I Have A Beatles Dilemma. How About You?

The Beatles in the early days. Photo courtesy Chicago Tribune.

Ask me what I think about the Beatles and I will give the standard answer of my generation. They are the greatest band that ever lived, they revolutionized music, they mean the world to me. OK boomer, now ask me which of their songs I would put on my all-time, continuos loop, soundtrack of my life music stream.

And that’s where the dilemma lies. From the harmonies of I Want to Hold Your Hand, through the opening chord of A Hard Days Night to the final yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah of The Long and Winding Road, I like a lot of Beatle songs, but I don’t love any of them. Sort of like my relationship to Superdawg french fries. I like them but I don’t love them.

It’s not the same with the other artists that are constantly playing on my radio in the lab or the Pandora station in my headphones at the fitness center. If I’ve got favorite bands, I’ve got favorite songs to go with them.

U2? The bang-bang-bang opening of the Joshua Tree album–Where the Streets Have No Name, I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For, and With or Without You introduced me to the band more than 30 years ago and have been my favorites ever since.

With Steely Dan, my favorite songs come from the end of their career, or at least the end of their career’s first chapter (I ignored the second chapter.) Aja, the title track of their 6th album, is sublimely mellow and mind-expanding and the same album’s Deacon Blue makes a wistful cry out to mid-life crises.

When Fleetwood Mac changed their personnel and music style in the mid-70’s they probably lost a few thousand fans but gained a few million more. It was that flip that led to Go Your Own Way, the best power-pop song of all time. And I love the more pensive Over My Head just as much. Easy to add to my jukebox of greats.

What Eagles songs are on that Love Those Songs jukebox? Give me the original Hotel California and then follow it up with the Hell Freezes Over version of…Hotel California. Sometimes you feel like acoustic, sometimes you don’t.

The longings of youth. Has anyone made them seem more desperate than Bruce Springsteen in Thunder Road or made them sound more fun than in the Boss’s Rosalita?

While Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon is my top-ranked album, I prefer not to think about individual songs from it — everything blends so seamlessly together. On the other hand, Wish You Were Here, the title cut and final track from the Floyd’s 1975 album stands alone as the perfect paean to loss of love, loss of a bandmate, loss of sanity. And the guitar solos in Comfortably Numb make me feel…comfortable.

But back to the Beatles. I am ok with the silly love songs, I enjoy the goofiness of Yellow Submarine and Octopuses Garden, and I can play air guitar to The End. But where is the song I could listen to over and over and over again? Where is their Hotel California? If Rocky Racoon put a gun to my head and made me choose one song, today it would be While My Guitar Gently Weeps. Tomorrow it would probably be something else. Like but never love.

And that is my dilemma with the Beatles.

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Music Trivia Tuesday-What do Neil Young and Neil Diamond Have in Common?

Where did the title to your favorite album or CD comes from? It might be simple, just the name of the artist or band, such as the first album from Boston. Sometimes a Roman numeral gets appended and you have a Chicago II or a Led Zeppelin III. With concept albums, the artist may choose a song that sets out the theme and use that name as the album title. I like The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, and the Eagles’ Desperado and Hotel California albums as examples of that.

But a different type of title intrigues me more. Take a look at Neil Young’s classic 1979 album Rust Never Sleeps. That’s a great line, it sets a tone, but it is not the name of a song. Instead, it is a lyric from “My My Hey Hey,” the number that opens the album. Neil Diamond has done the same thing. His live albums Hot August Night and Hot August Night II grab the opening line of “Brother Loves Traveling Salvation Show” for their titles. Need another example? One of my favorite bands, Steely Dan, named their 4th album Katy Lied. The album contains the song “Dr Wu” with the lyric “Katy lies, you can see it in her eyes.” Not an exact match, but you get the idea. So how many more examples can you think of? And why do you think a lyric good enough to name an album didn’t even wind up as the name of the song? Leave a comment here, or better yet, drop me a line at les.raff@post.com. I am wondering if we can come up with fifteen or twenty examples.

