Music We Lived Our Lives By (songs)

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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 04 Mar 05 - 10:02 PM

Nice additions, John..

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: 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