My Music Journal 2025: December 31, 2025

 

Wednesday, December 31, 2025

Time: 7:12 AM
Song: Eve of Destruction
Artist: Barry McGuire
Mode of Consumption: Listening to MP3s on shuffle while getting ready for work. 

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/1Zi2ezNOqt9y9irC11xYpN?si=9ec431c8a78b4cba

“Do you believe we are on the eve of destruction?”

The words of this song make a strong case that it felt like Armageddon was around the corner in 1965. Racism, war, turmoil, space exploration, all of it brought into homes on the evening news.

That was 60 years ago. And you could write the same song in 2025 with similar lyrics, just a few of the references would change with added discussion of AI, social media, and climatology.

So, is the end near?

Individually? Not even the next second is guaranteed. Collectively? Probably not. Things will change. Things will stay the same. But I believe we will endure for quite a while longer.

How about this journal? Yes, it will end with a period at the conclusion of this post. I set out to write a post inspired by a song I heard that day, daily for a year. I’ve accomplished that. Three hundred and sixty-five posts of varying topics, lengths, and writing styles and genres. I am proud that I didn’t punt on this exercise throughout the year, and I am surprised that there were very few days where I struggled to connect with a song and produce interesting content.

I hope to take the lessons into new projects in 2026.

Will there be a post tomorrow?

Probably not. I don’t really know what I am going to do next. I will still post here. Hopefully a few times a week. I just haven’t decided what those posts will include. Perhaps they will still have a music component, but I do want to branch out a bit. I also want to spend my writing time on other projects (short stories, novels, etc.).

So as the year ends, I thank you for reading, and I assure you, I don’t believe we are on the eve of destruction, just on the precipice of something as different as it will be the same.

My Music Journal 2025: December 30, 2025

 

Tuesday, December 30, 2025

 

Time: 5:45 PM

Song: With Or Without You
Artist: U2
Mode of Consumption: Listening to the radio. 

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/6ADSaE87h8Y3lccZlBJdXH?si=f0faa2a14b4c4a22

 

We have a barn cat named “Murray” who likes to come into the house in the evenings after I return home from work. He shoots in when I open the door, his little paws pattering against the kitchen floor before stopping at the edge of the kitchen tile and the carpeted living room. 

 

Murray has gray fur with a white belly and white race stripes on his legs. His eyes are green. 

 

He circles in that area until either Jodi or I, or preferably both of us, sit on the carpet, so he can crawl between our legs and stretch out. 

 

That’s his spot. The one spot in the world where I truly believe he is happiest. His eyes become dreamy and distant, and his little motor runs loud in satisfaction. 

 

Tonight, the radio is playing and Jodi has turned the lights of the stairway behind her on so that she can read a magazine. The Christmas tree lights are also on, blinking in reds and blues and yellows in a soothing way. 

 

It reminded of how my mother would lay on the couch in the living room during the holiday season with all the lights off other than the tree. She would do this often late in the afternoon, probably about this time of day. 

 

She didn’t usually talk, and often we’d leave her alone. She might stay that way for ten minutes or a half hour with nothing but her thoughts and the Christmas lights. 

 

I hadn’t thought about her doing that in years. I wonder if she still does it. I wouldn’t be surprised if she did. It seemed to be her form of meditation. 

My Music Journal 2025: December 29, 2025

 

Monday, December 29, 2025

Time: 7:42 AM
Song: California Dreamin’
Artist: The Mamas & Papas
Mode of Consumption: Listening to MP3s on the way to work.

Link to song:  https://open.spotify.com/track/1ZEOIhSn6BKErV59bIgn76?si=3f2720c3fd934e9f

In the field to my left, snow swirled like a dust devil in a pasture. Are they called snow devils?

Overnight about an inch of snow fell, but the wind blew at forty-to-fifty-mile-per-hour gusts. This morning the snow fall was done, but the wind remained. The sky was indeed gray as this song came on.

“A winter’s day in a deep and dark December,” the Mamas & Papas sang, and I thought this is almost too on the nose. I was now in the Cs of my alphabetical journey through my MP3s. I was in store for even more songs about the warm beaches of California.

