I have had a grief-filled week and came across this song. (Thank you Carol.)
Nothing to do with cars, and I could save it until this theme comes around someday, but today is when I needed it, and there it was. It might not be new to others but a wonderful surprise for me.
The music is lovely and haunting, and the video is beautiful.
Full screen and volume up for this one.
Lyrics for Resilient by Rising Appalachia
I am resilient I trust the movement I negate the chaos Uplift the negative I’ll show up at the table Again and again and again I’ll close my mouth and learn to listen These times are poignant The winds have shifted It’s all we can do To stay uplifted Pipelines through backyards Wolves howling out front Yeah I got my crew but truth is what I want Realigned and on point Power to the peaceful, prayers to the waters Women at the center All vessels open to give and receive Let’s see this system brought down to its knees I’m made of thunder, I’m made of lightning I’m made of dirt, yeah Made of the fine things My father taught me That I’m a speck of dust and this world was made for me so let’s go and try our luck I’ve got my roots down down down deep So what are we doing here What has been done What are you going to do about it When the world comes undone My voice feels tiny And I’m sure so does yours Put us all together we’ll make a mighty roar I am resilient I trust the movement I negate the chaos Uplift the negative I’ll show up at the table again and again and again I’ll close my mouth and learn to listen…
Song reminds me of my Dad but his car was, in fact, a 1960 pale yellow, Buick convertible. Man he loved that car. When he could get enough time off work, he would pile my sisters and me in the car, and take us on what he called our Road Trips (never more than a few hours away).
My favorite was in the dead of winter when he would drive until we found snow…hard to do in San Diego.
He’d bundle us up in blankets, lower the top, crank up the heater full blast and drive the freezing mountain roads….
Watched it coming up Winslow
Down South Park Boulevard
Yeah it was looking good from tail to hood
Great big fins and painted steel
Man it looked just like the Batmobile
With my old man behind the wheel
Well you could hardly even see him
In all of that chrome
The man with the plan and the pocket comb
But every night it carried him home
And I could hear him sayin’…
Don’t gimme no Buick
Son you must take my word
If there’s a God in heaven
He’s got a Silver Thunderbird
You can keep your Eldorados
And the foreign car’s absurd
Me I want to go down
In a Silver Thunderbird
He got up every morning
While i was still asleep
But I remember the sound of him shuffling around
Then right before the crack of dawn
I heard him turn the motor on
But when I got up they were gone
Down the road in the rain and snow
The man and his machine would go
Oh the secrets that old car would know
Sometimes I hear him sayin’…
Well, this word conjures up too many responses…songs with the word “game” in the title or lyrics but I just cannot post a song by Foreigner! It’s too easy.
I have been a Psychotherapist (that’s one word, not two or three) in private practice for 40 some years now. My original education and training was in Transactional Analysis, a pop psych theory made popular by Eric Byrne in his best selling book Games People Play
Games in this context are defined as Berne defined games as: “an ongoing series of complementary ulterior transactions progressing to a well-defined,predictable outcome. Descriptively, it is a recurring set of transactions… with a concealed motivation… or gimmick.” www.ericberne.com/games-people-play/
Given this definition, I’d wager that MOST songs are about “games”, in one way or another. In my music life, as far back as 1965, Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders, “The Game of Love”, (another one I just cannot post!), songs have been about one game or another.
So I picked two of my favorite songs, both about a bigger picture kind of Game.
One rings very true for my generation, not that it doesn’t apply to others, but we became so much more aware of this game. “Running on Empty” by Jackson Browne.
And the other, more of a universal game currently being played by too many humans on our planet! “They’re not Here, They’re Not Coming” by Don Henley. (There is some sad irony in the timing of Henley’s song, released in July 2001….)
Both songs are great musically. Just don’t miss the message!
