I is for…

I have always loved the Moody Blues.  I encountered them my freshman year in college when I bought one of their albums.  It turned out not to be one of their better ones, though it had some good songs.  The ones I liked best were generally written by Justin Hayward.  Today’s selection was written by him as a sequel to Once Upon a Time in Your Wildest Dreams.

I was scheduled to be on one of those coast-to-coast conference calls once. You know: something urgent to discuss, a whole lot of edgy, self-important  sorts from corporate America.  We got our dial-in number and our code to punch in.  The conference was set to begin at 2:30 pm precisely. 

I dialed the number. 

I muttered something sat back, the earpiece of the phone pinched between my shoulder and my ear, my hands busy on my keyboard.  Music came on…  James Taylor… 

(Reissuing on the correct day…)

Driving down a summer highway, listening to the radio.  I hear the hurried strum of a guitar, an untrained tenor voice starts singing.  I roll up the windows and turn up the volume and sing along: 

Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road
Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go
So make the best of this test, and don’t ask why
It’s not a question, but a lesson learned in time

It’s something unpredictable, but in the end is right.
I hope you had the time of your life.  

I only heard part of it.  Months passed before I heard it again.  This time I caught a string of words, did a Search, and captured the words for good:

So take the photographs, and still frames in your mind
Hang it on a shelf of good health and good time
Tattoos of memories and dead skin on trial
For what it’s worth it was worth all the while

It’s something unpredictable, but in the end is right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

There are some pieces of music that require no words, that move people (some people) almost to tears.  Music that makes a listener’s heart seem to pause.

Aaron Copland was commissioned by the Cincinnati (Ohio, US) symphony orchestra as a sort of response to the entry of the United States into World War II.  The title ‘Fanfare for Soldiers’ was suggested, but Copland chose ‘Fanfare for the Common Man’.  It premiered in March of 1943.

I first heard it in High School.  It was splendid, magnificent – and to imagine that such splendor and magnificence could pertain to we, the common people, was an eye-opening thought to one whose reading had been in history, and who had been dazzled by ‘the captains and the kings’.

Revel in the music – it was written for you.  Click on the title to enjoy the fanfare performed by the United States Marine Band:

Fanfare for the Common Man (YouTube)

                                                     
Eres Tu (‘You are’) was sung by the Spanish group Mocedades, who performed it for the first time in 1973.   I did not hear it, myself until years later.  I first heard the melody for this on a Lawrence Welk show, of all places.  A beautiful singer from Mexico, often featured on the show, sang the words, a few of which I caught.  I loved the flow of the melody, the soaring climax, descending again, warmly, to a smile.

I took classes in Spanish when I was very young.  It is a Romance language, and I can understand it if I see it written, but the words of a song generally escape me.  …something about the night… The rest of the words escaped me.  I made up my own to fit the melody, sang them when I felt like it, and stopped everything to listen when the song came on the air, as it still does from time to time.

And then along came the internet, and I adapted.  Last year it occurred to me that I could maybe look up the song, learn what, exactly, it was about, and stop singing phonetic gibberish.  As often happens when a smash hit song is translated into another language, the words didn’t make a lot of sense.  It was obviously an issue with translation, not with the words themselves – the sense was lovely, a paean to all that a loved one was to the singer.

Last week, checking again, I found a very beautiful, flowing translation of the lyrics, which I share here with full credit to the translator:

So like a promise, it is you, it is you
So like a morning in the summer
The warmth of a smile, it is you, it is you
For me, for me, it is you

My hope and my yearning, it is you, it is you
So like a cool rain in my warm hands
So like a soft wind, it is you, it is you
For me, for me, it is you

The rhyme in my poem, it is you, it is you
Like a guitar sounds in the nighttime
The light on my horizon, it is you, it is you
For me, for me, it is you

I found a link on YouTube to one of the original performances.  It is HERE .  I like it even more.

I also found a link to a fairly recent performance of that song, which is something of a classic in Spain, deservedly.  Mocedades has worn well.

I remember when this song first came out.  That beautiful, lyrical voice – framing words that made me blink and then smile:

Well I’ll be damned
Here comes your ghost again
But that’s not unusual
It’s just that the moon is full
And you happened to call
And here I sit
Hand on the telephone
Hearing a voice I’d known
A couple of light years ago
Heading straight for a fall

The story behind the song was  an interesting one.  Someone she had had a relationship with – conjecture abounded.  Some said it was Bob Dylan.  Dylan, himself, seemed to think so, based on Baez’ memoirs.  Does it matter?  A ghost from the past comes to visit, bringing memories:

Now I see you standing
With brown leaves falling around
And snow in your hair
Now you’re smiling out the window
Of that crummy hotel
Over Washington Square
Our breath comes out white clouds
Mingles and hangs in the air
Speaking strictly for me
We both could have died then and there

And the emotions are there, with an openness to memories and, perhaps, another touch:

…It’s all come back too clearly.
Yes, I loved you dearly.
And if you’re offering me Diamonds and Rust
I’ve already paid.

– – – – – –
WATCH A VIDEO HERE  (Joan was not into music videos…this is a live recording)

   There are three songs that seem to tie together.  Let’s look into them:

Carry on my wayward son
There’ll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Don’t you cry no more

Masquerading as a man with a reason
My charade is the event of the season
And if I claim to be a wise man, well
It surely means that I don’t know

On a stormy sea of moving emotion
Tossed about, I’m like a ship on the ocean
I set a course for winds of fortune
But I hear the voices say…

Hm.  We are all just a little frenetic in our younger years, but things seem to mellow when we come to ourselves and buckle down.  We even grin, a little:
Turning back the pages to the times I love best I wonder if she’ll ever do the same
Now the thing that I call living is just being satisfied
With knowing I got no one left to blame

Carefree highway, you seen better days
The morning after blues from my head down to my shoes
Carefree highway, let me slip away, slip away on you

Daddy’s got a radio

I Made it up to Music Row
Lordy don’t the wheels turn slow
But I wouldn’t Trade a minute
I wouldn’t have it any other way 
Just show me to the Stage


I’m chasin’ the neon rainbow, Livin’ that honky-tonk dream
‘Cause all I’ve ever wanted Is to pick this guitar and sing
Just trying to be somebody Just wanna be heard and seen
Chasin’ that neon rainbow Livin’ that honky-tonk dream

– – – – – –
Carry On My Wayward Son:
Songwriter(s): Kerry Livgren
Copyright: Kirshner Don Music

Chasin’ That Neon Rainbow lyrics © EMI Music Publishing, Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.

This song by Steve Winwood somehow speaks to dreams I once had and renounced because of initial disappointments and the pure hard work involved in them.  Like the others I speak of in this challenge, it’s one of those songs that make me stop what I’m doing and listen. 

I tend to be a visual sort, and as a storyteller I find that songs turn themselves into stories.    I can see someone who turned away and rejected  everything confident that he could do it all by himself and not ‘pay his dues’, coming to himself thinking that he could do it, and this time he would do it right, step back into the world he belonged in.  It might take courage…

AFRICA – by Toto

But she hears only whispers of some quiet conversations…

The beat continues and the words unwind their images –

I think, somehow, we all have an affinity for The Skull-Shaped Continent.  Did life come from there?  I don’t know, but we all have roots in its soil, we all have images in our minds of bright clothing, of mountains or plains, deserts – all the fabulous wealth of human civilization, some of them existing in our knowledge only as memories.  Africa.