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. 

My Music Journal 2025: May 7, 2025

 

Wednesday, May 7, 2025

Time: 8:50 PM
Song: Delta Dawn
Artist: The Baldknobbers
Mode of Consumption: Listening to vinyl record “From the Hills of the Ozarks” while working on collage in our basement.

 Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/62qNdSlhFznQD0gHpCGrtw?si=92e58356fd604505

The lot of records I mentioned in the previous post included three albums from a group named “The Baldknobbers.” The name alone intrigued me enough to give one of the albums a listen while working on a project in our basement. 

The music was as expected: bluegrass, folky, etc.

I didn’t know anything else about the band.

Looking up now, I have learned a few things.

1. They are not on Spotify. That’s why you’ll notice if you follow the link you’ll get the better known version of “Detla Dawn” by Tanya Tucker.
2. According to the webpage, www.baldknobbers.com, they are a country music and comedy variety show at the Hughes Brothers Theatre in Branson, Missouri, featuring the Mabe Family.
3. They have been performing since 1959.
4. There was a group of vigilantes in the Ozark region of the Missouri from the 1885-1889. The group got its name from the grassy bald knob summits of the nearby Ozark Mountains. The Bald Knobbers for the most part sided with the Union during the Civil War and were opposed by the Confederate backing Anti-Bald Knobbers.

My Music Journal 2025: May 6, 2025

 

Tuesday, May 6, 2025
Time: Noon
Song: Hope and the High Road
Artist: Jason Isbell
Mode of Consumption: Listening to vinyl record “Live from the Ryman.”

Link to Song: https://open.spotify.com/track/4EwXbhNj6JApo3R9b6uciW?si=c8b7281840f84238

It’s our final day of vacation, but we are at home, doing all the chores that pile up when gone for an extended period. Jodi sits down as the record begins to play:

“So, if this record sucks, does that mean we will look to sell our tickets?”

She was referring to the tickets to a Jason Isbell show in Rockford later this summer. The record I bought in Nashville, during a brief stop at the Ryman Auditorium gift shop. I hadn’t expected to buy any vinyl on vacation, but I thought it was appropriate. One, to get a record of a live concert in Nashville, and to get a live record of someone that I was going to see live soon.

As it turns out, I had more vinyl to sift through. On Sunday, Jodi’s Aunt Betty was at an auction, and they had a couple crates of records. She called us as we were meandering through northern Kentucky.

She mentioned there being a half-dozen Elvis records, a Ray Charles, a Merle Haggard. I said if they went for less than fifty, I’d take them.

They went for five dollars per crate.

It was almost entirely a country lot. Lots of Marty Robbins and George Jones. Loretta Lynn. Kenny Rogers.

The condition was fair. They need a good cleaning. I think I’ll see a decent profit on this one.

 It was an appropriate cap to my time off. A solid Jason Isbell record for the collection, and about 150 country records to put up for sale. It all fit nicely at the end of a visit to country music’s home in Nashville.

My Music Journal 2025: May 5, 2025

 

Monday, May 5, 2025

 

Time: 5:20 PM

Song: Like a Prayer 
Artist: Madonna

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

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/1z3ugFmUKoCzGsI6jdY4Ci?si=78751ec1a3cc4811

 

Illinois Route 40 runs north from Peoria to Sterling, and this stretch of rural two-lane highway is often the homestretch for us when we travel south for vacation. There is a sign leaving Peoria that marks the span as 56 miles. 

 

It’s always the toughest stretch of the trip. A swirl of thoughts and emotions. 

 

Resignation that vacation is almost over and at the end of these 56 miles, it will be back to normal life. Laundry. Mowing. Groceries. Bills. Work. 

 

Weariness as the bustle of the previous few days of activities sets in. The concerts. The walking around downtown Nashville. The hotels. The restaurants. All the people we’ve passed that we will likely never see again, and wouldn’t know it if we did. 

 

Impatience as it’s usually the point where we’ve had enough of sitting the car. We’ve probably run out of things to say, or simply don’t have the desire to say them. The jeep feels cluttered with luggage and bags from purchases, and wintergreens in the console. The air seems stale. Even the songs seem redundant, even though I don’t think we’ve had a repeat the entire trip. 

 

It usually a slow feeling trip, one where it’s likely we’ll get stuck behind slow drivers, semis or farm machinery. Each mile counting off slower and slower. There’s a sign that marks 13 miles to Sterling, a distance that’s been nothing that last few days, and it always feels like those 13 miles take an hour each. 

 

But we make it. We stop at Kroger’s on the north end of Sterling, Madonna is singing, and while we have a few miles yet to get home, it feels like the trip is officially over.