Blogging From A To Z Challenge~Letter N

New York Harbor was visited by Giovanni Verrazano in 1524.  The Hudson river was first explored by Henry Hudson aboard the Half Moon in 1609.  

 

Here’s the history of the :  Empire State .

EMPIRE STATE .    Please  click this link to find out yet even more about our fabulous eleventh state: NEW YORK STATE .  I’ve lived here for pert near all me life.

Annunci

Washington Square —

Having a bohemian picnic in Washington Square, New York City. Wear your best tie-dye and sandals. From Cape Cod Light to the Mississip, to San Francisco Bay, They’re talking about this famous place, down Greenwich Village way. And so I got my banjo out, just sittin’ and collectin’ dust, And painted right across the face […]

via Washington Square —

Good~Bye Beatles

This Day In History, 1970 It was such an extremely long time ago, and to this very day people still listen to them.   The were one of the most important milestones to have passed through quite a significant era in mankind’s history.

BLOGGING FROM A TO Z CHALLENGE~ LETTER H

THE HOKEY POKEY  This song, along with it’s unavoidably necessary accompanying dance have kept so very many generations of children, and adults, quite happy.  It’s also inspired quite a lot of jokes and humorous comments.  

‘I’m On Fire’ Dwight Twilley Band

Here we have a mid~70’s power pop classic, though I have no memory of it from before early 1980.  I’ve alway been so plum smitten with it.  It’s somewhat similar to the Tymes’ ‘You Little Trustmaker’. 

 

Words: (easily found on Google)

Got your lady on the line
Got your name on the cover
Though your friends are ninety-nine
Honey you ain’t got no lover
And you ain’t, you ain’t, you ain’t got no lover
And you ain’t, you ain’t, you ain’t got no other

I remember the feelin’ that I could be free
Now I know it could never ever be me
‘Cause I’m on fire
Got myself on fire

Got your joker on the table
You’ve been told from time to time
I’ll be willin’, I’ll be able
You could read between the lines

But you ain’t, you ain’t, you ain’t got no lover, lover, lover
And you ain’t, you ain’t, you ain’t got no other

I remember the feelin’ that I could be free
Now I know it could never ever be me
‘Cause I’m on fire
I’m-a I’m on fire

But you ain’t, you ain’t, you ain’t got no lover, lover, lover, lover
And you ain’t, you ain’t, you ain’t got no other, other, other, other
And you ain’t, you ain’t, you ain’t got no lover, lover, lover

I’m on fire
I’m on fire (and you ain’t, you ain’t, you ain’t got no lover, lover, lover)
I’m on fire (lover, lover, lover, lover)
I’m on fire (lover, lover, lover)

Compositori: Dwight A. Twilley

Testo di I’m on Fire © Universal Music Publishing Group

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Video

3:19

“I’m On Fire” (Lyrics) DWIGHT TWILLEY BAND Phil Seymour

Blogging From A~Z Challenge ~Letter B

 

‘B’ is for ‘Beatles’.   We all know everything about them by now. Beatles John Winston (later Ono) Lennon (1940~1980), Sir James Paul McCartney (1942~ ), George Harold Harrison (1943~2001), and Sir Richard Starkey/Ringo Starr (1940~ ) have been the most celebrated of musical groups since the early 1960’s.  Lennon and McCartney are also universally accepted as worthy to be referred to among the best of composers.

 

 

They first appeared on ‘The Ed Sullivan Show’ on February 9, 1964, only a very short time after the November 22,  1963, assassination of our thirty~fifth president, John Fitzgerald Kennedy.  Those two milestones are  generally accepted by historians as the beginning of the cultural 1960’s, an era of great and significant turmoil, from which we have yet to recover.

 

 

It was the time of the Viet Nam War, drugs, the Sexual Revolution, and political assassinations.  Because of the relatively gradual influence of ideas from previous generations, and conditions which were brought about especially by World War II, people intended to overthrow drastically all the square conservative ideas that had seemed to have failed them.  Radical political and social activists, and youth groups, were gaining ascendancy and credibility.

 

 

The Beatles~the Fab Four~broke up on April 11, 1970, forty nine years ago this month.  Lennon was killed by Mark David Chapman on December 8, 1980, and Harrison died of cancer on November 29, 2001.  People have claimed that the circumstances of Lennon’s and Harrison’s deaths were predictable.  Lennon, the outspoken political activist, had a habit of  stepping on some mighty seriously dangerous toes, and Harrison, the quiet Beatle, was known to have taken their time in the spotlight the hardest.  Harrison’s tendency to succumb to stress was said to have contributed greatly to his early death.

 

 

Because of the era’s connection to the Fab Four, I’ve always been insatiably interested in the 1960’s.  This is obviously only an extremely cursory examination of their impact upon their own and subsequent times.  At their worst, they were responsible for many problems, because of all the bad ideas they advocated.   Theirs was quite an unfortunate worldview.  At their very best, however, they were quite the absolutely master storytellers, and musicians.

 

 

Here is my post for the letter ‘B’ in Arlee’s Blogging From A To Z April Challenge . 

A Flashback Within A Flashback

‘Life Is A Rock(But the Radio Rolled Me)’ Having just looked this nice old novelty song up, I’ve gotten a reminder that it came out in September, 1974.  I was a sophomore at St. John the Baptist Diocesan High School, West Islip, New York. It was recorded by the band Reunion, which included Joey (the Archies) Levine.  Co~written by Levine and Norman Dolph, it was a tribute to the pop music, and pop culture in general, of the past.