While we are on album title trivia, can you name a band that recorded an album and a song on the album, and all three, the name of the band, the album and the song are the same? That one is pretty easy. But how about an album named for a song or lyric on a previous album by the same artist. You might need your thinking cap to come up with more than one of those.

Feel free to share and pass on this blog. I am curious as to how many albums we can all come up with.

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If We Spend It, They Will Come

Get a good job with more pay

and you’re O.K.

Pink Floyd-1973

I haven’t been this excited about a hole in the ground since I was a kid on Farwell beach with a shovel and pail digging through the sand. Yes, we have broken ground (see below). Phase II has begun! Yesterday Barb met with the design/build team and our interior decorator. Enough brain power to stage a coup at Houzz. Lots of bagels, cookies and coffee. Three hours later, the architects parting words to Barb were, “Tell Les he better keep on working…hard!” So here are a few reasons why I dreamed of a new puppy last night instead of dreaming of retirement.

Living near a pond is a nicety. Triple-waterproofing your basement because you leave near a pond is a necessity.
The ~~damn~~ stylish window muntins. Did you know that “muntin” in Ye Olde English means “more money?”
Lots of different roofing choices. Why is it a surprise the decorator loves the style that is even more expensive than the expensive one we had picked out?
Delays cost money. Backhoe drivers don’t work on rainy days. We have been getting a lot of rain.
LED light bulbs. Pay extra now, hope to save later.
Back up power generator. Pay extra now, hope to never need it.
Chubb, the best homeowner’s insurance you can buy. Pay extra now, keep on paying extra forever.
Janet Yellen. 0.25% at a time.
We have a long way to go!

But the beat goes on. We will dig, we will build, we will survive. And to all of you out there planning on your own construction project–it’s all good!

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Keep up to date on construction and more!

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First “Doctors without Borders”, Now “Pathologists without Houses”

All in all it’s just…

…another brick in the wall

Pink Floyd–1979

WARNING–PARODY ALERT–WARNING–PARODY ALERT–WARNING

(The following script for a never recorded television advertisement for “Pathologists without Houses” was discovered in a drainage ditch somewhere in Chicagoland.)

Narrator speaking in hushed tones with an upper class British accent:

This is a lot in suburban Chicago. Its measurements and exact location are unimportant. What we observe is that it is empty, save for the grass and wildflowers that grow naturally in this semi-temperate climate. Adjacent to it are homes, roads, a large pond. But whilst the surrounds are teeming with life, this lot lays unimproved, uninhabited, and defenseless as another winter creeps its way into the suburban milieu. Excavation and concrete may be in the future, but for today they are held in abeyance, hostage to permits and licenses and laborers with the skill and desire to exercise their trade in the the hinterlands surrounding the great metropolis.

Narrator continues:

These are the homesteaders, a pathologist, a therapist, who seek to tame this square of Midwest savannah. Their weapons are many, but cause no harm. Stone and Sub-Zero, muntins and Maytag, windows and Wolf. Choices must be made, the totality of the task assessed and each decision correctly fitted into the jigsaw puzzle that will produce order from chaos, a home on this virgin land that was once graced by golf balls and pitching wedges. For this will be their territory, the center point of their life and the spot their brood can return to. To live in harmony with the surrounding tribes, and to defend against the wild animals that roam.

Further Narration:

Not all the beasts are wild though. For the couple has domestic creatures in their household. A canine beast of burden that delivers the news of the day through blinding blizzards and swirling Sirocco. A feline that dedicates her life to preserving the wealth of the clan by spreading her fur across all pieces of furniture large and small, marking them with the family crest. Loyal to the core, these quadrupeds have earned their spot in the home.

But how is this house to become a reality? “Pathologists without Houses” seeks your help. We ask for no funding. We challenge the loyal reader to continue to follow along, and to spread the word. You can show your support of ‘Pathologists without Houses” in the following ways:

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No architects were harmed in the making of this advertisement. “Pathologists without Houses” is an imaginary 403B non-profit organization.
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