Music We Lived Our Lives By (songs)

Subject: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 04 Mar 05 - 09:43 PM

A few years ago when my niece's son Ben was fifteen, we started exchanging music cassettes. His friends had started a punk-ska band and he was particularly interested in hearing more ska and reggae. So, I made a cassette for him of my favorite ska and older reggae stuff and one of The English Beat, UB40 and more contemporary reggae bands. (He liked the old stuff best.) And then, because he had a real curiosity about all kinds of music, I made several more cassettes for him of rhythm and blues, soul, jazz, blues, folk, rock and roll and gospel. My niece said that he'd stay in his room by the hour listening to the cassettes.

In return, Ben sent me a cassette of music that he liked best. The title of the tape said it all: "Music We Lived Our Lives By." I thought it was verrry cool that a fifteen year old kid already realized that his life had a sound track, and that there were particular recordings that summed up his life. So, in return, I made a cassette of the same title. It turned out to be a wonderful excercise, deciding which songs really meant a lot to me, and were landmarks for changes in my life. Out of curiosity, I grazed over my tapes to see if I have a copy of the cassette, but didn't find one. But, I can imagine what was on there, and perhaps it has changed a litte in these last five or six years. The cassette must have been a classic example of someone with multiple personalities because it had everything from Oh Happy Day by Don Howard (is there another person still living who remembers that record?) to Mercy, Mercy, Mercy by Cannonball Adderly.

If you put together a cassette of "Music You Lived Your Life By," what are some of the songs you'd include. Mine wasn't My All-time Favorite Songs. It was mostly songs that changed the way I thought.
Oh Happy Day (not the gospel song) for example. It came out in the early 50's and in it's way, it was as astonishing as Elvis's early recordings. Don Howard, like Elvis, was a kid who played guitar and in Don's case, went into a Record Your Voice For a Dollar booth, jammed hmself in the booth with his guitar and recorded a song he'd written. Oh Happy Day..

The sun is shining, Oh Happy Day
No more troubles or clouds of gray
You know I love you,
Oh happy Day.

He sang the song in a dirge, and the recording speed wasn't steady so the song dragged in parts. But, some disc jockey gave it some air time and it became a national hit. Of course, Tennessee Ernie Ford and others made "covers" of it, but it was too late. The news was out. You didn't have to be a great singer or guitarist, or know how to read music or have taken voice lessons. If you hit it lucky, you could make a hit record just going in to a Record Your Voice, or some curmmy little garage recording studio. And the gates were open.

That's one song that would have to be on my cassette because it made me realize that anyone could get a guitar, write songs and make records.

Even me.

Anyone want to add a song or two?... it would be more interesting if, rather than just doing a list of titles of your favorite songs (we have eight million of those threads) you'd tell why the song had an impact on your life..

Jerry

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: John Hardly
Date: 04 Mar 05 - 09:59 PM

Anji (Paul Simon version) -- as a 12 year old it was the coolest guitar piece I'd ever heard. I thought that if I could ever play that song, I'd have "arrived". I learned it that year. I didn't arrive.

Somebody Stole My Gal (Benny Goodman version) -- one of my earliest childhood memories -- Mom and Dad both loved to dance and BG's "Hi-FI" was one of their records that I nearly wore out. I still remember the two of them rolling up the livingroom rug and dancing. And smiling. Those were happy times.

Walkin' On A Country Road The album "Sweet Baby James" changed my musical life (as it changed the music of many guys my age).

So many. A day never goes by that I don't listen to and play music.

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 04 Mar 05 - 10:02 PM

Nice additions, John..

Jerry

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: KT
Date: 04 Mar 05 - 10:34 PM

I saw the title of this thread and thought, "That sounds like a Jerry Rasmussen thread." I opened it up immediately and was not disappointed.   I have to go down and take dinner out of the oven, but after a little thought, I'll be back to add some of my own thoughts.

This is sure to be a good thread, Jerry!

KT

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: Amos
Date: 04 Mar 05 - 10:38 PM

Many songs have changed my life one way or another, but the ones I've lived by? I dunno -- On the Road Again for part of it, for sure. Always Knew That I'd See You Again comes to mind as those early deathless webs of affinity were built that have since been almost forgotten. Some of the early rag or stride stuff that John's parents' danced to -- Buddy Bolden, the Sheik of Araby, and Five Foot Two. Then there were the "anthem" songs like Masters of War or The Times, They Are A-Changin'. Older classics, too -- I have never forgotten the values implied in Pete Seeger singing Authurine and I never will forget the simple power of Last Night, I Had the Strangest Dream.

That's just a few.

