Tour Date Number Three: Age Two, Stevie Wonder—Not Just Another Sesame Street Character

Today we travel back to my roots. And we’re talking the very root of my roots here. In order to stave off stark terror, you should breathe a sigh of relief when I tell you that I am sparing you many of the musical influences of my youth. That includes Captain and Tennille and a certain gospel artist named Mary John who makes my mother vomit at the very sound (true story). I could sing every word of “Do That To Me One More Time,” but that doesn’t make it something to build my musical history on, now does it?


This is the very first album I ever laid ears on and the first album I will recommend in its entirety. Stevie Wonder’s (yes I know that’s not his real name) Fulfilingness’ First Finale. It came out in 1974 when I was but two years old. My parents, well, probably mostly my mother, listened to it incessantly and I soon had it committed to memory before I could even understand most of the words. But I did understand the music. Music like his rarely finds its equivalent for me. Every time I hear it I want to get up and moooove. That’s what makes it great. So…my faves. **drum roll** IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER!

Too Shy To Say

You make me smile

You make me sing

You make me feel good everything

You bring me up

When I've been down

This only happens when you're around

And I can't go on this way...

With it stronger every day...

But being too shy to say

That I really love you...

I wanna fly

Away with you

Until there's nothing more for us to do

I wanna be

More than a friend

Until the end of an endless end

And I can't go on this way...

With it stronger every day...

But being too shy to say

That I really love you...

And I can't go on this way...

Feelin' it stronger every day...

But being too shy to say

That I really love you

Ohh.. ooh...

I... do...

Too Shy To Say is the quintessential love song. Simple, passionate, sweet…and it really sums things up nicely if you’re one of those tongue-tied sorts when it comes to love (like me).

Listen to it here.

They Won’t Go When I Go

No more lying friends

Wanting tragic ends

Though they do pretend

They won't go when I go

All those bleeding hearts

With sorrows to impart

Were right here from the start

And they won't go when I go

And I'll go where I've longed

To go so long

Away from tears

Gone from painful cries

Away from saddened eyes

Along with him I'll bide

Because they won't go when I go

Big men feeling small

Weak ones standing tall

I will watch them fall

They won't go when I go

And I'll go where I've longed

To go so long

Away from tears

Unclean minds mislead the pure

The innocent will leave for sure

For them there is a resting place

People sinning just for fun

They will never see the sun

For they can never show their faces

There ain't no room for

the hopeless sinner

Who will take more

than he will give

He ain't hardly gonna give

The greed of man will be

Far away from me

And my soul will be free

They won't go when I go

Since my soul conceived

All that I believe

The kingdom I will see

'Cause they won't go when I go

When I go

Where I'll go

No one can keep me

From my destiny.

As my son used to say (much to my chagrin)… “Dang, boy!” Those are some lyrics. Seriously. If I were to attempt to go into all that was implied by the poetry here I would have to allot at least a week of blogging to it. So…I’ll let you ponder it yourself. I’ve loved this song from the start and then when I knew the words and their meaning I loved it even more. My mother had the sheet music for the album and we played it on the piano and sang…loved it even more. And then, being a child of the eighties, I even liked the George Michael cover of this particular song that was released in September 1990 on his Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1 album (though, admittedly, Michael was no doubt invoking the meaning of the song for different reasons).

Listen to it here.

“Heaven is 10 Zillion Light Years Away” is the third place winner, but I can only post so many lyrics before people start getting glassy-eyed and all that. I also really like “Creepin’” and “Boogie on Reggae Woman” for no particular reason. It is absolutely crucial to your musical appetite to have songs that you like for no particular reason.

On another note, I have chosen to start with larger artists whose albums I own (several times over now--cassette, CD, CD, CD, iTunes--what, you never destroyed that many CD's?) and support rather than some of the smaller ones that I also listen to because I have my own internal struggles about how exactly to pass on my likes and dislikes without stealing their music--or by proxy encouraging the theft of their music. I really don’t like using the YouTube links, but, meh. I want you to hear, like, and buy. Where the artist has links/mp3’s on their website I will use that, of course. Some of you, I know, have no problems, but simply put…if someone wanted to come draw off ten or so free barrels of oil from my well, I’d be a bit tweaked at ‘em. So buy the albums and support the artist. That’s all I’m sayin’.

