Do you love dogs and have something to share? Pop a link in the comments and maybe some people will visit and like it. The hashtag isn’t really a thing, just something I put up there. I checked on twitter and there are some spattering of tweets from over time but nothing regular. Share if you like, or not. Up to you. I just loved the video. 🙂
A nice something to start your day with. Nice, peaceful music to go with it as well. Enjoy. (Warning, the pieces spin under a strobe light to give the animated effects. Might cause dizziness or a bit of a headache if you are prone to those kinds of things.) https://vimeo.com/116582567
Wanted to give all you Haiku lovers a word about the review for this week. There will be one–a proper one. It may take me time but now that I have my laptop I am determined to get it done.
I won’t give the reason why it is taking so long, as I am sick of hearing that reason. I honestly get very tired of it. And as Freddie Mercury said, The Show Must Go Own. (The story of the song’s creation.)
Although not in the same category as Mercury’s life or health concerns, there is always that sense of when doing a challenge like the Haiku one must push onward to follow through with the commitment. It’s not what anyone has asked me or made me feel a need to do, it’s what I want to do.
A little nostalgia and a little humor. Rick Springfield fans get ready. Rick Springfield haters–enjoy. Music drops in at around 1 minute, so wait for it. 🙂 And no, your speakers aren’t broken, that first minute is mono.
It’s been some time since I did a Tuneful Tuesday but here we are…it’s Tuesday and I’m in a tuneful mood.
It’s a Saturday night in 1979-1980 and I’m on the roller rink rollering away, possibly trying not to break my arm or neck as I hang on to the rail . . . teaching myself to skate. A foolish endeavor when looking back on the fact that one of the prettiest teenage girls ever, my baby-sitter or whatever, was an expert skater and wanted to show me how. Oh how boys can be dumb at a certain age.
Then the scary thing happens. The somewhat empty floor is swarmed. Why? Because the first #1 hit in the land for a British Hall of Fame act is announced as being next.
It’s crazy. Yes, it’s even just a little thing. But I have no idea what it had to do with love.
Freddie Mercury and Queen with Crazy Little Thing Called Love begins and the drum beats of Roger Taylor that are possibly forgotten in their influence through the years due to a once in a life time voice and performer in Mercury drives everyone around the rink.
The meaning of the lyrics? They are what they are and the song is a tribute to Elvis Presley. One of those rare songs from a legendary performer that was what it was. That’s cool if you think about it.
From Melody Maker interview 05/o2/81:
Let’s talk about your song writing. Can you write songs to order: “At two o’clock today I will start working on song . . . ?”
I have no set rules for writing, but yes, I can write like that, I really can. It’s haphazard and it’s become a bit of a joke to me, but if I knew we’re going into the studio I just get my thinking process going. I can write songs to order, like a job. Some songs come faster that others: “BohemianRhapsody” I had to work at like crazy. I just wanted that kind of song. “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” took me five or ten minutes. I did that on the guitar, which I can’t play for nuts, and in one way it was quite a good thing because I was restricted, knowing only a few chords. It’s a good discipline because I simply had to write within a small framework. I couldn’t work through too many chords and because of that restriction I wrote a good song, I think.
And the live version.
Crazy Little Thing Called Love
This thing called love I just can’t handle it
this thing called love I must get round to it
I ain’t ready
Crazy little thing called love
This (This Thing) called love
(Called Love)
It cries (Like a baby)
In a cradle all night
It swings (Woo Woo)
It jives (Woo Woo)
It shakes all over like a jelly fish,
I kinda like it
Crazy little thing called loveThere goes my baby
She knows how to Rock n’ roll
She drives me crazy
She gives me hot and cold fever
Then she leaves me in a cool cool sweatI gotta be cool relax, get hip
Get on my track’s
Take a back seat, hitch-hike
And take a long ride on my motor bike
Until I’m ready
Crazy little thing called loveI gotta be cool relax, get hip
Get on my track’s
Take a back seat, hitch-hike
And take a long ride on my motor bike
Until I’m ready (Ready Freddie)
Crazy little thing called love
This thing called love I just can’t handle it
this thing called love I must get round to it
I ain’t ready
Crazy little thing called love
Much Respect-Much Love
Ronovan
Ronovan is an author, and blogger who shares his life as an amnesiac and Chronic Pain sufferer though his blog RonovanWrites.WordPress.com. His love of poetry, authors and community through his online world has lead to a growing Weekly Haiku Challenge and the creation of a site dedicated to book reviews, interviews and author resources known as LitWorldInterviews.WordPress.com.
