My Music Journal 2025: May 14, 2025

 

Wednesday, May 14, 2025

Time: 7:45 AM
Song: Can You Feel the Love Tonight
Artist: Joseph Williams, Sall Dworsky, Nathan Lane, Ernie Sabella, Kristie Edwards
Mode of Consumption: Listening to MP3s on shuffle on the way to work.

 Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/5E8yddtSG3sH4hw2SfwcgW?si=14f6fc9283cd4172

One of the first big gifts that I remember buying Jodi was tickets to see the Lion King stage production in Milwaukee. I remember it being cold out, and that we ate somewhere downtown near the theatre.

The production I remember being stirring and spectacular. Actors dressed in elaborate animal costumes opened the show, coming down the aisles and from off stage. The chanting and the drums and the singing. Simba presented to the horde.

It’s amazing what can be accomplished in the theatre. One moment, we are sitting in a theatre surrounded by the frigid winter temperatures of the Midwestern United States, and the next we can feel like we are on the African savanna.

We can forget that the person singing is a person, our belief suspended. That really is a lion cub. Or baboon. Or warthog.

I don’t believe we can be transported the same way with films. It’s a different experience. You can almost reach out and touch these characters when they are on stage. You can feel it. The emotions. The excitement. The danger. The desire. The love.

I know we live in an era where you can stream pretty much any piece of entertainment from our living room couch, but there’s something to seeing something live.

If you get the chance, watch Lion King on the stage. If not, try any other show that might be near you.

My Music Journal 2025: May 13, 2025

 

Tuesday, May 13, 2025

 

Time: 5:20 PM

Song: All Revved Up With No Place To Go

Artist: Meat Loaf

Mode of Consumption: Listening to MP3s on shuffle on the way home from work.

Link to Song: https://open.spotify.com/track/4vmh7eU8avZN1xnVcj5ewl?si=4f27af2755e049a3

 

I have had a light bulb in the back of my mind this week. No, not a brilliant idea. An actual light bulb. Truthfully, what I have been thinking about the location of the light bulb. 

 

It’s positioned above the pulpit of our church. No biggie right. Well, it’s actually positioned on the ceiling above the pulpit. About 25 feet from the church floor. 

 

The bulb was burned out during last Sunday’s service. I managed to get the old one out using an extension poll and a suction cup. Sadly, the same device isn’t going to work for putting a new one in. 

 

So, now the dilemma. I am the only physically fit enough in our tiny congregation to tackle such a task anymore. 

 

Part of me is like, this isn’t a big deal. I can borrow some scaffolding from my brother-in-law. I might need to recruit some more help to get two-to-three levels of such scaffolding up. All I’d have to do then is scurry up the scaffolding, screw the bulb in, and the problem is solved. Probably twenty minutes of carrying scaffolding and assembling for a thirty-second bulb installation. 

 

I think I can handle that. In fact, there was a point in my life, I probably would have done exactly that without a second thought. 

 

But those days have passed. As I have aged, heights have become an issue for me. It used to be only super heights. Like standing on a mountain bothered my head when I was in my teens. 

 

Then I fell from our hay mow in 2016. About ten to fifteen feet down, landing onto of a bale of hay and my knee and ankle against the side of the rack. I had injuries to my knee and foot, and sometimes I still don’t feel completely stable. 

 

So, I don’t know. I might get that scaffolding up, and then not be able to climb it to the top. Then what? 

 

I hate to pay someone to do it. 

 

That’s what has gone through the back of my mind whenever I have a break this week. 

My Music Journal 2025: May 12, 2025

 

Monday, May 12, 2025

Time: 9:10 AM
Song: Silvery Sometimes (Ghosts)
Artist: The Smashing Pumpkins
Mode of Consumption: Listening to Spotify while at work.

 Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/0oCEQA7gByJXUvXztuF0ys?si=6f82f7ed5f4a475a

“Is that The Smashing Pumpkins?” My co-worker, Ty, asked. He had slipped into my office to ask another question.

