music Archives - Page 95 of 268 - Ramblin' with Roger

John Lennon would have been 80

“The whole Beatles thing was just beyond comprehension.”

John-Lennon The problem with me writing about John Lennon is that I’ve written about him, as a solo artist or with The Beatles, about 200 times. Examples are here (The Word) and here (John and Yoko).

As I’ve noted, when my sisters, a neighbor girl, and I used to charge the local kids a couple cents to watch us lipsynch to the songs of Beatles VI, I was John.

Ten years ago, I listed my Top Ten Lennon songs, which has not appreciably changed. BTW, NONE of the original music links worked, but I replaced at least those.

Here are some covers

David Bowie Covering “Imagine” Live.

Covers by various artists of the entire Imagine album.

John Lennon’s Rock ‘n’ Roll album from 1975. The links don’t work. BUT here is the whole album. I bought it on December 9, 1980, in no small part because Double Fantasy was sold out.

A few covers of (Just Like) Starting Over.

Instrumentals from HELP

Since Coverville celebrated the 55th anniversary of the album HELP, I found the desire to listen to the instrumentals that were on the American soundtrack, arranged by Ken Thorne.

The James Bond Theme (Help ‘intro’). When I was about to be on JEOPARDY! back in 1998, Glenn Kagan from the show was going over my response card. He asked about my favorite group, to which I replied, “The Beatles.” This led to a conversation about the American Beatles albums and the two of us started doing this instrumental. I said, “I’m not familiar with that. How does it go?” We both laughed heartily. (On the videotape, this looks VERY goofy.)

From Me To You Fantasy
In the Tyrol
Another Hard Day’s Night
The Bitter End/You Can’t Do That
The Chase

Help is the first Beatles movie I ever saw. The title song is among the top five of my favorites of the group’s songs. Lennon said he wrote the song while feeling “the whole Beatles thing was just beyond comprehension” and subconsciously crying out for help.

Miscellany

John Lennon official site

Biography.com

A Songwriting Mystery Solved: Math Proves John Lennon Wrote ‘In My Life’

Rolling Stone interview, November 1968

An updated, comprehensive guide from Beginner Guitar HQ on how to play rhythm guitar like John Lennon

John Lennon posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 1994.

Lest I forget, it’s also Sean Ono Lennon’s 45th birthday.

1990 music: LOTS of #1s

Mariah Carey There were 25 #1 pop hits on Billboard’s pop charts in 1990. Nearly half of them topped the charts for a week apiece.

Vogue went double platinum, while Nothing Can Compare 2 U, Step by Step, Blaze of Glory, and Ice Ice Baby went platinum. Everything else went gold, except the Bolton, Ingram, Sweet Sensation, and George Michael hits.

Because I Love You (The Postman Song) – Stevie B. #1 for four weeks. I do not recognize the song or the artist.
Nothing Can Compare 2 U– Sinead O’Connor. #1 for four weeks. I LOVE this Prince song.
Visions of Love– Mariah Carey. #1 for four weeks. #1 for two weeks RB.

Vogue – Madonna. #1 for three weeks. #16 RB. Possibly my favorite Ciccone song.
Escapade – Janet Jackson. #1 for three weeks. #1 RB. I saw her perform in 2018.
Love Takes Time – Mariah Carey. #1 for three weeks. #1 RB.

Opposites Attract – Paula Abdul with the Wild Pair. #1 for three weeks. #3 for two weeks RB. So THAT’S how relationships work!
Step by Step – New Kids on the Block. #1 for three weeks. #48 RB.
How Am I Supposed to Live Without You – Michael Bolton. #1 for three weeks.

It Must Have Been Love – Roxette. #1 for two weeks.
Black Velvet – Alannah Myles. #1 for two weeks. I had forgotten this song. I like her voice.
Release Me – Wilson Phillips. #1 for two weeks.
She Ain’t Worth It – Glenn Medeiros/Bobby Brown. #1 for two weeks. #43 RB.

Just one week at #1 pop

Hold On – Wilson Phillips.
Blaze of Glory – Jon Bon Jovi.
I’m Your Baby Tonight – Whitney Houston. #1 for two weeks RB.

Close To You– Maxi Priest.
I Don’t Have the Heart– James Ingram. #53 RB.
Ice Ice Baby – Vanilla Ice. #6 RB. A lawsuit that was just begging to happen.

(Can’t Live Without Your) Love and Affection– Nelson. Oh, THOSE guys.
If Wishes Came True – Sweet Sensation.
Love Will Lead You Back– Taylor Dayne.

Praying For Time– George Michael.
I’ll Be Your Everything– Tommy Page.
Black Cat– Janet Jackson. This song rocks. #10 RB.

I’ll admit to being less than familiar with many of the songs. Yeah, I know Paula, Mariah, Whitney, Madonna, Sinead. I’ve certainly heard NKotB, Bon Jovi, George Michael, Bobby Brown. And yes, even Vanilla Ice and Michael Bolton.

