MMMM: Hot!

Patrick is the guest conductor for Monday’s Music Moves Me, and his theme for today is “Dog Days Of Summer: Songs About The Summer Heat.” In an effort to be unique (as is often my wont), I might have “colored outside the lines” just a little bit here, but here are a dozen songs dealing with summer, or heat.

Ella Fitzgerald, “Too Darn Hot”
June Christy, “Something Cool”
The Lovin’ Spoonful, “Summer In The City”
Glenn Frey, “The Heat Is On”
Marilyn Monroe, “Heat Wave”
Linda Ronstadt, “Heatwave”
Joanne Shaw Taylor, “Summertime” (featuring Joe Bonamassa)
The Power Station, “Some Like It Hot”
Sly & The Family Stone, “Hot Fun In The Summertime”
Blue Cheer, “Summertime Blues”
Joe Satriani, “Summer Song”
Chad & Jeremy, “A Summer Song”

And that’s Monday’s Music Moves Me for August 8, 2022.

Monday’s Music Moves Me is sponsored by Cathy, Alana, and Stacy, so be sure and visit them, where you can also find the Linky for the other participants.

Song of the Day: Webb Pierce, “There Stands The Glass”

Honky-tonk country singer-songwriter and guitarist Webb Pierce was born in West Monroe, Louisiana on this day in 1921. He charted more #1’s on the Country chart (13) than anyone in the 1950’s. “There Stands The Glass” topped the Country chart in 1953.

The Mid-Dog Days Week That Was

This edition of The Week That Was is brought to you by Heinz Worcestershire Sauce. No matter how you pronounce it, say “Heinz” first, and you’ll know it’s good becase it’s Heinz!

The spokescartoon has a bit of a Teutonic accent at the end there.

Continue reading →

Song Lyric Sunday: Michael Jackson, “Ben”

Jim got today’s prompt from my good friend Di at Pensitivity101: “Pets, Names, Memories.” This was the first song that came to mind, because it’s about a pet rat named Ben…

Wikipedia tells us

“Ben” is a song written by Don Black and Walter Scharf for the 1972 film of the same name (a spin-off to the 1971 killer rat film Willard). It was performed by Lee Montgomery in the film and by Michael Jackson over the closing credits. Jackson’s single, recorded for the Motown label in 1972, spent one week at the top of the Billboard Hot 100, making it Jackson’s first number one single in the US as a solo artist. Billboard ranked it as the number 20 song for 1972. It also reached number 1 on the ARIA Charts, spending eight weeks at the top spot. The song also later reached a peak of number 7 on the UK Singles Chart. In 2004, the song appeared in The Ultimate Collection.

It won the Golden Globe for Best Song, and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1973, but lost to “The Morning After” by Maureen McGovern from The Poseidon Adventure. Wikipedia also notes that Jackson had to lip-sync the song at the Academy Awards because Jackson’s voice had changed. (He was 14, what do you expect?) This was interesting: they originally wanted Donny Osmond, who’s a few months older than Jackson, to sing it, but he was on tour…

Ben, the two of us need look no more
We both found what we were looking for
With a friend to call my own
I’ll never be alone
And you my friend will see
You’ve got a friend in me
(You’ve got a friend in me)

Ben, you’re always running here and there
(Here and there)
You feel you’re not wanted anywhere
(Anywhere)
If you ever look behind
And don’t like what you find
There’s something you should know
You’ve got a place to go
(You’ve got a place to go)

I used to say “I” and “me”
Now it’s “us”, now it’s “we”
I used to say “I” and “me”
Now it’s “us”, now it’s “we”

Ben, most people would turn you away
I don’t listen to a word they say
They don’t see you as I do
I wish they would try to
I’m sure they’d think again
If they had a friend like Ben
(A friend)
Like Ben
(Like Ben)
Like Ben

Source: AZLyrics.com

And that’s Song Lyric Sunday (and Song of the Day) for August 7, 2022.

Busier Than A One-Armed Paper Hanger #socs

When we first moved into our house in Northfield, my room had this wallpaper that I thought was hideous. It had all these drawings of soldiers from the 18th Century, and I really didn’t like it. I mentioned it to Mom, who said she’d do something about it eventually. In other words, get used to it, kid, it stays on the wall until I consider it worth my time.

One of my uncles suggested that maybe I could do something with it to make it at least bearable, like color in the soldiers or something. My idea was to have the soldiers speak as soldiers do, with plenty of four-letter words. Mom caught sight of it and she was definitely not happy about it. It definitely expedited getting new wallpaper, though.

For a while now, I’ve used high-definition color bars as my wallpaper on both my desktop and laptop computers.

I think I finally got tired of it as my wallpaper, so I’ve started collecting pictures that I think would make nice wallpaper to give me a break. There are lots of places that you can find wallpapers. Pixabay, Pexels, and Unsplash are three of them. One of my favorite places is Voyage Onirique, run by Angelilie. She does some beautiful work and they can all be downloaded. Here’s my current wallpaper, from her site: