My Music Journal 2025: August 7, 2025

 

Thursday, August 7, 2025

Time: 8:03 PM
Song: Baby Shark
Artist: Pinkfong
Mode of Consumption: Played at the Rodeo at the Carroll County Fair.

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/5ygDXis42ncn6kYG14lEVG?si=756a787d35b0438f

There are always down times in any rodeo. It’s when the cowboys and the rodeo workers are changing from one event to the next event, mostly. Sometimes, it’s when a bull rider is struggling to mount a bull before he can ride it. 

Either way, that’s why they have a clown. Usually, he’s meant to entertain the crowd. Sometimes that’s with jokes or stoies. Sometimes it’s with tricks. 

This year, the rodeo also had a man come out that did tricks on his horse and two long horn cows. This included getting both long horns and his horse to climb atop the flat bed of a Dodge truck and then climb on top of the long livestock trailer it was pulling. It was a pretty impressive trick for anyone that has had animals. Heck, we have a hard enough time keeping our miniature Hereford in the pasture she’s supposed to stay in. 

One of the other distractions during delays is to play songs and to either get the crowd to sing the next verse or to act along with the lyrics.

A song like “Sweet Caroline” is often used. Others are usually 80s rock gems like “Summer of 69” or Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin.’’”

It’s also the only place I hear, or I think, that I have ever heard the song “Baby Shark.” 

When this became popular, I was too old to be watching cartoons and didn’t have kids of my own. 

The funny thing now is that I think that the people that reacted most to this song were in their late teens and twenties. It’s now survived a generation. 

My Music Journal 2025: August 6, 2025

 

Wednesday, August 6, 2025

Time: 8:30 PM
Song: Smells Like Teen Spirit
Artist: Nirvana
Mode of Consumption: Playing over the midway at the Carroll County Fair.

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/5ghIJDpPoe3CfHMGu71E6T?si=882353914b0b4988

I am sitting next to my cousin, Katie, at the Bingo tent at the Carroll County Fair. These days there’s a handful of people playing around the tables that line the outside of the tent. Most of them are my relation. 

Thirty to thirty-five years ago, Bingo was one of the main attractions at the fair. Back then, they played for money so you had to be 21 to play. Our grandfather would arrive at the fair in time to play each of the twenty-five games and then the jackpot game where you had to blackout an entire card to win. The total for that was taken from the total earned for the night. 

Those Bingo nights could drag until midnight, often with the final game played with a filled tent. You earned a ticket for every card you played that night, and my grandfather often played at least two cards a game. For every ten tickets, you got a card in the jackpot. When I got older, I could help with one of the cards, even if I couldn’t technically call Bingo or win the money. 

It was one of the reasons I fell in love with the fair. 

Sometime around 2000, the group that ran the Bingo tent struggled to get volunteers, plus I think some gambling laws changed which made the cost of the gambling license too high for any group to take over. 

About a decade ago, a group from Polo brought Bingo back to the fair. Now, you get a ticket for winning a game, and then trade the ticket in for various dollar store prizes. 

From the midway, “Smells Like Teen Spirit” begins to play.

“Hey, they stopped playing country songs,” Katie says. 

“Yeah, now they are playing oldies,” I joke. 

“Ugh, songs from our youth are oldies now.” She laughs. 

My Music Journal 2025: August 5, 2025

 

Tuesday, August 5, 2025

Time: 9:15 PM
Song: A Bar Song (Tipsy)
Artist: Shaboozey
Mode of Consumption: Playing over the midway at the Carroll County Fair.

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/2FQrifJ1N335Ljm3TjTVVf?si=a8d7aa7b831d4969

We strolled the festival grounds at the Carroll County Fair, each of us eating ice cream. Jodi had a cup of chocolate, and I had a hot fudge sundae, both bought at stand that used to be known as the 4H stand, but now has rebranded to some other youth ag program. 

Each of us have been coming to this fair our entire lives. 

We stop by a ride we both know as the Merry Mixer, but it has a different name with this carnival. Jodi’s cousin’s daughter Nora is riding, so we talk to her cousin. The ride comes to a stop and we watch a group of boys still seated on the ride. The one in the middle appears to be turning green and holding his lips shut as if he opened them more might come out than words. 

Music plays. Lights of every color sparkle. The weather is fine. For after nine, there is still a nice crowd on the midway. The truck pull is still going on as the featured event.

The fair is in good health. Twenty-five years ago, when all three of us were getting out of high school, it appeared to be a dwindling event. 

I don’t know all the reasons for its steady downfall in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but I do know that over the last ten or fifteen years, it has steadily grown again. In large part it’s because of a new group of people taking charge and breathing some new ideas and improvements into the grounds. I think it might also be a steady increase in the area’s desire to redevelop a sense of community. 

I’m glad. As I said, I grew up at this fair, and each year it’s a chance to reconnect with family and friends. It’s also a chance to revisit ghosts of the past. 

My Music Journal 2025: August 4, 2025

 

Monday, August 4, 2025

Time: 5:14 PM
Song: In Spite of Ourselves
Artist: John Prine & Iris Dement
Mode of Consumption: Listening to MP3s on shuffle on the way home from work.

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/2K2eLVi9HJ84T1dkifkQ9O?si=497c76b7df2543b2

I remember seeing a video of a live performance of this song. Prine introduces it by explaining that he had written the song for a movie he was starring in along with Billy Bob Thornton.