A

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: Brían
Date: 05 Mar 05 - 12:27 AM

Jerry, you sure ask some thought-provoking questions. I can easily think of certain songs I reach for time and time again, but songs that impacted my life in the way I live it! I have carried a copy of Time Out by the Dave Brubeck Quartet with me everywhere I go. One of my earliest memories is being absolutely haunted by the strains of Paul Desmond's horn coming from the speakers of the Scott tube-set stereo in the living room of the duplex where my family lived in Arlington Massachusetts. I am certain I was affected by the song while I was still being carried by my mother. The album came out in 1959, the year I was born. My favorite composition on the album is Strange Meadowlark. The title and the quirky cadences of the melody evoke simultaneously, for me, an eccentric songbird and an epiphanic walk in the countryside. Another song that influenced me to such a great effect is Tangled Up in Blue. At the time I impressed myself because I had learned a song with seven verses. I then outdid myself by learning all seventeen verses of Tom Joad. My older brother requested that I play it for him the other night. I think the lines,

So now I'm goin' back again,
I got to get to her somehow.
All the people we used to know
They're an illusion to me now.
Some are mathematicians
Some are carpenter's wives.
Don't know how it all got started,
I don't know what they're doin' with their lives.

contain a certain combination of the general, the specific and the universal in his choice of words that speaks to the vantage point we are both in: roughly, the middle of our lives, and the changes in our perspectives.

Brían

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 05 Mar 05 - 07:41 AM

When I think f songs as "the soundtrack of our lives," for me, some of the songs just have such a powerful association with a period in my life that I will always associate them with that time.

Many years ago, when I got divorced, I was awarded sole custody of my two sons, who were 8 and 14 at the time. It was a time of emotional overload... joy at being released from a destructive way of living, mourining at the loss of what had been hoped for and worked for, extreme financial hardship and the first three or four years of extremely unstable times for my sons and their Mother. There were giddy days and depressed days, all mixed together into a Mulligan's stew and music was always playing in the background. Three songs are so strongly associated with that time that when I hear them they bring back that crazy mix of memories. Two of them were healing and comforting songs... Why Worry by Dire Straits and Everybody Hurts by R.E.M. We listened to those recordings a million times, not with any conscious attempt to calm the storm, but just because they are good songs that spoke to us in subtle ways. The third song was Me And Julio Down By The Schoolyard by Paul Simon. I still really like that song, although it isn't necessarily my favorite Paul Simon song. But, my youngest son Aaron had a great friend for a couple of critical years in his life named Javier. Javier would come to our house and visit, and they'd head over to the schoolyard across the street, and that song would keep running through my mind.
Javier was a great kid... probably my favorite of all Aaron's friends, growing up. He was very intelligent and serious about school until they both went in to highschool. Javier got in with a rough crowd from the neighborhood where he lived, and suddenly Aaron wasn't cool enough to bother with. I don't know what happened to Javier, but I don't think he followed his dream of becoming an electrical engineer. I always felt bad about that. And I wonder about him, every time I hear Me And Julio Down In The School Yard.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: number 6
Date: 05 Mar 05 - 09:30 AM

Very good thread.

This list represents the core of my soundtrack. There are many more songs. Hard to choose when you have such a love of music.

Anji ... the Bert Jansch one. Interesting JH that you included the Paul Simon one. This is the song that 'kicked started' my love of the guitar.

Flamenco Sketches ..... Myles Davis. I'm especially touched by Bill Evans piano in this.

Peacocks .... Herbie Hancock

St. Augustine ... by Bob Dylan

Corrina, Corrina ... by Bob Dylan

Hey Good Lookin' ... Hank Wilaims. I have to include Hank somewhere in this list.

sIx

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: Brían
Date: 05 Mar 05 - 11:49 AM

I want to thank you, Jerry, for encouraging me to be a little more self-revealing on this forum. It is a nice excercise not only to talk about songs that touch us deeply but explore some of the reasons why. These songs that serve as soundtracks to our lives come back and back again with new and richer meanings. I have a couple more I want to talk about later when I have time. I would be interested in what other people have to say about their songs.

Brían

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: Amos
Date: 05 Mar 05 - 12:05 PM

Beautiful post, Brian.

A

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 05 Mar 05 - 12:32 PM

The Animals 'House of the Rising Sun' came about the same year I did, so that always has a special feeling for me.

Billy Joel 'My Life' just summed up everything I was feeling at that time (2nd year at a school I didn't want to be at)

Terry Jacks 'Seasons in the sun' will forever be the death of my brother in April '74. - "it's hard to die when Spring is in the air"; at least he got a chance to say that .. My brother never did. I loathe the song with a passion and will turn it off or leave the room if it ever comes on the radio.

'She moved through the fair' - the first song I ever sang at folk club. I sang it again for the first time in ages at Portaferry (Loughstock III), and was stunned at the way the whole pub fell silent. Singers in Britain don't get that amount of respect, but the Irish locals were silent throughout, and gave a great round of applause... I can't remember feeling so awed and humbled and grateful.

Labi Siffre 'So strong' - what I needed to be when a relationship I was in turned violent towards me. It was inspirational and made me realise that there are none so blind as will not see.

Graham Moore 'Tolpuddle Man' - from a story of men who were prepared to die for the rights of others, the beginning of the Trade Union movement and one that I was asked to appraise on its first hearing.... I told him I thought it was a damn good song...!

Lonestar 'What about now?' - 'why should we wait'... something I've taken to heart in the last few months. I'll be buggered if I'll hang around for others to make up their minds what to do.. If there is somewhere I want to go, I'm going to go there, you can come along for the ride, but I won't wait for you.

Dido 'Thank you' - just everything I wanted to say to a particular person who stopped me from going totally insane and doing something very very stupid and getting me put away for a long time in a mental health institution.

