Seven songs meme

Lovely Ren roused me from my grief by tagging me with a meme. See what nice friends I have? (She got an iPod and it just seemed pertinent!)

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List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your spring-summer. Post these instructions in your blog along with your seven songs. Then tag seven other people to see what they’re listening to.

I've already posted several of these songs and decided to post the rest, so you can listen to em here if you want to.

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LAUGHING--David Crosby

Actually, I've been listening to the last two minutes, the amazing steel guitar solo by Jerry Garcia, which is resplendent.

MUSIC EYES--Heartsfield (2nd song in link)

Overjoyed to find this old song, and have listened to it about 5000 times since it was first posted to YouTube last week.

AIN'T LIFE GRAND--Widespread Panic

Always makes me think of summer, for some reason... probably because I first remember hearing it in a horrendous summer traffic jam, where I had the AC in the car way up. And it properly reminded me: you aren't in an accident, you aren't poverty-stricken or unemployed, people care about you, so just calm the fuck down. Zen message, which I listen to whenever I need to be reminded: Ain't Life Grand?

I love the wistful, ironic way the song is delivered. I think it was Wendell Barry (?) who said the Southern Way is "sitting on the fence post, commenting wryly on the ways of God"... and this song is the musical equivalent of that sentiment.

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This next one goes out to the AA folks. I've listened to it most of my life, at some point. I love the hard-nosed sensibility; like the last song, it "wakes me up"--as the Buddhists would say. It brings me back to myself and reminds me of first principles. It's also one of the greatest country songs ever written.

I was once at an AA picnic and virtually EVERY SINGLE PERSON KNEW THE WORDS...even the children! That says plenty, huh? (Unlike a lot of people these days, he takes FULL RESPONSIBILITY!)

Mama Tried - Merle Haggard

[via FoxyTunes / Merle Haggard]

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Abrupt change in sensibility. I've been patiently waiting for Netflix to ship me the movie about Ian Curtis, titled CONTROL. I MUST SEE IT. Meanwhile, listening to WARSAW, which is the most claustrophobic punk song ever written.

Every now and then, I get a sort of clairvoyance concerning who isn't long for this world. Or is it (as the skeptics would undoubtedly say) that I'm just very attuned to the particular reality of addiction? (see AA reference above) At various times in my life I have heard certain songs and then pronounced "That person isn't long for this world!"--spooking my daughter, Delusional Precious, with my prescience and accurate fortune-telling. Most historic of these documented instances: WOULD?, ALL APOLOGIES and NO RAIN. In each instance, I thought, wow, that guy is gonna die, and SOON. I don't know if it's the actual song-lyrics, or the fact that I have heard literally thousands of addicts talk in thousands of 12-step meetings, and the overall sentiments expressed in the songs ring some kind of existential bell? Or is it something else I am hearing on some other sensory level? Whatever it is, I can hear it, and it always alarms me in a distinctive way. DEATH IMMINENT is what I hear. (And the song might even be relatively sprightly, as NO RAIN is, but I heard it anyway.)

And I thought the same thing when I heard WARSAW. I thought, DAMN, that guy, whoever he is, is NOT LONG FOR THIS WORLD. (When I finally get the movie about Ian, promise to post a review!)

Warsaw - Joy Division

[via FoxyTunes / Joy Division]

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Nostalgic pining away for the days in San Francisco before AIDS took my friends away. It was fun, you guys. I have no words to properly express it, but I do have the song.

(Why does it start out with a HARP? Because we were in heaven, of course.)

Boogie Nights - Heatwave

[via FoxyTunes / Heatwave]

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And this election season, we are well reminded that the big fish eat the little ones, the big fish eat the little ones...

Something we should always keep in mind, even if we are optimistic.

Optimistic - Radiohead

[via FoxyTunes / Radiohead]

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I TAG THE FOLLOWING:

white rabbit (who had issues with my quirky meme! you should like this one better, dude!)
Jojo
Annie
Rootie
Vanessa, who usually includes fun stories with her memes, like I do.
Nexy
And John Powers, to get him to update his blog!

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Yall have been just wonderful in the face of my grieving. Thank you so much. It was (and still is) a shock.

My mother's beloved Siamese kitty lived to be 18, and I was kinda hoping for that long lifespan, even though I knew Grand Old Man's digestive system wasn't in very good shape.

And it happened so fast; just like with old humans. Simple illnesses are no longer simple.

It's hard to write without my muse. I've been doing it so long; Grand Old Man nestled in my lap as I typed. And when I got going really good, he would emit a sweet, quiet, musical purr, as if he could somehow sense that my brain was creatively humming along. His contented purr let me know I was writing well. We were connected that way, and I feel like a tentacle, a sensory antenna, was severed.

I just loved him so much. It will take a long time to recover.

Her life was saved by rock and roll

Today: nostalgic musical interludes. Run away now!!!

Looking over my old posts, I was horrified I didn't blog this video for my obituary of the Outlaws' Hughie Thomasson. Then I realized, I didn't yet know how to embed videos!

I know now, so I feel obliged to post it.

Just keep in mind, this isn't just a SONG (there's no video)--it's an ANTHEM, and just like the 1812 Overture or something, it just can't be any shorter. Just so you know.

I assume only the Deadheads and/or southerners will stick around for all 10 minutes! Yall have heard of "dueling banjos"? The last two minutes of this song is "dueling electric guitars"--and a more righteous noise you ain't likely to hear in this lifetime.

Green Grass and High Tides - The Outlaws

[via FoxyTunes / The Outlaws]

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On Sunday, I mentioned my magical thinking.... and this is exactly the kind of thing that reinforces it: I have been looking for the following song since the advent of the net, literally, for well over a decade. I Googled the lyrics; I tried in vain to remember the name of the band. Was I spelling it wrong? No sign of it. It was a favorite of someone I knew, who died in November of 1979. Were we the only two people who heard the song? It was like a phantom. He is gone, the song is gone...and truly, it is like there is no record of him anywhere. If I could find the song, it would prove---what? That he isn't gone either. He is somewhere.

His birthday was June 10th, which started me looking for it all over again.

It was posted for the first time, yesterday, the 11th.

(See, "coincidences" like that are just too MUCH for me!)

And so, for Keith Alan Koon, at long last: Music Eyes.

He had them.

Music Eyes - Heartsfield (1974)



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This song goes out to ex-Plexus (Bay Area feminist newspaper, published approx 1974-1983) news editor Kelly Eve McRae, another person it is virtually impossible to locate. Unfortunately, there is a Christian artist with the name "Kelly McRae"--rendering most searches maddeningly hopeless. (I know they aren't the same person, since they appear to be several decades apart in age.)

If you're out there, drop me a line.

More magical thinking: she wore her hair like this, too.

Temptation - New Order

[via FoxyTunes / New Order]

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And finally, the song featuring the title of this post... I was over five years old (the age of the song's precocious protagonist) when I first heard it, but you know, not by much. If only they had allowed the Velvets on TV, I could have seen Maureen Tucker for myself and known that YES! There are WOMEN DRUMMERS! It might have changed my life. By the time I saw Karen Carpenter, they had already foisted the violin on me. (And besides, they made her stop playing the drums, too.)

The bang-up remake of this song by Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, inserted "Detroit station" in place of "New York station"--so I guess we all fill in our hometowns, if we identify with the story.

And ain't it the truth?

The Velvet Underground - Rock and Roll

[via FoxyTunes / The Velvet Underground]