A Light Touch of Romance

Song 457: This week the playlist comes around to Peaceful Easy Feeling by The Eagles, written by Jack Tempshin, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. Hearing the Eagles' debut single take over the airwaves while driving cross-country in the early summer of 1972, I didn't get too excited by the tune, though I did like its country-rock tonality. However, not long after, I starting hearing this cut, which I liked a lot better. I soon learned to play and sing this piece, and it became a regular number that I often shared during music circle gatherings and exchanges. In that era, being in my twenties, I had already learned what a woman can do to your soul, so now and then, I might meet a female and get this feeling that I could know her as a lover and a friend, while also having this voice keep whispering in my other ear, telling me I might never see her again. As a young man, I truly relished the musical Peaceful Easy Feeling of simply following a romantic road wherever it might lead, whether up or down.

An Adventure He Didn’t Ask For

Song 456: This week’s playlist track is Big Time in the Jungle by Old Crow Medicine Show, written by Critter Fuqua, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. Back in 2017, when I started a Spotify playlist called Dave Elder's Favorite Anti-war Songs (which you can hear by clicking on the title), I mainly wanted to showcase If I Was You, but soon, a couple of interesting suggestions came my way, this being one. After a single viewing of the YT video, I not only decided to add the tune to the Spotify playlist, but I also added the video to my short list of favorite anti-war song videos. Today I finally got around to creating a YT playlist of that group, calling it Dave Elder's Favorite Anti-war Song Videos (and you can watch that bunch by clicking on the title). That collection now includes a couple of recent recommendations from Facebook queries and replies, as well as this cut. I have seen the story in these lyrics repeated far too many times over the decades - a young man got his life turned upside down and his smile turned into a frown as the bombs started fallin' and they pounded his brain. He didn't ask for a fight or a rumble, but the army man showed up, got him signed up, and then surprised him with a Big Time in the Jungle that he didn't really want or need.

The Bad Guy Wanting Your Respect

Song 455: This week on the playlist you can hear Sympathy For The Devil by The Rolling Stones, written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. Not long after I began my freshman year at NU in the fall of 1969, I began to hear a lot more of The Rolling Stones than I had previously, thanks, primarily, to Hank Neuberger, who lived across the hall from me at Bobb Hall. Hank had a state-of-the-art stereo system, and an extensive LP collection. During that stretch, a large share of fans considered either The Beatles or The Rolling Stones to be at the top of the rock. In that discussion, Hank and I disagreed, and he even said to me at one point that the reason I put The Beatles at #1 was because I hadn't heard as much of the Stones' music as I had of the Fab Four. Over time, with him introducing me to so many truly impressive cuts, including this one (and all the rest of Beggars Banquet), he did succeed, by the end of our freshman year, in bringing me over to his side. Looking back, I would say that Mick and Co. were at the top of their game then, and John, Paul, George and Ringo weren't, but both bands deserved all the attention they got, regardless of which one the listener might rank as #1. The words on this track certainly do resonate today as much as they did 5 decades ago, introducing a man of wealth and taste who has been around for a long, long year and stole many a man's soul and faith - I think I recognize that face, and those horns.

A Lovely Lover's Name

Song 454: This week the playlist applauds Peggy Sue by Buddy Holly, written by Buddy Holly, Jerry Allison and Norman Petty. I first heard this hit on a night in the late summer of 1965, camping out with a friend on his front lawn and listening to his transistor radio. I know the time frame because of the other cuts we heard during that escapade - particularly Eve of Destruction (Song 146), which sounded scary, mainly because it seemed to quite accurately depict the then-current moment. That night, I did not know this piece was a golden oldie, but I really liked it a lot. When the early 1970s rolled around, and a 1950s RnR revival widened my knowledge and appreciation of the first generation rockers, I came to admire and respect Buddy Holly, especially for the impressive number of excellent recordings that he created in a very short career that ended with his sudden death at the age of 22. I acquired at least one LP of Holly hits, which of course included this classic. I also still clearly recall the lively scene in The Buddy Holly Story that features this tune - it's a spinner so rare and true that still, well over six decades after its release, how my heart yearns, and I want you, Peggy Sue.

Unprincipled Principals

Song 453: This week the playlist features Lives in the Balance by Jackson Browne, who also wrote the song, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. A couple of years ago, I  created a Spotify playlist called Dave Elder's Favorite Anti-war Songs (which you can hear by clicking on the title), mainly as a showcase for If I Was You, and recently I started asking people on Facebook for suggestions to add to that collection. Someone mentioned this cut, which is the title track for Jackson's 1986 release, and it grabbed me on the first spin. I had been a big Browne fan during the 1970s, often learning to sing and play his new material very soon after release dates, but I lost track of him during the 1980s, and this tune makes it clear to me that I have some catching up to do. Interestingly enough, I wrote If I Was You in reaction to Reagan's early moves to try to start an over-the-top war with Nicaragua, and Jackson evidently wrote this piece in reaction to Reagan's covert Contra war on Nicaragua, though, as the YT video makes quite clear, the words here could well apply to W's Iraq invasion, like other times where a government lies to a people and a country is drifting to war. So, knowing that they sell us our clothes and our cars, they sell us everything from youth to religion the same time they sell us our wars, like Mr. Browne, I too want to know who the men in the shadows are and I want to hear somebody asking them why they can be counted on to tell us who our enemies are but they're never the ones to fight or to die.

Stimulating Advice About Restraint

Song 452: This week on the playlist you’ll find Kicks by Paul Revere & The Raiders, written by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. When this 45 came along, in the spring near the end of our HS freshman year, it became an instant favorite for me and my friend Brian Johnson. We had started talking about having a band together, and his mother had already gotten him an electric guitar and small amp. Not long after, my mother bought me an acoustic guitar. I remember this track being one of the two cuts that Brian and I discussed playing - the other being Day Tripper - though maybe there were more we considered that I don't recall. Given my family's disdain for the devil's music and the immoral behavior it generally seemed to promote, ranging from promiscuous love/sex to wanton alcohol/drug usage, I felt pleased that the words on this hit did not cross those lines, but rather, offered advice about drugs that sounded quite sensible to me at the time. Of course, decades of personal interactions have since taught me that many of my fellow human beings have much deeper and more complex reasons for seeking chemical assistance - it's not about needing to fill the emptiness inside, finding a little piece of paradise, bringing someone peace of mind, or killing boredom with some Kicks. While the message here might sound simplistic and moralistic to me these days, I don't let it dampen my enjoyment of a very engaging musical spin.

A Constructive Way to Get Somewhere

Song 451: Seven weeks after my previous personal friend song post, this week the playlist comes around to Build a Bridge from Both Sides by my good friend Terry Kitchen, who also wrote the song, which appeared on his 2009 CD Summer to Snowflakes, and you can find a YouTube video of the cut by clicking on the title. A couple of years ago, when creating a Spotify playlist called Me and My Songwriter Friends (which you can hear by clicking on the title), in the process, I combed through friends' recordings on Spotify, finding some very good stuff I hadn't heard before, and I mixed the shiny new gems with some familiar favorites as the playlist took shape. I would rank this tune as one of the best new discoveries from that undertaking, and as timely as the lyrics might have been at the records' release, they have an even stronger resonance a decade later. Indeed, the only way to make it across the great divide is to build a bridge from both sides, and not a barrier.