Holding Down
Lately my spirit is held down
And my head is bouncing like sound against the walls that are surrounding me
It is that it’s my darkest days
and somehow I’ve acted plays that now lives to make me be
So now I lean to the side and drift
like I am waiting for things to sift through the fine chains that surround
Like a bird on the highway as the cars go by
doing everything from keeping to fly and go where I wont be found
Since I was probably old enough to change the TV channel on our family TV I have loved movies.
I guess I am going to turn in my “man card” to admit this: I love schmaltzy movies. Rom-com’s. Romantic comedies. I know that when I was a kid it was so easy to turn on the TV and work to find those Tracy/Hepburn classics, or Thin Man movies. Gable/Lombard, Astaire/Grable,,,the list of old movies goes on. My first fave movie of the era gone-by “It Happened One Night” was (is) one of those movies I can watch again and again.
But I am just as likely to scan the hundreds of channels today and find one that tweaks that old memory. And I am inclined to stop I guess. Whether it is old or contemporary. It is just in me.
“Love Actually ” (another one of my all time faves) just stops me cold and have to watch some/all of it. I know it is more like a holiday movie, but I am just stuck liking it. Or When Harry Met Sally, or Notting Hill, or Runaway Bride, You’ve Got Mail,or….you get the idea. That doesn’t even include the 60’s movies romping through hi-jinx and crazy situations, with stars as that can range from Sinatra to Tony Curtis or Rock Hudson.
So yeah, Julia Roberts movies, Hugh Grant, Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, and all that lot. Just the same to me there are stars of the 30’s and 40’s that were just great too… Once again you get the idea. I am a sucker. So many more. Old and new. Great sound tracks; inevitable endings where the “meet-cute” is over and the wrap up is forever bliss.
My wife chuckles when I stop and dwell on the Rom-com movies. Some end sad, some end with a head scratch, But any way, it is always great stuff. Heck- as part of my college degree (Communications/Media) we had CLASSES about movies. Bliss.
So put me up for the hours of wasted time I guess. Watching those movies. It is like hearing a great song or reading a great book, you want to listen to it or read it again. Movies are like that… just suspend everything else for a small bit of time and enjoy them.
Whew… I feel better. A confession of sorts (except for my immediate family who already knows this weird obsession and lives with it). Someday I will get over it…. perhaps.
Thanks to all who were able to join me on the Internet radio show “How I Met Your Music” on Friday August 1st @ 90FM.org.
It was hard to cover over 50 years of music in just 3 hours, but hopefully I was able to tell the story of how I went from the music I first heard on the little radio above my mom’s Hotpoint refrigerator to the music my children have introduced to me these past years.
There is a lot in-between Frank Sinatra and Frank Zappa, between the Ed Sullivan show introduction of the Beatles and You Tube independent music of Foxygen.
But it has been a journey for me and probably for a lot of other parents who grew up on rock and roll, R&B and Jazz influences and their children are still welcome fresh music to fill that need today. Mine will very appreciative of our “old” music, and even to this day keep showing me fantastic and talented new music.
So here are the last few songs I finished my show with. The music my children had a lot to do with when they were finding their own music.
The final song below was the song 3 of them co-wrote together recently. Just coming full circle from my beginnings with the British Invasion to this…..
Dashboard Confessional: Ghost of a Good Thing (Thanks to my son Adam) Maybe we can sing along some day.
Anthony Green: Anytime ( Thanks to my son Greg) Rockin’ music always on the horizon: Circa Survive all the way!
Lydia: The Exit (Thanks to my son Ryan) So many bands, so little time to know them all.
Copeland: You Love to Sing (Thanks to my daughter Jennifer) You sing like an angel, because you love to sing.
And finally, ” I Can Sleep Again”. The song Ryan, Greg and Jennifer ( our children) wrote for my wife and I in December 2013.
CLICK BELOW… its a great song.
