Today’s The Week That Was is sponsored by Ovaltine. That’s the way to start your day!
How’s the weather by you? It’s been cool and rainy here, and I don’t we’ve seen the sun since Wednesday. Good weather for a hot cup of Ovaltine…
Another tuneful week here at The Sound of One Hand Typing….
Monday’s Music Moves Me was another freebie. I found a playlist of “lite rawk” I had been building for a Thursday Ten, and used that for M^4 instead. “Lite rawk” is cool-Eighties-guy speak for light rock, a subgenre of rock popular in the 1970’s and 1980’s, judging by the number of stations that sprang up almost overnight when it became popular. I know it wiped out nearly all the “beautiful music” stations in the Chicago area, depriving us of the music of Percy Faith, Mantovani, and Ferrante & Teicher. Judging by the response, the songs are fondly remembered. Michele wanted to know how I managed to string all the songs together and embed them, but by the time I got around to making the video, she had figured it out. Probably just as well; having been a software trainer most of my career, I spent too much time debating whether I should simply discuss embedding the playlist or if I needed to explain how to build said playlist as well. Sometimes I just think too hard. I mentioned to Nadine that it might be possible to generate a “lite rawk” station on Pandora or iHeart. I think Pandora lets you specify songs around which you want to build a playlist, and I know that playing the Christopher Cross station on iHeart gave me a lot of the songs. Try it yourself!
Two for Tuesday featured more light music, in this case the light opera of Gilbert & Sullivan. I’m not a particular fan of their music; I think I should have left them off the list of Songwriting Teams.
My one-liner for Wednesday came from the movie Good Will Hunting, Will’s assessment of a college education. Linda said it was one of her favorite movies and she needed to see it again. While it’s not my favorite movie, I like that it might be the only movie about Boston that doesn’t include a visit to Fenway Park. I’m sure there are other movies about Boston that have no reference to the Red Sox and their ballpark; I just can’t think of them.
Incidentally, I realize that I might come off as being against going to college. I’m not. I do think that, given the expense and the debt most students are left with, and the lack of job prospects for new graduates in this day and age, they need to give lots of thought to what they want to study and whether going to (for example) Harvard at almost $50,000 a year tuition is really worth it when there are alternatives that cost a whole lot less. Mollie said she agrees more with the idea of apprentice training. It’s true: we assume every kid is going to go from high school to college rather than telling them what the alternatives are.
Thursday was Battle of the Bands day, and my battle is over the jazz standard “Stolen Moments.” You have until 12:01 AM EDT Wednesday to cast yout ballot. I also learned that alto saxophonist Phil Woods passed away on Thursday, and used his version of the song (backed by members of his European Rhythm Machine) as an example of what it should sound like.
The Friday Five was songs with a girl’s/woman’s name as the title. As I mentioned, the problem was not coming up with songs, it was deciding which ones to include. I’ll likely be using the same theme on Friday (or maybe a Thursday Ten, who knows?), so if you have any special requests, let me know. Remember, the title has to be just a woman’s name, eliminating songs like “Love Grows Where My Rosemary Goes” or “Walk Away, Renee.” They’re great songs, but don’t fit the theme. Nadine got it right, suggesting “Carrie Anne” by the Hollies.
Finally, the prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday was “expect/unexpected,” which made me think of The Newlywed Game, which made me think of my sixteen months at Newly Weds Foods, which reminded me of Tales of the Unexpected, and that reminded me of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, which once ran a story so macabre it kept my brother awake for several nights.
So, tune in this week for more music and other fun stuff!
The Sound of One Hand Typing 