My #BeWoW Inspirational Song to all of you. You can’t help but move and be uplifted by this. Saw her in concert a few years ago at WinterJam. Might have been the best part of the night.
Francesca Battistelli with Free to be Me
At twenty years of age I’m still looking for a dream A war’s already waged For my destiny But you’ve already won the battle And you’ve got great plans for me Though I can’t always see
‘Cause I got a couple dents in my fender Got a couple rips in my jeans Try to fit the pieces together But perfection is my enemy On my own I’m so clumsy But on your shoulders I can see I’m free to be me
When I was just a girl I thought I had it figured out My life would turn out right And I’d make it here somehow But things don’t always come that easy And sometimes I would doubt
‘Cause I got a couple dents in my fender Got a couple rips in my jeans Try to fit the pieces together But perfection is my enemy On my own I’m so clumsy But on your shoulders I can see I’m free to be me
And you’re free to be you
Sometimes I believe That I can do anything Yet other times I think I’ve got nothing good to bring But you look at my heart and you tell me That I’ve got all you seek And it’s easy to believe Even though
‘Cause I got a couple dents in my fender Got a couple rips in my jeans Try to fit the pieces together But perfection is my enemy On my own I’m so clumsy But on your shoulders I can see I’m free to be me
1000 Voices Speak for Compassion is Speaking about Bullying. I’ve written a couple of articles already. I wanted to share a music video. Taylor Swift and Mean fits quite well. One thing I like about it? I can understand the words. Always great with a song. Listen to it, even if you don’t like Taylor Swift.
People often think they know a person. With celebrities we think we know every nuance of their lives from the fodder we’re fed through tabloid TV and media. No, this is not a hating on the media moment here.
I have gone through moments of vaguely liking or disliking Katy Perry and Taylor Swift. It seems you can only be in the camp of one and not the other. Two artists so linked by talent and artistry could be a force to reckoned with if they were to ever join together in a project. Perhaps.
But there is too much there at the moment to divide them. Today my focus is on Katy Perry. She went through this odd marriage to a man named Russell Brand. It seemed quite good for a time and then divorce. A great many people put the blame on Perry. Even those in this house are of that opinion. Or were until I stumbled upon this song a couple of weeks ago.
Some don’t know that Perry comes from a Minister’s home. That’s right, she’s a PK. A Preachers Kid. When you listen to this song she wrote you will hear the purity, the truth of her feelings. These aren’t just words. This is coming from a person truly understanding what she is singing about.
For one thing the song is about her marriage falling apart. She received a text message from Brand that they were divorcing. She thought of suicide. This is the one song about that relationship. She says any other lyrics you hear anywhere on other songs are coincidence. This is the one song that she wrote to get it out of her.
It’s a powerful song and has quickly become a favorite of mine. I am not a mainstream pop music listener normally. I dabble. After listening to this I listened to some of her other songs and she is truly a talent.
Was 27, surviving my return of Saturn
A long vacation didn’t sound so bad
Was full of secrets, locked up tight like Iron Mountain
Running on empty, so out of gas
Thought I wasn’t enough
Found I wasn’t so tough
Laying on the bathroom floor
We were living on a fault line
And I felt the fault was all mine
Couldn’t take it anymore
(Chorus)
By the grace of God
There was no other way
I picked myself back up
I knew I had to stay
I put one foot in front of the other
And I looked in the mirror
And decided to stay
Wasn’t gonna let love take me out that way
I thank my sister for keeping my head above the water
When the truth was like swallowing sand
Now every morning, there is no more mourning
Oh I can finally see myself again
I know I am enough
Possible to be loved
It was not about me
Now I have to rise above
Let the Universe call the bluff
Yeah, the truth will set you free
(Chorus)
That way, no
That way, no
Not in the name of love
That way, no
That way, no
I am not giving up
By the grace of God
I picked myself back up
I put one foot in front of the other
And I looked in the mirror
Sometimes you just love a song. You love the music and the way the words sound and flow. You don’t even care what they mean. And sometimes it’s even a song where you can understand the lyrics but you still just don’t know what in the world the guys were thinking when they wrote.