Looking out at the road rushing under my wheels
Looking back at the years gone by like so many summer fields
In sixty-five I was seventeen and running up one-oh-one
I don’t know where I’m running now, I’m just running on
Running on, running on empty
Running on, running blind
Running on, running into the sun
But I’m running behind
Gotta do what you can just to keep your love alive
Trying not to confuse it with what you do to survive
In sixty-nine I was twenty-one and I called the road my own
I don’t know when that road turned, into the road I’m on
Running on, running on empty
Running on, running blind
Running on, running into the sun
But I’m running behind
Everyone I know, everywhere I go
People need some reason to believe
I don’t know about anyone but me
If it takes all night, that’ll be all right
If I can get you to smile before I leave
Looking out at the road rushing under my wheels
I don’t know how to tell you all just how crazy this life feels
Look around for the friends that I used to turn to to pull me through
Looking into their eyes I see them running too
Running on, running on empty
Running on, running blind
Running on, running into the sun
But I’m running behind
Honey you really tempt me
You know the way you look so kind
I’d love to stick around but I’m running behind
You know I don’t even know what I’m hoping to find
Running into the sun but I’m running behind
From the Arizona desert
To the Salisbury Plain
Lights on the horizon
Patterns on the grain
Anxious eyes turned upward
Clutching souvenirs
Carrying our highest hopes
And our darkest fears
They swear there was an accident
Back in ’47
Little man with a great big head
Splattered down from heaven
Government conspiracy
Cover-ups and lies
Hidden in the desert
Under endless skies
Well, it’s a cold, cold, cold, cold, cold, cold, cold, cold
Post, postmodern world
No time for heroes, no place for good guys
No room for Rocky The Flying Squirrel
They’re not here, they’re not coming
Not in a million years
Turn your weary eyes back homeward
Stop your trembling, dry your tears
You may see the heavens flashing
You may hear the cosmos humming
But I promise you, my brother
They’re not here, they’re not coming
Would they pile into the saucer
Find Orlando’s rat and hug it?
Go screaming through the universe
Just to get McNuggets?
Well, I don’t think so, I don’t think so
It’s much too dangerous, it’s much too strange
Here in a world that won’t give Oprah
No home on the range
Well, it’s a cold, cold, cold, cold, cold, cold, cold, cold
Post, postmodern world
No authenticity, no sign of soul
The radio won’t play George and Merle
They’re not here, they’re not coming
Not in a million years
‘Til we put away our hatred
‘Til we lay aside our fears
You may see the heavens flashing
You may hear the cosmos humming
But I promise you, my sister
They’re not here, they’re not coming
To this garden we were given And always took for granted It’s like my daddy told me “You just bloom where you’re planted.” Now you long to be delivered From this world of pain and strife That’s a sorry substitution For a spiritual life
Well, it’s a cold, cold, cold, cold, cold, cold, cold, cold
Post, postmodern world
No place for sentiment, no room for romance
Bring back the Duke of Earl
They’re not here, they’re not coming
Not in a million years
Turn your hopes back homeward
Hold your children, dry their tears
You may see the heavens flashing
You may hear the cosmos humming
But I promise you, my brother
They’re not here, they’re not coming
They’re not here, they’re not coming
Not in a million years
‘Til we put away our hatred
And lay aside our fears
You may see the heavens flashing
You may hear the cosmos humming
But I promise you, my brother
They’re not here, they’re not coming
WMG (on behalf of BNL P&D (Questar/Mission)); PEDL, ASCAP, UBEM, CMRRA, Warner Chappell, and 15 Music Rights Societies
LYRICS
It’s been one week since you looked at me
Cocked your head to the side
and said I’m angry
Five days since you laughed at me saying
Get that together come back and see me
Three days since the living room,
I realized it’s all my fault, but couldn’t tell you
Yesterday you’d forgiven me
But it’ll still be two days till I say I’m sorry
Hold it now and watch the hoodwink
As I make you stop, think
You’ll think you’re looking at Aquaman
I summon fish to the dish,
Although I like the Chalet Swiss
I like the sushi
Cause it’s never touched a frying pan
Hot like wasabe when I bust rhymes
Big like Leann Rimes
Because I’m all about value
Bert Kaempfert’s got the mad hits
You try to match wits
You try to hold me but I bust through
Gonna make a break and take a fake
I’d like a stinkin, achin shake
I like vanilla, It’s the finest of the flavors
Gotta see the show,
Cause then you’ll know
The Vertigo is gonna grow
Cause it’s so dangerous,
You’ll have to sign a waiver
How can I help it if I think you’re funny when you’re mad
Trying hard not to smile though I feel bad
I’m the kind of guy who laughs at a funeral
Can’t understand what I mean?
