IN DREAMS!

Berkshire Living has proven to be a wonderful magazine full of articles about this culture, complete listings of the goings on and even music insights by the well known local critic and writer Seth Rogovoy. In the August Issue, http://www.berkshireliving.com/, Rogovoy writes an article entitled FREUDIAN HIP about Roy Orbison. A new box set titled Roy Orbison The Soul of Rock 'n' Roll is the inspiration for his article. He states that Orbison bridged the gap between the first rock 'n' roll stars and the Beatles and the British invasion. Orbison dominated the charts between 1961 and 1963 and that was made a bit easier by the fact that "Elvis was in the army, little Richard found GOD, Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis were in sex scandals and Buddy Holly and Eddie Cochran were dead!"

But there was also something very different about Orbison in both his style and music. His influences included pop, blues, R&B, Latin, Tex-Mex. country, opera, doo-wop and rockabilly. Rogovoy clearly points out that Orbison was a "total original." His had a unique and amazing voice with great falsettos and amazing range from deep bass to an operatic high-G. His stage presence was the complete opposite of stars before him as he stood motionless wearing his trademark prescription sunglasses.

The thing about Orbison was that while most songs were about puppy love and sexual innuendo, his were about "fear of sex and anguish over the possibility of intimacy." Just look at his song titles which say it all, "Crying", "Blue Bayou", "Falling", "It's Over" and "Only the Lonely." Rogovoy then quotes In Dreams,

I close my eyes, then I drift away
Into the magic night. I softly say
A silent prayer like dreamers do.
Then I fall asleep to dream my dreams of you.
In dreams I walk with you.
In dreams I talk to you.
In dreams you're mine, all of the time
We're together in dreams, in dreams...
It's too bad that all of these things, can only happen in dreams
Only in dreams, in beautiful dreams.



Rogovoy calls Orbison, "the master of psychological narrative at a time when others were singing about their ding-a-lings or disguising their adolescent yearnings in euphemistic odes to hound dogs and great balls of fire." In songs like Leah, Orbison shared nightmares put to music.

But somethings wrong I cannot move
My leg is caught. It's pulling me down.
But I'll keep my hands shut tight for if they find me
They'll find pearls for Leah.
Oh, heartaches and memories from the past
It was just another dream about my lost love
About leah,
Here I go, back to sleep and in my dreams
I'll be with Leah.

Clearly tragedy is what inspired his writing and he did have a difficult marriage to Claudette who died in his arms after being hit by a tractor-trailer while they were riding motorcycles together. After his early successes the next decade included much tragedy including his home burning down with his two sons inside. Ulcers, addictions and heart problems plagued him. He did finally marry and find happiness till he died after a comeback in 1988. (Rogovoy tells how he saw Orbison in concert in Boston in December 1988 two nights before he died.)


Man, what a song, what a voice! I went to you tube to get this song and as I listened, chills ran down my spine and soon I broke into tears! Crying!

The movie Blue Velvet, which used the song "In Dreams" fueled Orbison's comeback with the Traveling Willburys and his own album Mystery Girl whose title track was written by U2. It is interesting that when David Lynch asked Orbison for permission to use "In Dreams" in Blue Velvet he refused and Lynch used it anyway!!

Orbison's fatal heart attack was a tragedy in a tragic life that brought us great and unique art. I certainly am grateful to my mother for enjoying his music since she owned many of his hits on 45's and I listened to them and sang them and they became a part of my soul! He was certainly one of the great voices in rock history and without an ounce of sex appeal or dance moves, that voice helped dominate the music scene at a key time in history. Certainly Orbison opened the door for song writers to express their deeper, darker shades of life and maybe in some ways helped others to feel their own! I know I did! It is reassuring to know I can find songs to smile or cry, get lost or find meaning, to dance or work, sing with or just listen! Rock music as prayer!?!?


I have to post this next one....rock and roll nirvana by an all-star ensemble!

CAST OFF!