“Yep.”

 I almost said it was from their new album but realized that they had released albums after. Then my mind did a trick by registering that something that I perceive as new isn’t really new anymore.

 The song was released on their album “Shiny and Oh So Bright, Vol 1” in 2018. As I look at the calendar on my door, I find that we are almost halfway through 2025. Seven years. Amazing.

 We saw The Smashing Pumpkins in Chicago when they touring after releasing this album. It was an awesome set at a small club that focused on the band’s 1990s hits, but did sprinkle in this song and a couple others from this album. In many ways, the album was a throwback to the 90s.

 I have fond memories of that concert, even though I probably lost several percentage points of my hearing that night.

 The strange thing is that my mind will still sometimes place certain music released as far back as the 90s as “new” music. The instant example is “Bridges to Babylon” by the Rolling Stones. That album was released in 1997, and I still think of it as “new” Stones. In two years, that album will turn 30 years old, as old (and even older) than the Stones’ classic 1960s and 1970s albums that I would have considered “old” Stones back then.

 I have similar ideas about 1990s Metallica albums. That’s “new” Metallica while albums like “Ride the Lightning” and “Master of Puppets” from the 1980s are “old” Metallica. I don’t even have a category for all the albums released by the band after 2000.

 Maybe someday my mind will adjust and think of some of these things as “early” period and “middle” period and “late,” but I still find my mind is stuck on new versus old.

My Music Journal 2025: May 11, 2025

 

Sunday, May 11, 2025

Time: 12:30 PM
Song: Rehab
Artist: Amy Winehouse
Mode of Consumption: Listening to radio while leaving Centennial Park in Rock Falls.

Link to Song: https://open.spotify.com/track/1L5tZi0izXsi5Kk5OJf4W0?si=ef2e66c704694bf1

We met my parents and Jodi’s mom for lunch at Centennial Park in Rock Falls. It’s something we do most Sundays in the warm months. Everyone brings their own food, usually from one local fast-food joint or another.

Our view while eating is a pond. A couple geese take flight over the road and land in the pond on the other side of the road that splits the park. A family on the other side of the pond is arranging kids for photos.

On the other side of the park are baseball and softball diamonds. We wondered how often they are used. They are not used for high school sports, and we are not sure how much the park district hosts softball and baseball leagues.

As we were leaving, “Rehab” was playing, and I was reminded of Amy Winehouse.

I’d be lying if I said that I was an expert on Winehouse or could even be considered a fan at the time of her death.

I do remember her death, though.

I was in Indianapolis for a week covering a Little League Softball team. I don’t remember which day it happened, but I remember hearing about her death on the radio driving back from a game. I knew very little about her, yet for some reason it didn’t come as a surprise.

I guess maybe it was because her biggest hit was about her denying treatment for substance abuse. I don’t know.

It stands out I guess because unlike the 60s and early 70s where rock stars died young at a higher rate, this is one of the rare instances in the 2000s. Really, it might have been one for the first big deaths since Kurt Cobain, 2Pac, and Selena in the 90s. I have vague memories of hearing of both those deaths. 

I am probably forgetting someone, but that’s what came to mind.

My Music Journal 2025: May 10, 2025

 

Saturday, May 10, 2025

 

Time: 11:20 AM

Song: Lithium

Artist: Nirvana

Mode of Consumption: Listening to MP3s on shuffle while reading opening pages of Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road.”

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/2YodwKJnbPyNKe8XXSE9V7?si=614ca32f61574585

 

During our last Write On meeting, we discussed an excerpt from Stephen King’s book “On Writing.” The section is about a writer’s “toolbox,” and that the first two things that need be in the toolbox are vocabulary and grammar. 

 

King doesn’t think it’s necessary and certainly isn’t always appropriate to show off one’s vocabulary depth, instead it’s important to choose the words that suit the story best. 

 

He provides a few examples. He used a section from Cormac McCarthy’s “Blood Meridian” as an example of someone using “big” words and complex sentences to create a scene. He contrasts that with a section from Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath” where the writer uses almost all one-syllable words in a paragraph. 

