My Music Journal 2025: March 15, 2025

 

Saturday, March 15, 2025

Time: 11:25 PM
Song: As Tears Go By
Artist: Nancy Sinatra
Mode of Consumption: Listening to the vinyl record “Boots” by Nancy Sinatra while hosting a garage sale.

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/48mONU4lF8eP3mt4ndMdsd?si=1e4b0de349f541e5

It took me over an hour to haul some twenty-five crates of records from our basement to our garage on Thursday night. It was an unseasonable warm and calm night for March in Illinois. 

We had decided to do a pop-up garage sale today with the vinyl records being my big contribution and hopefully the biggest draw. Unlike Thursday night, it’s a windy morning on the hill and about twenty degrees cooler. 

We had a few cars when we opened at 8 AM with one couple buying nearly $40 of vinyl. After that initial rush was a long a lull of over an hour, and maybe I started to feel tears coming knowing I’d be carrying almost all those records back down to the basement later this afternoon. 

About 10:30, we had a steady string of shoppers. I’ve sold a total of 21 records, eclipsing over $100 in profits. It’s not bad, but I am hoping to reach at least 50 records sold today. Not sure I am going to make it, as usually mornings are busier at garage sales. Who knows? It only takes one person to come in and bump the total up quite a bit. 

This is the first of what will likely be a series of sales this season. Hopefully by the end I will have sold enough to buy more records. Hah. 

My Music Journal 2025: March 14, 2025

Friday, March 14, 2025

Time: 4:35 PM
Song: All I Want
Artist: Toad the Wet Sprocket
Mode of Consumption: Listening to “Liked” Songs playlist on Spotify

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/2GHYJ0dhVds3PODKnTdiGE?si=b1bb07eea6c14b4a

There was a craze in the early to mid-1990s of weird band names. Funny enough, we saw Toad the Wet Sprocket last fall as opener to Barenaked Ladies, and both bands mentioned their goofy names. Mostly, how they thought the names funny when they started, and then spent most of the rest of their careers regretting it.

I doubt it’s entirely gone away. In fact, I am sure someone in the comments could rattle off a bunch of weird names from current bands. They are just less universally known now in the age of streaming.

I was even influenced by it, I must confess.

I have a vague memory of talking with a few friends in home room, I think in eighth grade, about what we would name our band, that is, if we formed a band. And if we could play any instruments. I couldn’t that’s for sure. Maybe one of those friends had a guitar and maybe was taking lessons. I don’t know.

I remember coming up with the name “Needles Lost in Lampshades.” I don’t know what’s worse, the name, or that for some reason, I remember it.

Well, clearly our musical inabilities were only matched by our band naming inabilities.

Probably a good thing we all pursued other careers. 

My Music Journal 2025: March 13, 2025

 

Thursday, March 13, 2025

Time: 8:30 AM
Song: You’re Going to Lose that Girl
Artist: The Beatles
Mode of Consumption: Listening to “Liked” Songs playlist on Spotify

Link to Song: https://open.spotify.com/track/70HNt0eoBVqr4ss68U8x3B?si=0ca1c2293e07497e

I have a lot of thoughts on the Beatles. Most of them nonsense. 

One of them is that “Help!” may be their most underrated and pivotal album. Sure, people will point to Sgt. Peppers and say that it’s the greatest. Sure, it deserves that and certainly has a greater impact on music and culture.

“Help!” is the preamble to psychedelia, though. Drugs and Bob Dylan were influencing the group, but the music maintained the melodies and arrangements that had marked the group’s rise to fame.

I am also a sucker for the albums of “Revolver” and “Rubber Soul” as being the transition albums from their pop start to their experimental, psychedelic period.

Of course, there is also a place in my heart for the sometimes gritty, sometimes saccharin moments of “Let It Be” and “Abbey Road.”

With all that being true, “Help!” was the group’s last and best purely pop album. It’s loaded with catchy jams and successful singles. Maybe it’s link to the hokey movie hurts its place in the discography, but I don’t know if that really matters. The reality was the movie was just a series of music videos strung together by a loose, goofy storyline and slapstick British humor. Most people probably haven’t seen it.

I always think of this as a John album. I guess it’s because he’s the lead on the title track and another hit in “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away.”  In reality, Paul and George make lasting contributions, and Ringo covers “Act Naturally” nicely.

I was thinking that I should rank my favorite Beatles albums here, but that’s something I’d really have to study. Maybe later in the year.

My Music Journal 2025: March 12, 2025

 

Wednesday, March 12, 2025

Time: 7:03 PM 
Song: Jesus, the Missing Years
Artist: John Prine
Mode of Consumption: Listening to “Liked” Songs playlist on Spotify

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/4PwQcBKk7q9yDPWiqrJQj4?si=d8d864c438a843d6

There are eighteen missing years in the life of Jesus. Well, that’s what John Prine heard at a party, so he wrote a song about it. 

It’s funny check it out. 

I don’t know if it’s true. My sense is that there are theologians out there than can point to this text or that text that illuminate the years between 12 and 30 for Jesus. Perhaps there are a few more texts buried in the secret library at the Vatican that tell exactly what he was doing. Maybe the teens years aren’t flattering, or possibly just not that noteworthy. 

I don’t know. I’m not a theologian. 

