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Post by B.E. on Nov 18, 2020 14:47:02 GMT
Tell us about a song that is emotionally meaningful to you.
I listened to Bruce Springsteen's "Highway Patrolman" yesterday and I nearly got choked up. I always liked the song, but ever since I watched the film, The Indian Runner, it really seems to hit me. It's an emotional story. At the end, I wonder if he'll ever see or hear from his brother again. And, the subject is actually something I've thought about - how far does our loyalty to family go? Is there no end? Should there be? I'd say in extreme cases, yes. But I'm not really trying to answer these questions. I'm also not a parent. What if it were your son or daughter? Emotional stuff. Cool! I was just going to post a link to the song, but apparently there's a music video featuring footage from the film. Enjoy. (And being the Beach Boys fans we are, it's not hard to look at "Franky" and see Dennis, is it?)
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Post by jk on Nov 18, 2020 15:11:56 GMT
Tell us about a song that is emotionally meaningful to you.
I listened to Bruce Springsteen's "Highway Patrolman" yesterday and I nearly got choked up. I always liked the song, but ever since I watched the film, The Indian Runner, it really seems to hit me. It's an emotional story. At the end, I wonder if he'll ever see or hear from his brother again. And, the subject is actually something I've thought about - how far does our loyalty to family go? Is there no end? Should there be? I'd say in extreme cases, yes. But I'm not really trying to answer these questions. I'm also not a parent. What if it were your son or daughter? Emotional stuff. I admire Springsteen (he's one of the good guys) but I've never really warmed to his music -- except Nebraska. Once it hit me (I'd had it on a tape for ages), it struck me as being the ultimate soundtrack to a night-time drive through not just that State but the Midwest in general. I have a friend who is out there right now, and my late long-term friend used to live there too. Good call, B.E. "State Trooper" ends side one in fine fashion:
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Post by B.E. on Nov 18, 2020 15:21:08 GMT
It does. And I absolutely LOVE the end of "State Trooper" - the final 15 seconds or so. Look forward to it every time - after all these years.
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Post by Kapitan on Dec 11, 2020 23:23:56 GMT
YES!
I went to California for a sister's wedding many years ago--20 now already!--and I brought along one of those CD folders that allowed you to pack a bunch of discs into a large-book sized container. I think I brought 100 discs for a few-days trip because there's something wrong with me... But one in particular really, really stuck with me. I must have listened to this version of this song 50x on the flights and while there. I can't say why. Nothing specific is relevant to southern California. (It's about New York on a literal level.) But this version of this song will always represent that trip for me (and vice versa).
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Post by B.E. on Dec 12, 2020 0:24:35 GMT
Good question, Robe Simo.
I believe it was my 11th birthday. My family took a road trip to the nation's capital, Washington D.C. I was gifted the debut album of Matchbox 20, Yourself or Someone Like You. We pretty much listened to it on repeat the entire trip! I'll never forget. (It was also the only time I've been to D.C.)
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Post by jk on Dec 15, 2020 21:02:53 GMT
The song or artist that awakened you to romantic possibilities. (“Girls/Boys like music, too? Well, now!”)It could have been back in 1958 in the boys' quad at my first primary school. "Sugartime" (by The McGuire Sisters) was one of the songs we used to sing, but only the verse. Once, the head boy continued on into the bridge ("Put your arms around me...") and was told in no uncertain terms to shut up. I was intrigued, though, and soon knew that bridge off by heart! So just maybe it began there. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_McGuire_Sisters
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Post by jk on Dec 15, 2020 21:48:24 GMT
A song or artist you recall being turned on to by a "cool person's" recommendation. (Just anyone you looked up to: sibling, friend, guy at the record store, whatever.)
This is from the same year. An older local lad who went to another primary school used to whistle this curious tune loudly on his way home from the bus. When I quizzed him about it he told me it was called "Tom Hark". I later learnt it was by a South African kwela band glorifying in the name of Elias and His Zig-Zag Jive Flutes and had been a huge hit in the UK. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elias_and_His_Zig-Zag_Jive_Flutes
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Post by jk on Dec 16, 2020 15:00:14 GMT
What was your favorite song/artist as of your first year out of high school (or if you’re in a place that doesn’t have “high school,” roughly 18 years old and/or leaving home for the first time)?
It's a pretty close call between Zappa and Beefheart. I'd known Frank's music for a couple of years already before buying (in 1969) a cheapo edition of Safe as Milk, sans "I'm Glad" and "Grown So Ugly". So my discovery of the Captain is closer to the time I first left home. That said, I'd heard the extraordinary "Dropout Boogie" on the radio a year or so earlier:
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Post by Kapitan on Dec 16, 2020 15:02:15 GMT
It's amazing thinking of Beefheart being played on the radio. By the time I finished high school, the closest artist to Beefheart who was actively working was probably Tom Waits ... and he definitely wasn't getting radio airplay with the likes of Bone Machine or Black Rider.