There are many more songs for periods in my life, too many for listing here, these are just the ones that spring to mind.

LTS

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: Azizi
Date: 05 Mar 05 - 12:48 PM

When I am discouraged and stuck in a depressed mood, these fragments of religious songs either come to me or I reach for them.
Although they are two different songs, I blend them together, singing one right after the other:

.
1st song: "King Jesus Will Roll All Burdens Away"
chorus?

All away.
All away
King Jesus will roll
all burdens away
if to him I pray
[church] He'll open doors for me *
doors I'm unable to see
that's why I say
King Jesus will roll
all burdens away.

*Or "He's open doors for me [what was done in the past
                            will also be done in the present]

****   
2nd song: "Thank You Jesus"

Thank you Jesus.
Thank you Jesus.
for my journey.
You brought me
from ah mighty
ah mighty long way.
Thank you Jesus.
Thank you Jesus.
for my journey.
You brought me
from a mighty
a mighty long way.
****

I received a telephone call from my mother as I was typing this and took that opportunity to ask her about these songs. I was surprised that my mother used a slightly different tune and slower tempo when she sang the "Thank You Jesus" song. She added and "Oh" in the beginning of the line and added this verse that I didn't remember:

Oh, He's been my father
He's been my mother. My sister and brother, too.
Oh, He's been my father
He been my mother. My sister and brother, too
Oh, He's brought me
from a mighty
a mighty long way.

****
Both my mother and I confused the "King Jesus Will Roll All Burden Away" song with another song that I have turned to when I am sad,
"His Eyes Are On The Sparrow" [except that sometimes it makes me even more sad}.

Here are the words as I remember them to "His Eyes Are On The Sparrow":

Why should I feel discouraged.
Why should the shadows fall.
Why should my heart be lonely
and long for its heavnly home.
When Jesus is my portion. [fortune?}
A constant friend is He.
His eyes are on the sparrow
and I know He watches me.

I sing because I'm happy.
I sing because I'm free.
His eyes are on the sparrow
and I know He watches me.
****

I'm still not sure about title and words to the "King Jesus" song. Maybe Jerry or others here know that song and can post more information about it. BTW,I don't see either of these songs in the African American Permathread.


Azizi

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: Brían
Date: 05 Mar 05 - 12:50 PM

It is really wonderful to compare popular songs with people's own personal experiences to them. It is amazing to see the empathy and a concern for social justice arise from a song like Me And Julio Down In The School Yard as well as the special memories we associate with the first songs that encouraged us to sing.

Brían

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: Metchosin
Date: 05 Mar 05 - 12:54 PM

Oh dear, I think for me that would be quite an undertaking Jerry, that unfortunately, I can't make the time for just now.

A few that popped into my head that marked specific profound changes in different areas of my life were:

Buffalo Springfield's For What It's Worth

And when I thought of motherhood.......Cyndi Lauper's Time After Time

And..for some reason or other Mike and the Mechanic's The Living Years

just a few off the top of my head.

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 05 Mar 05 - 01:04 PM

What a delight to read these posts! Some of the songs mentioned would go on my tape too... Take Five being one that I associate with "discovering" jazz. Actually, as far as I know, it had already been discovered.

Skokian by the Bullawayo Sweet Rhtyhm Band was another eye opener for me. It opened a whole world of African music to me, and it still sounds as exciting as it di the first time that I heard it.

Rock Island Line by Lonnie was another key moment in my life. The Rock River flows through my home town in Southern Wisconsin and it flows down to join the Mississippi at Rock Island. And the Rock Island line, she goes down to New Orleans. You know. Up until Lonnie, most of the folk I'd heard was "nice" and parent-friendly, like Burl Ives, or heavily laundered, like the Kingston Trio. That's not to knock either of them. I just hadn't heard folk music motor the way Lonnie did it. The energy he brought to that song was really exciting and it gave me a whole new perspective on folk music, long before I heard any real traditional, older recordings.

Lonnie was on my play list, right in between Gene Vincent and The Fendermen doing Mule Skinner Blues. It all rocked.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: John Hardly
Date: 05 Mar 05 - 01:37 PM

First time I hear Take Five was mind-blowing -- just like the first time I heard Manzanita.

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: John Hardly
Date: 05 Mar 05 - 02:39 PM

heard

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: sixtieschick
Date: 05 Mar 05 - 02:48 PM

Good thread, Jerry!

Childhood"

"The Fox Went Out on a Chilly Night" sung by Burl Ives
"Rock Island Line" and "Irene Goodnight" by Leadbelly
"Caldonia, what Makes Your Big Head So Hard"--a calypso group
"Hallelujah I'm a Bum" sung by my father while I watched him shave
"Obiyoyo" by Pete Seeger

Adolescence:

We Shall Overcome
Lots of anti-war music: "I Feel Like I'm Fixin' to Die Rag," "Masters of War," "I Ain't a-Marching Any more, Universal Soldier"
"I Never Loved a Man" by Aretha Franklin
"Mystic Eyes" Van Morrison
"Love and Happiness" by Al Green

Now:

"S'Wonderful," "They All Laughed," "My Cousin from Milwaukee" and many others from the George and Ira Gershwin Songbook sung by Ella Fitzgerald with the Nelson Riddle Orchestra.