When I was testing for JEOPARDY! back in 1998, there was a clue that was something like this, in the category Before And After. “This World War I President is a singing trio that can “Hold On” to the Beach Boys and the Mamas and the Papas.” The correct response: Who is Woodrow Wilson Phillips?

September rambling: demand decency

“I Don’t Want Nobody To Give Me Nothing”

The Illegitimacy of a Conservative Supreme Court.

Demand decency.

Staying Sane in Anxious Times (without being useless).

A Catholic’s Case Against Amy Coney Barrett. Plus The Supreme Court: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.

Pasco’s sheriff created a futuristic program to stop crime before it happens. It monitors and harasses families across the county.

Uninsured up from last year and pandemic likely to exacerbate this trend.

Renewed calls for diversity and inclusion in ballet.

A Texas County Clerk’s Bold Crusade to Transform How We Vote.

The Twisted History of Cursive Writing.

How to Make Your Writing Funnier – Cheri Steinkellner.

NFL Legend Gale Sayers Dies at 77: CNN and NPR.

Baseball Hall of Famer Lou Brock has died at 81.

Secret ‘Man Cave’ Discovered in Room Beneath Grand Central Station.

NANCY is again a comic strip?

Ken Levine interviews Michael Uslan, The Man Who Saved Batman, Part One and Part Two.

Dick York After ‘Bewitched’.

The Judy Jetson controversy.

Tomato quick bread recipe.

Now I Know

The Original Scapegoat and The Final Frontier of Telemarketing and The Last Confederate POW and Why Roosters Don’t Deafen Themselves.

Antiracism Challenge

Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman on race, injustice, and protest.

A series of short films about identity in America.

The Speak Up Handbook by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

What Is Privilege?

‘Intergroup anxiety’: Can you try too hard to be fair?

Racism is Trauma.

Allegories on race and racism – Camara Jones, TEDxEmory.

ALICE — Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed.

IMPOTUS

His Rage Is Worse Than You’ve Heard.

Every Lie Is a Confession.

He Fuels March Toward Fascism With “Anarchist Jurisdictions” Edict.

He Says Coronavirus ‘Affects Virtually Nobody,’ As U.S. Has World’s Highest Death Toll.

His HHS ad blitz raises alarms.

Blacks have themselves to blame for inequality, and Jews ‘are only in it for themselves’.

DOJ Unveils Proposal That Would Make It Harder for Twitter and Facebook to Block His Dangerous Posts.

He Is $1.1 Billion in Debt.

They got Al Capone for tax evasion, too…. cf I Found Joe Biden’s Tax Returns.

He celebrates violence against his enemies as recurring rally theme.

Shock (?) Over His Refusal To Promise ‘Peaceful Transfer Of Power’.

Barbara Walter Interview on ABC’s 20/20 – August 17, 1990.

I Won’t Vote Trump – Randy Rainbow.

MUSIC

RIP, Toots.Zooming in with Frederick Nathaniel “Toots” Hibbert — the Legend Who Literally Invented “Reggae”. Bam Bam and 54-46 Was My Number and Sweet and Dandy and Pressure Drop.

I Don’t Want Nobody To Give Me Nothing (Open Up The Door I’ll Get It Myself) – James Brown

I’d Rather Go Blind ~ Rebecca Jade at Spaghettini.

Tiny Desk (Home) Concert – Phoebe Bridgers.

With God On Our Side – NEVILLE BROTHERS.

We Have All The Time In The World – Louis Armstrong.

Virtual Sabbath Prayer.

Coverville 1324: Cover Stories for Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars and 1325: 50 Years After…After the Gold Rush (Album Cover) and 1326: Jimi Hendrix Cover Tribute.

Attention by Pamela Z.

4’33” by John Cage.

Without the Beatles.

Lydster: older music she knows

Destiny’s Child

destinys child While there was some music that I made sure my daughter knew about, most of it she learned on her own. And this includes tunes from well before she was born.

Some months ago, she would put on a mix of soul music from the 1990s when she took a shower. It was heavy on Destiny’s Child, which she seems to enjoy more than more recent Beyonce.
Waterfalls – TLC
Survivor – Destiny’s Child
Motown Philly – Boyz 2 Men

But I ask her HOW she knows other songs, most of which are even older, she says, “Everybody knows them.”
Bridge Over Troubled Water – Simon and Garfunkel. This might have been a function of a school assembly.
American Pie – Don MacLean
You’re So Vain – Carly Simon
Lean on Me – Bill Withers. incidentally, I had somehow never heard the Club Nouveau version until after Bill Withers had died
Take Me Home Country Roads – John Denver. This was on some kids’ album by someone else
Stayin’ Alive – BeeGees. She probably learned about CPR in school. But she knows no other songs by the group

More older music

My Sharona – The Knack
500 Miles – the Proclaimers. This surprised me a bit.
Purple Rain – Prince, about the only song of his she knows.
Under Pressure – Queen and David Bowie
We Are the World – USA for Africa
La Bamba – Los Lobos
Macarena – Los Del Rio. It WAS massive.

