Hot Summer Breeze

After many years of working as the guitar player and the main songwriter for The Band, Robbie Robertson took a break from music when they disbanded in 1976 and he spent a few years doing film scores for his pal Martin Scorsese who directed The Last Waltz and he acted with Sissy Spacek in Coal Miner’s Daughter.  In 1987, he returned to pop music for his self-titled solo debut album on Geffen Records.  The album won the Juno Award for “Album of the Year”, and producers Lanois and Robertson won the “Producer of the Year” Juno award, both in 1989 as there were no Juno Awards held in 1988.  The songwriting was top notch, but his singing was a true surprise, as previously his only lead singing credit came on the Band’s Last Waltz album on the song ‘Out of the Blue’.

Robertson recruited fellow Canadian Daniel Lanois (of U2 and Peter Gabriel production fame) to create a new sonic landscape.  While Lanois was working with U2, he invited Robertson to come out to Ireland to work in the home studio where U2 were recording, and Robertson got a chance to work with Peter Gabriel in his home studio.  The album also featured many other top-notch guest stars, like the Neville Brothers, The Band’s Rick Danko and Garth Hudson, as well as studio veterans Tony Levin, Terry Bozzio and Larry Klein.  Tony Levin was in King Crimson, Terry Bozzio made his name working with Frank Zappa and Larry Klein is an award-winning producer and collaborator, who has worked on numerous albums with Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Don Henley, Warren Zevon, and Celine Dion.  ‘Broken Arrow’ reverberates with Gabriel’s signature Yamaha CP-80 electric piano.

Songwriters are faced with many possibilities when they compose music, and in this song ‘Broken Arrow’, Robbie Robertson decided to use the exact same note, the fifth note of sol or G for the first seven notes of the chorus to create a beautiful and haunting melody in part just by varying the rhythm of the notes.  In 1991, this became a top twenty hit for Rod Stewart, peaking at #20 on Billboard’s Hot 100 Chart and it went to #3 on the Adult Contemporary chart, and the video features Rachel Hunter, Rod’s wife at the time.  It was a staple for months on both MTV and VH1.

This album took Robbie Robertson back to his native American roots, as he was born in Toronto on July 5, 1943, to a Jewish gambler and a Mohican woman.  After his father died, Robbie began spending his summers with relatives on the Six Nations reserve near Brantford, Ont., and this was his first contact with spiritual people who had this connection with Mother Earth.  This song looks at issues from an Indian point of view, a perspective that opened the door for Robbie so he could go deeper into exploring his feelings of being a Native American.  The Native American imagery in this song abounds, in a much more personal way than it did on the songs that he did with the Band.  To native Americans, an arrow represents protection and defense and a broken arrow represents peace, reconciliation, the start of a new chapter, a time when conflict ends.  The image of rain, rain clouds, or a raindrop is considered to be a positive symbol, because water is a substance of life and a bottle of rain represents prosperity.

Who else is gonna bring you a broken arrow
Who else is gonna bring you a bottle of rain
There he goes moving across the water
There he goes turning my whole world around

Do you feel what I feel
Can we make that so it’s part of the deal
I gotta hold you in these arms of steel
Lay your heart on the line this time

I want to breathe when you breathe
When you whisper like that hot summer breeze
Count the beads of sweat that cover me
Didn’t you show me a sign this time

Who else is gonna bring you a broken arrow
Who else is gonna bring you a bottle of rain
There he goes moving across the water
There he goes turning my whole world around

Can you see what I see
Can you cut behind the mystery
I will meet you by the witness tree
Leave the whole world behind

I want to come when you call
I’ll get to you if I have to crawl
They can’t hold me with these iron walls
We’ve got mountains to climb

Who else is gonna bring you a broken arrow
Who else is gonna bring you a bottle of rain
There he goes moving across the water
There he goes turning my whole world around

Turning my whole world around
Turning my whole world around
Turning my whole world around
Turning my whole world around

Written for Song Lyric Sunday where the prompt is Breeze/Cloud/Sky/Wind.