"Can't Stop Loving That Man of Mine"--whoever sang it for Ava Gardner in "Showboat"

"Let's Call the Whole Thing Off," "Stompin' at the Savoy" and a number of others sung by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong in a 1953 recording

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: number 6
Date: 05 Mar 05 - 04:58 PM

One song I forgot, but must be included in my list above is:

'5 o'clock Bells' by Lenny Breau.

In my case the soundtrack noted is from my mid teens 'til 5 years ago. Since then my compilation is considerably different. Funny how life changes.

sIx

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 05 Mar 05 - 05:52 PM

Yeah, sIx: My soundtrack came in mono and had a lot of surface noise until I was in my late teens. The very first stereo album I bought was by Dion and The Belmonts....

Jerry

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: maire-aine
Date: 05 Mar 05 - 06:17 PM

I remember, when I was a kid, that we always had the same radio station on-- WJR in Detroit-- and it was mostly middle of the road music, but there were some stand-outs. There was Karl Haas with classical music (see recent thread) and they also carried the Refro Valley Gathering on Sunday mornings. I can't say that I liked the music from the Gathering, but I realized years later that it had an influence on me.

The soundtrack of my school years was MOTOWN-- The Temptations, The Four Tops, Smokey Robinson, Martha Reeves & the Vandellas. It was also the time of the British "invasion"-- I was more of a Stones fan than the Beatles. And then of course there was local boy Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band.

Along the way, my taste went to Jethro Tull and the Moody Blues.

I got a chance to see Pete Seeger & Arlo Guthrie in concert about 15 years ago. Saw Holly Near & Ronny Gilbert for the first time about then, too.

Thanks, Jerry, for starting a very interesting thread.

Maryanne

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 06 Mar 05 - 03:22 AM

First hearing? I meant it's first public airing!!!   

LTS

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: GUEST,*Laura*
Date: 06 Mar 05 - 05:53 AM

Can't do my whole soundtrack (too long!) - but here's some of the importants -

REM - Everybody Hurts
Coldplay - The Scientist
Martin Simpson - Hard Love
Tony Rose - Lakes of Shilin
Simon and Garfunkel - Mrs Robsinson
The Proclaimers - I'm on my way
Rufus Wainwright's version of Hallelujah (the saddest line ever - 'I saw your flag on the marble arch, and love is not a victory march, it's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah')
Blue Murder - no one stands alone
Eric Clapton - Tears in Heaven
Eric Clapton - Layla
Coldplay - Rush of Blood to the head
Phantom Planet - California
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Californication
Don McLean - Vincent
DOn McLean - American Pie

I'd better stop now or I'll end up putting them all in and using far too much space!

xLx

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: Brían
Date: 06 Mar 05 - 07:51 AM

I saw on the Ken Burns PBS Jazz documentary that Paul Desmond originally composed Take Five as two seperate pieces. Dave Brubeck takes credit for melding them together. Take Five's eerie phrases and syncopated rhytm draws me to Time Outrepeatedly.

I remember listening to 680 AM WRKO in Boston about 1973. At that time AM radio played a totally different format. I heard whole sides of albums played during the middle of the night. This was about the same time I noticed the progessive provocative infuence of WBUR on the airwaves including a live brodcast from Wounded Knee. I remember Bob Marley and the Wailers live version of No Woman, NO Cry. I was knocked out with the simple words and the incredible variations Bob coaxed from a simple melody with his coarse and expressive voice. The rich textures of the organ, percussion, guitar and backing vocals made me wish it would go on forever. I had no idea what the Government Yard in Trenchtown was. I sensed Bob mentioned it to illustrate the lackluster attempts to address poverty in his native Jamaica. The name Trenchtown itself evoked for me a place tourist rolled their windows up when they drove through. I reached for this song repeatedly throughout my drawn out adolescence. I find it ironic men write songs about women crying so other men can listen to them. Come on, guys, I know you have worn out the side of your copy of Blonde on Blonde with Sad-eyed Lady of the Lowlands. I find a very different message in the song now. I see courageous people making do and being happy with what little they can gather together amongst themselves, even if their own two feet are the only things they have to carry themselves:

I remember when we use to sit
In the government yard in Trenchtown
And then Georgie would make the fire lights
As it was, log would burnin' through the nights
Then we would cook cornmeal porridge
Of which I'll share with you
My feet is my only carriage
So I've got to push on thruogh

Brían

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 06 Mar 05 - 09:09 AM

Good post, Brain:

Very evocative. Late night radio... ahhhhh. When I was a teenager, I listeded to WFOX out ot Milwaukee. During the day, the signal was too erratic to pick it up but late at night, I'd lie on my bed on my back with my portable Motorola (Which I still have) turning it constantly to pick up the signal. The late night shows were all blues, jazz and rhythm and blues, and I felt like I was picking up signals from another planet. It was then that I first heard the early rhythm and blues groups (who now are reduced to nostalgia and called doo wop.) The first time I heard Gee, by the Crows, I was permanently hooked. I always liked groups, but I was used to the Mills Brothers, the Ames Brothers, and other pop singers. The Crows were raw, just backed with an electric guitar and drums, way in the background. Those were the days when rock and roll and rhythm and blues were still raw and immediate. Songs like Buick 66 and Work With Me Annie seemed as far removed from the Maguire sisters and the Ames Brothers as... hmm... can't even think of a comparable example.