Well, you soon will
I have a tendency to wear my mind on my sleeve
I have a history of taking off my shirt
It’s been one week since you looked at me
Threw your arms in the air and said you’re crazy
Five days since you tackled me
I’ve still got the rug burns on both my knees
It’s been three days since the afternoon
You realized it’s not my fault not a moment too soon
Yesterday you’d forgiven me
And now I sit back and wait till you say you’re sorry
Chickity China the Chinese chicken
You have a drumstick and your brain stops tickin’
Watchin X-Files with no lights on,
We’re dans la maison
I hope the Smoking Man’s in this one
Like Harrison Ford I’m getting Frantic
Like Sting I’m Tantric
Like Snickers, guaranteed to satisfy
Like Kurosawa I make mad films
Okay I don’t make films
But if I did they’d have a samurai
Gonna get a set of better clubs
Gonna find the kind with tiny nubs
Just so my irons aren’t always flying off the back swing
Gotta get in tune with Sailor Moon
Cause that cartoon has got the boom anime babes
That make me think the wrong thing
How can I help it if I think you’re funny when you’re mad
Trying hard not to smile though I feel bad
I’m the kind of guy who laughs at a funeral
Can’t understand what I mean?
You soon will
I have a tendency to wear my mind on my sleeve
I have a history of losing my shirt
It’s been one week since you looked at me
Dropped your arms to your sides and said I’m sorry
Five days since I laughed at you and said
You just did just what I thought you were gonna do
Three days since the living room
We realized we’re both to blame, but what could we do?
Yesterday you just smiled at me
Cause it’ll still be two days till we say we’re sorry
It’ll still be two days till we say we’re sorry
It’ll still be two days till we say we’re sorry
Well, the theme today is Siblings or Brother/Sister.
For me, a heart-breaking theme…
I was just telling James last night, after watching one of those poignant long lost family reunion TV shows, I wish I could find some surprise, unknown siblings…from my biological father, whom I never met. Not that I didn’t search for the guy for much of my younger life. But looking for Michael John Kelly, I just never had any luck. Way, WAY too common an Irish name. Even with all the “Ancestry” type options we have these days, I have kind of given up.
I just wish I could have some kind of healthy reunion with the sisters I did have growing up. Pretty unlikely though.
I have to admit that along with my joy at Helen’s experiences with HER sister, I also experience some envy.
So, I thought of this song by Cris Williamson called “Sister”. I’ve posted it before but am not sure I included the above backstory. It’s a beautiful song, worth another listen, even if you already know it. I can close my eyes and imagine myself NOT the oldest sibling, taking care of everyone else, but having an older sister singing these words to me!!
Sister
All of the earth
Child of God
Just one of among the family
And you can count on me
to share the load
and I will always help you
hold your burden and I will be the one to help you
ease your pain.
Lean on me
I am your sister
Believe on me
I am your friend
Lean on me
I am your sister
Believe on me
I am your friend
I will fold you in my arms
like a white wing dove
Shine in your soul
your spirit is crying
spirit is crying
Born of the earth
Child of God
Just one among the family
And you can count on me to share the load
And I will always help you
Hold your burdens
and I will be the one to help you ease your pain.
Lean on me
I am your sister
Believe on me
I am your friend
Lean on me
I am your sister
Believe on me
I am your friend
Lean on me
I am your sister
Believe on me
I am your friend
Lean on me
I am your sister
Believe on me
I am your friend
I am your friend
PS Here’s some info on Cris Williamson, a wonderful and talented singer/songwriter.