He revealed that he had to ask Thornton that he never really understood if he was writing a song for a movie if it should mention the characters and/or the plot. I’ve always wondered about that, too.

Prine even mentions watching some movies and hearing a song and not understanding why it was used or what the connection was.

Obviously, when writing songs for a musical, the songs are part of moving the plot along or developing characters, setting or mood, so they must connect with the story. But, in a regular dramatic film, the music may only play in the background, or possibly just role during the end credits.

The song that jumps to mind for me that connects is Bruce Springsteen’s “Philadelphia” which does relate to the movie “Philadelphia,” but can stand alone also in Springsteen’s catalog. It touches on many of the same themes that have marked the Boss’s career.

So does this tune for Prine. He admits it is loosely based on the characters. If he’d never revealed its movie connection, it would have fit right along with his catalog anyways. It’s another story from Prine with humor and heart.

Actually, great big hearts dancing in his eyes.

My Music Journal 2025: August 3, 2025

 

Sunday, August 3, 2025

Time: 8:35 A.M.
Song: The Pinnacle
Artist: Kansas
Mode of Consumption: Playing on the radio on the way to church.

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/6g6uA4KaAuM9sCYDL7Jr8J?si=b971d76d2bcc44f4

“I’m trying to decide who this is.” I tell Jodi. The song had been playing for a few minutes already, and I recognized the vocals, but couldn’t quite place them. It had to be 70s progressive rock.

“I know, and you can’t check it on this channel,” Jodi said. There is a feature on her truck radio with certain stations where you can check what song is playing. Jodi also quipped that the host must have needed go to the bathroom because of the length of the song.

“Sounds a little like Styx maybe,” I said.

“Maybe, I don’t know.”

“It’s that sort of era. Maybe Emerson, Lake & Palmer, or Yes.”

“Yeah, maybe Emerson, Lake & Palmer.”

“Well, Marty at the Mike will tell us.”

Marty at the Mike is the host on WLLT on Sunday mornings. We listen to him quite often, and he usually plays classic rock a little off the beaten path. When the song finally ended, he came on.

His first message was that if you were trying to reach him on the house phone, he couldn’t answer that while in the studio. You had to call him on his direct line, and he’d give that out soon.

Then he starts talking about the song, giving the album and the song title, but not the band. Jodi and I look at each other but think he’s going to pull the old trick of not actually naming the band.

Then he gives it: Kansas.

That makes sense.

“Is Kansas from Kansas?”

I think about it. I should know but can’t remember.

My Music Journal 2025: August 2, 2025

 

Saturday, August 2, 2025

Time: 6:15 P.M.
Song: Livin’ On A Prayer
Artist: Bon Jovi
Mode of Consumption: Playing on the radio in Jodi’s Mom’s garage.

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/37ZJ0p5Jm13JPevGcx4SkF?si=bd19c0a15ecc4199

There’s always music on at Jodi’s parents’ house. It’s been true for pretty much as long as I have known her.

They put in a pond next to their patio sometime in the early 2000s, and to deter racoons and other critters from feasting on their collection of fish, they play music 24/7 from the garage. It’s tuned to a classic rock channel, so you get a steady diet of 60s, 70s, and 80s music while there. I think there are some 90s songs also creeping into the rotation now.

We arrived because Jodi’s mom had invited us for pizza, but she was still gone picking up said pizza when we arrived. So, we visited her cats who live in the garage.

“Livin’ on a Prayer” was playing and the first thing that came to mind was moving my sister into her first apartment after graduating college.

I remember that my friend, Jake, helped with the move, and that sometime during the day, “Living on a Prayer,” played.

For some reason, the “Whoa-oh” part right before the song title struck a chord with us that day, and we spent most of the move, mimicking that part.

Sometimes it didn’t take much to entertain us, I guess.

My Music Journal 2025: August 1, 2025

 

Friday, August 1, 2025

Time: 7:38 P.M.
Song: Buffalo Bill 
Artist: Slim Boyd and the Range Hands
Mode of Consumption: Listening to TV Western Themes 

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/1Aq5KLtOPgQmFLbWv7UwRC?si=47103a6270ae47d0

Several years ago, we had refreshments after our church service. While waiting for the final treats to be placed on the serving table, I struck up a conversation with an older gentleman. 

I don’t remember how it happened, but the conversation turned to some recent crime or something, and the fella said. 

“I tell ya, I think we need to go back to some of that old west justice,” he said, shaking his head. I thought that was an odd thing to hope for. By general rule, the justice of the old west was if you the most money and most guns, you dictated justice. Mostly me and this old fella would be at constant risk because we probably don’t have enough of either.

As I listened to this album of old TV Western Themes, I was struck by one thing. It was all propaganda saying that the guy with the gun was always good and always right. It’s a myth of course, but one likely this fella and pretty much all of his generation heard over and over with these repetitive and often catchy jingles. 

This one talks about killing red Indians, the assumption being they deserved it. It mentions him killing 5,000 buffalos in 18 months. No mention of nearly driving them to extinction. 

It’s simply a song trumpeting manifest destiny masked in the likely exaggerated acts of Buffalo Bill Cody. 

Having grown up a couple generations later, what I hear is that there is a class of people defined mostly by one characteristic that can kill and pillage at will and it will be lauded as brave and progress. For everyone else, it’s a crime and they are thugs. 

No wonder we are where we are at this point in history.