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This is NOT a list of my favorite songs, though I like many of them well enough. It IS a list of songs that, for a variety of reasons, resonate to a particular time, place and/or emotion over the years. – Roger Green, March 7, 2003

45 Men In A Telephone Booth (the Four Tophatters). I had intended to put this song first on the 2003 collection. I found it in a catalog of a Cadence Records collection, ordered it early in January, and waited. And waited. And waited. Finally out the disc together without it. The disc arrived in April 2003. One of my father’s favorite singles.

Sorry , I Ran All the Way Home (the Impalas) – my father had a bunch of 45s of story/songs I listened to as a kid: Middle of the House (Vaughan Monroe), I’m A Yogi, country songs such as Who Drank My Beer When I Was In the Rear (b-side- Nine Have Tried and Nine Have Died) and Bargain Days, Half Off. Only two others had I heard since: Beep Beep (the Playmates) and Bird Dog (Everly Brothers).

Cindy (Johnny Cash with Nick Cave) – my father learned to play guitar in 1959, and this song was in the repertoire. (Not this version, of course, which is from the posthumous Unearthed box set.)

Quintet – my mother took us to West Side Story, the first “grown up” movie I remember seeing. I didn’t know one could have several simultaneous melodies.

Roger Ramjet- Roger Green: easy name, eh? But, people always were putting an E at the end of Green. (And on our very short street, there WAS a Greene family.) My own grandfather spelled my name Rodger. And kids will always have their own nicknames for each other; some of mine were Mr. Green Jeans (from Captain Kangaroo) and later Mr. Rogers (from his Neighborhood.)

Drive My Car (Fab Four)- I was John (the smart one), sister Leslie was Paul (cute AND left-handed!), neighbor MJ was Ringo (she LOVED him), and sister Marcia was George (by default). We charged the neighbor kids two cents each to watch us lip sync to the Beatles VI LP. I read in some teen mag that Drive My Car was John Sebastian’s (Lovin’ Spoonful) fave song on Rubber Soul; EVERYBODY knew it was on Yesterday and Today. Turns out Sebastian was listening to the UK version (the Beatles’ preference). An early lesson in fact checking that serves a librarian well.

Take Me For A Little While (Vanilla Fudge) – carrying groceries for Mom. One afternoon, I was home listening to the album. Mom came home. I retrieved groceries, and found the stereo off. The crescendo made her think the record player was broken. Another time I carried groceries for her after work (at 2 a.m., 7/4/72), I discovered the shoulder I had injured the previous week in a car accident had more or less collapsed; six weeks of PT followed.

Feel Flows (Beach Boys)- freshman year in college, this guy named Richie and I would hang out, listening to the Band and Beatles, and hitchhike to NYC to concerts. I totally lost contact with him after that year.

Gone Away (Roberta Flack)- when romance went sour, I developed a quartet of songs to play: Sweet Bitter Love (QoS), this, My First Night Alone Without You (Jane Olivor), and Stay with Me (Lorraine Ellison). Sometimes added Remove This Doubt (Supremes).

Fantasy (Earth, Wind, and Fire) – Schenectady Arts Council received federal (CETA) money to have an arts enrichment program in the schools. I did the books, but the secretary and I would take off to OD Heck and sing for the patients. The choreographer needed a partner to help teach the elementary kids some dances, and I got sucker…, volunteered to do that.

Spider-Man- my first day of college, I met this weird Piscean named Mark. He was into comic books! I got sucked in, and particularly liked the webslinger. Later spent about a decade selling the four-color product.

It’s Love (the Young Rascals) – I bought the Groovin’ album on vinyl when it came out in 1966. It had the hits A Girl Like You, How Can I Be Sure, You Better Run, and the title tune. It also featured this song featuring jazz flutist Hubert Laws. When I got a stereo in the mid-1980s, instead of the boxy record player I had had for years, I was dismayed that the automatic return prevented me from playing this song to the end; it automatically rejected when it got too close to the center label. Ended up having to buy the CD, largely for this tune.

Naive Melody (Talking Heads) – the ’83 show was one of the best concerts I ever saw. This song is about rediscovery on the way to Cooperstown.

23rd Psalm (Bobby McFerrin) – Eric Strand came to town to be Trinity UMC’s choir director. He stayed in the apt. of my SO at the time and me. Eric & I saw BMcF on the Today show, and I was so taken by the performance that I bought about six copies of the album to give away. Later, Eric transcribed this song, and choir members Bob, Tim & I sang at church. Eric gave me the high part, which I did almost entirely in falsetto. Someone came up to another church member, expressing concern that a “gay guy” was singing in church.

Harvest Moon (Neil Young) – about lost love. Also, about the only Neil song my ex-office mate Mary could stand.

Lullabye (Billy Joel) – the SBDC state meeting in Binghamton had an a capella group perform this song. The melancholy of the song (and the back story) parallels my melancholy about the state of my old hometown.

