In Tune With the Past

Given the current state of the world, there are mornings when I simply delete my New York Times Newsletter. I can't always face the insanity and mayhem that have come to define the cultural climate in this country.

However, weekend topics tend toward the more frivolous, so I opened today's newsletter and read on.

The lead story was about music as the playlist of your life. I was intrigued.

The gist is that you create a playlist for a particular time period, a season, perhaps, like Summer of 2024. It isn't necessarily current tunes. It can be music you've rediscovered, for example. Songs that you'd long forgotten about and played over and over as you were working or hobbying or driving around town.

I can certainly relate to this idea. There are songs that define certain times in my life. The Beatles carried me through my early years. Carole King's Tapestry has popped up again and again as I've struggled with life. Graham Parker, Dave Edmunds, and David Bowie are some of Mr. Ginley's favorites artists, and their music set a "when we started dating" watermark in my life. There's music from old loves and painful partings. Tunes that even now can have me tearing up or laughing aloud. 

It's funny how music can evoke so many emotions. 

So, maybe that's a good project for me to think about. Sorting and categorizing the music that helped me get through. 

More likely, I'll just do what I've always done – pull out random musical selections, and let them carry me back to a lost time and place.

Obscure References

One of the many things I hate about aging is that youngsters don't understand my references.

Brother Paul, all set to see the USA

Of course, they can always google it, but I suspect most will just shrug off my odd phrases and chalk it up to my being an old quirky wingnut.

Which is not entirely off-base. 

But I digress.

Here's an example. The other day, I was writing about Chevrolets for work. I decided to try and incorporate the phrase, "See the USA in a Chevrolet," but I didn't want to take credit for this snappy slogan, which was penned in the 1950s and was used for decades. I left it in with an aside, but I have a feeling it won't make it through the editing process. Sometimes, I just can't resist.

I know that getting odd references isn't just an aging thing. Musicians, for example, have been misunderstood again and again (as illustrated in my blog last week – yes, this is a shameless attempt to get you to go back and read it if you haven't already).

Mr. Ginley was reading a book about rock songs, and he stumbled across AC/DC's Dirty Deeds, Done Dirt Cheap. There has been a fair amount of speculations as to the impetus for this tune, but the truth is much better than anyone could have imagined. However, it's only really funny if you're familiar with Beany and Cecil. The three main characters were a boy named Beany, a "seasick sea serpent" named Cecil, and Dishonest John (DJ), the antagonist, fashioned after classic black hatted villains. The show ran for a few years in the early 1960s and, much like Rocky and Bullwinkle, was rife with puns. 

DJ had a business card. It read, "Dirty Deeds, Done Dirt Cheap. Holidays, Sundays, and Special Rates." Which is where AC/DC got the idea for the song. Feel free to share this bit to impress family and friends.

And I can still recall the hoo-hah caused by Don McLean's American Pie. I was one of those who listened to the song over and over to discern what it meant. The tune is really long – I had the 45 single, and it was on two sides. My mom, who quickly grew sick of the whole matter, saw Don McLean on a talk show saying the song didn't mean anything, and she told me I should give it a rest. Critics and fans analyzed the lyrics ad nauseam until they'd broken it down. Eventually, Don McLean relented, and fifty years later, the song was the subject of a documentary, The Day the Music Died. McLean explained the song is biographical and chronicles the music social scene of the 1960s, starting with the 1959 plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson. 

Another amusing rock music reference which is less obscure is the origin of Donald Fagen and Walter Becker's band name. Steely Dan is a steam-powered dildo featured in William S. Burroughs' book, Naked Lunch. In all likelihood, it was before the battery-operated kind and was likely a plug-in. (Sorry, I could not resist.)

Of course, there are many other such examples of sly asides, inside jokes, and hidden meanings, rock musicians being the cheeky sort they are. You probably know of several yourself. Please share.

In the meantime, I'll keep on working Eight Days a Week – by the way, did you know Ringo got the title from his chauffeur? 

I just can't help myself.

A Higher Calling

As Mr. Ginley was flipping through YouTube channels the other night, he paused and said, "No, this has to be fake news."

Lawrence Welk, ABC Television, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Mind you, there's plenty of that going around, but there are times when the real thing is stranger than AI-generated tripe.

Calling me over to the screen, Mr. pointed and said, "Check this out."

There were Gail Farrell and Dick Dale, two singing darlings from The Lawrence Welk Show, and they were belting out "One Toke Over the Line." They sang it with reverence, the same way they would harmonize to "How Great Thou Art" or "Michael Rowed the Boat Ashore."

Hallelujah, indeed.

Okay, before we continue, permit me to refresh your memory (or bring you up to speed). 

Lawrence Welk was a band leader from the Swing Era. My folks always said he was too schmaltzy for them (they liked their Swing to swing). He had a TV show in the 1950s through the 1970s that was popular with the geriatric set because it was wholesome in a Wonder Bread sort of way, if you catch my drift.

One Toke Over the Line was a hit for the musical duo of Mike Brewer and Tom Shipley in 1971. As you may suspect, it's a reference to pot smoking. 

Brewer confirmed the song was about getting high. In fact, he said they were between sets in their dressing room and stoned when they wrote it.

The song drew immediate criticism from then-VP Spiro Agnew, who called it subversive, thereby guaranteeing the song would be a hit with the youngsters.

It was at about the same time that Lawrence Welk plucked the tune from the airways and had that other duo of Farrell and Dale perform the song. Clearly, Welk had no idea what the song was about. Perhaps it was these lyrics that captured his attention: "One toke over the line, sweet Jesus" and "Waiting for the train to come home, Sweet Mary." I don't believe he ever commented on it, but imagine it's these references that caused Welk to nod approvingly after the performance and identify it as "a modern spiritual."

For those of you who are still doubting Thomases, I now give you the YouTube link to One Toke Over the Line.

And a one-ah and a two-ah...

Brewer & Shipley, 1971
Photo by Nick DeWolf, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Went With the Wind

We had quite a blow this week.

attribution below

Several tornadoes ripped through the region, tearing up trees and damaging property. 

For a time, trees blocked the road and power was out for hundreds of thousands of people. Mr. Ginley and I were extremely fortunate that our electricity wasn't affected, particularly since half our street lost power, as did many nearby neighborhoods.

There are two camps on FB. One is cranking about their service not being restored fast enough, and the other is telling folks to calm down because we had several tornadoes rip through the region, there's a ton of damage, and workers are laboring around the clock to restore power. 

People will be people, though, and it's in our nature to be most concerned with what's happening to us. Of course there are exceptions. There are those with chainsaws who went around and cut up trees or pulled them out of the street. Lowe's offered free ice and water to those whose power was out. And several of the libraries in the area reminded patrons that they have wifi access and phone-charging capabilities.

I suppose like any crisis, it brings out the best and worst in all of us. Patience is hard. Watching a refrigerator full of food go to waste is gut-wrenching. And not being able to see our favorite shows is a trial.

Still, there is good news. 

People didn't die. Trees were decimated. Stuff was broken. And inconveniences were rampant, but stuff gets fixed, trees replanted, and soon this will be a story for kids to tell their kids one day.

It all reminds me of one of my favorite Monty Python ditties.

Always look on the bright side of life...

Photo attribution: Stefan Klein, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride

Okay, I give in. 

Here you go, Mr. Ginley. 

This week, it's ALL about you. Enjoy the ride!

Meet the Man of Many Hats...

And so much more...

Feel free to add your own captions. See you next week!