Weather Forecast

The breeze felt good and there was not a cloud in the sky, then the wind picked up.  A downdraft of cooler air moved in and the sky became all dark, and just then, I felt a cool rush of air before the rain started coming down.  After 30 minutes, the clouds lifted from sky and the sun returned and the itsy-bitsy spider crawled up the spout again.

Last week we had General Length or Size of Things, and everyone was supposed to choose a song that contained one these prompts Long/Short/Small/Tall in either the title or the lyrics.  This week we have the weather-related prompts of Breeze/Cloud/Sky/Wind and the song that you choose must contain one of these prompt words in either the title or the lyrics.  Take some time to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this music challenge, and even better, read as many of them as you are able to as you will probably find many enjoyable songs and it is quite possibly that you will learn a thing or two.  Share your music with others and post a video, try do some research and let everyone know something about the song that you post.  Tell everyone why you like the song, whether it was a hit, or what you think the song is about.  Show the lyrics, let’s all listen to our favorite songs and explore some new music.  Try to find a song that fits the prompt, then write your post and create a pingback, or you can just place your link in the comments section.

Here are the “rules”:
• Post the lyrics to the song of your choice, whether it contains the prompt words or not.  If it does not meet the criteria, then please explain why you chose this song.
• Please try to include the songwriter(s) – it’s a good idea to give credit where credit is due.  Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be.
• Make sure you also credit the singer/band and if you desire you can provide a link to where you found the lyrics.
• Link to the YouTube video, or pull it into your post so others can listen to the song.
• Ping back to this post or place your link in the comments section below.
• Read at least one other person’s blog, so we can all share new and fantastic music and create amazing new blogging friends in the process.
• Feel free to suggest future prompts.
• Have fun and enjoy the music.

I am writing about the Robbie Robertson song ‘Broken Arrow’ today.  Next week, I will be writing about the song ‘The One That Got Away’ by P!nk.  The upcoming prompts will be:
March 7, 2021 – Cappuccino/Coffee/Expresso/Latte/Mocha
March 14, 2021 – Anguish/Misery/Torment
March 21, 2021 – Hop/Jump/Leap/Pounce/Spring
March 28, 2021 – Endless/Eternity/Everlasting/Forever/Infinity/Omega

Please Don’t Be Long

George Harrison wrote ‘Blue Jay Way’ as his contribution for the Beatles 1967 Magical Mystery Tour EP and album.  The song was named after a street in the Hollywood Hills of Los Angeles where Harrison stayed in August 1967, shortly before he went to visit the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco to see his wife’s sister Jenny Boyd.  The lyrics are all about Harrison waiting for his friend music publicist Derek Taylor to find his way to Blue Jay Way through the fog-ridden hills, while Harrison struggled to stay awake after the flight from London to Los Angeles.

In the first week of August, 1967, George flew to California, and he was driven to a small rented cottage with a pool on Blue Jay Way, a street high in the Hollywood Hills above Sunset Boulevard overlooking the Sunset Strip.  With George was his wife Pattie, Neil Aspinall and Alex Mardas (aka “Magic Alex”) and they planned to spend a week with Derek Taylor, to attend Ravi Shankar’s Hollywood Bowl concert on August 4th, and then to go visit George’s sister-in-law.  The Beatles’ former press officer Derek Taylor was now the publicist and he was promoting several West Coast bands like the Byrds and the Beach Boys.  This visit also allowed Harrison to reunite with his sitar tutor, Ravi Shankar, whose Kinnara School of Music and upcoming concert at the Hollywood Bowl and it helped George to publicize the event.  George was a bit jet-lagged after the flight from London, and since there was a Hammond organ in this house, George began tinkering around with it as everyone waited for Derek Taylor and his wife Joan, to join them in the house.

The house belonged to Robert Fitzpatrick, a music business lawyer who was on vacation in Hawaii and he was the manager of Peggy Lee.  The home’s location, was on a hillside of narrow, winding roads, and LA was experiencing foggy conditions at the time.  When George and his group arrived at the house, they called Derek and told him that they were on Blue Jay Way, but since there was no Google Maps or any GPS at this time, he didn’t know where that was.  Since they were not able to give him directions, Derek said that he could ask a policeman, because there were plenty of them around.