I had the extreme pleasure of being at a Bonnie Raitt concert once, when she called Cris out on the stage to sing with her. They did “Angel from Montgomery”. Oh my GOD! What a beautiful combination of voices.
OK, see if you can follow my logic this week. Unity makes me think of the only church I have ever attended with any regularity in my adult life. I picked it in the beginning as a reaction to the oppressive and emotionally blackmailing religious upbringing I had survived. When I first found it, Unity of Bellevue seemed like the place where all the peacenik, flower children had landed.
So I stayed…well, off and on, for more than 40 years now.
I stayed for the open mindedness. I stayed because they had the Galaxy painted on the ceiling of the kids Sunday School area. I stayed because they had a class called The Joy of Sects….go ahead…say it out loud. I stayed because there were these beautiful banners hanging all over the sanctuary, banners of Jewish symbols, because Unity of Bellevue shared it’s building with a local, slightly rebellious Jewish community leaving their main synagogue. I stayed for the workshops and guest speakers, like The Three Amigos (a Unity Pastor, Jewish Rabbi and Muslim Sheikh…Listen at your leisure for a wonderful talk.)
But mostly I kept returning to the Unity church for the music. Every summer in August, they had a service that was a great celebration of music from 40 years before. My favorites were the years 1967 and 1968. It was just music and congregation members standing up and speaking about what that music or year meant to them. I totally regressed and stayed up all night making “love Beads”. Then during the service that Sunday, I wandered through the audience putting necklaces around people’s necks! (Flashbacks of Woodstock!)
Many incredible musicians at this little church but my favorite was these two women named Garnett Hundley and Beverly Daugherty. http://www.garnettandbeverly.com/
Just about anything they sang (and they had a spectacular variety) was fun or beautiful or inspirational.
This is a long way to get to my song for this week, but the following is one of my favorites songs by those two women I would hear at the Unity church. Maybe not their most beautiful or modern piece, but the message for me is the thing!!
Wish I’d heard this as a squashed kid!!!
Couldn’t find the lyrics but again, their website is http://www.garnettandbeverly.com/
Thought I’d include info about this weekly challenge.
Here are the “rules”:
Post the lyrics to the song of your choice, whether it fits the theme or not
Please try to include the songwriter(s) – it’s a good idea to give credit where credit is due and it’s honestly just a simple Google search
Make sure you also credit the singer/band and 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 my own Song Lyric Sunday post
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 use the Song Lyric Sunday badge by copying it into your post or add it to your site to show you are participating.
OK, this one might be another of those “stretches” I am apparently so fond of, but I had a date last night with my “husband”. First one in a while and I am back in love.
Helen’s note to us is what inspired me to address the theme today of Numbers with the following song. Feels like Home by Bonnie Raitt. I consider it my song with James, our song if you will…although there seem to be several of those. (He is pretty sexy playing the base with his band on Billy Idol’s Rebel Yell!)
Here’s the connection to Helen’s story…the shortest version I can come up with.
My son was also fascinated with like numbers showing up places, but for him it was always ONES. 111111. Any place he saw them…digital clocks, bank temperature signs, score boards, car mileage, etc. Any time he spotted all ones, it was magic, and of course, had to mean something. For most of his life we had talked about doing something special on the date 11/11/11. As he got older, establishing his own life, and I experienced some measure of financial success, I decided we could do something really big on that date and started dreaming and planning for it. I wanted to take us all to Fiji. What a great place to be on that momentous calendar date.