Finally! Bailey had his cast removed on Tuesday and everything is going well! The Surgeon is pleased with the progress of the bones in his arm! He isn't completely healed and we have an appointment to return in one month. He will still have to have another procedure to remove the hardware in his arm. Bailey's least favorite thing about cast removal is the spinning saw with a vacuum attached for dust because he was worried that it would cut his arm!

He has a pretty decent scar on his arm that will fade somewhat as he ages and the doctor has promised that he can have the titanium rod that is inside one of the two bones! I asked permission to take a few pictures with my phone and here they are! Bailey proceeded to spend most of the rest of the day with a friend in a swimming pool. He was told by the doctor to not engage in high risk behavior like skateboards, scooters, bikes etc...














The Evil saw! Man it was a loud and menacing contraption! So the doctor showed us the bone is filling in and growing just like Bailey, as evidenced by the fact that his pants are too short and he is getting closer and closer to looking at me eye to eye! I can't resist posting a great song from James Taylor's recent COVERS CD....

HOME AGAIN!

I have been saying many things on this blog and sometimes I have let music speak for me! How about Carole King and her classic album, TAPESTRY! What a great song writer...I have chosen to post Home Again for my own reasons and it is a wonderful live version from 2008. For some reason 1 channel of the stereo cuts out but still amazing how well she performs this song. After the song I have copied a brief bio that sums up perfectly her musical influence including a few facts i didn't know!



Here is her Bio...

While the landmark album Tapestry earned her superstar status, singer/songwriter Carole King had already firmly established herself as one of pop music's most gifted and successful composers, with work recorded by everyone from the Beatles to Aretha Franklin. Born Carole Klein on February 9, 1942, in Brooklyn, New York, she began playing piano at the age of four, and formed her first band, the vocal quartet the Co-Sines, while in high school. A devotee of the composing team of Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller (the duo behind numerous hits for Elvis Presley, the Coasters, and Ben E. King), she became a fixture at influential DJ Alan Freed's local Rock 'n' Roll shows; while attending Queens College, she fell in with budding songwriters Paul Simon and Neil Sedaka as well as Gerry Goffin, with whom she forged a writing partnership.

In 1959, Sedaka scored a hit with "Oh! Carol," written in her honor; King cut an answer record, "Oh! Neil," but it stiffed. She and Goffin, who eventually married, began writing under publishers Don Kirshner and Al Nevins in the famed pop songwriting house the Brill Building, where they worked alongside the likes of Doc Pomus, Mort Shuman, Jeff Barry, Ellie Greenwich, and countless others. In 1961, Goffin and King scored their first hit with the Shirelles' chart-topping "Will You Love Me Tomorrow"; their next effort, Bobby Vee's "Take Good Care of My Baby," also hit number one, as did "The Locomotion," recorded by their baby-sitter, Little Eva. Together, the couple wrote over 100 chart hits in a vast range of styles, including the Chiffons' "One Fine Day," the Monkees' "Pleasant Valley Sunday," the Drifters' "Up on the Roof," the Cookies' "Chains" (later covered by the Beatles), Aretha Franklin's "(You Make Me Feel) Like a Natural Woman," and the Crystals' controversial "He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss)."

King also continued her attempts to mount a solo career, but scored only one hit, 1962's "It Might as Well Rain Until September." In the mid-'60s she, Goffin, and columnist Al Aronowitz founded their own short-lived label, Tomorrow Records; Charles Larkey, the bassist for the Tomorrow group the Myddle Class, eventually became King's second husband after her marriage to Goffin dissolved. She and Larkey later moved to the West Coast, where in 1968 they founded the City, a trio rounded out by New York musician Danny Kortchmar. The City recorded one LP, Now That Everything's Been Said, but did not tour due to King's stage fright; as a result, the album was a commercial failure, although it did feature songs later popularized by the Byrds ("Wasn't Born to Follow"), Blood, Sweat & Tears ("Hi-De-Ho"), and James Taylor ("You've Got a Friend").