An invitation listen for a special 3 hour radio program. This Friday August 1st @4 pm Central Time (US) I will be presenting “How I Met Your Music”. It will map a personal journey of music from the 1960’s to the music my children have introduced to me this year.
If you are a baby boomer with millennial kids who are all about music, you will know that there are a lot of things playing over the air today that sound quite like songs of decades ago.
Time for the 2nd Annual Alumni Radio weekend. The evening of July 30th through Sunday August 3rd, and myself and my college compatriots from late 70’s and early 80’s are coming back to take over the college radio station.
Over the past decades I have grown to like a lot of the music that my kids have introduced to me. Maybe part of it was because I spent seven years joining them at the annual sabbatical of the Van’s Warped Tour. The Warped Tour features over 7 stages lining up live music from 40 musicians and bands that are working hard to make it in the indie/punk/alternative world of music.
Or perhaps it was because there is [and was always was] music playing in our house as they grew up. They heard The Beatles, The Who and Queen and so much more as they started their lives and decided to search for their own music. As they would find their way, they would share it with me. “Hey dad listen to this one“.
So all these years later, I am going to present to my kids and anyone willing to listen ….”How I Met Your Music”.
August 1st for three hours starting with the first song I ever heard on my parents radio over the refrigerator in our kitchen and going through the decades that led up to my children creating their own music.
Does it sound like “How I Met Your Mother” the American TV show? Yeah – yup… sort of like that.
Tune IN: http://tunein.com/radio/90-FM-899-s23865/
Or Find Windows and I Tunes Links here: http://www.uwsp.edu/wwsp/Pages/default.aspx
It is the middle of SUMMER here in Texas, and like always I reflect on the music that made up my younger years. Summer was special because school was out and the weather was ripe for enjoying time at the beach, or camping or traveling. Just sitting out in the backyard in a lawn chair and when I was older cruising the main-streets ( gas was so much cheaper than, but then the cars only got single digits miles per gallon.
Ahh but the songs! My son and I got thinking about those “songs” that made up the memories of summer ( and those that also reminded us of winter). My list was totally different than his (with a few exceptions). But it was fun. I recall listening to the songs on “transistor radios” on the beach blankets, on the AM radio in the car, and later in various Walkman- like things with headphones. But they were indelible and still conjure up those sweet memories.
What are your summer songs?
Here are 6 of mine.
1) The Beach Boys: Do It Again
Actually it could be very many of their songs, this is just one I love. In America these guys are the definition of summer music for a generation or 2! LOVE the outfits in this old video.
2) The Kinks: Sunny Afternoon
Ray Davies is very underrated as part of the Brit Invasion and all the great songs beyond. Love this one. Was and still am a big fan (Waterloo Sunset is another).
3) The Rolling Stones: Honky-tonk Woman
First time I heard this was out in my backyard out of one of those little radios, I turned it up so loud it broke it. I went out that day and got the 45 PRM version and played it to death.
4) America: Ventura Highway
I was listeing to AM radio on my way to the beach and the windows rolled down. My friends were in the car. We sang the do-do-do’s like we were never going back home (the beach forever dude).
5) Steely Dan: Do It Again
We were in the basement of my best friends house. It was a late Friday afternoon. We had opened a 12 pack of Budwiser, we were playing pool and thinking about the weekend coming up when we would be going to the lake up in the woods and fish and eat and drink (not necessarily in that order). We jacked up the stereo and took it all in. Steely Dan is damn cool.
6) Blink 182: What’s My Age Again
Okay so I spent 7 years in a row going with my kids to Warped Tour. I got immersed in the music of their generation. I gotta say I love the energy and… sure I was a fan of that same type of music when I was a teen. There is always high-energy teen angst music playing somewhere. Thanks to my kids- spent some crazy summers on hot pavement finding a lot of new bands. Of course there was some irony on this Blink 182 song …. yeah sure.
Tracks In The Dust 