Ah sigh. You know how life is. And as that time got closer, I realized a dramatically paired down version of the original 11/11/11 dream needed to happen. So now, with James, my son, his wife and their two sons, and my sister, it became a trip down to Southern California. Not exactly Fiji but Disneyland for the boys and staying in condos on the beach in Oceanside was not a bad second. As the time for the long awaited moment drew near, we went to the perfect spot. We went to Mount Soledad which is one of the highest little mountains in San Diego (La Jolla actually), very significant in my childhood as it was a favorite spot to visit for the spectacular view. (Really interesting Wikipedia article about Mount Soledad below)
So on the morning of November 11th, 2011, we were on top of the world, amazing 360 degree view of San Diego (reaching almost to the border of Mexico). We were gathered in a group hug, poised with our camera phones ready, waiting for our digital clocks to click over to 11:11 on 11/11/11.
And THAT’S when James asked me to marry him!! What a wonderful mush head!
Oh and by the way, we’ve been together eleven years!
Something in your eyes, makes me want to lose myself,
Makes me want to lose myself, in your arms.
There’s something in your voice, makes my heart beat fast.
Hope this feeling lasts, the rest of my life.
If you knew how lonely my life has been,
And how low I’ve felt so long.
If you knew how I wanted someone to come along,
And change my life the way you’ve done.Feels like home to me, feels like home to me,
Feels like I’m on my way back where I come from.
Feels like home to me, feels like home to me,
Feels like I’m on my way back where I belong.A window breaks down a long dark street,
And a siren wails over my head.
But I’m all right, ’cause I have you here with me.
And I can almost see through the dark there’s light.
If you knew how much this moment means to me,
And how long I’ve waited for your touch.
If you knew how happy you are making me —
I’ve never thought I’d love anyone so much.Feels like home to me, feels like home to me,
Feels like I’m on my way back where I come from.
Feels like home to me, feels like home to me,
Feels like I’m on my way back where I belong.
Feels like I’m on my way back where I belong.
Normally, a song immediately pops into my head when I read the theme for the week.
All I got this morning was Earth Angel by the Penguins from the 1950’s. Not the right mood for me today so I kept thinking and finally gave up and Googled. I found a U2 song I thought I had never heard of. Since I am a huge fan, I couldn’t wait to hear this new (to me) song!
Turns out, it is Peace on Earth combined with my all-time favorite U2 song by this amazing group, and I have not only heard it before…I even saw it on TV the night this version debuted….right after September 11, 2001.
AND, I have even posted this exact song before. Not in the context of “earth” but rather about power and escaping danger. It’s a song I have used in my practice for years, especially to inspire someone working to extract themselves from domestic violence.
Featuring Dave Stewart and Natalie Imbruglia. From the “America: A Tribute to Heroes” telethon, which aired live on 35 broadcast and cable networks on Friday, September 21, 2001. The original versions of both songs can be found on the 2000 album “All That You Can’t Leave Behind.”
Heaven on Earth – we need it now
I’m sick of all of this hanging around
Sick of sorrow – sick of the pain
I’m sick of hearing again and again
That there’s gonna be peace on Earth
Where I grew up there weren’t many trees
Where there was we’d tear them down
And use them on our enemies
They say that what you mock
Will surely overtake you
And you become a monster
So the monster will not break you
And it’s already gone too far
Who said that if you go in hard
You won’t get hurt?
Jesus can you take the time
To throw a drowning man a line
Peace on Earth
Tell the ones who hear no sound
Whose sons are living in the ground
Peace on Earth
No whos or whys
No-one cries like a mother cries
For peace on Earth
She never got to say goodbye
To see the colour in his eyes
Now he’s in the dirt
Peace on Earth
They’re reading names out over the radio
All the folks the rest of us won’t get to know
Sean and Julia – Gareth, Ann and breda
Their lives are bigger than any big idea
Jesus can you take the time
To throw a drowning man a line
Peace on Earth
To tell the ones who hear no sound
Whose sons are living in the ground
Peace on Earth
Jesus in the song you wrote
The words are sticking in my throat
Peace on Earth
Hear it every Christmas time
But hope and history won’t rhyme
So what’s it worth?
