I've been extremely nostalgic today. I've been looking up songs I liked as a kid, songs that were old when I first heard them, and posting them to facebook. I posted a couple, and I was listening to them, and I realized, hmm, this might not look good. First I posted Goodbye Cruel World, a song by James Darin from 1961. Then I posted Seasons In The Sun by Terry Jacks from 1974, the year I was born. Seasons In The Sun is a song about a guy saying goodbye to all the people in his life before he dies. Some lyrics are, "Goodbye my friend it's hard to die. When all the birds are singing in the sky. Now that the spring is in the air, pretty girls are everywhere, think of me and I'll be there. We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun, but the hills that we climbed were just seasons out of time."
Just wanted to say, I'm not trying to cryptically say anything here. I have no plans of leaving this "cruel world" or of dying in any way. I'm just waxing nostalgic, and, apparently, my tastes in music when I was younger were morbidly sad. Hmm, that makes sense. My taste in music is still morbid, and sometimes sad. Right now, I'm listening to an old song that is neither sad nor morbid, but silly, my other favorite kind. I Love Onions by Susan Christie from 1966. I'm pretty sure I first heard that one on the Dr. Demento Show. I refused to miss the Dr. Demento Show. I had to listen to it every week, and I kept a blank tape in the deck to record any song I didn't already have. That show familiarized me with odd favorites from the 1920s up to the then modern day, the 1980s.
I listened to a very eclectic mix of music as a child, and I believe that really helped to shape my musical tastes today. It's probably one of the major reasons I get ill when I listen to cookie cutter radio too much. Everything sounds the same, everyone knows the songs. I like to listen to music that is original and creative and just plain different. Most of the stuff I really like best will rarely result in someone coming up and saying, "Oh, I love this song!" and start singing along with it. It's more likely I'll get, "What the fuck are you listening to?" But that's the music I enjoy, and that's the way I like it. I Love Onions is over, and now I am listening to Move Your Dead Bones by Dr. Re-Animator. I first heard this song this morning in a trailer for an LBP (Low Budget Pictures) film called Terror At Bloodfart Lake, but it was pointed out to me that this song originated as an extra on the DVD Beyond Reanimator the third film in the Reanimator trilogy. So, Come On, Reanimate your feet!
I also enjoy the vocal styling of Leonard Nimoy. Yes, the guy who played Spock in Star Trek. He has several albums, but the most famous song of his floating around the Internet is The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins.
Of course, when I was a kid, I did listen to mainstream radio as well, and I still do, but I'm very glad I rounded it out the sounds I exposed myself to, and that I continue to seek out the underground, the strange, and the unusual. I love all the old 80's songs that everyone knows, but my absolute favorite mainstream radio song from the 80's barely broke the top ten on the Billboard chart, never reached higher than number 8, and maintained that spot for all of a week, I think, before it dropped back down the chart. I was eight years old when I transcribed and memorized all the words to my very first favorite song, You Can Do Magic by America. There was another video of this song on youtube that I found that wasn't live, the description said it was "High Quality" I listened to it, and I listened to the one I linked. The "High Quality" version is tinny and all wrong. The one I linked was recorded off vinyl. The sound of a song being played from the original vinyl is something that cannot be matched. The vinyl version is not the best recording, and I had to turn my speakers up a little to hear it well, but it is still better than the "remastered" one or whatever the hell it is. In the same year, 1982, another "magical" song hit the charts and raced to number one. While I enjoyed this other song, it couldn't hold a candle to my favorite. Sorry, but Abra Abra cadabra just didn't reach out and grab me.
I liked it. But since both it and America's song came out in the same year, they were both about the magic of love ... well, Abracadabra was more about the magic of sex ... I just felt, even at the age of eight, that Abracadabra kind of stole the thunder. But I still jammed to it. I remember it was on a compilation album that my brother had along with Eddie Grant's "Electric Avenue" and Toni Basil's "Mickey". Good times.
I just had a very amusing (to me) mental image of a mash-up between Lord Of The Rings and Silence Of The Lambs. Gollum, as Buffalo Bill, leaning over the pit, looking panicked, it pans down to the girl holding Precious, the dog. Gollum says, "It puts The Precious in the b (Read More)
I am in desperate need of the catharsis one experiences upon slitting someone's throat with a razor-sharp blade followed by the joy and elation obtained from watching the life drift from their eyes turning them to dead, glassy orbs as I am filled with the energy that used t (Read More)
I rushed out of work at 5pm
Plopped my ass in my car again
Welcome to the land of lazyness,
hey, gotta get my rest in.
Started up the car
headed home for my free time
Look at the street and I see a really bad sign.
Traffic looks so crazy
Everybody's in my way, s (Read More)
I envy a person who can hear their alarm go off, turn it off, and get up out of bed, ready to start the day. I live by the snooze button. It is my best friend in the morning. Well, it and my coffee. I'd marry it if congress would hurry up and pass that bill legalizing m (Read More)
So, my car's wrecked, I told ya that. The bumper was precariously attached. It began to become unattached. I'll fix it with some Gorilla Glue just as soon as the snow is gone and the temperature is more moderate. For now, I removed it and placed it on my porch. So the (Read More)
The last few weeks have been kind of hectic and draining. Last Wednesday I wrecked my car. Hit a patch of ice, slid off the road, down a hill, into a pole. I wasn't hurt. The car was. I spent nearly a week with my brother-in-law trying to fix it. Had to replace the ra (Read More)
Depressed. And I'm quite tired of being depressed. There's no reason for me to be depressed. No logical reason, anyway. I'm insane, that's obvious. I have great friends. What's left of my family, my sister, brother, nephews and niece, et al, are wonderful. I'm w (Read More)