The interesting part is that these years weren’t included in any of the books of the Bible. All those words written by numerous writers over a few hundred-year period, and they all agreed on one thing – those years are unknown, not interesting, not pertinent. 

As a hack writer, I can tell you that a big part of the process is deciding what to keep and what to take out. It’s not always easy. Sometimes the words are just so nice in this one section, I mean, they really click together to say something. Just not something important to the story being told. 

So, I take it out. 

Sometimes I keep those words in the back of my mind, thinking those words in that order will fit somewhere else in some other story.

Maybe that’s the deal with Jesus and his missing years. 

My Music Journal 2025: March 11, 2025

 

Tuesday, March 11, 2025

Time: 3:00 PM
Song: Wasted Time
Artist: Eagles
Mode of Consumption: Listening to “Liked” Songs playlist on Spotify

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/0Q5YtY85lz5n7rQkeMNpoe?si=c8850ab5364f48c7

Wasted time.

It’s a problem, isn’t it?

Today, I’ve been scatter-brained with work not providing much distraction. The proposals I have on my desk are stuck at points where I can’t move forward without information or guidance from others. Plus, there are enough of them that I don’t want to set sail on something new until I have a couple of those checked off the list.

Beyond work, there’s a list of things.

1. I need to stop at our internet provider to pay our bill. I forgot to do so during my lunch each of the last two days. Let’s hope Wednesday, I remember. I even have a sticky note reminding me.
2. Vacation. We’ve been talking about it for the better part of a month, and we still haven’t hammered out dates yet. I spent a few minutes here or there on the internet this afternoon, but every click seems like more work than it should.
3. Writing this blog entry. Well, I needed to keep Spotify going long enough for a song for inspiration. Then, you know, write it.  
4. Writing in general. I haven’t been doing it. I also haven’t been submitting to literary mags. Are there pieces I want to submit? Do they need edited? Lengthened? Shortened? Changed?
5. I've started a collage at home. What should I do with that? 
6. We might have a garage sale this weekend. I need to price a few albums, sweep the garage floor, etc. 

Gah, it’s so easy to get gummed up thinking about it.

Guess what happens?

Wasted time.

It’s a problem, isn’t it?

My Music Journal 2025: March 10, 2025

 

Monday, March 10, 2025

Time: 5:20 PM 
Song: Yesterday Never Tomorrows
Artist: The Stills
Mode of Consumption: Listening to MP3s on the way home from work. 

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/1z7UGbA27hegRdEklMe1y6?si=f2154653f61e4b68

“Nothing lasts forever, I hope this lasts forever.” That’s part of the chorus from this song. 

In January of 2020, I joined Write On, a local group of aspiring writers. They met in a side room that night. There was six-to-eight local writers in attendance, and a local children’s writer gave a short presentation. 

A sturdy gray-haired lady gave me a folder with a series of handouts inside about writing and welcomed me to the group. She was the leader of this band. Her name was Kay. 

I made one or two meetings, and then COVID hit. For almost a year, I heard nothing, and then found out a few of the members were meeting online. I joined a few of those, and at some point, it just became Kay and me. 

We shared stories, getting to know each other through the miracle of the internet. I found out about her love of cats and her self-published book. She liked to laugh.

Gradually, the world reopened, and we started meeting again. A few of the other members returned, but over time, they stopped showing up for various reasons. 

So, for several months, heck maybe a year, it all sort of runs together, Kay and I were the lone attendees of Write On meetings. 

Kay would worry about this at times, but she refused to give up on the group. Over the last year and a half, we picked up another regular, and then another, our meetings bulging to four people, maybe even five once. 

At the end of last year, Kay gave me her key to Harvest Time, and she encouraged me to develop a new format for the group. 

I think maybe she knew something was coming. 

We lost Kay over the weekend, and Write On will never quite be the same. 

“Nothing lasts forever, I hope this lasts forever.”

My Music Journal 2025: March 9, 2025

 

Sunday, March 9, 2025

Time: 2:20 PM 
Song: Steal My Sunshine
Artist: LEN
Mode of Consumption: Listening to 94.7 FM while preparing lunches for next work the next day.

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/4agp6oHofabdUedr0B1krj?si=45c1e91fb2be4bae

Back in the summer of 1999, I would get up early, say 6ish, I don’t remember the exact time, to go to the high school weight room. It was a requirement for those planning to play football that fall to work out three or four times a week.

The weight room was open early, around midday, and then early evening. Being a farm kid, the early morning session worked best, as I would spend the late morning and early afternoons baling hay. 

After I was finished lifting this weight or that, I would return home for breakfast and turn on the TV to VH1. I think at 8 AM, VH1 showed a countdown of the popular videos at the time. Maybe they still do, we are strictly an aerial TV family now, and I haven’t watched VH1 in probably 15 years. 

For most of that summer, “Steal My Sunshine” was on the list. It’s a video showing the band running around a beach town, if memory serves right. It was the perfect summer vibe song and a good one for a kid heading into their senior year of high school. Fun. Bright. Longing. All those things. 

All these years later, I still think about seeing this video the summer before my senior year. It’s nostalgic, if nothing else, and sometimes that time of my life seems so close that I could turn around and touch it. Especially when a song like this plays. 

Other times, that time feels like another lifetime. One so far in the rearview, you can’t even see it if you squint.