This peace on Earth
Peace on Earth —
And love is not the easy thing
The only baggage that you can bring
Not the easy thing
The only baggage you can bring
Is all that you can’t leave behind
And if the darkness is to keep us apart
And if the daylight feels like it’s a long way off
And if your glass heart should crack
And for a second you turn back
Oh no – be strong
Walk on – walk on
What you got, they can’t steal it
No, they can’t even feel it
Walk on – walk on
Stay safe tonight
You’re packing a suitcase for a place none of us has been
A place that has to be believed to be seen
You could have flown away
A singing bird in an open cage
Who will only fly – only fly for freedom
Walk on – walk on
What you got, they can’t deny it
Can’t sell it or buy it
Walk on – walk on
You stay safe tonight
And I know it aches
How your heart it breaks
You can only take so much
Walk on – walk on
Home – hard to know what it is if you never had one
Home – I can’t say where it is, but I know I’m going
Home – that’s where the hurt is
And I know it aches
And your heart it breaks
You can only take so much
Walk on
Leave it behind
You’ve got to leave it behind
All that you fashion – all that you make
All that you build – all that you break
All that you measure – all that you feel
All this you can leave behind
All that you reason – it’s only time
Love in a fever – no, not mine
All that you sense – all that you scheme
All you dress up – all that you seem
All you create [fades]
Well, today’s theme sent me a few years into the past.
Back in the 1980’s, 90’s, and early 2000’s. I had a huge therapy practice, in a huge, supportive Therapy Community.
Music, in many styles and forms, was a huge part of the work I did. I would play music for my groups or hand-pick songs for individual clients. I would also give the homework assignment to go out and find a theme song (“I will Not Be Broken” by Bonnie Raitt) or a power song (“I Won’t Back Down” by Tom Petty). It was a great, right brain way for clients to continue their personal work outside the group therapy setting. We would use music in group to relax, let down, access emotions, get energized, fight back, you name it.
And I used the more quiet pieces for visualizations, hypnosis, etc.
A funny story…I heard an album once (on a homemade cassette, just to let you know how long ago) that I fell in love with. It was almost all instrumental and quite different from the rock music I usually assigned to clients. Maybe it stirred something in my cellular memory because it was so Irish. (My name was Kathleen Kelly!)
I thought the name of the album was Crystal River, so I searched everywhere for it…combed through record stores, called radio stations, etc. I really wanted this album. Every song was so different and effectively triggered or enhanced different moods.
I could never find it.
Then I had a dream one night, with this very music playing in the background. In the dream I said out loud to whomever,
“Oh, it’s not called ‘Crystal River’. It’s called ‘Jewel Lake‘!!”
Memory…a funny thing. And dreams, so helpful sometimes.
Anyway, here is the song I thought of for today’s theme of Comfort. It’s the only song on the album with Lyrics. It’s also a beautiful video.
The rest of this album is great also, not all quiet and comforting like this song, some very energizing and uplifting. I think you can sample it here.
First song that came to mind so I’m going with it…..
Dedicated to one of my very best friends in high school, a talented musician.
I wrote this last year for his obituary guest page.
“Jerry was my best friend in high school. We covered many deep subjects in many long conversations throughout our time at Natchez High. And we sang together, both of us tenors, in a choir, as well as in the “Duzin Cuzins”, a folk singing group. As happens, somehow time sped by but we were reunited at our 40th high school reunion. He was still Jerry…sweet, funny, talented and ethical to a degree few ever reach. I weep for his much loved family, and wish I could be there to celebrate his life.”
Jerry would have passionately agreed with Helen’s childhood, end-of-the-world story.
This song always brought tears to my eyes during the long stretch Jerry and I were out of touch. Made me think of him right up to the end.
Wait, that was WAY to heavy and sad.
Here’s your comic relief. After all, the end may be near…….
And once again, WAIT. I just found THIS on YouTube. This is my dear friend Jerry’s son, Tyler Flowers. Worth a listen even though the lyrics don’t exactly fit today’s theme. But with a topic like this, I figure we need all the good music we can find!
