Something In the Air

This song is probably more relevant now than when it was first released in 1969, specifically due to everything that has been perpetrated against the will of the people since December of 2000 (stolen elections, illegal wars, signing statements, illegal domestic spying, torture, shredding of the constitution and elimination of civil rights )when it was overtly decided that the the voice of the people was no longer important.

-B

  

  -Lock up the streets and houses
Because there ¡s something in the air
We’ve got to get together sooner or later
Because the revolution ¡s here, and you know it’s right
And you know that it’s right

We have got to get it together
We have got to get it together

    -Thunderclap Newman, Something In the Air

 

Late Century Dream

This song sneaks up on you. If you are not careful, you might think it is an upbeat happy little ditty, until you listen to the words and realize it is a comment on how many of us today are living beyond our means trying to live a dream we have been swindled into believing is attainable; that if we just buy what corporate America is peddling, we will be cool, and liked by everyone, and happy and complete. However, we don’t realize that we are chasing a mirage until it is too late. We find ourselves smothered by debt and surrounded by all of the materialistic purchases we thought would bring us happiness, but they have become empty and meaningless and have added nothing of substance to our lives. 

-B   

      

  

-But everybody grows up weaned on some sick late century dream
Or the happy face on a shirt smiling “shop till you drop,” yeah

Everybody lives in a knot
Everybody lives in a knot
Everybody’s trying to make space around what they think they’ve got

Everybody’s trying to hold on to a dream even as they watch it rot…  

- Superchunk,  Late-Century Dream

 

Conspiracy Theory

  I find it refreshing when someone with a public platform that reaches many people tries to pull back the curtain to expose the lies we have all been told. If for no other reason, it serves the purpose of reassuring those of us who have questioned the lies from early on that we are not alone and we are not crazy for questioning what we have been told. It also exposes the lies to a wider audience. The more the mainstream media and the politicians in power try to ridicule and discredit these people who publicly speak out and question what they try to sell us (for example, Charlie Sheen, Rosie O’Donnell ) the closer to the truth we know we are. The pundits and the politicians never answer the questions being asked, or back up their arguments with fact. They go straight to name calling and character assassination. Because the truth and what it will reveal, and the responsibility they will have to take if the truth came out scares them…

-B

     

- Half a million soldiers fly across the water.
One in ten are never comin’ back again.
Fifty thousand sons who never grew to fathers.
Don’t you ever wonder who they might have been?

What if you could’ve been there on that day in Dallas?
What if you could wrestle back the hands of time?
Maybe somethin’ could’ve been done in Memphis.
We wouldn’t be livin’ in a dream that’s died.

Go on and tell yourself again there are no secrets.
Go on and tell yourself that you don’t want to know.
It’s best that you believe that you don’t hear the footsteps
That follow you around wherever you go.

Maybe you were thinkin’ that it didn’t matter.
Maybe you believed nobody else would care.
But once you’ve added every little lie together
You finally find the truth was always waiting there.

 

      - Steve Earle, Conspiracy Theory

 

Things Not to Say During or After Sex

A helpful list of some things that you probably shouldn’t say during or after sex:

• That oughta hold ya.
• I swallowed my gum.
• Not it!
• Do you smell something burning?
• And most people just get cards for Secretary’s day.
• I won!
• Sorry, I thought you were someone else.
• Can you sign this waiver?
• Can you break a twenty?
• Got your nose.
• I do all of my own stunts.
• Next
• Do you validate for parking?
• GOAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• I want lots and lots of babies.
• Can I have a do over?

 

City Girls

 It’s funny how the simplest lyric to a song from long ago can recapture the innocence of youth you didn’t know you had the first time you heard it.  An innocence that promised everything but revealed nothing of how it would actually be…

-B

  

-City girls just seem to find out early
How to open doors with just a smile…  

   - Eagles,  Lyin’ Eyes

 

What Happens Tomorrow?

 Many of us have been awake for along time, trying unsuccessfully to nudge the slumbering, and many more are waking up. But I worry it will be too late because the politicians, pundits, and corporations have the power and the wealth to lull a majority of the people back to sleep with overblown and concocted fear alerts, and non-news stories of missing white girls and celebrity divorce and malfeasance or to at least encourage the masses to hit the metaphorical snooze button and wish reality away. But this song gives me a bit of hope anyway and isn’t that what music is all about - punctuating or life with hope and allowing us to rock in the process? 

-B 

       

 - I believe
That we are waking up,
From a spell
That those that profit from the fear,
Cast so well.
And good people of the earth,
Now can tell,
There is no “us and them”!
If not now, when?
If not today, then
What happens tomorrow?    

    - Melissa Etheridge,  What Happens Tomorrow?

 

She’d Tell Me to Make a Wish

This song offers some of the most palpable imagery in music which takes me back to a time before twenty four hour cable TV stations and electronic sensory overload from all directions and sources. A time when you could sit outside at night and be content that all was good in the world when the sights, sounds, and smells on a summer evening were more engaging and satisfying than anything the TV could deliver.

-B

-Mama used to roll her hair
Back before the central air
We’d sit outside and watch the stars at night
She’s tell me to make a wish
I’d wish we both could fly
I don’t think she’s seen the sky
Since we got the satellite dish
I can hear the marching band
Doing the best they can to play
Smoke on the Water
And Joy to the World…

-James McMurtry,  Levelland

 

Words of the Prophets

I will be sharing song lyrics from time to time that just strike a chord, tap into my inner thoughts, and touch me in some way. I hope by doing this I can demonstrate the power of music and lyrics, spark curiosity in anyone who reads them and encourage others to listen more carefully to these modern day prophets…. 

-B

-And the sign flashed out its warning,
In the words that it was forming.
And the sign said, “The words of the prophets
are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls…

-Simon and Garfunkel, “Sounds of Silence“

 

Row of Dominoes

To all of the ladies that have guys wrapped around their fingers…

-B

 

-Carmen must have been the Devil’s daughter
At least he taught her how to wear her clothes
And the boys followed her to the slaughter
Where they fell like a row of dominoes….

-Joe Ely, Row of Dominoes

 

How It Feels Tonight

I really like the metaphor of the aged withered woman trying to conceal the effects of time through guady dress and jewelry used to portray the protagonist’s cyncial view of the world in this song. I am sure many of us have seen the world in a similar fashion when we have felt betrayed by life and the people with whom we interact.

-B

-And I’d like to rise above it
But I fear I’ve fallen prey
To the forces that I railed against
In my angry young man days
At least that’s how it feels tonight
When the world has lost her charms
In her gaudy dress and her bracelets of gold
Dangling from her withered arms…

– The Stone Coyotes,   My Horse Has Wings