Eggplant by Train is one of those songs. I have always called it Eggplant and Caviar. Why? I just think it sounds cool. And, well that’s part of the lyrics.
If you look around you don’t really find an explanation of this song by the boys in the band. And some people have just looked at the lyrics and nonsense. Being that I love nonsensical things at times, or at least writing it, I get the song.
Egglant and Caviar for you. One of the lines, a repetitive line. The repetitive line. Exotic things that many consider, at least young people consider to be expensive and of a higher taste of foods. Fancy if you want to get downright common about it.
When I think of this song I think there is obviously someone this guy just really loved and felt so into in that moment while writing the song that the words just flowed. This is poetry, pure and simple. Words like that aren’t made up. They. Just. Happen. Trust me on this one.
I see the imagery created by the pairing of words to be one completing the other or giving the other purpose. Each one is the reason for the existence of the other and the purpose of each. It’s all in there.
Call me crazy but, I. Just. Get. It.
Guys, if you are in love for real. Listen to this and you’ll get it. Ladies, you will to and this is the stupidness we want to say but are to self conscious to do so because we know it just sounds out there.
Train has a lot of great songs. But I think this one is my favorite. It’s funky. It’s out there. But it says it all.
Scarlet your eyes, cover your face If I could dance, or stay in this place I would be King and you would be mine I would be day and you would be time Eggplant and Caviar for you For you for you for you Eggplant and Caviar for you Hold up my wings cause you are the sky Paint me by numbers and don’t ask me why Cause I am in bloom and you are perfume And you are perfume and you are Eggplant and Caviar for you For you for you for you Eggplant and Caviar for you For you for you for you – ah Apple Pie or Apple seed, All the mouths that I must feed Cold sheets or Tumble weed All the ones that I must need I would be King and you would be mine I would be nine and you would be Mother Time Eggplant and Caviar for you, for you, for you Apple Pie or Apple seed, All the mouths that I must feed Cold sheets or Tumble weed All the ones that I must need All the ones that I must need
As a writer I have things I want to tell you, but often I just don’t know how. Choosing between words and thoughts can get in the way of the creative process and kill dreams quicker than a lovers ‘whatever’.
As we pick up pen, grab a laptop or even go to our phones to quickly put thoughts to text we lose it. Those magical descriptions that floated through that slightly thick almost tangible air that we could feel grabbing hold of us like an enveloping blanket during a cold night.
We write and we write and then we look back and we realize we have not written anything like what we had thought or felt. The words we wanted to say had slipped away and were replaced by cliched drivel in the key of frustration.
Looking through song choices for today I came across a Beatles song from the Revolver album written and performed by George Harrison. I often mistake Harrison and Lennon’s voices at times, I suppose that is part of what makes the harmonies work so well. Harrison was the in between. He was the & in Lennon & McCartney.
With ‘I Wan To Tell You’, Harrison says everything a writer feels. Perhaps he’s talking to a lover, to that girl, to a future or current spouse. Perhaps it’s to a friend. Or maybe he’s speaking as one person to another. He commented later in life that in the chorus;
But if I seem to act unkind It isn’t me, it’s just my mind That is confusing things
he should have flipped the lines two parts of the second line. And I believe that really is what he meant and was actually how I took it when I first read the lines. But flipping them makes it more clear. Our minds confuse things that we think are much simpler. Once our brains get involved it’s all over.
This is one of those forgotten gems that at first when listen to it you are a little unsure but then when you realize the contrast of the words in the song, then you get the contrast of the music and the voices in the song as well. Plodding and melodic, tonal and harmonizing. You have it all.
