Lunchtime
It's lunchtime in January, and the rain is falling. There's a song there, somewhere, but I'm not the one who's going to write it. My friend Maria made me some tamales and I just ate four of them (along with a bunch of tortilla chips and half a gallon of guacamole). They were delicious, and when that elderly woman goes to her reward I will miss her smile, her hugs, and, yes, her cooking. Thanks.
But since it's lunchtime I was checking my email and one thing led to another and I found myself looking at a list of "The Top 100 Songs the Year You Were Born". You can find it here http://www.musicoutfitters.com/resources.htm ; just scroll to the bottom of the page.
And you know what? I was born in a pretty bad year! Only 2 or 3 of the top 10 are things I'd care to hear again. 6 in the top 25 (but Sam Cooke did show up at 23 with Twisting the Night Away. Great song; Rod Stewart did it well, too). Twist and Shout (the Isley Brothers) was 38 and Baby, It's You (!) by the Shirelles was 44. Sam Cooke's Havin' a Party was 53, but that's 8 in the top 50 that I really like, and that says it was a pretty bad year.
My wife and little brother did MUCH better. I imagine the Missus, rockin' in her little crib, shakin' her little bowl haircut as she sang along with this top 5:
Satisfaction
Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch
Wooly Bully
My Girl
You've Lost that Lovin' Feelin'
The Beatles had Help, Ticket to Ride, and Eight Days a Week (and that is some of the finest rock and roll harmony ever!). Papa's Got a Brand New Bag. Heart Full of Soul. Like A Rolling Stone. The Supremes had Stop! In the Name of Love and Back in My Arms Again. Not a bad year to be born.
My brother the Bear? His year wasn't QUITE as hot, but I can still remember him laying there on the floor of our Florida home, wiggling in his one-sy, drooling and checking out the Beatles, the Stones, the Kinks, Simon and Garfunkle, lots of good Temptations and even Bobby Fuller's I Fought the Law (but hey, my year had The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and you can't really complain - good song, great movie with Jimmy Stewart and John Wayne).
Feeling depressed, I decided to check out the year I graduated from high school. (We had a school mascot, school colors and a school song. The mascot was a cougar. The school colors were red and blue. And I have no idea what the school song was. I must have played it at 40 football games, but couldn't tell you the first thing about it. We should have played Wooly Bully instead.) And checking out my graduation year was a big mistake. Where before I was bummed, looking at THAT list was DEPRESSING:
1 top ten song I'd care to listen to again (but not buy).
2 more in the top twenty
2 between twenty and thirty
then nothing until number 52 (Against the Wind by Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band)
That's sad. Just sad. I got left out both years! No wonder I was only listening to FM rock and Glenn Miller by that time (but that's another story).
But just when I was sick enough to hurl my tamales, I had a thought: A lot can change in 3 years, can't it? And then I thought of the horrible dreck that's on the radio now, and smiled in the knowledge that it can't go on forever.
Christina Aguilara and Jessica Simpson, say hello to Joannie Sommers.
But since it's lunchtime I was checking my email and one thing led to another and I found myself looking at a list of "The Top 100 Songs the Year You Were Born". You can find it here http://www.musicoutfitters.com/resources.htm ; just scroll to the bottom of the page.
And you know what? I was born in a pretty bad year! Only 2 or 3 of the top 10 are things I'd care to hear again. 6 in the top 25 (but Sam Cooke did show up at 23 with Twisting the Night Away. Great song; Rod Stewart did it well, too). Twist and Shout (the Isley Brothers) was 38 and Baby, It's You (!) by the Shirelles was 44. Sam Cooke's Havin' a Party was 53, but that's 8 in the top 50 that I really like, and that says it was a pretty bad year.
My wife and little brother did MUCH better. I imagine the Missus, rockin' in her little crib, shakin' her little bowl haircut as she sang along with this top 5:
Satisfaction
Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch
Wooly Bully
My Girl
You've Lost that Lovin' Feelin'
The Beatles had Help, Ticket to Ride, and Eight Days a Week (and that is some of the finest rock and roll harmony ever!). Papa's Got a Brand New Bag. Heart Full of Soul. Like A Rolling Stone. The Supremes had Stop! In the Name of Love and Back in My Arms Again. Not a bad year to be born.
My brother the Bear? His year wasn't QUITE as hot, but I can still remember him laying there on the floor of our Florida home, wiggling in his one-sy, drooling and checking out the Beatles, the Stones, the Kinks, Simon and Garfunkle, lots of good Temptations and even Bobby Fuller's I Fought the Law (but hey, my year had The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and you can't really complain - good song, great movie with Jimmy Stewart and John Wayne).
Feeling depressed, I decided to check out the year I graduated from high school. (We had a school mascot, school colors and a school song. The mascot was a cougar. The school colors were red and blue. And I have no idea what the school song was. I must have played it at 40 football games, but couldn't tell you the first thing about it. We should have played Wooly Bully instead.) And checking out my graduation year was a big mistake. Where before I was bummed, looking at THAT list was DEPRESSING:
1 top ten song I'd care to listen to again (but not buy).
2 more in the top twenty
2 between twenty and thirty
then nothing until number 52 (Against the Wind by Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band)
That's sad. Just sad. I got left out both years! No wonder I was only listening to FM rock and Glenn Miller by that time (but that's another story).
But just when I was sick enough to hurl my tamales, I had a thought: A lot can change in 3 years, can't it? And then I thought of the horrible dreck that's on the radio now, and smiled in the knowledge that it can't go on forever.
Christina Aguilara and Jessica Simpson, say hello to Joannie Sommers.
posted by David Hardesty | 12:13 PM
1 Comments:
This is Mrs. Blogger. Hey, what a great year to be born, with all that awesome music. And let's face it, me and a bazilion other people were born that year ("that year" will remain unwritten at this moment). Let's set the record straight, though--I didn't have a bowl haircut until I was probably 2 years old!
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