Prince changed fruits when he went for Raspberry Beret. But that song along with the Beatles song have connection in mood and sound, if not fruit, with one of my 70s favorites: Strawberry Letter 23 by Brothers Johnson.
Coulda been a Beatles or Prince song.
There’s a lot of stuff on the interwebs about what this song was about: a letter, the 23rd in a pink envelope with strawberry scent. Hmm OK let’s delve into the lyrics to see where that leads:
In the garden, I see
West purple shower bells and tea
Orange birds and river cousins Dressed in green
Uh huh. Now I get it. But forget the fact that I don’t get it.
It sounds good. I love the opening organ fade-out/fade back in, the thumping, running bass line, the funky guitar. And the organ/guitar interlude that is either appropriated from the Who, Yes, or vice versa.
Oh and I really like the vocals even though the words are as obscurely nonsensical as Strawberry Field, flowing on a funk groove as easy as Raspberry Beret.
Put it on to dance because that, in this case, is what it is all about.
TRIVIA: Brothers Johnson won a Grammy for best R&B instrumental for ‘Q’ off of this album.
Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.
Sorry I was dreaming. Or should I say nightmaring.
I went to bed last night with the intention of writing a review for the album ‘The Best of Bread,’ you know that group that when their music is played consecutively with the group America will likely leave you unable to wake up – ever.
There I was, laying there with my ear pods in, listening to the string-laden song “If’.”
If a picture paints a thousand words
Then why can’t I paint you?
The words will never show
The you I’ve come to know
Aaaaaah. I think I fell asleep on the second line but woke up in a sweat with Bread and Butter going through my mind. Dang, an earworm alert at 3 a.m., obviously caused by the ‘Bread’ keyword.
All funnin’ aside, Bread, like America, has written and performed some beautiful songs, including:
America: Horse with No Name, Sister Golden Hair, Ventura Highway. (However America gets docked, totally docked, a point for being responsible for ‘Muskrat Love.’)
And on that note, for comparison purposes, I’m going to throw in the Carpenters here. Again, great craft, melodic tuneful songs, wonderful voice. It’s just that all these soft rock songs can be OD’d on really quickly as seen in my opening.
These are just a small sampling of these groups’ hits. Any group or artist that can sell as many millions of records as these did cannot be called ‘bad.’ But excessive radio play in my youth and a developing taste for something a little more powerful, this music isn’t my usual thing.
It is the usual thing for Catherine, my beloved, who has built up some unusual resistance for the deadly and sleepy SRMS (Soft Rock Melancholia Syndrome.) In fact, she can take the three aforementioned groups and add Carly Simon, Carole King and James Taylor and she’s set, right dear? Cat? Cat?
Whoa this is not my beautiful house. This is not my beautiful wife.*
-=-=-=–=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
*sorry to crash the landing here. But I hope people understand this closing is a Talking Heads reference foreshadowed in the opening dream sequence in which our hero (me) has a bad dream of a squawking falsetto guy from the song Bread and Butter, which I have elsewhere on this website named the 2nd best worst song of all time. So upon waking up from the nightmare, our hero/writer finished the Bread album review, slyly and with great subtlety (ruined only by this end note) brings the story full circle, beause full circles are good.
Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.
This 1979 Sire compilation is for those who strive to be completists but fail due to laziness or distraction. Or a lack of that OC gene. This one had some classic material from smaller names and not-so-classic music from larger names.
And yes there were big names on this two-record set: Beatles, Rod Stewart, Elton John, Bee Gees, Cream, just to name a few.
The Zombies ‘She’s Not There’ is a classic. The Beatles with Tony Sheridan singing My Bonnie — not so much.
The Cream’s ‘Anyone for Tennis’ is just, well, odd.
The Troggs ‘Love is all Around’ is just right.
The Bee Gees song is so absurdly dramatic, I love it. Reminding us no phones on death row.
The Kinks rock out on an early song available on a plethora of Kinks compilations.
And Fleetwood Mac on a pretty strong blues song called Homework, long before there were Rumors of radio domination.
Truth is that people like me would buy these in the Bargain Bin for $2.99 and cull the best five or six songs for a mixed tape.
Trivia: Sonny Bono of Cher fame wrote the song Needles and Pins performed on this album by the Searchers.
Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.
A photo of The Thinker by Rodin located at the Musée Rodin in Paris. Public domain Wiki
I’ve always thought of music lovers as thoughtful.