As for reggae lines, I will never forget the first time I heard Rivers of Babylon by the Melodians. I was in Albany, New York, killing time the afternoon before I played at Cafe Lena in Saratoga Springs. I was driving through the center of Albany when that song came on, and the lines "How can we sing King Alfa's song in a strange land" really hit me hard. I drove around until I found a record store, and with no information other than the title of the song (as I guessed it) I looked through countless albums until I found the soundtrack to The Harder They Come. That album is still included in the 100 Best Albums of all time, and it deserves it..

Jerry

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: Brían
Date: 06 Mar 05 - 10:53 AM

Oooo! Hold that thought! I'll post later because I'm pretty busy today.

Brían

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: rumanci
Date: 06 Mar 05 - 11:25 AM

Brían - your choices are beautifully written about and fitting in perfectly with Jerry's wishes not to have just lists and it is wonderful to share other people's meaningful memories.
My own choices are inevitably wrapped up in some very personal experiences and I'm not entirely sure whether I(or the world) am ready for that *g* - plus the fact that some of the music itself is pretty cruddy standing on its own ! Hmmmm ........later maybe !
Thanks Jerry - another treasure filled thread you've started.
rum

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: Azizi
Date: 06 Mar 05 - 11:41 AM

Jerry,

"By The Rivers of Babylon" is one of my favorite songs..I always thought the words were "How can we sing out our song is a strange land"

I believe it has a Biblical reference, but I'm not sure which one.

Azizi

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: SINSULL
Date: 06 Mar 05 - 11:58 AM

My Grandmother, Nana Sullivan, had a favorite song, "Only Me". It is the only one I remember hearing her sing. The story is of a mother who favors one daughter over another and never regrets it until the neglected child, "Only Me", dies. My father took the message seriously jokingly calling each of us his favorite - eldest son, second son, daughter, etc.

Be it a room full of children or a litter of kittens, I never allow myself to prefer one over the other. The message took when I was very young.

For those of you who think I abuse Alice the Slut - she sleeps with me every night and we discuss her wonderful kittens regularly. Even my cats each think that he/she is the most special kitty. Not a day goes by that I don't think of poor "Only Me". Funny what sticks.

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: number 6
Date: 06 Mar 05 - 12:32 PM

Rumanci/jerry ... you are correct, and I apologize for just providing a list. The music I presented is very presonal and represents some siginficant periods in my life. If you know the songs you can get the drift and emotion. If you are not familiar I suggest you try finding them and listening to them, The are all, I feel songs that one can attach there own personal feelings to at one time or other in their journey.

sIx

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: Brían
Date: 06 Mar 05 - 12:49 PM

That is beautiful, SINSULL.

Brían

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: rumanci
Date: 06 Mar 05 - 12:49 PM

hey number six ! .......as befits your name you are your own man ;-)
I had no intention of criticising the input of others for any reason.
rum x

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: Cromdubh
Date: 06 Mar 05 - 01:14 PM

Isn`t it strange and magical the way music works, that you don`t even need a tape. Songs that mean something to you just appear out of blue at the most appropiate times. Just the other day I arrived in a bar in Chico Chile in Chile and in a world of latin groves and unfamiliar music (must say I like the most of it), Coldwater from Tom Waits, a song I always associate with rambling and enjoying the bends of the road, comes on.

A song sung with a great friend of mine hitching on the roads of Ireland. I was thinking about those days earlier that day.

This is just the most recent occasion, there are many more, when the great DJ plays something especially for you.

Other times you`d be trying to remember a song and it`s driving you mad and in a matter of days you`ll hear it on the radio, buying matches in the local store.

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 06 Mar 05 - 01:23 PM

Hey, Azizi:

The scriptural reference is Psalm 137:

   "By the rivers of babylon, there we sat down, yea we wept, when we remembered Zion. For they thad carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required mirth, saying Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?"

The words of the Melodians recording of the song are alittle hard to catch... probably why we hear it differently.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 06 Mar 05 - 04:15 PM

Cromdubh:

Songs that mean a lot to you appearing out of the blue..

Many years ago when I was walking down the street with my head down, hopelessly depressed and lost in my own misery I heard a young girl singing. I looked up and there, skipping her way down the sidewalk toward me was a young girl.. maybe eight or nine years old singing at the top of her lungs "A mighty fortress is our God." She was singing with such joy and hope that I was really taken aback. By the time I collected my thoughts and turned around to see where she had gone, she was nowhwere in sight.

Several months later, I was walking down that same street with a slightly lighter step, and I recognized the place where I had heard the little girl singing. And at that moment, the church up the street started playing it's carillon. The song they played?

A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: Cromdubh
Date: 06 Mar 05 - 04:51 PM

Jerry

Of course it was that song. It happens all the time. Hope the steps are still light.

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 06 Mar 05 - 07:52 PM

As a feather, Cromdubh:

Thanks..

