Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Much Too Late for Goodbyes

In the past two days I've had interesting experiences feeling the after effects of music and sleep, good and bad.

Yesterday's music made me euphoric and capable. Today's music, after last night's sleep, made me tear up at the coffee counter. And by the end of the day, a jerk on the freeway made me ready for death metal (really, this guy was provoking me by offering mock applause while tailgating and then passing me), but I ended up settling instead for John Denver, yogurt, and the becoming resolved to my inability to buy a plane ticket efficiently, the acceptance of which led me to write this.

Which I meant to do yesterday when I was excited for no reason except starting my day by hearing "Steppin' Out" as the first song on the radio. After Steppin' Out, coffee in tow, I heard "Too much time on my hands" by Styx, which lately and inexplicably, I find myself looooving. I think it's because of lyrics like "I've got no place to go and all night to get there" and the musical stylings that make this song an (in my opinion) obvious precursor to "Mr. Roboto." Um, and probably the driving synthesizer bassline. Yeah....that gets me every time.

So I've been generally loving this song on the radio when, WHOOPS - in looking for a youtube video to share this find with crock pot readers, I discovered there is no WAY i don't love this song. The keyboardist is appareled in a manner very similar to Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney in the "Say, Say, Say" video, which I appreciate, and which offers another tie-in to a topic later in this post, Paul McCartney, and, if you've read this blog at all, you may be familiar with my obsession/animated television show idea about MJ and Sir Paul living under one roof.

Again, once again, the crockpot is a vortex into which all things spin into making perfect sense.
Also, for anyone who is really taken with the literal videos that have become popular email forwards, please note time stamp 1:45 of this video and the lyric to image literal interpretation. And know that I love it.

Sidenote - is Sam Rockwell the lead singer of Styx? A resemblance. Have I brought this up before?

"Too Much Time on my Hands" is a new addition to the list of "hey, maybe i love that song and didn't know it" songs, but it is nowhere near the instant euphoria king of the list at present, "The Boys are Back in Town."

I don't know why, but when that song comes on, I am ready for the drinks to flow and the blood to spill - because if the boys wanna fight you better let 'em!
Love it. You will catch me singing along in the car.

Given this oomph of a start to my day yesterday, I found myself, quite unlike now, able to accomplish things that needed doing. And sometime in the middle of the day, out of nowhere in particular, the song "Much Too Late for Goodbyes" popped into my head.

I cannot tell you the last time I've heard that song on the radio. It's a Julian Lennon song that I remember loving, but I realized I hadn't heard it in years. But thinking about the song more, I realized yes, it was great. It stayed stuck all day, and the more it replayed in my head, the more I began to think that it sounded like a Paul McCartney song. Especially with the quirky instrumental response to the refrain "It's much too late for good byes" that sounds something like "waah waah wuh." Too bad so sad expressed musically, but lightheartedly, but with lyrics that are actually heavy. Suddenly it struck me that John Lennon's son had written a Paul McCartney song, and I began trying to put pieces together in my grand conspiracy for McCartney mansion.

"Hey Jude" was written for Julian, with "Jules" having been changed to "Jude," so maybe Paul was a major player in Julian's life, and music was the natural next step.

When I went to Wikipedia, I discovered confirmation that the Breakfast with the Beatles radio show where I'm sure I'd learned the above history of "Hey Jude" was in fact, correct in saying that the song was for Julian, and I also learned that maybe my hunch was not so crazy as this quote popped to life:
"Paul and I used to hang about quite a bit ... more than Dad and I did. We had a great friendship going and there seems to be far more pictures of me and Paul playing together at that age than there are pictures of me and my dad."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_lennon#cite_note-3)
So, that found, I became drawn in even further to the Paul/Julian relationship, which makes me want to draw Julian into my fantasy cartoon show. Julian, welcome! And thanks for the great song.


Last night's sleep was bizarre in all respects. I had a dream about a former high school classmate in which she was catching me up on her life, but I was able to watch a montage of her life and love story as she told it. She lived in a beautiful glass front apartment with a bed that overlooked the Pittsburgh skyline. And she fell in love with an older man who shared her passion for the exotic yet simple - there was a montage of them dancing down a hill in a park - out of place in period costume hats -, drinking wine on a picnic far beyond the scope of the picnics of those around them, laughing and looking at things scientifically.

This individual was a high school classmate rather than one of my very best friends, yet I've managed to invent an un-reality for her which she shared with me like I really needed to know. This was puzzling enough to wake me. And when I went back to sleep, I had one of those dreams so intense you wake up crying, and with the sense that what has happened in your mind has happened in the world. A jolt to the day in a more difficult way. Not steppin' out, but more like steppin' in it. And the it is your own brain! Confusing. And for the morning commute, my leftover dream dust made even happy songs sad.
But I guess back to post number two or so, back when i was a loyal contributor, happiness is a sad song.
And if Paul McCartney is to be believed, sad songs are often happy to hear.

I'm off to bed, hoping for a better sleep starter for tomorrow! We'll see what comes, and if any other high school acquaintances have fallen in love with fictional older men. Hope they're happy!





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