Taylor and King ultimately became close friends, and he encouraged her to pursue a solo career. 1970's Writer proved a false start, but in 1971, she released Tapestry, which stayed on the charts for over six years and was the best-selling album of the era. A quiet, reflective work which proved seminal in the development of the singer/songwriter genre, Tapestry also scored a pair of hit singles, "So Far Away" and the chart-topping "It's Too Late," whose flip side, "I Feel the Earth Move," garnered major airplay as well. 1971's Music also hit number one, and generated the hit "Sweet Seasons"; 1972's Rhymes & Reasons reached number two on the charts, and 1974's Wrap Around Joy, which featured the hit "Jazzman," hit the number one spot.

In 1975, King and Goffin reunited to write Thoroughbred, which also featured contributions from James Taylor, David Crosby, and Graham Nash. After 1977's Simple Things, she mounted a tour with the backing group Navarro and married her frequent songwriting partner Rick Evers, who died a year later after a heroin overdose. 1980's Pearls, a collection of performances of songs written during her partnership with Goffin, was her last significant hit, and King soon moved to a tiny mountain village in Idaho, where she became active in the environmental movement. After 1983's Speeding Time, she took a six-year hiatus from recording before releasing City Streets, which featured guest Eric Clapton. In 2001, she returned with Love Makes the World, a self-released disc on her own Rockingale label. Four years passed before her next record, The Living Room Tour, a double disc set documenting her intimate 2004-05 tour that found her revisting songs from throughout her career with only her piano and acoustic guitars as accompaniment. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide

I never knew that she wrote Bobby Vee's hit, Take Good Care of My Baby! Surely one of my favorite songs as a kid and I loved Booby Vee since singing along was so much fun! being a teen idol was a fantasy of mine for sure! Anyone who has ever spent time with me has heard me sing along to his tunes!

More Unforced Rhythm (of the rain)

Well, I know I sound like a broken record, but hopefully all of you out there listening and reading are at least enjoying the music. This is another song that just always moved me. Songs like this sometimes just sent a kind of wave through my soul as as kid! Today listening to it I could not contain my tears! In 1963 (there is that year again) this song climbed the charts to Number 2 and only Walk Like a Man by Franki Valli and the Four Seasons kept it from number 1.



The next song is another that I always loved as a kid is by the Cowsills and you know their big hit HAIR! This song just did it for me as well and I never got tired of hearing it! The Rain the Park and Other Things! The Cowsills were the group that the Partridge Family was modeled after and I copied this bit of information about the group and there is some very interesting information....

"It was during 1969 that the rock musical "Hair" became a major hit and the Cowsills had the good fortune of releasing a clean, crisp, commercial version of the title song. Despite going up against the heaviest rock bands of the day, the Cowsills scored another number two hit in the U.S.A.
It was around that same time that Columbia Pictures' television division sent a group of screenwriters to observe the Cowsills' daily lives for a possible series based on their story. Although the Cowsills may have been briefly considered to play themselves, the producers decided to fictionalize the band as "The Partridge Family."
By the time The Partridge Family hit the airwaves in 1970, the Cowsills' career was on the decline and in the wake of the 1971 LP "On My Side", the group disbanded. Later that year, Bill Cowsill (who was briefly considered to replace Brian Wilson in the Beach Boys' touring line-up) issued a solo LP, "Nervous Breakthrough", which met with little success. In the late 1970s, Bob, John, Susan and Paul recorded some new, original material with producer Chuck Plotkin, but due to lack of financing, the sessions went unreleased. The rest of the siblings were musically inactive.
On January 31st, 1985, the Cowsills mother, Barbara, died of emphysema at the age of 56, in Tempe, Arizona.
As the 1990s dawned, Barry mounted a solo career, Bill founded a country group called the Blue Shadows, and Susan joined the Continental Drifters, an all-star New Orleans-via-Los Angeles combo also featuring her husband along with onetime Bangle, Vicki Peterson.
In 1994, the "core four" - Bob, John, Susan and Paul, contributed a newly-recorded Cowsills track, "Is It Any Wonder," to the "Yellow Pills - Volume One" pop compilation and a new studio album, "Global", followed in 1998. They later hit the oldies circuit and started playing small clubs and showcases in the Los Angeles area and across the country.
On January 6th 2006, a press release announced that the body of Barry Cowsill was discovered on December 28th on a wharf in New Orleans. Local authorities believe that the 51 year old Barry died in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which hit the city on August 29th, 2005. He had reportedly left phone messages for his sister Susan on September 1st, and was not heard from again.
More bad news came on February 17th, 2006, just after a memorial service for Barry, when the family learned of the death of their 58 year old brother, Bill. He had been battling emphysema, osteoporosis and other ailments. --http://www.rhythmoftherain.com/cascade.html