George was tired from the flight, but he didn’t want to go to sleep until his friend came, so to keep himself awake, and to pass the time while he waited, he wrote this song about waiting for him in Blue Jay Way.  Harrison sat down at the organ and started singing this song, and he had almost completed the song by the time the Taylors arrived, around two hours later than planned.  Some people say that this song is monotonous, but I like the dark musical mood of ‘Blue Jay Way’ and with the fog, it makes a haunting creepy song, but it also comes off as being ethereal.

According to some reports, Paul Simon wrote ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ at the same house on Blue Jay Way which he and Garfunkel rented.  There is no lead or rhythm guitar on the song and George sings lead vocals and plays organ.  I have read that John also plays organ on this, but some people dispute this, anyway John and Paul both sing backing vocals and Paul plays bass, while Ringo plays drums and tambourine.  The lead instrument is a cello played by Peter Willison, who was paid £27 for his work.  The classical musician came to the session straight from a show at the Albert Hall and was still in his tux.  He later remembered Ringo telling him he didn’t have to get dressed up for The Beatles.

Taylor was a national journalist working for the Daily Express and he became a trusted journalist in the Beatles circle.  As the Beatles gained national attention in Britain, Taylor’s editors conceived of running a column ostensibly written by a Beatle to boost circulation, which would be ghostwritten by Taylor.  George Harrison was the Beatle that they eventually decided upon.  Although Taylor was initially only given the right to approve or disapprove of the content, Harrison’s dissection of the first draft turned the column into an ongoing collaboration between the two, with Harrison providing the stories and Taylor providing the polish.  George was the only Beatle to show up at Derek’s funeral, and he did so quietly, accompanied by Eric Idle, the Monty Python alumnus whom George had befriended after the Beatles’ breakup.

There’s a fog upon L.A.
And my friends have lost their way
We’ll be over soon they said
Now they’ve lost themselves instead

Please don’t be long
Please don’t you be very long
Please don’t be long
Or I may be asleep

Well, it only goes to show
And I told them where to go
Ask a policeman on the street
There’s so many there to meet

Please don’t be long (don’t be long)
Please don’t you be very long (don’t be long)
Please don’t be long
Or I may be asleep

Now it’s past my bed I know
And I’d really like to go
Soon will be the break of day
Sitting here in Blue Jay Way

Please don’t be long (don’t be long)
Please don’t you be very long (don’t be long)
Please don’t be long
Or I may be asleep

Please don’t be long
Please don’t you be very long
Please don’t be long

Please don’t be long
Please don’t you be very long
Please don’t be long

Please don’t be long
Please don’t you be very long
Please don’t be long

Don’t be long, don’t be long
Don’t be long, don’t be long
Don’t be long, don’t be long
Don’t be long

Written for Song Lyric Sunday where the prompt is Long/Short/Small/Tall.

General Length or Size of Things

Mice are small, but snails are even smaller, while giraffes are considered to be tall.  In the alphabet, some lowercase letters are small and others are tall.  As children start to learn about the size and shape of objects they will begin to improve their spatial skills, but they need to understand how to use all of those words correctly.  They should use tall and short to talk about height (vertical distance) especially with people, but these words can also be used for buildings and trees.  They can use long and short to talk about the length or horizontal distance between things.  Long and short can also be used with time, books, words, sentences, animals, hair, legs, and many other things.  The short blonde has extremely long legs.  This is entirely a matter of opinion, but many say that a man who is less than 5’8” or 173cm in height is thought to be short and one that is over 6’ or 182cm is said to be tall.

Last week we had Inside Our Heads, and everyone was supposed to choose a song that contained one these prompts Brain/Mind/Think in either the title or the lyrics.  This week we have length and size prompts of Long/Short/Small/Tall and the song that you choose must contain one of these prompt words in either the title or the lyrics.  Take some time to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this music challenge, and even better, read as many of them as you are able to as you will probably find many enjoyable songs and it is quite possibly that you will learn a thing or two.  Share your music with others and post a video, try do some research and let everyone know something about the song that you post.  Tell everyone why you like the song, whether it was a hit, or what you think the song is about.  Show the lyrics, let’s all listen to our favorite songs and explore some new music.  Try to find a song that fits the prompt, then write your post and create a pingback, or you can just place your link in the comments section.

