My Music Journal 2025: December 11, 2025

 

Thursday, December 11, 2025

 

Time: 8:17 PM

Song: Rose Colored Glasses
Artist: John Conlee
Mode of Consumption: Listening to Country Harvest compilation album.

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/1Ko3qmw2ItUEefsjDjpLWL?si=3ec613dbd4b04abb

 

I am pretty sure I have written about K-Tel records on here before. They made their money in the sixties and seventies buying music rights and producing compilation rock, pop, disco and country albums. 

 

Well, I played a K-Tel record called “Country Harvest” tonight while putting together a compilation lot of records for sale on Facebook Marketplace. I have had a run this week, selling three boxes of records, a total of 215 records for $150. 

 

It’s part of my push to eliminate about three hundred or so records from my current inventory so that I can clear space to buy a 1,300-record lot from someone I know. 

 

My strategy is to mix genres of my $1 records, about 55-65 of those, picking artists who I am well-blessed with along with titles I just don’t see moving on their own. Then I add about ten of my lower-priced records that are recognizable names. 

 

For instance, I picked a Pat Benetar album that I had marked for $3 to be the spotlight album on this lot. Benetar was a big seller for me at my sale in November, and I hope this one will entice buyers to take the entire lot. 

 

I added other artists like Three Dog Night, Kenny Rogers, Crystal Gayle, Glen Campbell, and Dean Martin, making sure to feature them in my photos. I want people to focus on the name brand artists. 

 

I don’t see it as a trick, as I think these lots are going to people who are interested in vinyl and will get a kick out of all the albums in the lot, even if some of them they don’t know. 

My Music Journal 2025: December 10, 2025

 

Wednesday, December 10, 2025

 

Time: 5:12 PM

Song: Barbara Ann
Artist: The Beach Boys
Mode of Consumption: Listening to MP3s on the way home from work.

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/2pw36KAhXcFPmYaPHmuMNd?si=a8cc479e028b46f9

 

The other day I saw some random clip on Facebook of Bill Maher talking with Billy Joel. Maher, who is a big Beatles fan, is discussing how many of the Beatles’ lyrics are basically nonsense. 

 

Think the verses of “Come Together.” 

 

Joel nods and mentions that it’s often as much about the sound of the lyrics as much as the content. The idea that if the sound of the lyrics were pleasant or intriguing or ear-catching, they work even if they are meaningless.

 

Maher agreed and then complimented Joel on that his lyrics didn’t do that. They told a story or conveyed a message. 

 

I had never really thought about lyrics in that sense, that sometimes it doesn’t really matter what they say, it’s how they sound. It sounds almost ludicrous especially to someone attempting to be a writer and valuing the meaning of each word and the message of every sentence that you would purposely write and perform something that doesn’t make sense.

 

But it does explain the misheard lyric phenomenon. Often, we mishear lyrics, and the things we think we hear are even more nonsensical than the actual lyric. 

 

Take “Barbara Ann” by the Beach Boys. 

 

I spent most of my childhood not knowing the actual name of this song. 

 

I didn’t hear the name Barbara Ann. 

 

I heard something like “Bop-er-ran,” and I totally accepted that was the lyric. It’s nonsense. It being a girl’s name is logical, but that thought never entered my mind. What entered my mind was the sound and how my mind interpreted that sound. It fit to me, and it was catchy, and I never really gave it a second thought. 

My Music Journal 2025: December 9, 2025

Tuesday, December 9, 2025

Time: 4:05 PM
Song: Harden My Heart
Artist: Quarterflash
Mode of Consumption: Looking for songs for this week’s Pandemonium Playlist.

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/3CSLUIrI2KPMulHR5bh17O?si=07cef42d468f480e

This week the Playlist Pandemonium theme is band names that begin with “Q.” It goes without saying that there is a limited pool of bands that fit this criterion.

I think for most people the first name to come to mind is Queen. I wanted to steer clear of that since I suspect we will get a few songs from them.

I did a Google search and when I saw Quarterflash, I was pretty sure I knew something by them. Sure enough, “Harden My Heart” is a staple of classic rock channels.

It did get me to thinking about what other “Q” words would be good for a band.

Here’s my short list:

• Quiver. Spotify tells me that there is a band named “Quivers.” I think the singular form of the word would be good. It’s a word that means tremble or shake, or it can mean the container for holding arrows. Sounds like an Americana band.
• The Quislings – yeah, these musicians are collaborating on treason. I always think of a David Letterman interview of Norm MacDonald where Letterman uses this word, and MacDonald, laughs and says he doesn’t know what that means.
• Quitters & Winners – A play on the old saying “Quitters never win.” So is the band made up of both, or did they quit and still win?
• Queue Jumpers – This group won’t be waiting in line for anything. Straight to the top of the charts!
• Quell the Monster – Maybe a metal group that specializes in psychotherapy.

My Music Journal 2025: December 8, 2025

 

Monday, December 8, 2025

 

Time: 6:50 PM

Song: Hey You
Artist: Pink Floyd
Mode of Consumption: Listening to the radio while cleaning up dinner.

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/7F02x6EKYIQV3VcTaTm7oN?si=aee952f8ad9b4085

 

“You didn’t put a record on tonight?” Jodi asked as I pushed the button from AM to FM as the sink filled with water.

 

“Well, you had the Score (the AM sport station out of Chicago) on when I came in, so I thought maybe the Bulls were going to be playing.” I replied. 

 

“I was going to switch it over to FM when I turned it on, but they were talking about food, so I wanted to listen, and I forgot to switch it back.” 