I’m not saying I’m a deep thinker, but I have thought about thinking. As I start this blog post I’m thinking about writing about thought.
Stream of consciousness, I think.
Aretha Franklin soulfully finger-wagged at her man:
You better think (think)
Think about what you’re trying to do to me
Think (think, think)
Let your mind go, let yourself be free …freedom
And John Lennon, putting his thinking cap on, sang:
Imagine all the people
Living for today
Imagine. Living for today, because what if there is no tomorrow.
Does that mean death ends the thinking? The thoughts?
In just a few days it will be the anniversary of Lennon’s death. He was shot dead by Mark David Chapman on the doorsteps of John and Yoko’s New York City home on Dec. 8, 1980.
Are his thoughts gone? Certainly, Lennon is thought about by many people. What he once thought is known by millions through interviews, movies, and songs. On Friday’s anniversary, Lennon will be thought about more. But are Lennon’s thoughts gone? Or do they exist? Or is Lennon, perhaps, continuing his thinking in some other realm as a sentient being?
What is thought?
A building block of ideas?
A brain’s computer-like transaction responding to feedback?
A mind’s synthesis of the five senses and memory?
Thought comes from consciousness – but what’s consciousness?
Here’s the cosmic dirty little secret: No one knows.
No one: Scientists, biologists, psychiatrists, philosophers, neurologists, Albert Einstein, not even Russell Brand.
None of them can explain consciousness.
They can describe it. They can look at brain wave patterns and watch brain activity on fancy machines. They can see parts of the answer through the windows of their disciplines. But no one can explain the process by which people and other living things are turned on, animated, for many years before the switch gets turned off. No one knows for sure if the light dies or goes somewhere else, or even where the switch is.
Comedian Steven Wright once joked: “In my house there’s this light switch that doesn’t do anything. Every so often I would flick it on and off just to check. Yesterday, I got a call from a woman in Madagascar. She said, ‘Cut it out.’”
Writing in the magazine Philosophy Now, Philip Goff says we may not even be asking the right question:
It is sometimes said that consciousness is a mystery in the sense that we have no idea what it is. This is clearly not true. What could be better known to us than our own feelings and experiences? The mystery of consciousness is not what consciousness is, but why it is.
Yes, why. That’s always been the killer question, right? Van Morrison on one of his lesser known albums sang: “It ain’t why why why. It just is.”
Which seems to be similar (in tone anyway) to what Descartes said hundreds of years ago. sounding to me like he was being plagued by questions from philosophy students.
In my recent review of the Brains, I wrote that the Atlanta band’s hit song, ‘Money Changes Everything,’ is one of my Top 10 or Top 15 rock songs of all time.
Well that might have been a little hyperbolic.
It made me think of all the songs about money. Money alone. I think my ‘money’ song will be strong up against other money songs but when you talk all-time I realized how big a universe that is. There are tons of money songs alone and some very good ones. Here are just a few:
Money for Nothing by Dire Straits.
Money by the Flying Lizards (and others, including Beatles.)
For the Love of Money by the O’Jays.
Money by Pink Floyd.
Take the Money and Run by the Steve Miller Band.
She Works Hard for the Money by Donna Summer.
I think my favorite song about money will remain the Brains (and/or) Cyndi Lauper’s version of Money Changes Everything. But not sure the song ranks in the Top 10 or 15 all time list. As for the money list I admire the Dire Straits tongue in cheek piece. Pink Floyd’s is a classic, and I really like the O’Jays tune.
But sticking with my Brains here.
If you have other suggestions, I’d love to hear from you in the comments
Here’s one. Here’s one if you want to be cool and pull out of your collection this album featuring this very 80’s looking band wearing dark clothes with some leather. Kinda big hair.
You’re friend says ‘ha ha’ who is that? Just another band gone to obscuredom. But hey, let’s give it a spin.
Let’s give it a spin.
Broken Homes. Not sure what happened to them, probably obscurification. But they rock like they had a future and didn’t care if they did. Tuneful, good vocals, tight band. One of those best bands you’ve never heard of.
”I’ll Be Wearing Blue’ lays out a bluesy lament of a reluctant groom.
“Soon we will be married,” he sings, “Soon we will be done, soon we will drive to town, and we’ll pick out the perfect suit and tie. Your mama’s going to give me the money, I hope I cannot find my size.”