Here are the “rules”:
• Post the lyrics to the song of your choice, whether it contains the prompt words or not.  If it does not meet the criteria, then please explain why you chose this song.
• Please try to include the songwriter(s) – it’s a good idea to give credit where credit is due.  Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be.
• Make sure you also credit the singer/band and if you desire you can provide a link to where you found the lyrics.
• Link to the YouTube video, or pull it into your post so others can listen to the song.
• Ping back to this post or place your link in the comments section below.
• Read at least one other person’s blog, so we can all share new and fantastic music and create amazing new blogging friends in the process.
• Feel free to suggest future prompts.
• Have fun and enjoy the music.

I am writing about The Beatles song ‘Blue Jay Way’ today.  Next week, I will be writing about the song ‘Broken Arrow’ by Robbie Robertson.  The upcoming prompts will be:
February 28, 2021 – Breeze/Cloud/Sky/Wind
March 7, 2021 – Cappuccino/Coffee/Expresso/Latte/Mocha
March 14, 2021 – Anguish/Misery/Torment
March 21, 2021 – Hop/Jump/Leap/Pounce/Spring

Turn Off Your Mind

‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ is the closing psychedelically brilliant transcendental track from the Beatles seventh studio album Revolver, which was released in August 1966.  There was a lot going on in Revolver, with tape loops, backwards guitar solos, Indian sitars and tablas (twin hand drums), string quartets and ripe horns.  The Beatles had taken three months off prior to Revolver, their longest break since the start of their career, but with Revolver the band grew their confidence, as was clearly evident in ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’.  The song was titled simply ‘Mark 1’ when they started recording it, and Lennon wrote the song as a mantra composed of one repeating melody line over driving the bass and drum track.  One of the stranger sounds on this song is a seagull which was made by distorting the sound of Paul McCartney laughing to himself.  John Lennon wanted to sound like the Dalai Lama chanting from a hilltop on ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ and to get this effect producer George Martin and engineer Geoff Emerick recorded his voice through a rotating Leslie speaker and using an automatic double tracking technique, which the first time this was ever done.

The inspiration for the John Lennon and Paul McCartney credited Beatles song (but mostly written by John) ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’, came from a book that John was reading entitled, The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based On The Tibetan Book Of The Dead.  John was taking his third LSD trip when he was reading this book, which is about using psychedelic drugs and it was written to serve as a model and a guide for all mind-expanding inquiries.  It was published by Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner and Richard Alpert, all of whom took part in experiments investigating the therapeutic and religious possibilities of drugs such as mescaline, psilocybin and LSD.  The book is dedicated to Aldous Huxley and it includes a short introductory citation from Huxley’s book The Doors of Perception.  After Timothy Leary spent seven months in the Himalayas studying Tibetan Buddhism, he constructed a model of psychological transformation that rejected religious or transcendental meaning while creatively expanding the bardo concept (liminal state between death and rebirth) already evident in Tibetan Buddhism.

Lennon ran a tape recorder and read passages from (the book) as he was flying on a plane to the exotic island of Trinidad and Tobago.  He was soon writing a song using some of the actual lines from Leary, including his description of the state of grace beyond reality.  Lennon used ‘The Void’ as a working title.  Reading this book while taking LSD gave the Beatles the idea that, as with ancient Egyptian practice, when you die you lie in state for a few days, and then some of your handmaidens come and prepare you for a huge voyage.  Lennon followed the instructions that were given in Leary’s book and then he wrote this song.  Ringo would often say grammatically incorrect phrases (often called Ringo malapropisms) and that would make all the other guys laugh.  Ringo said, “I used to while I was saying one thing have another thing come into my brain and move down fast”, and one day he said, “Tomorrow never knows”, which came from a television interview after he told a story about a when someone cut off a portion of his hair and John made this the title of the song.