Church (Lyle Lovett) – when four of us were in tight office quarters, with very distinct likes (and especially dislikes), Lyle passed muster with all of us. Closing act of a great Newport Folk Festival at SPAC.

JEOPARDY! – an NBC daytime game that I used to watch with my Aunt Deana. I was chastised for writing that; “You lied! You included it because you were ON it!” True, I was on it, but no lie, I DID watch it every noon with Deana.

Now That I Found You (Alison Krauss) – THIS is the way a cover version should be done, recognizable yet distinct from the original. One of my wife’s two favorite artists; oddly, both of them have last names beginning with KRA. We saw AK at the Palace in 2002. What I didn’t mention was that Carol and I went out from the fall of 1994 to the spring of 1996, and I spent much of the next couple years trying to woo her back.

At Last (Etta James) – one of five great songs on the Rain Man soundtrack. Oh yeah, Carol & I danced to it at our wedding. If it is cliche, I don’t care.

Baby Mine (Bonnie Raitt) – Well, nothing much has happened since the wedding. Oh, yeah, there IS that small person who’s been hanging around the last couple years.

But I axed this piece as too wordy and too talky:
Woody Guthrie – my father was a Singer of Folk Songs, and became rather well known in the Binghamton area as “The Lonesome and Lonely Traveller”. Eventually, Leslie and I began singing with him. This brace of songs I heard at the Cap Rep theater not long after he died were among his repertoire.

7 things to do before I die:

1. Visit every state in the United States
2. Write a book – a roman a clef about church choirs and congregants
3. Go to a World Series game
4. Go to England and bother Chris Black
5. Meet at least half dozen of the bloggers I read regularly
6. Go to Lydia’s high school graduation
7. Go to Lydia’s college graduation

7 things I cannot do:

1. Drive well
2. Keep my desk orderly for more than a day
3. Play a musical instrument, except a kazoo
4. Draw a straight line without a straight edge
5. Sleep 8 hours a night, unless I’m ill
6. Patiently stand in line, unless I have something to read
7. Zip up Lydia’s pink coat – that zipper has it in for me

7 things that I like about my county

1. The beautiful views from Thatcher Park
2. The quaintness of Rensselaerville
3. The vitality of Lark Street in Albany
4. The information at the New York State Museum
5. The non-mall character of Stuyvesant Plaza, especially the independent book store, The Book House
6. The kitsch of the Tulip Festival
7. The peculiarity of Albany politics

7 things I often say:

1. “That’s doable” Then I heard that Alexander Haig used to say it, and I stopped.
2. “Oy “
3. “I’m walking here!” Think Midnight Cowboy.
4. “I like THAT.”
5. “What’s your case number?” Work related.
6. “Where’s your nose, Lydia?” (or other body part)
7. “I’m going to go to bed early tonight.” (But I almost never do.)

7 books that I love re-reading:

1. The Good Book – Peter J. Gomes
2. Living in the Spirit- Henri J.M. Nouwen
3. The Gospel according to St. Luke- NRSV version of the Bible
The rest are books I reference a lot:
4. Top Pop Singles-Joel Whitburn
5. Top Pop Albums-Joel Whitburn
6. The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows- Brooks and Marsh
7. The World Almanac

7 movies I watch over and over again (well, more than once):

1. Airplane!
2. Annie Hall
3. Dave
4. Groundhog Day
5. Midnight Cowboy
6. Le Roi de Coeur
7. The Shawshank Redemption

7 people to tag. (Oh, I’m not going to tag seven people:)

Still, I like Easter. The tulips we planted a couple of autumns ago are starting to come up. The bicycle is on the road. Easter is hope. If you’re not of the Christian tradition, there’s that link to spring:

East and Easter are related in that they have a common Indo-European root: aus- ‘to shine’. From this we get east ‘the direction of the sunrise’. Our word Easter comes from Old English eastre (there’s a macron over the first e), which, according to the Venerable Bede, derived from Eostre, the Teutonic goddess of the dawn. The Indo-European word *ausos- meant ‘dawn’ or ‘a goddess of the dawn’, and the names of the Greek and Roman dawn goddesses Eos and Aurora come from the same root.

But what does an Anglo-Saxon dawn goddess have to do with Easter? Eostre’s festival was celebrated at the vernal equinox, and the commemoration of Christ’s resurrection had to be a spring feast because of the connection with the Jewish Passover. The early Christian missionaries to Britain seem to have been practical folk and found it easier to attach the most important feast of the new religion to an already-existing spring festival. The rabbits and the eggs are, of course, also vestiges of the pagan celebration of spring and fertility. And the sunrise service on Easter morning? At pre-Christian spring festivals, there was dancing to greet the sunrise, and there is an old belief that the sun rising on Easter morning dances in the heavens. The custom of lighting the “new fire” at the Easter Even service also has its origin in pre-Christian Celtic customs.