It was about 1986 or ’87 and several of my Birmingham News colleagues and I drove to Atlanta to see Tom Petty (RIP), the Georgia Satellites, and the Del Fuegos. Big show. Bob Carlton, Rick Bragg and Dennis Love, I believe were on this particular road trip.
Between sets waiting on Tom Petty they played, like they do, on the speakers a recording of this debut album from Broken Homes. It immediately caught my attention. I learned later Petty said in an interview he loved the band. But in the wacky world of the entertainment biz they never made it.
Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.
Sometimes there’s a musical memory that is stronger than other memories. It starts in your mind but begins infusing the limbic system. It’s a mind out of body memory.
It was a night in Atlanta about 1980, could have been ’81. I was with my later to be wife Catherine, my brother and his friends. We were walking up to the party central area at that time, Little Five Points. I first heard the synthesizer. As we got closer it got louder.
There was the chorus: Money Changes Everything …
Then whirling looping synthesizer sounds from the leader of the band, Tom Gray. The song is one that could easily end up on my Top 10, maybe Top 15 rock songs of all time. Later Cyndi Lauper would make it a worldwide hit. But I still like this original.
I’ve got two cut-outs records of the Brains first two albums. They never made it really. In that regard they remind me of the Swimming Pool Q’s. Great bands, great songs. Both from Atlanta. Both had strong guitar playing and didn’t for the most part let New Wave affectations ruin the effect, or the music. Great bands that deserved wider appreciation.
Back to Little Five Points, I yelled to Cat. IT’S THE BRAINS. (For free I might add, playing outdoors.)
And just walking up live at the time they were playing a truly transcendent song, well there is a memory. I still feel it.
Other good songs off of Electronic Eden, ‘One in a Million’ and “Hypnotized.’ Off of their self-titled debut, the punkish ‘In the Night’’ and ‘Gold Dust Kids’ and rocking ‘Raeline.’
But I challenge you to listen to ‘Money Changes Everything’ three times. You’ll then know what I mean when I say, ‘Gray matters.’
Here’s video of Brains leader Tom Gray backed by Q’s singing ‘Money Changes Everything’ Live, followed by video of Cyndi Lauper smash hit cover:
Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.
I started counting the musicians credited on this album and got to about 15 before giving up.
But listen to this bluesy, jazzy minor masterpiece and everything fits. Sax, bass, drums, wah- wah guitar, steel guitar, steel drums, keyboards, congas – you can tell there’s a lot of music going here, but it plays to a whole; every note counts. The players give each other space and let the music breathe.
I was once decades ago offered $40 for this album. I think it is not so easy to find this one, his first. As you can see, I still have it. I didn’t sell.
Bramblett for a long time lived (and may still) in my hometown of Athens, Ga. Of course, this preceded the Athens explosion of talent in the 1980s led by B-52s, REM and Widespread Panic.
Bramblett was touring with the Allman Brothers and doing session work in Georgia. A multi-instrumentalist (saxophone, guitar, keyboards), he was a consummate musician, never showy. His songs get down and jam in a relaxed way, there’s an underburn to a lot of his work.
It’s go-down-by-the-river music, with a blanket and picnic basket filled with sandwiches, wine and mosquito repellent (I know something about Georgia rivers).
At this river concert, depending on the song, you may hug your friend or you may get up and boogie.
In a review of this, Allmusic’ Dave Lynch says Bramblett’s songs were ‘literate and thoughtful.’
He once went to seminary with the intention of becoming a pastor.
‘The music surrounding his often heartfelt vocals was as powerful as the words being sung,’ Lynch wrote. ’Somehow both shimmering and swampy.’
The whole album is strong. If I had to choose standouts, I’d say That Other Mile, No Stone Unturned, I Caint and Everybody Got it on the Inside. This is timeless.
Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.
In song, The Who asked ‘Who are You’? Black Uhuru asked ‘What is Life’? Frank Zappa said, ‘Help I’m a rock.’
Some of you have pondered this question, I’m sure. Others think it is silly because it has no set answer.
As some of you know, I have Lewy Body dementia. My brain neurons are dying, being killed over time by excess proteins. There is no known cure and its cause is unknown. But it’s the second leading cause of dementia after Alzheimer’s.
So the question for me is pertinent .