Turn off your mind, relax and float down stream
It is not dying, it is not dying

Lay down all thoughts, surrender to the void
It is shining, it is shining

Yet you may see the meaning of within
It is being, it is being

Love is all and love is everyone
It is knowing, it is knowing…

… that ignorance and hates may mourn the dead
It is believing, it is believing

But listen to the colour of your dreams
It is not living, it is not living

So play the game “Existence” to the end…
… Of the beginning, of the beginning
Of the beginning, of the beginning
Of the beginning, of the beginning
Of the beginning, of the beginning

We were talking about the space between us all
And the people who hide themselves behind a wall of illusion
Never glimpse the truth then it’s far too late
When they pass away We were talking about the love
We all could share when we find it
To try our best to hold it there with our love
With our love we could save the world if they
Only knew Try to realize it’s all within yourself
No one else can make you change
And to see you’re really only very small
And life flows within you and
Without you We were talking about the love
That’s gone so cold and the people
Who gain the world and lose their soul
They don’t know they can’t see,
Are you one of them? When you’ve seen beyond yourself
Then you may find, peace of mind is waiting there
And the time will come when you see
We’re all one and life flows on within you and without you

Written for Song Lyric Sunday where the prompt is Brain/Mind/Think.

Inside Our Heads

The human mind must surely be nature’s most astonishing creation.  Different thoughts are constantly racing through our minds, jumping around to and from different memories.  They could be connected or linked to each other, or they may be random and have nothing to do with each other.  Your brain is an organ that learns, designed by evolution to be changed by our experiences, but your mind is the set of faculties including cognitive aspects such as consciousness, imagination, perception, thinking, intelligence, judgement, language and memory, as well as noncognitive aspects such as emotion and instinct.  Each one of us has the power to use our mind to change our brain to change our mind.  The mind generates thoughts, awareness of consciousness, feelings, will-power, and reminiscence resided in the brain, so it has the ability to understand.  The brain is used to remember past events, which can then be synchronized to communicate information or predict the future consequences of our actions, while the mind is utilized to think.  Consequently, there is a connection between the mind and brain that enables us to choose before we make decisions.

Last week we had More Colors, and everyone was supposed to choose a song that contained a color in either the title or the lyrics.  This week we have the prompts of Brain/Mind/Think and the song that you choose must contain one of these prompt words in either the title or the lyrics.  Take some time to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this music challenge, and even better, read as many of them as you are able to as you will probably find many enjoyable songs and it is quite possibly that you will learn a thing or two.  Share your music with others and post a video, try do some research and let everyone know something about the song that you post.  Tell everyone why you like the song, whether it was a hit, or what you think the song is about.  Show the lyrics, let’s all listen to our favorite songs and explore some new music.  Try to find a song that fits the prompt, then write your post and create a pingback, or you can just place your link in the comments section.

Here are the “rules”:
• Post the lyrics to the song of your choice, whether it contains the prompt words or not.  If it does not meet the criteria, then please explain why you chose this song.
• Please try to include the songwriter(s) – it’s a good idea to give credit where credit is due.  Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be.
• Make sure you also credit the singer/band and if you desire you can provide a link to where you found the lyrics.
• Link to the YouTube video, or pull it into your post so others can listen to the song.
• Ping back to this post or place your link in the comments section below.
• Read at least one other person’s blog, so we can all share new and fantastic music and create amazing new blogging friends in the process.
• Feel free to suggest future prompts.
• Have fun and enjoy the music.

I am writing about The Beatles song ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ today.  Next week, I will be writing about the song ‘Blue Jay Way’ by The Beatles.  The upcoming prompts will be:
February 21, 2021 – Long/Short/Small/Tall
February 28, 2021 – Breeze/Cloud/Sky/Wind
March 7, 2021 – Cappuccino/Coffee/Expresso/Latte/Mocha
March 14, 2021 – Anguish/Misery/Torment

Fresh as the Bright Blue Sky

‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’ was recorded on the Guns N’ Roses’ 1987 debut album Appetite for Destruction.  The song became GNR’s most successful single, topping the Billboard Hot 100 and went to #6 in the UK and it won Best Single, Heavy Metal/Hard Rock at the 1989 American Music Awards.  The guitar solo was ranked as the 37th greatest solo of all-time by Guitar World, and this became the first 80s music video to hit 1 billion plays on Youtube.  This song was amazingly recorded in one take.  The lyrics were written by frontman Axl Rose as a dedication to his then-girlfriend Erin Everly, the daughter of Don Everly of the Everly Brothers.  They dated for four years, then they got married, but it ended nine months later, the marriage was annulled, with Everly claiming abuse.  ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’ started out as a riff with Slash fucking around on his guitar and Axl said, “Hold the fucking phones!  That’s amazing!”  Slash was just playing simple warm-up notes, so he disagreed, but once Axl heard Slash noodling, he knew that he had found something special.  Rose wrote most of the lyrics and vocal melodies and Slash wrote most of the instrumental.