There’s also a lot of classic Motown she’s familiar with. Some she learned at school, some from me. Of course, she had learned The Beatles from me, and even danced to Strawberry Fields Forever some years ago.
I Can’t Help Myself – Four Tops
Dancing in the Street – Martha and the Vandellas
Help – The Beatles

We have something in common. There are songs we both know better as Weird Al parodies than the originals, and in fact, learned the original as a result of the variation. That may be true of another popular song.
Like a Surgeon – Weird Al
Like a Virgin – Madonna
Bohemian Rhapsody – Queen
Bethlehemian Rhapsody. I asked her who was most famous to multiple generations, and one of her first picks was Freddie Mercury.

She turned us on to Hamilton: Alexander Hamilton. But I first played Hey, Ya – Outkast for her.

September rambling: torched

the wanton, uninterrupted, tragic destruction

phonetically-defined-floriculture — From Wrong Hands

The Inevitable Whitelash Against Racial Justice Has Started.

America’s long history of scapegoating its Asian citizens.

September 29 on Zoom: “Agitate!” Frederick Douglass and Ireland: A Conversation about history, solidarity, racial justice in Ireland, and the US.

State of New York State History: 1827 Freedom Bicentennial Commission Covid-19 Casualty.

Oakland residents convinced the city to rethink how it tackled gun violence.

Tennessee passed a bill increasing penalties related to political protests to felonies. This could revoke the right to vote.

Gravity, Gizmos, and a Grand Theory of Interstellar Travel.

The dream about my ‘only you’.

Ken Levine interviews writer Bill Persky part one and part two.

“A PRESIDENT WHO LOWERS YOUR BLOOD PRESSURE”: WHY BIDEN SHOULD AVOID TRUMP’S TOUGH-GUY TRAP.

Weekly Sift: The Four Big Lies of the Republican Convention and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: RNC 2020 and Kenosha.

Florida Man Leads His State to the Morgue.

History’s a Joke! Laugh! We Need It.

The Inside Story of the $8 Million Heist from the Carnegie Library.

Why Politics Makes You So Angry.

IMPOTUS

In newly revealed recorded interviews with Bob Woodward, he knew the coronavirus was much deadlier than the seasonal flu but that he “wanted to always play it down.” He Breaks With US History of Global Cooperation in Eradicating Diseases.

He May Have Broken the Law by Encouraging NC Residents to Try and Vote Twice, and For a Second Day in a Row.

Fox reporter confirms story that he slurred troops. Gold Star families react. ‘He Is a Draft Dodger’, Brutal New Lincoln Project Ad Charges.

His EPA Chief Lays Out Vision for Agency Critics Warn Would Create ‘Apocalyptic, Devastated Planet’. ‘Disaster for Endangered Species and the Natural World’: Advocates Decry Move to Gut Habitat Protection Law.

His hires are sabotaging Voice of America and transforming its journalism.

The real threat to law and order is found with his enablers, lackeys, and bottom-dwellers.

Federal judge orders regime to stop detaining asylum-seeking children at hotels.

He Despises His Supporters Too.

Despite reality, he said he won the popular vote in 2016 ‘in a true sense’.

At least, the Nazis love him.

THOUGHTS FOR TODAY

I got my flu shot last week. Just saying.

From xkcd

Washington Post editorial board: “But beyond the low unemployment rate he gained and lost, history will record his presidency as a march of wanton, uninterrupted, tragic destruction. America’s standing in the world, loyalty to allies, commitment to democratic values, constitutional checks and balances, faith in reason and science, concern for Earth’s health, respect for public service, belief in civility and honest debate, beacon to refugees in need, aspirations to equality and diversity and basic decency — he torched them all.”

I am patient with stupidity but not with those who are proud of it. -Edith Sitwell, poet (7 Sep 1887-1964)

Now I Know

When Candy Land was the Game of Life and The Accidental Case for Loose Morals and The Literal No Man’s Land and The Missing Marathoner and Why Cats and Salad Ingredients Don’t Mix and When Little Leaguers Need to Play to Lose.

MUSIC

Stabat mater– Julia Perry.

End Credits suite from Black Panther, written by Swedish composer Ludwig Goransson.

Coverville 1322: Joe Jackson Cover Story and Justin Townes Earle Tribute and 1323: Van Morrison Cover Story and September Songs.

Kreutzer Violin Sonata No. 9– Beethoven.

Weekend Diversion: Yazoo.

Quarantined Brits Play Recorder From Balconies.

K-Chuck Radio: Wait, there’s a new Midnight Oil song?

There’s a lot of mashups that haven’t been done… but just you wait…

Getting to Know You – Julie Andrews.

Teach me, O Lord – Thomas Attwood.

DOES AN ORCHESTRA NEED A CONDUCTOR!? – 5 reasons why.

That’s Just the Way Willie Nelson Rolls