 

 

B. Bumble and the Stingers, Mott the Hoople, Ray Charles Singers
Lonnie Mack and twangin’ Eddy, here’s my ring we’re goin’ steady
Take it easy, take me higher, liar liar, house on fire
Locomotion, Poco, Passion, Deeper Purple, Satisfaction
Baby baby gotta gotta gimme gimme gettin’ hotter
Sammy’s cookin’, Lesley Gore and Ritchie Valens, end of story
Mahavishnu, Fujiyama, Kama Sutra, rama-lama
Richard Perry, Spector, Barry, Rogers-Hart, Nilsson, Harry
Shimmy shimmy ko-ko bop and Fats is back and Finger Poppin’

[Chorus]
Life is a rock but the radio rolled me
Gotta turn it up louder, so my DJ told me
Life is a rock but the radio rolled me
At the end of my rainbow lies a golden oldie

FM, AM, hits are clickin’ while the clock is tock-a-tickin’
Friends and Romans, salutations, Brenda and the Tabulations
Carly Simon, I behold her, Rolling Stones and centerfoldin’
Johnny Cash and Johnny Rivers, can’t stop now, I got the shivers
Mungo Jerry, Peter Peter Paul and Paul and Mary Mary
Dr. John the nightly tripper, Doris Day and Jack the Ripper
Gotta go Sir, gotta swelter, Leon Russell, Gimme Shelter
Miracles in Smokey places, slide guitars and Fender basses
Mushroom omelet, Bonnie Bramlett, Wilson Pickett, stop and kick it

[Chorus]
Life is a rock but the radio rolled me
Life is a rock but the radio

Arthur Janov’s primal screamin‘, Hawkins, Jay and Dale and Ronnie
Kukla, Fran and Norma Okla Denver, John and Osmond, Donny
J.J. Cale and Z.Z. Top and L.L. Bean and De De Dinah
David Bowie, Steely Dan and sing me prouder, CC Rider
Edgar Winter, Joanie Sommers, Osmond Brothers, Johnny Thunders
Eric Clapton, pedal wah-wah, Stephen Foster, do-dah do-dah
Good Vibrations, Help Me Rhonda, Surfer Girl and Little Honda
Tighter, tighter, honey, honey, sugar, sugar, yummy, yummy
CBS and Warner Brothers, RCA and all the others

[Chorus]
Life is a rock but the radio rolled me
Gotta turn it up louder, so my DJ told me
Whoa whoa whoa whoa!
Life is a rock but the radio rolled me
At the end of my rainbow lies a golden oldie

(Listen (remember) they’re playing our song)
Rock it, sock it, Alan Freed me, Murray Kaufman, try to leave me
Fish, and Swim, and Boston Monkey, Make it bad and play it funky
(Wanna take you higher!)

Freddie King and Albert King B.B. King and frolicking
Get it on and Nat Gerardi, Papalardi, Hale and Hearty

There’s a perfect more than human gentle words of Randy Newman;
One, two, three, sir, Osibisa, I need a breather!
(Aretha!)

Tito Puente, Boffalongo, Cuba, War and even Mongo
(Line not credible) Peter Dial, Alex Hood, Boogie Brass

Whoo!!!

California, Beatlemania, New York City, Transylvania
S&G and (V&C?) and Bobby Vee and SRO, yeah yeah!

Here’s where I found the words:   ‘Life Is A Rock(But the Radio Rolled Me)’ 

 

 

Here’s my very first ever contribution to Song Lyric Sunday .

Can’t Wait

Soon We Shall Happily Welcome April  The beginning of a new month will so very soon be upon us. Let us see what April can bring.

Damn! I Thought He Was Dead!!

It’s a quiet day in 1998.  I walk over to the local Long Island Railroad station on Hoffman Avenue in Lindenhurst  and purchase a ticket to Manhattan’s Central Park.  Having always been such an exceptionally big fan of John Lennon over the years, I really wanted to see, at least once, Strawberry Fields.   

 

 

At the Jamaica station, three distinguished looking gentlemen, in their fifties, board the train.  I can’t see them well because each is wearing a fedora with the brim turned down.

 

Finally we arrive at Central Park.  I get off, along with the three strangers.   Somehow they cajole me into accompanying  them on some insane cab ride through the very worst of neighborhoods.

 

 

None’s very talkative during the course of the long, confusing ride.   All anyone says for around a half hour of confusion is “Trust us, you’ll have such a nice time.”

 

 

At last we walked toward some horrible looking hell hole.  Somehow I must have been so confused I simply couldn’t even come up with the presence of mind to be  the least bit afraid of these characters, or the insane environment.

 

 

“Promise us only one thing, mate,” one of them insisted.  You’ll have to promise us you won’t ever breathe a word of this to anyone, no matter what!”

 

 

Stunned, I reticently agreed.  Each of them finally pulled off his hat.  There stood Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr.

 

 

“Johnny!” McCartney blurted out.  “Are you ready?”

 

 

In yet another bout of wishful thinking I got the idea to take advantage of A Guy Called Bloke….’s/Rory’s Oh Prompt Me Do!!

(You know I prompt you. I’ll always be true?) by turning it into yet another excuse to imagine my having been able to Meet the Beatles (those who are in the know will surely be quite able to get the reference).

 

 

Please join us here ~:   Oh Prompt Me Do!!

 

 

 

Yet Some More Music

RICHARD DANAR’S MUSIC Here’s some music from a Facebook friend of mine.  We’ve never once met in person but we’re both from the same part of Queens.