Song Lyric Sunday

carole-kingtapestry

This week Helen Espinosa has chosen Singer/Songwriter as Song Lyric Sunday’s theme. The name that immediately came to my mind was Carole King. (Click the link to read about her life and many ground-breaking awards and honors.)

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Song Lyric Sunday

Song Lyric Sunday

Helen Espinosa chose Sex as this week’s Song Lyric Sunday theme. It doesn’t have to be graphic, but you can find out how to play along by clicking the link above.

I prefer something a little more subtle, but no less raw, so I’ve chosen a classic 1972 Eagles song — hey, sex, drugs, and rock and roll go together like Luke, Leia, and Han and Chewy, right? The “video” is a still, but the original album track has been remastered, so the quality is great.

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Song Lyric Sunday

Helen Espinosa chose an examination of anger as the Song Lyric Sunday theme this week.

I suspect love’s betrayal is the most common subject of anger in music. Carrie Underwood’s Louisville Slugger revenge song, Before He Cheats, came to my mind first, then Chicago’s murderous rage song, Cell Block Tango.

But I settled on another kind of anger altogether: alien megalomaniacal anger like Little Shop of Horrors’ Audrey II’s “fightin’ mad” song sung by the Four Tops.

little-shop-of-horrors-seymour-audrey-mushkin
What is it and why is it so angry?  

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Song Lyric Sunday

Kate Bush
Kate Bush. New to me. What’s not to love?

Helen Espinosa, of This Thing Called Life One Word at a Time, chose New to You as the theme for this week’s Song Lyric Sunday. I admit I haven’t gone seeking new music to listen to because I find comfort in the music I grew up with, and I really only listen in the car. Of course, I couldn’t escape hearing the music my son grew up with as well, but mostly I stick to the Oldies and show tunes.

Enter Candice Louisa Daquin, an unpretentiously exquisite poet, honest, passionate, and brilliant. She introduced me to Tim Arnold and his music, and then asked if I knew Kate Bush. I did not. I went looking, and found an inexplicable, unique artist with a bizarrely appealing sense of fun. I was hooked. A link to the YouTube video from her 1978 Lionheart album is in the song title. I hope you are as intrigued as I was.

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Song Lyric Sunday

Helen Espinosa’s theme for Song Lyric Sunday this week is missing someone you love. The person I miss the most is the little boy my son used to be. The little boy who kept every sparkly rock he found because it was “special”. The little boy who crawled underneath a big cardboard box, pretending it was his shell and he was a pet turtle named Secret. The little boy who used to write his mother checks for a million dollars so she’d be rich.

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Song Lyric Sunday

Hercules

Helen Espinosa’s theme this week for Song Lyric Sunday is Your Favorite Song Featured in a Movie.

This was tough because I love musicals — America’s only contribution to theatrical genres. I could choose from hundreds, thousands of extraordinary songs. Inspirational?

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Song Lyric Sunday

 

Helen Espinosa’s Song Lyric Sunday theme this week is either protest songs or songs about “surviving this crazy thing called life.”

Bob Dylan
At 21, Robert Zimmerman changed his name legally to Robert Dylan in honor of Dylan Thomas, the Welsh poet.

Before the British Invasion of bubble gummer rock, Folk music in America was hitting a more mature stride than The Four Preps and The Lettermen hit with their College Pop music style. Harking back to the social commentary of Woody Guthrie’s time, Bob Dylan and others — many others — tapped into America’s growing unrest toward the Vietnam War, racism, and the Civil Rights movement. He and the many others helped wake us up and motivate us to break out of that Dark Age.

Today, this song seems just as relevant as it was in 1964, like most of Dylan’s music seems to be. Maybe this can be the anthem for fighting our way out of the Dark Age we live in now.

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Song Lyric Sunday 5

Song Lyric Sunday

Helen Espinosa’s theme for this week is “Summer”. My choice is the 1960 classic novelty song (hit the title for the YouTube link to Brian Hyland’s American Bandstand performance),

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Song Lyric Sunday 4

Livin' la Vida Loca
Those were the days… thank God they’re over.

Helen Espinosa’s theme this week for Song Lyric Sunday is “’90’s Music”.

That was a time when, as a single parent, I home schooled my son, earned my living as a licensed Child Care Professional, and costumed a Children’s Theater group where all the shows were Musicals. The only radio stations we listened to in the car were either Oldies (1950s , ’60s, and ’70s) or Classical.

Even so,

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Song Lyric Sunday 3

Song Lyric Sunday

 

Broken heart

This week’s theme for Helen Espinosa’s Song Lyric Sunday is Breaking Up. I’m guessing most of us have played both parts, the breaker and the breakee. I know I have. It feels like I was on the losing side more often than the other way around, but when I look back, it was pretty much even.

So, why does it feel lopsided?

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