Jerry

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: Brían
Date: 06 Mar 05 - 08:02 PM

I am embarrassed to say that that touching story made me think of a very different sort of a coincidence that happened back in the 1970's. Sunday mornings our family listened to WGAN FM, a local muzak station. This particular summer morning, the station signal went dead. We left the radio on, reading the comics. Suddenly, the station came back on the air with the volume up much too loud. As if on cue, our dog Sam came bopping around the corner at the exact same moment stepping in perfect synch with the infectious rhythms of Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass playing Tijuana Taxi. My brothers and I fell off the couch in hysterics. I believe the giddy aftereffects of the experience continued to afflict us for weeks without warning. I still break into a laugh every time I hear Tijuana Taxi.

Brían

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: GUEST,muppitz at work
Date: 07 Mar 05 - 08:04 AM

My take on this thread would be to include music I grew up with, that I will always remember and which had a lasting impact on me, so here goes...

10cc - I'm not in love (Step Dad loved them)
Whitney Houston - I want to dance with somebody (The first song I can ever remember hearing on the radio)
Joni Mitchell - Carey (Mum loves her)
James Taylor - Sweet Baby James (Mum Loves him)
Fleetwood Mac - Everywhere (Step Dad again)
Oasis - Wonderwall (The first Single I ever bought)
Jez Lowe - Tenterhooks (The first song I heard him do live)
Bryan Adams - Everything I do (The Theme to the First film I saw at the cinema)
Cyndi Lauper - True Colours (I LOVE this song!)

I know there are more but I'm at work and being watched!

muppitz x

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: GUEST,Jawbone
Date: 07 Mar 05 - 10:42 AM

Anthem - Leonard Cohen

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: Pauline L
Date: 07 Mar 05 - 04:46 PM

This is a wonderful thread. It made me remember so many songs that have been so important to me. Sometimes, when I don't know how I feel in a given situation, I just listen to whatever is playing in my head, and then I know.

I've always loved music and regretted that I can't sing. When I was about 10, I started learning to play the violin. I remember distinctly, one night when I was 10 or 12, listening to my clock radio, which my mother had gotten for me with green stamps, and hearing Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. I knew then that I had a voice to sing with, and it was my violin.

I came of age in the 60s, and I lived my life, then and now, with the songs and singers of that era: PPM, Dylan, Joan Baez, Beatles, Motown, ant-war songs, and especially important, Eyes on the Prize and We Shall Overcome.

Eight Days A Week. In high school, we said that this song was about homework.

War March of the Priests and Pomp and Circumstance were played at my high school graduation, and I still get excited every time I hear them.

Sunrise Theme from Also Sprach Zarathustra was played at my graduation from graduate school. Appropriately, it was also used at the time as the background music for a Tums commercial.

Eyes on the Prize has continued to help me through hard times which last for months or years.

When I was going through my divorce, I used to play Billy Joel's My Life over and over, jumping up and down and screaming to vent my frustration and anger, until I wore myself out.

At the end of my marriage, after it was too late, we had some counseling. The therapist liked to ask probing questions. One time she asked me, "What do you really want?" I leaned forward, snapped my fingers, and said, "All I want is a liitle respect." I've had the same thought in many situations since then.

Again, during my divorce, when something happened that made me feel absolutely devastated, I went out with some friends to hear John McCutcheon. For the first time, I heard him sing Gone Gonna Rise Again, and I knew I was going to make it. It's true that a song can save your mortal soul.

One line in Lay, Lady Lay is, "I want to see you in the morning light." Need I say more?

"Drifting Too Far from the Shore" makes me ask myself, "What is the shore for me?" (It's not Jesus.)

One night as I was cooking dinner and listening to Paul Simon's "Train in the Distance," I heard him sing, "The hope that life could be better is woven indelibly into our hearts and our brains," and I stopped dead in my tracks. That line has helped me so much since then.

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 07 Mar 05 - 05:01 PM

Wonderful post, Pauline:

It's true that sometimes just a line from a song can carry you through hard times. One that works for me is:

"I don't believe he brought me this far to leave me."

Jerry

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: Wolfgang
Date: 08 Mar 05 - 06:59 AM

Me and Bobby McGee (and no other songs by KK or JJ)
Du lass Dich nicht verhärten (and many other songs by Wolf Biermann)

For dancing I take the old Rolling stones, for listening I take folk music.
Rock and Roll reaches my tummy and gut, folk (and songs written in that style) reaches my heart.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: number 6
Date: 08 Mar 05 - 09:18 AM

Jerry ... I find not only lyrics, but with me certain notes in a specific song can carry you through a tough time. They can reach deep down within you and help draw out the strength you need. It's the power of music.

sIx

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 08 Mar 05 - 11:16 AM

I'm with you on that, sIx: One of the records I looked for, for years (see the other thread I started) was of a mandolin concerto by Antonio Maria Giulani. I bought a record in the 60's with that as one side of the album, and always wanted it on CD. I'll tell the rest of the story on the other thread. I finally found a copy of it on CD on the Erato label. Good old Erato! There is something so lifting about sections of that concerto that I hear them in my mind, and they are as deeply burned into my memory as any song with lyrics. Just playing it in my head right now is making me smile.