I want to tell you My head is filled with things to say When you’re here All those words, they seem to slip away
When I get near you The games begin to drag me down It’s all right I’ll make you maybe next time around
But if I seem to act unkind It isn’t me, it’s just my mind That is confusing things
I want to tell you I feel hung up and I don’t know why But I don’t mind I could wait forever, I’ve got time, I’ve got time
Sometimes I wish I knew you well Then I could speak my mind and tell you Maybe you’d understand
I want to tell you I feel hung up and I don’t know why I don’t mind I could wait forever, I’ve got time
Each week I like to talk about a song. Sometimes it doesn’t happen, even months have gone by without my sharing, but as I was looking for a song last time to share I came across this one. I saved it.
I’ve never ran across a song where the first five lines were written about me quite so perfectly. Although the song is written about a man in his early forties seeing x-rays of his father, I take more as a autobiographical account through most of the song in regards to myself.
The Song
For Tim McGraw, the American Country music artist who had the number 1 hit of the year for 2004 with Live Like You Were Dying written by Tim Nichols and Craig Wiseman, it was more personal as his own father, estranged as he was, professional baseball pitcher Tug McGraw suffered from a brain tumor and died in January of the same year.
The Moment
Life has moments in it that wake you up. Sometimes they wake you up after they knock you out. Why my particular moment decided to add Amnesia to the mix I’m not certain and I don’t question. I just move along and enjoy life as best I can.
Enter the Beatles
The other song I considered today was While My Guitar Gently Weeps by George Harrison and the Beatles. Harrison wrote the song after reading the I Ching.
“seemed to me to be based on the Eastern concept that everything is relative to everything else… opposed to the Western view that things are merely coincidental.”~Harrison, George (2002). I, Me, Mine. San Francisco: Chronicle Books.
He went to his parents home and decided to write a song on the first two words he saw in a book he opened. Gently Weeps.
Harrison Mistaken
Harrison got it wrong. There might be people who believe in coincidences but this Westerner doesn’t. This Westerner in the sense Harrison was referring to in the Christian sense knows there are no coincidences. You see I know there are actions taking place in the world with a reaction to follow.
My ‘accident’ was no accident. I see it as something that was made to happen for a reason. No, I do not think God thought to do me harm, He does not do that. But what He does it take that moment and give one the opportunity to do good from it.
I haven’t done much good as opposed to before other than begin blogging. But a great many things have happened since then. Some have come to fruition already, and others are of the slow growing variety of tree of my life. Either way I will enjoy picking the fruit and enjoying the taste of it.
Is It Ever Too Late
Some people might read this and be angry because their situation is worse than mine and I dare to say that we are given the opportunity to make something out of it. Perhaps a person has days to live or months. Is a second to little to do something positive and leave this world with something of yourself that others might look to in an inspirational way? A squeeze of the hand between an estranged father in a hospital bed and his son is not too late to make a memorable moment.
I was in my early forties With a lot of life before me When a moment came that stopped me on a dime
I spent most of the next days, looking at the x-rays Talking bout the options and talking bout sweet time
I asked him when it sank in That this might really be the real end How’s it hit ‘cha when you get that kind of news? Man, what’d ya do? And he said
I went skydiving I went rocky mountain climbing I went two point seven seconds on a bull named Fu Man Chu And I loved deeper And I spoke sweeter And I gave forgiveness I’d been denyin’
And he said, Someday I hope you get the chance To live like you were dyin’
He said, I was finally the husband That most the time I wasn’t And I became a friend, a friend would like to have
And all of a sudden goin’ fishin’ Wasn’t such an imposition And I went three times that year I lost my dad Well I, I finally read the good book And I took a good long hard look At what I’d do if I could do it all again And then
I went skydiving I went rocky mountain climbing I went two point seven seconds on a bull named Fu Man Chu And I loved deeper And I spoke sweeter And I gave forgiveness I’d been denyin’
And he said, Someday I hope you get the chance To live like you were dyin’
Like tomorrow was a gift And ya got eternity to think about what to do with it What did you do with it? What did I do with it? What would I do with it?
Skydiving I went rocky mountain climbing I went two point seven seconds on a bull named Fu Man Chu And I loved deeper And I spoke sweeter And I watched an eagle as it was flyin’
And he said, Someday I hope you get the chance To live like you were dyin’
To live like you were dyin’ To live like you were dyin’ To live like you were dyin’ To live like you were dyin’