The song that just floods my memory...

MUSIC AND MEMORY AT THE WHEEL!

Bailey and I went to visit a friend on Saturday and we had lots of fun playing Monster Golf, swimming and riding the Motion Odyssey Movie at Jordan's Furniture! Monster golf is a miniature golf game played indoors with black light illuminating the entire course! We had a nice dinner out and headed home. Bailey slept for some of the ride home and I listened to Satellite radio. I got into a groove on the sixties channel and inspired this blog entry. There is something so relaxing about great music in the dark driving under a starlight sky. The first song that caught my ear was Sugar Shack by Jimmy Gilmer and The Fireballs (1963). Not a deep and meaningful song but just brings back memories of being 7 or 8 eight years old playing my Mother's 45's and loving this tune. Music doesn't have to have direct spiritual meaning although that is wonderful. Sometimes it is just about the memories it conjures up so vividly! I suppose there is a kind of spirit to that isn't there? Anyhow, I sat there in the car with Bailey sleeping singing to my hearts content!

Well, when I went to You Tube to get the song to post here I found this interesting comment from a listener.

"My fondest memory of this song was when our "good old Southern Baptist preacher" got up one Sunday morning and preached to the teenagers on the evil music we listened to on the radio. He used Sugar Shack as an example as he preached about wild and lustful teenage romances and sinful relationships. Half of us hadn't even heard Sugar Shack but the next day we all hurried down to the local record shop and bought up all the copies. Loved that music ,1963 what a year. Sweet Memories!

Funny thing about this guy's comment is that I went to church this past Sunday and heard rock music as part of a church service...yes Springsteen, Coldplay and more. The sermon this special day was about the importance of blending secular music into the 21st century church...here is the link to the minister's blog...http://rj-whenlovecomestotown.blogspot.com/

Here is the song...

My father owned a 1963 Chevy Impala SS that was his pride and joy. In fact my father taught me how to drive in that car! He never let anyone get the best of him in that machine and I remember some pretty scary rides when he would drag race with me in the car!

The next song is a great one about loneliness and love. The song just sounded extra good on the Mass Pike that night!

The last song that really meant so much to me is another great one and in the dark of that drive really echoed my feelings. So much has changed and so many challenges ahead of me. I felt like I was hearing the words to this song for the very first time. They went straight to my soul! I do feel such insecurity and sadness and I am in a deep place of contemplation and meaning! Sometimes just overwhelming feelings!

HospiceCare

Since Vicki's death in December, Hospice has been in touch with me periodically. I haven't taken advantage of their services directly since I have a wonderful therapist to talk to! In addition, I have a great Church to attend and the minister has really been kind to me, just as he was to Vicki before during and after her illness. Still, every so often, I receive packets of information from Hospice and the timing is always perfect for what I am feeling and the information is validating and soothing.