After “California Dreamin’,” came The Beach Boys’ “California Girls” and Katy Perry’s “California Girls.” Both songs intimate in no uncertain terms that females both in the 1960s and the 2010s are better than females from other places. After that, I heard half of Billy Bragg & Wilco’s “California Stars,” before arriving at work.

California was on my mind for other reasons. One, the Bears lost to the 49ers last night in Santa Clara. It was a high scoring affair where the Bears failed to score on the game’s final play. Still, the Bears are the division champion and will be playing in the playoffs in two weeks.

I also was thinking about San Diego, the only place in California that I’ve ever been. It was the summer of 2015, and I attended an APSE conference hosted at an old hotel in downtown California. Bill Walton presented Bob Ryan with the Red Smith Award during one of the lunches at the conference. The San Diego Chicken also appeared.

Mostly, I remember it being 70 degrees with no humidity. That was a pleasant thought on this “deep and dark December,” day.

My Music Journal 2025: December 28, 2025

 

Sunday, December 28, 2025

 

Time: 1:30 PM

Song: Bat Out of Hell
Artist: Meat Loaf
Mode of Consumption: Listening to vinyl record “Bat Out of Hell.” 

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/3mCeeoBvTTpg8Xy2Wuvirw?si=ee9495df83b64848

 

I have the final offerings to the church on our dining room table as I put this album on the turntable. My parents gifted me the album for Christmas, so it’s my first listen of the vinyl. I have heard the album in other formats numerous times. 

 

Outside it is a seasonably warm, but rainy day. I’m not a fan of winter rainstorms, as they leave our country homestead a muddy mess to traverse. For instance, I am not looking forward to trudging through rain and soggy ground later as I walk Millie around the pasture. 

 

While the temperatures are in the 50s right now, the forecast says they are supposed to plunge overnight, the rain changing to snow. The temps are supposed land in the low teens with the high winds making it feel like below zero. 

 

For those that don’t live in places that can have such sudden temperature changes, the result of this is likely to be a lot of sick people. That’s been my experience anyways. Sudden drops from warm to cold, or vice versa seem to spark cold and flu season. 

 

I add the offerings from both today and Christmas eve to the December ledger, happy to see that this month will likely provide the padding we need when our already sparse attendance plunges in January and February. Although, we have already had a few weeks of snow, so it’s possible this season’s worst weather is behind us. Only time will tell. 

 

Over the next couple weeks, I’ll finish the 2025 treasurer report and put together the expected budget for 2026. I don’t see much changes in either. Our annual congregation meeting will be the end of January. Once all that is passed, it’s back to normal for the minimal duties of my role as Treasurer. 

 

 

My Music Journal 2025: December 27, 2025

 

Saturday, December 27, 2025

 

Time: 11:12 PM

Song: Burn the Witch
Artist: Queens of the Stone Age
Mode of Consumption: Listening to MP3s on the way home from Canton.

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/7yyif2Ity1GipUXTdgofKw?si=ba7b51ba0ff6431e

 

We visited Jodi’s college roommate, Amanda, today in Canton, IL. The drive is about two hours, almost all of which is on IL 78. Jodi took the drive down, and I took the foggy drive home that started about 9:30 PM. 

 

We have watched all the seasons of “Stanger Things” with Amanda, so we spent the afternoon and evening watching the first six episodes of the fifth and final season. 

 

“Stranger Things” is a well-made mix of nostalgia, homage and thrills all built around an intriguing, well-developed story arc. 

 

The first few seasons leaned heavily into the nostalgia, featuring the fashion, the slang, and the culture of the 1980s. It pegged the generation of people that are my age between 40 and 55 as a target audience. We remember the age of cassette tapes, bright colors, shopping malls and arcades. 

 

Intertwined in the nostalgia is homage to that decade’s movies. Aspects of the Demogorgan and the Upside Down are reminiscent of classic franchises like “Aliens” and “Preadator.” The gang of youthful misfits harkens back to 80s movies like “Stand By Me,” and “The Goonies.” The horror aspects are clearly inspired by “Nightmare on Elm Street.” Yet, all these elements feel fresh as they are spun into Hawkins and the “Stranger Things” world. 