As I have written earlier I am literally, albeit slowly, losing my mind. Does that mean every day I am a little less of myself? Or that I am myself at all?
What if my perception of myself is widely different from what others see. It could be a horror movie: ‘Invasion of the Alpha-synuclein Proteins.’
David Hume
Justin Caouette posting on the blog A Philosopher’s Take, asks if we rip a page out of a book, is it the same book? How about a chapter? How about if you blot every word out with Wite-Out?
Philosopher David “Hume says that all that “we” are is a bundle of perceptions at any given reference point, according to Caouette. “The ‘self’ for Hume, when perceived as something fixed through time, is an illusion. Strict identity claims are simply false when talking about ourselves as persisting through time. The bundle of perceptions changes with each experience, therefore, there is no one enduring ‘self’ that persists through each experience.”
So minute by minute we change. But is he saying we are not who we are two minutes earlier? Yes and no. I think.
Here’s more; “When I say “I will go home in an hour” I’m referring to the bundle of perceptions that is related by past experiences to the bundle that will walk out the door. I may be wrong in my claim that ‘I’ will leave in an hour (I may take longer or turn in sooner, but, I will leave at some point), the ‘I’ is simply a quick and fast way of identifying who will walk out the door.”
So I’m following this, sort of. He brings up Alzheimer’s (I wish Lewy Bodies would be mentioned in conjunction with Alzheimer’s as another leading cause of dementia.)
“One need not have a fixed memory or even a good one to be a person or a self on this account. This gets us around those who have Alzheimer’s. They are still persons on this view.”
That’s nice.
For me this is all a Catch-22 because I am actively losing the thing, my mind, which interprets my perceptions, of which I am a downsizing ‘bundle of.’
I may soon be asking ‘Who are you?’ to loved ones. But I won’t be meaning it in a philosophical way.
So before this part of me goes away, I am thinking a lot about who I am..
Will Durant, channeling Aristotle in his definitive ‘The Story of Philosophy’ said ‘we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then is not an act but a habit.’
So who are you? Who am I?
Parent, weekend athlete, storyteller, son, daughter, music lover, prankster, hiker.
So we went out yesterday, the day after Thanksgiving and got a tree and spent a cheery evening putting it up and decorating.
Now the rule in our house, and it is my rule (rarely broken), and that is there is to be no Christmas music until AFTER Thanksgiving dinner. That’s because long before Dec. 25, maybe even before December, you will become physically nauseated when a happy holiday tune comes on if you start any earlier. (Holiday music tolerance varies from person to person).
(I’ve thought of setting the deadline back some like Dec. 15, but I think by Thanksgiving the dam is ready to burst. The fuse on the Christmas bomb has been lit and already blowing its confetti, ribbons and wrapping paper everywhere. There’s no stopping it.)
So, this year, like most years, I put the music on Friday while tree decorating with family. Now I have a few vinyl Christmas albums but I’m not reviewing those here.
My main listening device for Christmas music is my 120 GB ‘old school’ iPod (has about 7,500 songs on it now). There are 625 songs on my Christmas playlist. I’m going to post 15 of these using our random shuffle method.
That is, for those of you who have not played 5 at 5: Put your device on your Christmas playlist and hit shuffle. Then write down the first 15 songs you shuffle to. Feel free to post your list on comments to this post by clicking on the headline of the post. Here’s mine:
Away in a Manger/Honey Boy (reggae)
Let it Snow by Dean Martin
Home for the Holidays by Perry Como
Adeste Fideles by the Roches .( I just bought the Roches Christmas album yesterday on vinyl, $2 at Reeds downtown Birmingham. Not bad for one of my favorites, which I’ve long had on CD.)
O Holy Night by Peter Holsapple
The First Noel by Elvis Presley
Santa Claus is Coming to Town by Los Lonely Boys
Mysteries of the Christmas Mist by Sufjan Stevens
The Wonderful World of Christmas by Elvis Presley
Someday at Christmas by Jack Johnson
Joy to the World by Sufjan Stevens
Silent Night Medley by Hanson
Gift of the Magi by the Squirrel Nut Zippers
Greensleeves by John Coltrane Quartet
Peace Child by the Indigo Girls
Overall, totally random, some good, some bad, some, well, nauseating. Happy Christmas everybody.
The Bee Gees song is so absurdly dramatic, I love it. Reminding us no phones on death row.