 

I had just read “The Grapes of Wrath” last year, and remember that the language used greatly reflects the bleak outlook for Tom Joad and his family as they travel west. The simple words contrast the complex times where migrants are being falsely sold dreams of working on farms out west, only to discover there are more people than there are jobs available, allowing the owners to set lower and lower wages. 

 

I have never read “Blood Meridian,” but I have read McCarthy’s “The Road.” I remember that being bleak, and much like “The Grapes of Wrath,” it focuses on weary travelers clinging to the hope of salvation. This time instead of heading west, they are going south. Instead of fleeing the catastrophe of the dust bowl, the main characters – the man and the boy – are fleeing some sort of nuclear apocalypse. 

 

It’s been years since reading the “The Road” so, I thought it’d be a good one to read at our next “Craft Conversation” at the beginning of June. I read the first ten pages with music playing, and noticed several different stylistic choices that will make for a good conversation. 

 

It’s a bleak text, but I am so happy. 

 

My Music Journal 2025: May 9, 2025

 

Friday, May 9, 2025

 

Time: 8 AM & 5 PM

Song: Take Me Home, Country Roads

Artist: John Denver

Mode of Consumption: Listening to MP3s on shuffle on the way to and from work.

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/1YYhDizHx7PnDhAhko6cDS?si=40e67766723b4000

 

I kill the engine of the jeep just as the song completes the chorus before it turns into the bridge. 

 

This is one of the songs that I murder on the ukulele and the bridge is the hardest part. The chorus isn’t bad. The verses can be played the same as the chorus. Yet the bridge, I can never quite put together. 

 

For those that don’t know, the bridge goes like this: 

 

“I hear her voice in the mornin’ hour, she calls me

The radio reminds me of my home far away

Drivin’ down the road, I get a feelin’

That I should’ve been home yesterday, yesterday.” 

 

I suck at it. I can’t deny it. 

 

It’s what greets me when I go to leave, my work week done. It’s sunny and comfortable out. The bridge passes, and the chorus hits. That’s the part we all know, the part that’s easy to sing along with whether your alone or among friends at the local pub. 

 

It’s a good one to hit the weekend with, and I take my country roads home. 

My Music Journal 2025: May 8, 2025

 

Thursday, May 8, 2025

 

Time: 5:20 PM

Song: This Hard Land

Artist: Bruce Springsteen

Mode of Consumption: Listening to MP3s on shuffle on the way home from work.

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/2CiuLIXhORqJOiwKjPnuYN?si=54696eed8a674a90

 

In a field to my right, a sprayer – a futuristic looking machine with tall wheels – breezes across a freshly tilled and planted field. The spray designed to kill weeds before they’ve had a chance to grow. 

 

The next field down a pickup truck is parked. 

 

In another, a man stands behind his tractor that is attached to a planter. Just standing. Maybe something is broken. Maybe he’s trying to calculate how far this load of seed will go. Maybe he just got caught in a thought and was following it to its destination somewhere along the horizon. 

 

The countryside is bustling, planting season in full tilt in northern Illinois. In a few short weeks little stubs of green will appear in neat rows. Corn. Soy beans. Maybe a field of wheat here and there. A few hay fields are already growing strong. That’s about it for this area. 

 

Most of the fields are managed by big operators – mostly former small family farmers who have year-by-year collected more and more acres and bigger and bigger equipment. There are a few family farms left. Guys and Gals with a couple hundred acres, but most of those are gone. In another half generation, they all will be. 

 

Farming is corporate now. The land prices so high that the only ones that can take out loans to buy it are the ones that already have thousands of acres to borrow against. It’s one of the reasons that rural communities across the Midwest are getting smaller. Fifty years ago, every couple hundred acres belonged to a different family. Usually a family with three, four, or twelve kids. 

 

Now it’s the big guy at the top, a few hired men and women to run equipment, and everyone else moves to the city.