Friday, March 25, 2011
An easy one, I think
So, it's Friday.
Time for a little fun.
Name one song that no matter where you are, no matter what kind of mood you are in, what you are thinking about, it all goes away when you hear it? It brings you immediately to a place, an event, a season, a person? Backstory will earn you a delightful kiss on the cheek from your hostess.
Just had one of these (thanks to the iPod currently being on shuffle). The song came on and I started grinning and teared up a little, and sang along in my head.
Today, for me, that song was "I can't stop loving you" from the Balance album by Van Halen (or, if you are so inclined, Van Hagar).
Happy Friday, my merry minions. Go out and do something awesome this weekend.
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I Fought The Law!
(My favorite version is The Clash live, but this is a shout-out to ZRM and also pretty funny video.)
~
God's Promise, a Woody Guthrie song covered by Ellis Paul brings me back to 2003, just after my dad died. I won't deny that it makes me sad, but it also makes me remember how I was surrounded by friends and family, and how we bonded together to cope with our grief. That's what makes it amazing.
Into the Mystic, the Swell Season cover, makes everything better. IT reminds me of the best day of my life.
"Ordinary Day" by Great Big Sea. I don't really have any people/places/things attached to it, but it usually makes me feel better about things if I'm down.
Totally agree with "Ordinary Day". But I actually listen to that song a lot by choice.
I was more thinking about songs that just randomly pop up in one's life.
Oddly enough, "Like the Weather" by 10,000 Maniacs, a song about a dismal "cold and rainy" day, always reminds me of sunny summer days- the song was released in the summer, and I'd hear it on the radi-adi-o as I'd drive to my summer job.
Blister in the Sun always gets me college nostalgic.
This is such a hard question.
Last night it was "I'd'a called you woody, Joe" by Gaslight Anthem.
Today, it is Spirit of Radio by Rush.
Anytime I hear "Babe", by Styx, it makes me projectile vomit. So that one is a negative version. Takes me back to a college party that had a mix tape, starting with that song, and then a big old needle scratch, Robin williams shouting "Shut the FUCk up!" and then bouncing into something pretty aggro.
Too many to try and type on this teeny tiny keyboard.
Have a good weekend, Von!
OK... Bizarre Love Triangle... A very free, fun time. :)
One Headlight - I am instantly back in my freshman year dorm room at Bradley.
heh. Link to my original takedown of the song Babe:
http://empireofthesenseless.blogspot.com/2008/09/more-songs-that-made-me-rotten.html
In '87, there was a bar attached to the Roadway Inn in Sacramento - It was called the Apple Blossom, or the Apple Pie, or some goddam thing that included "apple". I called it the "Roadapple" because, dammit, I've always been hilarious n shit. So it was one of those rare spring nights, really warm and muggy all night long. My girl had given me this beautiful green shirt, dyed in a complex pattern in Thailand. I was in the back, owning a pool table, drinking beer and feeling that whole spring thing.
Along about midnight, there was a commotion up front. We wandered up to see what it was all about, and it turned out it was our own beloved local boys, Tesla, returned home for some R&R. They asked us to help them pull some equipment in, and right then and there, maybe 70 people present, a few months after Mechanical Resonance hit the charts, they got up on the tiny stage and they PLAYED.
We rocked, we sang, we made devil horns, that place was ALIVE with love and joy and the power of rock n roll. Much later, sitting at a table noodling with my girl, the lights went down and they led, in that slow, meandering path, into "Little Suzi". If you haven't heard it in a while, go play it now. If you've never heard it, go play it now. We held on to one another and cried for the pure gorgeous perfection of it, and as the soft led into the ROCK, we laughed and howled at the sky.
They got it a bit wrong in "Streets of Fire". In point of fact, THAT night is what it means to be young...
There's a postscript to that story, but it's a bit of a "you had to be there" tale.
The next day, I blew up in a giant case of the hives, and by early afternoon was having trouble breathing. Hell, nobody worked or had insurance, so we went to the urgent care clinic, and they asked if I had taken any drugs. As carefully and accurately as I could, I listed them, along with estimated dosages and suspected impurities. The doc and nurse looked at each other with a certain shock and left the treatment room. As it turned out, they were trying to figure out what the HELL they could give me that wouldn't interact with the witches brew in my system and kill me.
I don't know what they came up with, but it was GREAT!! I got progressively higher and sillier as the swelling of the histamine reaction went down, and when we finally got home I fell asleep on the couch for like 17 hours.
But I didn't die!
And I should mention, the operative theory is that the muggy night made me sweat, and the sweat activated something in the green dye in that beautiful shirt, and that was the cause of the hives.
Of course, nobody truly knows....
Did I mention that I hate that song "Babe"?
hmpf. Who can compete with a mikey story?
There are various songs that I have played to friends & family when they were dying, or that I want playing when it's my turn, or both.
These feature a lot:
Slip Away, Ultravox.
Unguarded moment, The Church.
"Ziggy Stardust" allus cheers me up. It's the story in the song really. They want to crush his sweet hands but they know that the fans come to see him.
Love it
Mikey stories make me sigh and swoon. Mikey, you're the best!!
SIL1X - That song brings me somewhere very specific! My last job, hanging out in the warehouse. Don't know why.
AK - true, so true.
SC - I have a list of those, also.
GREAT comments all!! Good fun Friday!!
"Don't You (Forget About Me)" by Simple Minds. Reminds me of my brother and me when we were trying to be teenagers, and makes me both smile and mist up, all at the same time.
Great story, Mikey. I love "Mechanical Resonance," one of the best hard rock albums of the 80s.
My not surprising answer is "The Camera Eye" by Rush. When I first got into Moving Pictures, we lived in a split-level ranch that backed up onto a forest preserve. I had my own room downstairs, away from the rest of the family, which was a godsend at 12.
My room window faced the back, giving me a nice little pastoral view of a dense group of trees. I remember one day playing "The Camera Eye," just sitting in my bed and watching the trees while it was raining out. I felt very peaceful and relaxed, and that song always conjures that feeling.
Runner up song would be Whitesnake's "Slide It In," for very different reasons.
OK... Bizarre Love Triangle... A very free, fun time. :)
Perhaps the greatest dance song ever written- "Stupid Marriage" by the Specials is also a great dance tune because the tempo speeds up so rapidly, so unsuspecting people on the dancefloor are, as the kids say, PWNED.
Unguarded moment, The Church.
This is a personal favorite of mine as well. Gotta love them antipodean bands.
Welcome Keri!
Brando - great story.
B4 - the Specials. Wow. Must go rustle them back up myself!!
Oooh "Ghost Town" by the Specials is one of the best songs evah
true, so true.
Sigh, the SPecials.
sigh.
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