 

We get to cleaning the dishes. I drove her truck today because we had a made a deal on Facebook Marketplace, selling a coffee table and end table. The person could meet me at work in Dixon, so I took the truck to haul the furniture.

 

Jodi had put the end table in the passenger seat in the cab, so she could keep the cover on the bed of the truck. As I mentioned in a post last week, I usually take CDs when I drive to work. 

 

“You know I was playing CDS today and every now and then, the end table would shift and hit the skip button.” 

 

“Ha,” she laughed. “I didn’t think the legs reached over that far.”

 

Now the FM radio plays in the dining room while we have gone our separate ways. I just finished entering in November’s church treasurer reports into the Excel file. Jodi is upstairs, I think, laying out clothes for tomorrow and maybe exercising. 

My Music Journal 2025: December 7, 2025

 

Sunday, December 7, 2025

 

Time: 8:30 AM

Song: 88 Lines About 44 Women
Artist: The Nails
Mode of Consumption: Listening to the radio on the way to church. 

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/6YSF0u64K0xreRh1uOJuPw?si=ccce005c4a9c4506

 

We had another 4-to-6-inches of snow last night. Add that to the foot of snow from last week, and we are already having the roughest winter in these parts in the last decade. 

 

I spent time this morning arranging to get the snow plowed at the church, and deciding if we should even be having a service. A cancellation would make two in a row, which would knock out half the services for advent. Most of our congregation is elderly, so should they even attempt driving there? 

 

Snow removal is top of mind around these parts. 

 

The man that rents the farmland around us plows our lane, which is about a quarter mile long, gravel, and at a 45-degree angle from the roadway below. 

 

He opened it up this morning, leaving the top of the hill to us to handle. 

 

Plowing with the tractor we bought from Jodi’s mom is a new skill for both of us. Last weekend, I spent the better part of an hour pushing some of the snow around. I did better than the attempt I made last year when we had one storm with enough accumulation to plow. 

 

Still it was a slow, and I am still not confident that I could handle the hill. 

 

Jodi tried her hand today, and while she zoomed around the sheds while I was walking the dog out in the pasture, when I came back she had it stuck in front of a snow bank near our garage. 

 

We tried pulling it out with our truck, but that didn’t work. I brought out a couple buckets of gravel and that provided the traction we needed. 

 

She finished up in front of the garage as I went in to watch the Bears. 

 

It’s only December 7, so we’ll see how much more practice we’ll get this summer. 

My Music Journal 2025: December 6, 2025

 

Saturday, December 6, 2025

 

Time: 2:07 PM

Song: Hook 
Artist: Blues Traveler
Mode of Consumption: Listening to the radio on the way home from Jodi’s moms. 

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/27IRo2rYeizhRMDaNVplNM?si=11908d97508d481b

 

For the last decade or more, we haven’t bought our parents presents for Christmas. The reality being that they have reached a point in their lives where there are not many material possessions that they want, and the ones they do, they often just go out an purchase when the need arises. 

 

Instead of presents, we take them on daytrips. Sometimes it’s all together, sometimes we do one trip with my parents and one with Jodi’s.

 

The sole exception was in 2023 when we took Jodi’s parents to Washington, D.C. The trip happened in the spring, so the trips don’t always happen around Christmas. That trip came about because her parents had mentioned many times over the years that they wanted to go to the capital. They, however, didn’t want to do the driving out there. So, we took them. 

 

We wanted them to make it while they were both still in good health and able to do the walking that D.C. requires. As it turns out, we did it just in time, as her Dad would pass away unexpectantly in November of that same year. 

 

Jodi’s mom told some acquaintances about this as we ate lunch today at restaurant in Mt. Carroll. We took my parents and her mom to a Christmas home tour in Mt. Carroll today, which consisted of five stops to see old houses in the area. 

 

Mt. Carroll is a small village in the hills of Northwest Illinois. Most of the homes were built in the late 1800s or early 1900s. Each had owners who knew some of the history, and different ways that each had changed over the years. 

 

The homes were fun, the memories better. 

My Music Journal 2025: December 5, 2025

 

Friday, December 5, 2025

 

Time: 6:05 PM

Song: How Will I Know
Artist: Whitney Houston
Mode of Consumption: Listening to Whitney Houston’s self-titled album. 

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/5tdKaKLnC4SgtDZ6RlWeal?si=96584c0954604c19

 

“This has to be one of her first albums,” Jodi says as we eat. “It’s 1985.”

 

I didn’t know the answer until looking that it was Whitney Houston’s first album. Her debut. Glancing through her wiki page, she had appeared as a backup singer on albums for her mother (Cissy Houston), Lou Rawls and Chaka Khan in the late 1970s and early 1980s. She had also started modeling in high school, appearing on the covers of major national magazines. 

 

She went on to release seven solo albums between 1985 and 2009 while also starring in several major motion pictures before dying in 2012. 

 

Houston was plagued by drug and alcohol problems along with having a volatile relationship with husband Bobby Brown. 

 

I guess I’ve never really thought about where Houston ranks in terms of famous tragedies of my lifetime. I suppose because I am more of a Rock ‘N Roll fan, a name like Kurt Cobain comes to mind first. 

 

Houston’s story is different though, as Cobain was gone almost as quickly as he burst onto the scene. 

 

Houston’s problems lingered. They were the fodder for tabloids and the dark recesses of the internet. The conclusion seemingly obvious, yet impossible to stop. The tattered woman at the end so different than the vibrant one singing on this album. 

 

Houston probably is closer to being our generation’s Marilyn Monroe than anyone. That talented, beautiful, intriguing figure consumed by some inner demon.