I have been feeling very down at times and what is more scary is that sometimes I just want to cloister myself and not share what I am feeling! Sometimes I just still feel sick inside and the loneliness is incredible. I have never spent so much time alone in my entire life! Most people just seem to have moved on and I understand that for them. But for me, my life is upside down and very different in so many ways! I guess it feels like I am now out at sea and I can no longer see the safety of land. The sea is turbulent and unfamiliar...I am lost in some way! To add to this feeling is the fact that budget issues at school caused the administration to change my job. My new position is very different and completely new to me. Of course, everyone at school pep talked me and tried to convince me of how good this change would be for me. But what they don't understand was that my job was the one thing that had not changed and become tumultuous. Now my whole life has changed and the stress is unbearable and I cannot continue to hide that fact. Even as I sit here typing I can feel the emotion welling up in me. I am just not sure I can hold up under that much stress. Of course in the middle of all of this, Bailey, my son has had two surgeries to repair a broken arm. OK, enough already.

Well, back to Hospice and their packet that came in the mail today! It talked about the subtle difference between saying "time heals" and "It takes time to heal"....the latter implying being an active participant in the grieving process is better. The last year and a half have taken a lot out of me and I saw this summer as a few months to try to de-stress, but the looming job change and the work required to be ready at the end of August is daunting. I have tried to stay in the moment but thoughts of what I should be doing overwhelm.

Sometimes I am very aware of the fact that I feel so sad so often. Certainly, I have a living life depression and every once in a while I will feel joy or happiness or good feeling and I say to myself..."that's right, that is what good feels like" and then of course it vanishes under the weight of this life! The good news is that I see that the light still exists and that there is hope for more. That is what today's newsletter from Hospice was about. The page I am referring to started with this scripture.....

...weeping may endure for a night, but Joy cometh in the morning.--Psalms 30:5b

Then they included this excerpt from GETTING THROUGH THE NIGHT by Eugenia Price

When is morning? When does the night end? When will the nights be peaceful again? When will I simply go to bed and to sleep--as I once did? When will I feel a surge of hope? When will my night end? When will my morning get here?

I thought you would like to know that today, about five thirty in the morning, the first ray of hope came. Until that moment my grief had spread over everything - like a sky. But in the real sky, today, there was a morning light that somehow looked different from all other mornings since my wonderful son was killed. I can't explain it, but the pale gold light, for just an instant, lifted my heart. The relief was only momentary, even though I tried to grab and hold it. But there it was, and now that the darkness has rushed back in, I refuse to let go of the fact of that light.

This so validates my feelings right now. And takes me right back to this blog and it's title, Night Sea Journey. Here I am in the belly of the whale and I am trapped, aware of movement but unsure of where I am going and where I will end up. At this very moment a song has flooded into my mind.....

Lastly, I want to post one more song by Savage Garden.....Hold Me....it just keep popping in my head and i try to be organic in my posts....maybe just because being held can feel so good!



Credits:http://www.hospicenet.org/html/grief_guide.html
http://phoenixtools.org/images/handsoflight.jpg
http://graphics.stanford.edu/courses/cs348b-competition/cs348b-01/ocean_scenes/ocean5.gif
http://healingwithlight.org/images/HealingTemple.jpg

Madonna and The Kabbalah

I have always enjoyed Madonna's music from the early dance club hits through her more meaningful and boundary stretching stuff, right up to her most recent Cd HARD CANDY! The next two songs I am posting don't need lots of my words since their meaning is so deep and obvious. The first song is FROZEN from her Ray of Light Cd. These songs were written by the spiritual inspiration obtained by her study of the Kabala.......Here is an overview from Kabbalah.com

Kabbalah — the world’s oldest body of spiritual wisdom — contains the long-hidden keys to the secrets of the universe as well as the keys to the mysteries of the human heart and soul. Kabbalistic teachings explain the complexities of the material and the non material universe, as well as the physical and metaphysical nature of all humanity




The next song is The Power of Goodbye from Ray of Light. I love this song and think of the power endings can potentially have in their ability to generate energy, transformation, conviction, freedom, and new kinds of light even in darkness! The ability to let go is a way of transcending ourselves and giving room for new beginnings and creative forces!



Picture credits: http://otherwhirled.files.wordpress.com/2007/09/goodbye.jpg
http://th01.deviantart.net/fs10/300W/i/2006/093/1/7/goodbye_darkness__by_it_i_laf.jpg