Think I'll put it on... pulled it out the other day to make a copy for one of my sons who is just discovering classical music.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: Brían
Date: 08 Mar 05 - 01:17 PM

I have no idea why I related that Tijuana Taxi story. My guess is that I am dyslexic and thought that we were relating doG stories. I have been following this thread with interest. I hope to find time to post some of my reactions when I have more time.

Brían

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 08 Mar 05 - 01:55 PM

You start a thread on dog stories, Brian and I'll contribute 100 posts all by myself.

Only a slight exageration..

Jerry

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: Jeanie
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 08:13 AM

This is a most interesting thread to read. Thanks, everyone.

There are lots of songs I could mention here, which acted and will always act as signposts as I look back at times in my life, but the one which stands out for me as having had the greatest impact, right to the very core of me, the very first time I heard it and which permanently coloured my view of myself, other people and life was the song "Old Friends" from the Simon & Garfunkel album "Bookends".

I was 15 when this LP came out. My cousin, who was the same age, had just bought it and we escaped from a (to our eyes) "boring" family gathering of assorted grannies, uncles etc. to listen to it. The circumstance of listening, with a background of our elderly relatives reminiscing away in the next room, gave the lyrics all the more of an impact:

       "Can you imagine us, years from today,
         Sharing a park bench, quietly ?
         How terribly strange to be seventy..."

It struck us both at the same time: those "oldies" nattering away in the next room will be *us* one day. Yes, we did think "how terribly strange to be seventy", but as we talked about it, I think we both realized very deeply that those "oldies" were once *us*, or, rather, that they *are* us - if that makes any sense ? The whole family generation divide was somehow short-circuited and obliterated and the continuity of it all, and our place in it, became real. It was such a profound feeling that I find it very difficult to put into words. The words alone makes it sound so bland, but it changed my whole view of family, people and time.

I've never talked about listening to that song since with my cousin, but I did say at the time that I would remind him "years from today" - and I know that when I do, he will have remembered.

- jeanie

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: alanabit
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 10:00 AM

A nice post Jeanie. It remined me of the time my uncle showed me a photograph of our grandmother as a young woman. I had only ever known her as an old woman. To see the photograph of a stunningly beautiful young woman, who won prizes for dancing and swimming, made me wonder whether inside her head she was still that young woman when I knew her.
I guess one of the best characteristics of folk songs, is that they can show you how the world looks from someone else's eyes. "Cold Haily Windy Night" came close for me the first time I heard it. There are many folk ballads about the maiden who has been deflowered and is left holding the baby, but for some reason that one in particular got over the awfulness of the situation of an abandoned mother to me.

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: RobbieWilson
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 10:08 AM

Tom Paxton's last thing on my mind, John Martyn: Solid Air,Focus II,Randy Newman's God's song, Layla, Miles Davis Blue in Green, Julia Mingues singing Carmen, Richard Thompson: Beeswing, Dick Gaughan singing Brian McNeil's No Gods and Precious few heroes.

i think they are all roughly in order and take me from 12 to 45. I'll have to go away and think about what this hread has done to me now, thanks
love Robbie

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 10:15 AM

Beautiful post, Jeanie.. and alan. The perspective of Old Friends is a youthful perspective, invisioning being 70 with sitting on a park bench feeding pigeons. I too love that song, but don't look for me on a park bench when I hit 70 this summer. I don't expect it will seem terrrible strange at all, although I would have had trouble picturing myself being 70, back when I was in my twenties.

Your posts brought a couple of songs about ageing immediately to mind. One was a song that came to me, looking at my parents and several of my Aunts and Uncles all line up in lawn chairs under a large tree at the park, one family reunion.

Old Summer Wine

All lined up in lawn chairs, under the trees
Lost in their thoughts and their old memories
They've outlived their friends and their enemies
They're the last of the line, and they're taking their time
But their minds are as clear as old summer wine

Some worked the factories, some worked the fields
Some spent their lives building automobiles
Some stretched the money to make the next meal
They're the last of the line, and they're taking their time
But their minds are as clear as old summer wine

Their kids are all grown now with kids of their own
They've all left the farms and moved to the town
And they say it don't hurt when they don't come around
They're the last of the line, and they're taking their time
But their minds are as clear as old summer wine

And from Tortoise Shell Comb, in response to Alan:

And somewhere inside her, there's still that young girl
With a tortoise shell comb in her hair
And sometimes the memories come back with a song
Just as surely as if she were there

Jerry

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: JennyO
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 10:29 AM

I do intend to post some of the songs that have meaning for me in my life when I have time, but right now, I felt that I should post the words of a poem which always moves me. The story goes that it was found in the possessions of an old woman in a nursing home after she died.

Crabbit Old Woman

What do you see nurses, what do you see,
What are you thinking when you look at me?

A crabbit old woman, not very wise,
Uncertain of habit, with far-away eyes,
Who dribbles her food and makes not reply
When you say in a loud voice, 'I do wish you'd try',
Who seems not to notice the things that you do,
And forever is losing a stocking or shoe,
Who, unresisting or not, let's you do as you will,
With bathing and feeding, the long day to fill.