In many European languages (the exception is German Oster), the name for Easter comes from Pesah, the Hebrew word for ‘Passover’: Greek pascha, Latin pascha, French Pâques, Italian Pasqua, and Dutch Pasen. From the Old English period until the 17th century, both Easter and Pasch (pronounced “pask”) were used interchangeably to mean ‘Passover’ and ‘Easter’. In the Peterborough Chronicle of 1122 we find: “On this geare waes se king Heanri on Christes maessen on Norhtwic, and on Paxhes he waes on Norhthamtune” (This year King Henry was in Norwich for Christmas and in Northampton for Easter). A 1563 homilist spoke of “Easter, a great, and solemne feast among the Jewes.” Easter eventually won out for the name of the Christian holiday, though “Paschal” (“PAS kul”) is still an adjective meaning ‘Easter’, as in “Paschal candle.” In Scotland and the North of England, children hunt for “Pasch eggs.”

In case you’re wondering about Easter’s status as a “movable feast” (meaning that its date is based on a lunar cycle), the Council of Nicaea in 325 decided that the festival would be celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox. That didn’t settle the question by any means. The Roman and Celtic Churches argued for another 300 years before agreeing on a date. In the Eastern Orthodox Church, the date is also determined by the full moon, but Easter must come after Passover, which is why it usually falls on a different date than in the Western Church.

Easter is observed on a Sunday between March 22 and April 25. The commonly stated rule, that Easter Day is the first Sunday after the full moon that occurs next after the vernal equinox, is somewhat misleading because it is not a precise statement of the actual ecclesiastical rules.

The actual conditions to determine the date for Easter are:

Easter must be on a Sunday;
this Sunday must follow the 14th day of the paschal moon;
the paschal moon is that of which the 14th day (full moon) falls on or next follows the day of the vernal equinox; and
the equinox is fixed in the calendar as March 21.

In the Western World, Easter is celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the first day of spring—unless the date falls on the first day of the Jewish Passover festival. In which case, Easter is moved to the next Sunday.

Got that?
***

Oestara Greetings! from friend Mark:

Bangin’ on the Pipes/Steam Heat: nostalgic/novelty jazz; the only song my SO at the time didn’t like
Salt Peanuts: rapid-fire vocalization of the Dizzy Gillespie song, featuring Herbie Hancock on the piano, which I remember them performing with Carol Burnett on Carol’s show
Grinning in Your Face: straight-up blues by Son House, featuring side guitar by Bonnie Raitt
Shaky Flat Blues: poppish slow blues
That’s a Plenty / Surfeit USA: Dixieland
Little Pony: a Lambert, Hendricks and Ross tune
Fairytale: the song won the group its first Grammy Award, for Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group
Black Coffee: a gorgeous torch song, later covered by k.d. lang
Love in Them There Hills: my favorite: the slow, percussive funk by Gamble & Huff, which I used to listen to the volume up and the lights down.
The album got up to #82 in the Billboard charts. That same year, the group got named to Mr. Blackwell’s worst dressed list, which I thought was silly; they were retro chic!

As they became more pegged as an R and B group, they had hits such as Fire and Slowhand. They really broke out with 1983’s Break Out, with Jump (for My Love), Automatic, Neutron Dance, and a rerecording of I’m So Excited.

But it’s that early album that really got to me. Wish I had it in digital form.

1. Should the President be impeached? You may pick a letter (or more than one – the answers aren’t all mutually exclusive), or come up with an answer not provided.

A. The President acted appropriately in declassifying materials. There is no issue here.
B. You liberals couldn’t get him on some other issues, so now you’re trying this one on. Give it up!
C. The President is probably on safe legal ground, but listening to his Press Secretary describing the justification is rather like listening to Bill Clinton parce “is”.
D. It’s troubling, but don’t quote me. What’s the status of the USA PATRIOT Act again?
E. That conversation about censure might be appropriate about now.
F. Well, maybe impeachment is appropriate, but after the Clinton impeachment, the country cannot afford to be torn apart like that again.
G. I’ve been reading over the Twenty-Fifth Amendment, and I’ve concluded: Can’t we impeach the Vice-President first? After all he was still talking about WMDs “proven” to be in Iraq on Meet the Press four months after the Pentagon showed it wasn’t the case.
H. From my reading of USC 50,
“Protection of identities of certain United States undercover intelligence officers, agents, informants, and sources,” ITMFA.
(Now since this is a wholesome, family-friendly, column, I won’t tell you what that means. But if one were to go to ITMFA dot COM, one would be shocked, SHOCKED to find out.)
I. Who the heck is Valerie Plame?

2. Will either the President or the Vice-President ever be brought up on impeachment charges, and if so, how far will the charges go in the process?

3. Some retired US generals have been calling on Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to resign. Will he, and if so, when? Should he?

BONUS: Have recent revelations made you more cynical about the political process, you were already cynical about the political process, or you are more hopeful about the process because information has come to light?