Guns N’ Roses consisted of singer Axl Rose, guitarists Slash and Izzy Stradlin, bassist Duff McKagan and drummer Steven Adler and they were interested in rock and roll that was much more raw, angry and honest than what the pop-metal bands were playing.  They wanted to be a hard rock band with a lot of attitude, so their lives revolved around drink, hard drugs and bedding as many groupies as possible.  This song came at a time when hard rock had gone soft, due mostly to glam bands spending more time on their makeup than their music.  Izzy hit a rhythm, and this poem that Axl had written a while back, popped into his head and ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’ ended up being the savior of rock ‘n roll while Guns N’ Roses hit the big time. In music, a breakdown is part of a song in which various instruments have solo parts (breaks).  The breakdown section near the end of the song was suggested by producer Spencer Proffer, who was working with the band on its demos.  According to Slash, nobody was sure how that breakdown would work.

To get the right sound for this song, Axl went back to an unlikely source, the unfashionable ‘70s longhairs Lynyrd Skynyrd, the hard-drinking Southern redneck rockers that were decimated by a plane crash in 1977 that killed singer Ronnie Van Zant and two other band members.  When Axl finished writing the song and the band worked on it, but none of them were excited about the outcome.  To most of the members of the band, this song was just a joke, and they thought it would tank as soon as it was released, considering it to be a throwaway.

Axl Rose had a rough childhood, the existence of his birth father was hidden from him until late in his childhood, and when Rose was 2 years old, his parents split, which, according to Rose, led to him being kidnapped by his birth father.  In this song Axl writes a lot of ambiguous lyrics and he seems to be second guessing himself, although he must have been genuinely in love with this girl.  His old childhood memories take over when he sees her smile and make him think of a time, “Where everything was as fresh as the bright blue sky.”  He is not afraid to show his sensitive side, admitting that he might break down and cry.  Her eyes are like the bluest skies and he would never want to see any suffering in them and her hair makes him feel warm and safe, like he felt when he was in his hiding spot when he was a child, e prayed for the thunder and rain to stop.  The rest of the song is rather repetitive, with him being unsure and wondering, “where do we go now?”

She’s got a smile that it seems to me
Reminds me of childhood memories
Where everything was as fresh as the bright blue sky
Now and then when I see her face
She takes me away to that special place
And if I stare too long, I’d probably break down and cry

Whoa, oh, oh
Sweet child o’ mine
Whoa, oh, oh, oh
Sweet love of mine

She’s got eyes of the bluest skies
As if they thought of rain
I’d hate to look into those eyes and see an ounce of pain
Her hair reminds me of a warm safe place
Where as a child I’d hide
And pray for the thunder and the rain to quietly pass me by

Whoa, oh, oh
Sweet child o’ mine
Whoa whoa, oh, oh, oh
Sweet love of mine

Whoa, yeah
Whoa, oh, oh, oh
Sweet child o’ mine
Whoa, oh, whoa, oh
Sweet love of mine
Whoa, oh, oh, oh
Sweet child o’ mine
Ooh, yeah
Ooh, sweet love of mine

Where do we go?
Where do we go now?
Where do we go?
Ooh, oh, where do we go?
Where do we go now?
Oh, where do we go now?
Where do we go? (Sweet child)
Where do we go now?
Ay, ay, ay, ay, ay, ay, ay, ay
Where do we go now?
Ah, ah

Where do we go?
Oh, where do we go now?
Oh, where do we go?
Oh, where do we go now?
Where do we go?
Oh, where do we go now?
Now, now, now, now, now, now, now
Sweet child
Sweet child of mine

Written for Song Lyric Sunday where the prompt is Colors.

