Music

My Beloved Wife

Being a huge Natalie Merchant fan I was probably aware of her song “Beloved Wife” from her solo debut album, Tigerlily, but I didn’t really connect with it until a couple years ago when the confluence of Donna’s ALS, our fast approaching 50th wedding anniversary and Radio Paradise added it to their rotation brought it to the forefront.

If I was going to have an actual service for Donna this would have been the only song that I would have had played at it. Of course, Donna died a few days short of our 48th wedding anniversary, but this tune would still be a perfect fit because we knew each other a couple of years before we tied the knot.

On a side note, there was another song that was an attention getter for me in Radio Paradise’s mellow mix rotation for the last year or so called Harmony Hall by the group Vampire Weekend. Probably wouldn’t have played it at any service, but there is a line in there that gets repeated about a half a dozen times and it was a little too on point for me, “I don’t wanna live like this, but I don’t wanna die.”

Everyday Is Like Sunday

Ever since I’ve been retired, my grasp on what day it is has been pretty fluid. This was perfectly captured in a Pickles cartoon that I featured here back in April. Today we were reading the paper and listening to Radio Paradise waiting for CBS’s coverage of the Masters to start, when the above song came on and it stuck in my head.

When 10:00AM rolled around and I swapped from the Roku box to cable I thought, hmmm, it is 1:00PM on the east coast, wonder which NFL games will be on, might delay golf it is interesting. A quick scan of the cable guide showed nothing but college football games. Oooh, that’s right it is Saturday.

Didn’t help either that our 4 times a week newspaper, had just last week, changed the Sunday Edition to a Saturday delivered Weekend Edition.

What’s Up?

A few weeks ago, I went looking around on YouTube for some music to listen to in the background while sitting at the PC. Radio Paradise’s Mellow Mix is in constant rotation around here, but I wanted something a little different. Remembering my favorite satellite radio channel “The Coffee House” that played acoustic covers of songs, I searched for that sort of thing. Found a couple of interesting songs by interesting acts (Chase Eagleson, Gat Brothers, The Petersens, Music Travel Love), but when I found the song below, I was hooked these guys, The Running Mates, Spencer and Julie Broschard.

So I went to their music page and bought their Acoustic Covers EP (it is pay what you want, so $1 a songs about right.) So then I searched out a YouTube music downloader and started ripping some of their songs. So then I went to their YouTube page and found out they have been doing 1 to 1-1/2 hour long live living room #Quaranstream concerts since April. Today was their last one (maybe for a while) and once again I missed it live because I am on the west coast and they are on the east coast and I’m a dummy about this time zone thing still.

Then Came the Last Days Of May

just because this is actually the last day of May

They’re ok the last days of May, I’ll be breathing dry air
I’m leaving soon, the others are already there
You wouldn’t be interested in coming along, instead of staying here
They say the west is nice this time of year’
that’s what they say
– Blue Öyster Cult

Track 17 – Moondance

Because I really have nothing, I’ll just toss out another music video from my Quintessential Burn series. This time it is Van Morrison sharing the vocals with a backup singer from a live 1979 performance in Belfast:

Track 19 – Holding Back the Years

Back in the day*, when MTV played music videos and I had a crush on Martha Quinn…Holding Back The Years by Simply Red.

*1985 when TV was all 4:3

Started up, went down, still down.
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