Fulfillingness' First Finale and all of Stevie Wonder's music is available in it's entirety on iTunes (who is not paying me, asking me, or giving me permission to mention them here). To learn more about the artist and his other music go here. To get to his official website go here.

Scat

Another Slice of Cake

After introducing Cake yesterday, I decided to try and keep all my mentions from their albums together, so here come a few more from one of their other albums. This is not to say I won’t remember some in the future and add them. You know me, I always reserve the right to come back and change entries or add to them :).


The coolest thing about Cake is their lack of adherence to any one particular style. You’ll hear country, jazz, pop, alternative, and many other styles in their music. You can read more about their styles, band members, etc. here. Their lyrics are always quirky and it’s sometimes difficult to determine what they are really singing about. Often, I like a song for its feel, but there are a few—like “Love You Madly”—that I like for the lyrics as well.

Here’s their cover of “I Will Survive” originally by Gloria Gaynor. This is their video. I won’t reproduce the lyrics here because most of you probably know them. They did this cover on their album Fashion Nugget. The first copy of that album I owned had all the f-words rubbed out. They were done so well that I hardly noticed (well, I noticed on "Nugget") and since Gaynor’s version used “stupid” I always sang “stupid.” My CD was damaged one day and I had to replace it. It was a bit of a rude awakening when I popped it into the CD player in the car with my 2-yr-old in the back seat and the F-word was everywhere (yet another shining moment of motherhood), so…language warning. There's a rubbed out version and a bleeped out version if you prefer that.

My history with “I Will Survive” is this: I discovered this version of the song in 2002. That was when Beanstalk was going through the worst of his health problem which continued through, well, several years. After any particular stay in Texas Childrens’ Hospital, we would pack our car to the gills with all the gear we had accumulated during our stay (he had a lot of equipment) and high-tail it out of there. This was our victory song. We played it as we exited parking garage 16 under the Clinical Care Center and drove down W. Holcombe toward 288. Sometimes twice. He loved it!

If you don’t have a victory song, you should get one. It's OK to be cheesy.

From the same album comes “Stick Shifts and Safety Belts.” I wasn’t such a big fan of this song initially, but it grew on me fast. It was also one of Beanstalk's faves and he liked to have it sung to him as he went to sleep or was comforted. It’s a simple song with a sweet message.

Stickshifts and Safetybelts

Stickshifts and safety belts

Bucket-seats have all got to go

When we're driving in the car

It makes my baby seem so far

I need you here with me

Not way over in a bucket-seat

I need you to be here with me

Not way over in a bucket-seat

But when were driving in my Malibu

It's easy to get right next to you

I say "Baby, scoot over please"

And then she's right there next to me

I need you here with me

Not way over in a bucket-seat

I need you to be here with me

Not way over in a bucket-seat

Well a lot of good cars are Japanese

Yea but when we're driving far

I need my baby

I need my baby next to me

Well

Stickshifts and safety belts

Bucket-seats have all got to go

When we're driving in the car

It makes my baby seem so far

I need you here with me

Not way over in a bucket-seat

I need you to be here with me

Not way over in a bucket-seat

You can listen to “Stickshifts and Safetybelts” here. Sorry, couldn’t find a video with good enough sound quality to really let you hear the song.

Tomorrow we’ll take a trip down memory lane and visit the very first recording artist I ever heard…Stevie Wonder and his Fulfillingness’ First Finale album.

Yeeeeesssss...the seventies.
Scat

Magical Mystery Tour: First Stop, Cake

OK, a “long” time ago, I wrote this post about finding my voice. In it, I mentioned I had no luck really coming up with a single topic I wanted to write about. In the end, I came up with the fact that I really write best about me. One o’ the launderettes suggested that they would like to know more about what makes me…well, me.


As you know, life would cease to exist if I were, say, suddenly devoid of my iPod. Not because of the device itself, but because of the music contained on it. For me, music is currency of the soul. It expresses things I do not have words for. Even when lyrics are involved, the actual music adds some inarticulate thing to it that, well, I have no words to describe.