More Colors

Helen had this prompt back in July of 2017 before I ever heard of Song Lyric Sunday and it seems like such a nice prompt, that I am taking it out of retirement for this week.  I made my first SLS post a month later, but Helen gave me a list of all her previous prompts.  There are a lot of colors in the world and some of them you probably never heard of like, Sarcoline which is used for flesh, Coquelicot an orange-tinted red, Smaragdine an emerald green, Mikado a bold yellow, Glaucous a powdery coating on grapes and plums, Wenge a dark brown wood with copper undertones, Fulvous a brownish-yellow used for feathers, Xanadu a gray-green, Falu a deep red, Eburnean a white with a touch of yellow, and Amaranth a rose red.

Last week we had Divided Exactly By 2, with the prompt of Even/Odd.  This week we have the prompt Colors and the song that you choose must contain a color in either the title or the lyrics.  Take some time to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this music challenge, and even better, read as many of them as you are able to as you will probably find many enjoyable songs and it is quite possibly that you will learn a thing or two.  Share your music with others and post a video, try do some research and let everyone know something about the song that you post.  Tell everyone why you like the song, whether it was a hit, or what you think the song is about.  Show the lyrics, let’s all listen to our favorite songs and explore some new music.  Try to find a song that fits the prompt, then write your post and create a pingback, or you can just place your link in the comments section.

Here are the “rules”:
• Post the lyrics to the song of your choice, whether it contains the prompt words or not.  If it does not meet the criteria, then please explain why you chose this song.
• Please try to include the songwriter(s) – it’s a good idea to give credit where credit is due.  Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be.
• Make sure you also credit the singer/band and if you desire you can provide a link to where you found the lyrics.
• Link to the YouTube video, or pull it into your post so others can listen to the song.
• Ping back to this post or place your link in the comments section below.
• Read at least one other person’s blog, so we can all share new and fantastic music and create amazing new blogging friends in the process.
• Feel free to suggest future prompts.
• Have fun and enjoy the music.

I am writing about the Guns N’ Roses song ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’ today.  Next week, I will be writing about the song ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ by The Beatles.  The upcoming prompts will be:
February 14, 2021 – Brain/Mind/Think
February 21, 2021 – Long/Short/Small/Tall
February 28, 2021 – Breeze/Cloud/Sky/Wind
March 7, 2021 – Cappuccino/Coffee/Expresso/Latte/Mocha

We Ain’t Even Begun

‘The Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion)’ is considered a group composition, so the songwriting credit is simply The Grateful Dead.  This is the first song on the Grateful Dead’s debut eponymous studio album which was recorded and released in 1967, and it is an original along with the only other new one being ‘Cream Puff War’.  According to the biographies of both bassist Phil Lesh and drummer Bill Kreutzmann, the band released the album as San Francisco’s Grateful Dead, and although the album was considered “a big deal in San Francisco”, it did not see much airplay on AM radio stations outside of the Bay Area.  Their debut LP was cut in only four days in Los Angeles and it received a rapturous response in the Bay Area, pushing the record to #73 on the chart.

The Grateful Dead did cut a single in 1966 with the traditional 1920s American blues song ‘Stealin’’ baked by Henry Thomas’s ‘Don’t Ease Me In’ recorded on Scorpio Records.  Joe Smith worked his way up from promo man to president of Warner Brothers Records and he signed the Grateful Dead to Warner Brothers in 1967.  Joe and his wife went up to San Francisco and they were having dinner when a local DJ Tom Donahue called him, so they went over to the Avalon Ballroom to check out the scene.  They saw people with painted bodies lying on the floor watching a strobe light show, which was kind of startling.  Warner Brothers had Frank Sinatra and acts like that, but Joe saw this as a major change in what’s happening in music and so the adventure began!  Warner Brothers controlled the Dead through 1971 and beyond, up to a point.