 

This homage is taken a step further as many of the stars of 80s films have made appearances throughout the series including Winona Ryder, Sean Astin, Matthew Modine, Linda Hamilton, Paul Reiser, and Robert Englund (Freddy Krueger).

 

The mix of young fresh faces alongside familiar ones from the 80s, a vibrant script mixing thriller, horror, comedy and action, and a bevy of well-done effects have made this probably the top series since “Game of Thrones” ended. 

 

We have two episodes left to watch. We’ll see if it can provide a satisfactory conclusion to its legion of fans. 

My Music Journal 2025: December 26, 2025

 

Friday, December 26, 2025

 

Time: 7:15 PM

Song: Uneasy Rider ‘88
Artist: The Charlie Daniels Band
Mode of Consumption: Listening to 94.3 FM on the way home from my family’s Christmas celebration.

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/59yEymxln8Hyuz8XNkUTIX?si=53ba72ebdbe84e14

 

As we turned west away from my childhood home, this song was playing and I couldn’t place it. In fact, it seemed like an odd choice for a classic rock station. 

 

The lyrics are about a couple of redneck boys who end up in a bar filled with men dressed as women. The song was released in 1988, so I am sure it was received differently than it would be now. 

 

I have to admit I wasn’t even paying much attention to the lyrics. I was trying to figure out who the artist was, and I couldn’t help but notice the rhythm and vocal cadence of the song seemed to match Johnny Cash’s “A Boy Named Sue.” 

 

I have to imagine that Charlie Daniels did that on purpose, taking the sound of a song about a boy with a girl’s name and then applying it to a song about men who dress as women. 

 

The difference being that Cash was singing Shel Silverstein’s lyric, and it was clever and fun. Daniels version viewed through the lens of 2025 just seems unnecessary and mean-spirited. The resolution is that the narrator and his friend, Jim, essentially beat up the entire bar of men, ending the song with "I'm going back home to where the women are women and the men are men." 

 

Cash’s song upends expectations by making the boy with a girl’s name tough and strong. Daniels plays to stereotypes and phobias. It’s probably why so many of Cash’s songs endure through cultural shifts and time, while outside of “A Devil Went Down to Georgia,” Daniels songs are lost for most anybody other than hardcore fans. 

 

I mean, as this blog attests, I spend a lot of time zooming through songs and artists from the last fifty years across the rock and country genres, and I couldn’t name another Daniels’ song off the top of my head.  

My Music Journal 2025: December 25, 2025

 

Thursday, December 25, 2025

 

Time: 11:10 PM

Song: Santa Claws Is Coming To Town
Artist: Alice Cooper
Mode of Consumption: Listening to Alice Cooper’s radio show on the way home from family Christmas celebration.

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/23L3lZfC8tjIBDZhl0odQ1?si=863657dcf05941b2

 

Alice Cooper introduced this song as one of the weirdest collaborations that he ever did, and then mentioned some of the artists/producers that he worked with to make this song. None of the names range a bell, and they’ve already left my head. 

 

He thought it was a strange song, and that he personally didn’t quite understand why some people liked scary stories around Christmas. This song is about a deranged version of Santa who enters houses and murders everyone. 

 

It starts out by emphasizing that they are spelling the last name C-L-A-W-S. Just so you know that it’s not Santa Claus. 

 

When I was in grade school, maybe third or fourth grade, I was invited to spend the night at the home of one of the boy’s in my class whose name was Joey. I don’t really know how this came about. While we were always amicable acquaintances, I wouldn’t say we were ever really close friends.

 

The only thing I can think of is that we were on the same Little League team for a couple of years, and we were two of the kids on the team from the same grade school, so perhaps it was during this period of time and we had bonded a little bit because we didn’t really know the other boys at all. 

 

Anyways, I stayed there, and while I remember very little from that night, I do know the night finished with us watching “Tales from the Crypt” in his living room. 

 

I am sure this was my first exposure to this show, although I don’t remember being frightened by any of it. Likely, as much of the horror genre, I probably found it a bit hokey and comical. 

 

The only thing that stands out from the show is that during one of the episodes, the skeletal Cryptkeeper was dressed in Santa garb. Nothing else remains in my memory from that night or the shows. 

 

I guess Alice Cooper is right, there is a vein of society that likes to combine Christmas with the macabre.