random music thoughts

Seasons in the Sun, now with more bees

What if the Terry Jacks classic song had been about bees and dying, instead of love and dying?

Bee-sons in the Sun

Goodbye to you, my trusted friend.
We’ve known each other since we were nine or ten.
Together we’ve climbed hills and trees.
Learned of love and ABC’s,
skinned our hearts, got stung by bees.

Goodbye my friend, it’s hard to die,
when all the bees are buzzing in the sky,
Now that the spring is in the air.
Killer bees are everywhere.
Think of me and I’ll bee there.

Had no joy, and got stung, we ran from hornets in the sun.
But the hills that we climbed
were just beehives out of time.

Goodbye, Papa, please pray for me,
I brought the bees back to the family.
You tried to teach me right from wrong.
Too much wine and too much song,
and the bees all stinging strong.

Goodbye, Papa, it’s hard to die
when all the bees are buzzing in the sky,
Now that the bees are in the air.
Children screaming everywhere.
When you see them I’ll be there.

Had no joy, and got stung, we fought hornets in the sun.
But the wine and the song,
like the bees, have all gone.

Had no joy, and got stung, we fought hornets in the sun.
But the honey and the bong,
like the bees, have all gone.

Goodbye, Michelle, my little one.
You gave me love and helped me find the sun.
And every time that I was down
you would always come around
until the bees put me in the ground.

Goodbye, Michelle, it’s hard to die
when all the bees are buzzing in the sky,
Now that the bees are in the air.
With the flowers they don’t care.
Just to sting us here and there.

Had no joy, and got stung, ran from wasps in the sun.
But the houses we could reach
were just wall to wall with bees

All our lives we would run, we faced hornets in the sun.
But the hills that we climbed
Were just beehives out of time….

Okay, that’s pretty bad, but I somehow feel better having written it. Also, I tried to rhyme “reach” and “bees”, which illustrates my mastery of poetry and songwriting.

The Cars have run me over again

iTunes has a bunch of “Classic Rock Albums” on sale right now for under $7. While one might argue over what constitutes both rock and classic, there’s a bunch of good stuff here for old fogeys who fondly look back on the 70s and 80s because they were there.

Like me.

I decided to pick up The Cars’ eponymous 1978 debut and listening to it hit me with a powerful blast of deja vu.

Back in junior high, I took Drawing and Painting, even though I was never terribly good at either. During classes when we worked on our projects we were allowed to play music, provided everyone agreed to the selection. It was an unusual treat and one we savored.

One person in particular–whose name I’ve long forgotten–was the self-appointed arbiter of music and we pretty much went along with his picks.

He really liked Cheap Trick, who were a new band at the time.But he also liked The Cars, another new band.

We listened to a lot of Cheap Trick.

But he also liked The Cars, another new band at the time.

When I listen to the album now, it not only invokes memories of the class, I am reminded of how the album plays like a greatest hits collection. There are a lot of songs here that got radio play. I’m also impressed all over again at Ric Ocasek’s writing skills. The lyrics are funny and quirky and the music is catchy and inventive, effortlessly switching off from ringing guitars to cheesy organ and back again. The album is a brief 35 minutes long and it races from beginning to end, a near-perfect pop joyride.

Plus it has the lyric “Let them brush your rock and roll hair,” which is exactly what you’d expect the good times to do. Right?

Right.

You can check out any time you like but you can never leave

I recently bought the album Hotel California because it was cheap and I’ve apparently decided to live in the past. Given how 2017 is playing out I don’t know that anyone would blame me. I never owned the album when it was new (in 1976), though I was just old enough to, even way back then. I was familiar with the singles, though, notably “Life in the Fast Lane” and of course the title track.

When The Eagles reunited in 1994 (after splitting up 14 years earlier) I wondered how they felt about the song. Radio played it to death, back when people listened to radios. It’s their “Stairway to Heaven,” a song that is indelibly tied to the band. I can’t even guess how many times I’ve heard it before finally buying the album. More than a dozen but less than a billion.

But a lot.

And yet, I find myself listening to the song now and it crackles with energy and still feels fresh coming through my headphones more than 40 years later. I love the opening guitars, the ironically upbeat chorus, and the overall Twilight Zone creepiness of the lyrics, ending with the great line I quote in the title of this post. And so I award “Hotel California” my favorite old song of the moment and best old song from 1976.

(I can’t actually think of other songs specifically from that year. Probably something by The Carpenters.)

Okay, I cheated and looked up the top ten songs of 1976:

No. Title Artist(s)
1 “Silly Love Songs“ Wings
2 “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart“ Elton John & Kiki Dee
3 “Disco Lady“ Johnnie Taylor
4 “December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night)“ The Four Seasons
5 “Play That Funky Music“ Wild Cherry
6 “Kiss and Say Goodbye“ The Manhattans
7 “Love Machine“ The Miracles
8 “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover“ Paul Simon
9 “Love Is Alive“ Gary Wright
10 “A Fifth of Beethoven“ Walter Murphy

This is what you call a study in contrasts. Some legitimate classics (“50 Ways to Leave Your Lover”), predictable fluff (“Silly Love Songs”–this was #1 for the year? Or any year?) but disco was in full bloom, like a hideous algae covering your favorite swimming lake with a grotesque film and you prayed it would go away and a few years later, it did (then it came back). Still, no “Muskrat Love” so it wasn’t all bad.