my recording partner David Seitz introduced us to each other in a studio, I got involved in a project that included a bunch of videos of Patti performing her songs, and I quickly noticed that I liked them ALL. She has a much stronger sense of melody than far too many of our songwriter colleagues, whether personal or not. In addition, she enjoys playing the kind of word games in her lyrics that I relish cooking up, with this tune's moniker being a prime example, as well as the title track of her second album CD Candelabra Cadabra. Patti actually sent me a copy of this CD single a few years ago, and I genuinely appreciated that gift. I had decided to feature this gem on the personal friend week in the middle of winter, assuming that it would illustrate my area's outdoor precipitation, but, ironically, in my neighborhood we currently have no white coating outside, so Snow has not been Downfalling here lately, and I hope that seven weeks from now, on 4/2, the white stuff doesn't have any Downfall in that period either. 

Her Romantic Attraction

 Song 653: This week on the playlist you’ll find She Loves You by The Beatles, written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. When I began hearing my fellow junior high schoolmates use a certain insect term on Monday, February 10, 1964, it sounded strange to keep encountering that word on a cold mid-winter day. I seemed to have missed a consequential story and I didn't want to admit my lack of touch, but as the phenomenon continued, at some point that week I had to ask a buddy what was going on. He chuckled when he heard his supposedly smart friend pose such a question. Similar to around a third of the U.S. population, he had seen the Fab Four on Sunday night's Ed Sullivan Show and he told me a bit about those Beatles that everyone had been mentioning. When the next Sunday night arrived, my family gathered in the living room to watch Ed Sullivan instead of going to church. The mop top quartet soon hit the stage, and though I thought they looked a bit weird, they rocked my world as they performed this remarkable mover. Unlike my older brother, my parents and my grandparents, my younger brother and I quickly felt that seeing and hearing these Beatles can't be bad, and any time you had that privilege, you should be glad.