When the Grateful Dead went home from the LA studios in February ‘67, they probably thought they were finished recording, but Warner Bros wanted a single, and they asked the group to record another song.  The Grateful Dead decided to write a song that captured the Haight hippie scene.  Palo Alto High School student Connie Bonner and her friend Sue Swanson, became the band’s first two loyal fans, the original Deadheads.  The title for this song came from Sue Swanson who was one of the founders of the Grateful Dead’s Fan Club which she called The Golden Road to Unlimited Devotion.  The Dead recorded the song at Coast Recorders in San Francisco later in February, rather than going back to LA.  They were able to take more time with this song, recording lots of takes, so it’s more layered with overdubs than the other songs on the album, but The Golden Road flopped as a single.

The song mentions a party that takes place every day, which happened during the summer of 1967 in San Francisco.  Rings around the sun or the moon, are formed when the sun’s light is refracted as it passes from the air through the ice crystals composing a cirrus cloud and these are called halos.  Cirrus clouds are around 20,000 feet or higher above us, thus they contain tiny, ice crystals that cause the light to split, or be refracted when the Sun is shining.

See that girl, barefootin’ along,
Whistlin’ and singin’, she’s a carryin’ on.
There’s laughing in her eyes, dancing in her feet,
She’s a neon-light diamond and she can live on the street.

Hey hey, hey, oh, by the way, come and (party every day)
Hey hey, hey, oh, by the way, come and (party every day)

Well everybody’s dancin’ in a ring around the sun
Nobody’s finished, we ain’t even begun.
So take off your shoes, child, and take off your hat.
Try on your wings and find our where it’s at.

Hey hey, hey, come (party every day)
Hey hey, hey, come (party every day)

Take a vacation, fall out for a while,
Summer’s comin’ in, and it’s goin’ outa style.
Well lite up smokin’ buddy, have yourself a ball.
Cause your mother’s down in Memphis, won’t be back ‘till the fall.

Hey hey, hey, come right away
Come and join the (party every day)

Hey hey, hey, come right away
Come and join the (party every day)

Hey hey, hey, come right away
Come and join the (party every day)

Hey hey, hey, come right away
Come and join the (party every day)

Written for Song Lyric Sunday where the prompt is Even/Odd.

Divided Exactly By 2

Something can look odd, even when it is normal.  The neighbors are very odd looking, they seem strange and most of the time they act unusual.  “Even if” is used when something is rarely done or it is just imagined.  “Even so” follows a fact and it means however or in spite of that.  “Even though” is used when something is always done or a fact is mentioned.  “Even when” is used when something is occasionally done.  “Getting even” would be getting back at someone who wronged you and you do something to settle the score, or when pertaining to gambling, it is about getting back the money that you lost.

Last week we had Just Another Day, with the prompt Chat/Laugh/Rant/Scream/Talk.   This week we have Even/Odd and the song that you choose must contain one of these prompt words in either the title or the lyrics.  Take some time to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this music challenge, and even better, read as many of them as you are able to as you will probably find many enjoyable songs and it is quite possibly that you will learn a thing or two.  Share your music with others and post a video, try do some research and let everyone know something about the song that you post.  Tell everyone why you like the song, whether it was a hit, or what you think the song is about.  Show the lyrics, let’s all listen to our favorite songs and explore some new music.  Try to find a song that fits the prompt, then write your post and create a pingback, or you can just place your link in the comments section.

Here are the “rules”:
• Post the lyrics to the song of your choice, whether it contains the prompt words or not.  If it does not meet the criteria, then please explain why you chose this song.
• Please try to include the songwriter(s) – it’s a good idea to give credit where credit is due.  Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be.
• Make sure you also credit the singer/band and if you desire you can provide a link to where you found the lyrics.
• Link to the YouTube video, or pull it into your post so others can listen to the song.
• Ping back to this post or place your link in the comments section below.
• Read at least one other person’s blog, so we can all share new and fantastic music and create amazing new blogging friends in the process.
• Feel free to suggest future prompts.
• Have fun and enjoy the music.

I am writing about the Grateful Dead song ‘The Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion)’ today.  Next week, I will be writing about the song ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’ by Guns N’ Roses.  The upcoming prompts will be:
February 7, 2021 – Colors
February 14, 2021 – Brain/Mind/Think
February 21, 2021 – Long/Short/Small/Tall
February 28, 2021 – Breeze/Cloud/Sky/Wind