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Post by jk on Dec 16, 2020 21:37:03 GMT
It's amazing thinking of Beefheart being played on the radio. By the time I finished high school, the closest artist to Beefheart who was actively working was probably Tom Waits ... and he definitely wasn't getting radio airplay with the likes of Bone Machine or Black Rider. Well, we had a couple of enlightened DJs at the BBC in the late '60s, early '70s. One, the late John Peel, even played great chunks of Trout Mask! Tell us about a song that is emotionally meaningful to you.Any song that is emotionally meaningful to me came at the end of something -- a friendship, a relationship -- not at the beginning. Alan Price's "Jarrow Song" was big when this strange relationship I had in the early '70s reached its inevitable conclusion: Do you have a song/album that reminds you of a specific trip you took?
In '91 we were invited to stay on an island off the coast of Norway. We had masses of cassette tapes with us but it was the one of music by Edvard Grieg (played by the English Chamber orchestra conducted by Raymond Leppard) that sounded most "right" during our stay there:
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Post by Kapitan on Dec 16, 2020 21:50:05 GMT
One, the late John Peel, even played great chunks of Trout Mask! One of the few radio/music personalities anywhere in the world of whom even I'm aware (if not quite familiar)! I know he championed several groups I like at various times. Some have released albums of the material they did live on his shows over the years. Off the top of my head I want to say Belle & Sebastian and Herman Dune were both among those he advocated for.
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Post by jk on Dec 17, 2020 11:43:22 GMT
One, the late John Peel, even played great chunks of Trout Mask! One of the few radio/music personalities anywhere in the world of whom even I'm aware (if not quite familiar)! I know he championed several groups I like at various times. Some have released albums of the material they did live on his shows over the years. Off the top of my head I want to say Belle & Sebastian and Herman Dune were both among those he advocated for. Off the top of mine, others were Mark E. Smith's band The Fall ("The Mighty Fall", as he called them) and The Undertones, whose "Teenage Kicks" was his all-time favourite song. I also remember he used to call Little Jimmy Osmond "Little Jimmy Pellet", for reasons best known to himself. Most intriguing of all, he kept alluding to this person called "The Pig", who if I'm not mistaken was his wife!
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Post by kds on Dec 17, 2020 17:06:42 GMT
I was listening to Cream's Fresh Cream earlier and as soon as 'N.S.U' started it took me back to the time I went to NYC to visit some friends two years ago. I was listening to this album non stop and it was a wonderful trip. Now everytime I give this album a play it remembers me of those days. So I thought this might set out a good "your life in music" question: Do you have a song/album that reminds you of a specific trip you took?All my life, I've taken summer trips to Ocean City, MD, so there are several albums that invoke memories of specific trips. Prince - Batman Soundtrack - When I was younger, I used to collect soundtracks to various movies. I got a copy of this one on cassette, and in the summer of 1990, armed with my brand new Sony Walkman, I played this during our family summer trip to OC. While this did not become a perennial choice, every time I hear the album, I instantly flash back to that drive. I even bought a copy on CD for $2 at a used media store in 2007. Tony Iommi - Iommi - In my early 20s, I started to take trips down with my friends. This 2000 album always found it's way into the car, and somehow became the initial album we'd listen to on our beach trips. This would continue with one of my best friends up until 2013. The Who - Quadrophenia - In the summer of 2003, I was working two jobs. I had a spell where I worked a little over 30 straight days, and when I had a day off in late June, I decided to take a day trip to Ocean City. None of my friends could so, so I went by myself. I picked Quadrophenia to play because it's length would take me more than halfway there (on average, it's a two and a half to three hour drive). The album also has some beach themes with Brighton being part of the story.
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Post by kds on Dec 17, 2020 19:17:19 GMT
I forgot one.
Tom Petty - Echo - As I finished my first year of college in May 1999, an old friend and I decided to take a trip to the beach. He brought along the, at the time, new Petty CD Echo. I don't listen to the album much these days, but a few of the songs, most of all Lonesome Sundown, remind me of that trip.
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Post by jk on Jan 1, 2021 11:34:24 GMT
One thing about my early years that popped into my head was the early 80s Saturday Morning cartoon Alvin and the Chipmunks. They actually used Chipmunked versions of contemporary music on the show. The first time I ever heard songs like Crazy Little Thing Called Love and One Way or Another (Blondie) were courtesy of Alvin, Simon, and Theodore. I have this memory of learning to ride a bike (this was, I believe, in the summer of '59) when on holiday and stopping off at this house along the way that seemed eerily deserted, except for a radio blasting out "Ragtime Cowboy Joe" by David Seville and the Chipmunks:
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