And now for something completely different! – Monty Python
Without fail, I wake up every morning with a song dancing through my upper cranial reaches. And today was no exception:
Since I met you, I’ve begun to feel so strange
Every time I speak your name
That’s funny, you say that you
Are so helpless too
That you don’t know what to do
Each night I pray there will never come a day
When you up and take your love away
Say you feel the same way too
And I wonder what
It is I feel for you
It doesn’t get much better than The Spinners, either.
And that melody du jour is never tied to a specific catalyst like some TV show or satellite radio having played it the previous day. It’s random. Perhaps it’s the elementary result of amassing a collection of well over 5,000 records and CDs. God, I miss those Evanston and Rogers Park used record stores.
But this morning it finally dawned on me (pun intended) that those daily ditties might not nearly be as incidental as I thought they were. And if I’m correct, it’s a clear unconscious indication that today’s offerings just don’t match up to those of my misspent youth.
Please don’t get me wrong! I don’t want to be the old curmudgeon…actually, I do want to be an old curmudgeon, but I don’t want to be the kind who screams “That’s not music,” the second someone puts on a Shaboozey song. In fact, if I’m really good, Santa will be bringing me Mr. Boozey’s debut LP for Christmas.
My greater point is those seemingly “random” internal soundtrack tracks typically consist of music that dominated those latter St. Nick’s and early Evanston Township High School days. And if we’re discussing pluralities, then just like it was with today’s morning song, soul music reigns supreme.
Having tired of teaching after a long week, on a semi-rare Friday afternoon, those St. Nick’s nuns would turn the rudimentary classroom record player over to their seventh or eighth grade charges. Songs like Can’t Help Myself by The Four Tops, My Girl by The Temptations, You are Everything by the Stylistics, and Have You Seen Her by The Chi-Lites would soon be wafting through the small classroom.
Some artist really needs to bring that genre back! Where’s the Reverend Al Green when you really need him?
That said, though I won’t name the culprit (John Pooler), playing Bobby Bloom’s Montego Bay ten consecutive times one Friday forever ruined the song for me. John always was a bit of a scurrilous cad.
And if it wasn’t soul music, the “cool kids” would bring in the latest destined-to-be classic and/or art rock singles that would soon dominate the ‘70s.
That’s how I was introduced to Yes’s Fragile album in 1971. I wasn’t all that sure about Roundabout then, but those prog-rock progenitors would eventually become one of my favorite groups. Of course, American Pie was huge, the Stones were magnificently subversive, and we loved anything by The Who, in great part because they smashed their instruments on stage.
And the music only got better after I matriculated to ETHS’s Bacon School wing.
Jefferson Starship’s sultry Red Octopus remains one of my favorite all-time albums to this day, with Wings’ incredible Band on the Run coming in a close second. Not to mention Neil Young’s spectacular Harvest offering, Fleetwood Mac’s self-titled album, the ubiquitous Dark Side of the Moon, any CCR album (Thank you Perry Polinski!), Exile on Main Street, Queen, Marc Bolan’s T-Rex, The Doors, Paul Simon, and Led Zepelin was just getting started.
In the fall of 1975, the first thing I’d do upon returning from high school was head to the high-end stereo my father inherited from his to put on The Boss’s legendary Born to Run breakthrough album. These Lyrics still give me goosebumps.
In the day we sweat it out on the streets
Of a runaway American dream
At night we ride through the mansions of glory
In suicide machines
Sprung from cages on Highway 9
Chrome wheeled, fuel injected, and steppin’ out over the line
Oh, baby this town rips the bones from your back
It’s a death trap, it’s a suicide rap
I think I’m on my third copy of that one.
Make no mistake! More recent melodies like Loving You by Cannons, Billy Idol’s 2021 Bitter Taste, and Sad in Carolina by Dexter and the Moonrocks have all made the morning cut. And I thoroughly enjoy listening to alt-rock groups/solo artists like Glass Animals, Linkin Park, Jack White, Hozier, Neon Trees, Teddy Swims, Kim Deal, and the Decemberists.
But while they all have a certain merit, given the unfettered opportunity, more often than not, my morning mind will automatically reach back to the best music ever made, which certainly says something about the songs that created the unforgettable ‘60s through ‘70s rock/soul music era.
Please feel free to sing along:
(Could it be I’m falling in love)
With you, baby
(Could it be I’m falling in love)
I want to know now, baby
(Could it be I’m falling in love)
With you
With you
With you
With you-ooo-ooo-oou