I was listening to music before I was born. My mother was a pianist and I used to lay on the floor beneath the piano (yes, the one that is now in my closet) and close my eyes and let the music wash over me. My uncles and aunt were pianists and composers as well and I was more of a drinker of music. I took piano over the years. I also learned to play clarinet, flute, piccolo, viola briefly, dabbled with a guitar, and begrudgingly played the drums for a few weeks so my little brother could have some rhythm for his blues so-to-speak but it was always a means to an end and what I really enjoyed doing was singing, directing, and listening. Add in the ballet and life was complete. The scientist part didn’t really kick in until later.

So, here goes…with my characteristic disclaimer: IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER!!!!

My very own magical mystery tour of music. We shall begin with a piece of CAKE (see what I did there?).

This is “Love You Madly” from their Comfort Eagle album. I include the lyrics because I like them. You’ll have to get used to the fact that I sometimes quote lyrics if I like them. No set of song lyrics ever hits my personal philosophy of love or life bang on, so usually you have to go with the gist of things in that department, but always the feel of the song is really to my liking. So, where possible I am including links so that you can actually hear the song or see the video when possible.

Oh, and I’ve learned to say something to the effect that these lyrics and music are the sole property of the artist, etc. etc. Actually, the real blah (edited by me to be presentable and accurate in English) is this : Love You Madly Lyrics by Cake are the property of the respective authors, artists and labels. Love You Madly Lyrics by Cake are provided for educational purposes only. If you like the song, please buy the relative CD. (Which I have).

Love You Madly

I don’t want to wonder

If this is a blunder

I don’t want to worry whether

We’re gonna stay together
’till we die

I don’t want to jump in

Unless this music’s thumping

All the dishes rattle in the cupboards

When the elephants arrive

I want to love you madly

I want to love you now

I want to love you madly, way

I want to love you, love you

Love you madly

I don’t want to fake it

I just want to make it

The ornaments look pretty

But they’re pulling down the branches

Of the tree

I don’t want to think about it

I don’t want to talk about it

When I kiss your lips

I want to sink down to the bottom

Of the sea

I want to love you madly

I want to love you now, yeah

I want to love you madly, way

I want to love you, love you

Love you madly

I don’t want to hold back

I don’t want to slip down

I don’t want to think back to the one thing that I know I

Should have done

I don’t want to doubt you

Know everything about you

I don’t want to sit across the table from you

Wishing I could run

I want to love you madly

I want to love you now

I want to love you madly, way

I want to love you, love you

Love you madly

I found this song at a weird time in life. It was at a time when I did love some one madly, but they did not love me. And they should have. I knew it. So. Life is like that sometimes. Oddly enough, the song cheered me up. It was weird. I still had/have hope that I could find someone I could love like that. Madly.

Listen to it here. And enjoy the vid of Pete McNeal (Cake's drummer) and Vince DiFiore (Cake's trumpeter) battling it out in the kitchen.

You can find Cake's official site here.

Scat

A Sneaky Theif Is After Your Birthday Cake

OK. So admittedly sometimes I do not sleep well. I have theories on this, but the long and short of it is that left alone I gravitate toward a night owl type schedule. I change it back to fit the lives of my non-night owly children, but at the expense of a bit of my creativity.

So here I am at 3 a.m. being a night owl. You can hear a pin drop. For whatever reason, I did not go back into town today. I really wish I had. Pulling this stunt at the Bunker would have gone over much better. So. It's three. A.M. I decide to tuck myself in. Inevitably, Dad's laptop is still on and open so I have to deal with it. So I close it and start looking around for something to cover the HP icon that continues to glaringly light the room. Must. Have. Darkness! I don't have any glasses on. It's late. I find a cardboard feeling thingy and pick it up.

A voice screeches into the slumbering darkness, "A SNEAKY THEIF IS STEALING YOUR BIRTHDAY CAKE!" and it isn't one voice but a chorus of out-of-sync voices rolling around demonically and laughing as they talk. I have never heard anything so deafening in all my life!

I let out what can only be honestly described as a very girly scream, levitated, and began flapping about trying to shut down what I finally realized was...

...one of Squib's talking birthday cards.

Suffice it to say the whole house is awake.
This is sooooo me.

Scat