Is that what you're thinking, is that what you see?
Then open your eyes, you're not looking at me.
I'll tell you who I am as 1 sit here so still,
As I move at your bidding, as I eat at your will.

I'm a small child of ten with a father and mother,
Brothers and sisters who love one another.
A young girl at sixteen with wings on her feet,
Dreaming that soon now a lover she'll meet.

A bride soon at twenty - my heart gives a leap
Remembering the vows that I promised to keep.
At twenty-five now I have young of my own,
Who need me to build a secure happy home.

A woman of thirty my young grow fast,
Bound to each other with ties that should last.
At forty my young now soon will be gone,
But my man stays beside me to see I don't mourn.

At fifty once more babies play round my knee,
Again we know children, my loved one and me.

Dark days are upon me, my husband is dead.
1 look at the future, I shudder with dread,
For my young are all busy rearing young of their own,
And I think of the years and the love I have known.

I'm an old woman now and nature is cruel,
'Tis her jest to make old age look like a fool.
The body it crumbles, grace and vigour depart
And now there's a stone where I once had a heart.

But inside this old carcass a young girl still dwells,
And now and again my battered heart swells,
I remember the joys, I remember the pain,
And I'm loving and living life over again.
I think of the years all too few - gone so fast,
And accept the stark fact that nothing can last.

So open your eyes, Nurses, open and see,
Not a crabbit old woman, look closer - see me.

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 10:50 AM

Thanks so much for sharing the poem, Jenny o, It says it all, and so eloquently.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: Burke
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 06:21 PM

Good thread.

I grew up with singing in the church choir & Girl Scouts. I did not (was not allowed to) listen to much popular music.

This thread got me thinking & the song that most comes to mind is the first popular song I was pro-active about learning the words to. It was a song I picked & I learned it just so that I could know it, so for that reason it's special. I was about 10 & it was "Downtown." So much for good taste! I completely disagree with the sentiments of the song now, but it still makes me smile.

The recent messages made me think of The Dutchman

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: riverblue
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 07:09 PM

Wow! What an amazing number of beautiful memories. I am not nearly 70, but I did grow up along the Rock River in Rockford, IL. And, in that town was a folk club/veggie restaurant in a great big ol' synagogue run by my parents from 1972 until 1989...or thereabouts. I was 5yrs old when the folk music started coming into every waking moment of my life. Tom Paxton, Steve Goodman, Jim Post, Michael Johnsen, Mark Henley and Dick Pinney, Robin & Linda Williams, Mike Jordan, Rielly and Maloney, Mason Daring and Jeanie Stahl, Micheal and Barbara Smith, GAmble Rogers, Bob Gibson, Tom Dundee, Jean Richie, Utah Phillips and Rosalie Sorellis, Caludia Schmidt, Silly Wizard, Murry McGLauchlan... were my lifelines. I remember the transition from an alternative elementary/middle school to highschool and not really knowing what everybody was talking about: AC/DC, Styx, Journey, top 40 stuff. I wandered around the different "clicks" and found Cat Stevens, Joni Mitchell, Simon & Garfunkle, Grateful Dead, CSN, with very few years going arry (sp?). Which is to say that the whole era has been my religion, every album is so important that I can still sing the lyrics through by heart. I feel blessed amidst the gospels of that time, activists songs, enlightened songwriters, priceless upbringing. I am in dire need to provide now for my kids (ages 11 & 13) a permanent, unmoving foundation with which to gauge this crazy world by.

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: riverblue
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 07:17 PM

Did I foget to add Bonnie Koloc and Holly Near!

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 09:07 PM

Hey, riverblue:

My youngest son lives in Rockford, and I played there a few times for the folk song society and a festival they ran. A High School in Rockford did a musical based on the song I wrote, Living On The River.
I only found out about it fourteenth hand, and they never contacted me, but I thought that was a nice full-circle for the song to travel.

Jerry

Subject: Lyr Add: LOVE CHANGES EVERYTHING(Hart/Black/Webber
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 09:46 PM

I don't know why I like this one. Somehow it just seems to express "me." (whatever that is) It's not just the words or tune, but a determined avowal of "this is the way it is." Does that make sense?


LOVE CHANGES EVERYTHING
words, Charles Hart and Don Black; music, Andrew Lloyd Webber
as sung by Michael Ball in the musical "Aspects of Love"

Love, love changes everything
Hands and faces, earth and sky
Love, love changes everything
How you live and how you die
Love, can make the summer fly
Or a night seem like a lifetime
Yes love, love changes everything
Now I tremble at your name
Nothing in the world will ever be the same

Love, love changes everything
Days are longer, words mean more
Love, love changes everything
Pain is deeper than before
Love will turn your world around
And that world will last forever
Yes love, love changes everything
Brings you glory, brings you shame
Nothing in the world will ever be the same

Off into the world we go
Planning futures, shaping years
Love bursts in and suddenly all our wisdom disappears
Love makes fools of everyone
All the rules we make are broken
Yes love, love changes everyone
Live or perish in its flame
Love will never never let you be the same
Love will never never let you be the same

Subject: RE: Music We Lived Our Lives By
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 10:19 PM

Thanks for sharing that, Mary: It's a beautiful song... haven't run across it. Or is it "acrosst" it. I never get that right..

Jerry