Hot Urban Season

 Song 730: This week the playlist features Summer in the City by The Lovin' Spoonful, written by John Sebastian, Mark Sebastian and Steve Boone, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. I think I made my first visit to NYC in the spring of 1966 when my ninth grade biology class did a field trip to the Bronx Zoo, and I really enjoyed that outing. This musical excursion appropriately arrived soon after summer vacation started, and growing up in a somewhat rural area, I had at that point never experienced the kind of boiling discomfort that the singer complains about in the tune, but I could imagine how it might feel. My family had previously acquired a transistor radio, and during warm weather spells, I relished hearing the current hits while engaging in outdoor activities. It didn't take long to learn this saunter's chorus notes and lines, and then I could sing along when I felt like doing so. I did not know then that a few years later, I would spend my young adult phase residing in a place where in the summer, when I went walking on the sidewalk, the concrete could feel hotter than a match head.

Scorching Urban Juvenile

 Song 729: This week the playlist recognizes Hot Child in the City by Nick Gilder, written by Nick Gilder and James McCulloch, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. When the warm weather season arrived in the Windy City area in 1978, I took some necessary steps and then started stretching out my thumb in a westward direction. It didn't take very long for me to get the rides that brought me to the East Bay in CA, where I would then reside for a decade. A few months after I reached my destination, Mr. Gilder got a lot of attention with this anthem about a fiery youngster, and understandably so. Back then, I did not notice the child prostitution implications of the piece's lyrics, but taking a closer look now, I did wonder about that angle, and then found out that Nick really did get his inspiration from an observance of that phenomenon. All too often, a female so young to be loose and on her own is, in reality, NOT on her own, and when she's runnin' wild and lookin' pretty, most observers don't know what her game is, and that when she goes downtown, that's not really her decision.

Quite Bright Affection

 Song 728: This week the playlist comes around to Sunshine of Your Love by Cream, written by Pete Brown, Jack Bruce and Eric Clapton, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. During the summer of 1967, I started hearing about a rocking Cream trio who had begun amazing audiences, and then, a few months later, as the cooler and darker season arrived in my upstate NY hometown, a shiny moving banger by those three came across the airwaves and grabbed my attention. Before that hit made the scene, I had questioned how just three rockers could make as strong and heavy a sound as the common quartets and quintets of that era did, but then I truly had a striking answer to my question - one that I really relished riding. Every time I got to hear this mover, it felt like I could see the light shinin' through on my old question mark and giving me a clue about where I could be going in the near future.

Dark Warm Weather Stretch

 Song 727: This week the playlist puts the spotlight on Black Day in July by Gordon Lightfoot, who also wrote the song, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. I don't think I even knew who Mr. GL was when the album that included this ballad came along during the winter months of my junior HS year in 1968, but a couple of years later, as I expanded my knowledge and collection of fellow singer/songwriter types, I soon got to know a bunch of Gordon's melodies and messages, and this one came across quite strongly. I had known some of the details when Motor City madness had touched the countryside, but by the time I had a copy of the 33 that included this gem, I understood a lot more about the abuse that the sons and daughters of the fathers who were carried to this land had had to endure and unfortunately still continue to face all too often. Why can't we live in peace? Probably because a small group of very wealthy puppeteers have a stronger grip as long as the hands of the have-nots keep falling out of reach.

Enlightening Someone’s Existence

 Song 726: This week the playlist applauds You Are the Sunshine of My Life by Stevie Wonder, who also wrote the song, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. As we roll into the brighter moments of the northern hemisphere's warmest season, the clarity might remind some of us about a sparkly illumination that we got to hear 51 years ago, actually beginning a few months earlier, just as the temperatures began to rise. My wife and I had found a very comfortable and affordable apartment along the south end of Evanston during the previous fall season, and as the Windy City area got shinier, we expanded our enjoyment of our community and liked hearing about Mr. Wonder's amorous admiration for his twinkling romantic partner. I appreciated the presence of the one who had become the apple of my eye, but I also felt haunted by a weird sense of something missing in the relationship, and that would eventually trigger me to not stay around her.

Scarlet Bloom

 Song 725: This week the playlist recognizes Roses Are Red by Bobby Vinton, written by Paul Evans and Al Byron, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. With graduation day arriving this week in my hometown, many of us living in somewhat rural areas have recently gotten reminded that roses are red and violets are blue. I had learned that colorful phrase during my single-digit years, and in the spring of my first double-digit year, a musical characterization of that flowery idea started regularly flying across the airwaves. While I don't remember any specific moment in the 1962 warm months when I heard Bobby's blooming anthem, it probably came across a lot of transistor radio speakers in places where I hung out with friends and played sports games, since I quickly got to know the tune's melody and lyrics. I did not have a romantic partner at that point, but I had met someone around that time who lit my fuse, and I hoped to soon connect with her and tell her, Sugar is sweet, My Love, But not as sweet as you. On a side note, as I mention in my book Expecting the Broken Brain to Do Mental Pushups, back when I lived in Berkeley, CA, during the 1980s, my singer/songwriter friend Jim Bruno said to me, "Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm a little schizzed and so am I." I chuckled at his joke but I didn't tell him that schizophrenics do not have multiple personality disorder, though people commonly did confuse the two conditions at the time. I had not yet come close to understanding my mother, but I did know that she heard voices in her head. It would take a couple more decades for me to finally realize that she had aural hallucinations.

The Sucker’s Final Distance

 Song 724: Seven weeks after my previous personal friend song post, this week's entertaining excursion The Fool's Last Mile comes from another one of my Fast Folk colleagues, a fellow named Richard Meyer, who also wrote the song, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. I have a vague memory of meeting Richard in the late summer of 1987 during a brief visit to NYC, and finding out then that he worked as the editor of the monthly Fast Folk magazine. A year later, I moved from Berkeley, CA, to Brooklyn, NY, and I soon began mingling with the FF crowd, particularly during their weekly gatherings at Jack Hardy's apartment where everyone got to share a new tune with the group. I liked a lot of what I heard coming from Richard, including this amusing lift. Along that stretch, I did a certain amount of work for FF, but I decided to move on in late 1993. However, a couple of years later I ended up doing the digital designs for the final FF issues, including Issue 8 of Volume 8 which is the collection of songs recorded at a show at The Bottom Line in Manhattan on January 27, 1996. That CD includes this ride, in which Mr. Meyer told us he had learned one of life's hard lessons. Sadly, he learned other hard lessons in the 21st century, including one that put him in pain and ended his life in 2012.