It’s all nonsense of course, my Certificate d’Ascension en Machine Aerostatique, which grandly proclaims “Let it be known from this day forth that Linda and Winslow Pettingell has (sic) ascended into the sky in a Hot Air Balloon…etc.” and in addition to the smudged date, 12^th of April 1996, and the fact that it took place in Phoenix, Arizona, it also includes the post-flight Balloonist’s Prayer:

The winds have welcomed you with softness,

The sun has greeted you with it’s warm hands,

You have flown so high and so well,

That God has joined you in laughter,

And set you back gently into

The loving arms of Mother Earth.

How I ever got my wife into that basket I’ll never know, but if we were ever to lose our memories, along with all the pictures I took during that early morning excursion, then this hokey Certificate d’Ascension hanging on the wall outside my office (hey, never got anything like this for making a bungee jump) will still serve as proof that we accomplished something that I, at least, had always wanted to do.

As to what it was like, allow me to boldly steal a passage from “My Air-Ships” the 1904 autobiography of a once world-famous early aviator named Alberto Santos-Dumont:

“Suddenly the wind ceased. The air seemed motionless around us. We were off, going at the speed of the air-current in which we now lived and moved. Indeed, for us there was no more wind; and this is the first great fact of spherical ballooning. Infinitely gentle is this unfelt motion forward and upward. The illusion is complete: it seems not to be the balloon that moves, but the earth that sinks down and away… “

Which is precisely the sensation that the fabled Icarus might have experienced.  We all know the story… of the master artist, Daedalus who (according to Greek mythology) builds a labyrinth for King Minos of Crete to imprison the Minotaur. After he himself is imprisoned with his son, Icarus, the inspired Daedalus fashions two sets of wings with wax and feathers, but warns his son to follow his flight path, staying far above the sea and well away from the sun.

Essentially the boy then experiences the first four lines of the Balloonist’s Prayer, but tragically, not the final two.  Overcome by giddiness Icarus forgets his father’s warnings not to fly too close to the sun, which melts the wax that holds the feathers in place, and he plummets into the sea.

There have been countless literary, artistic and musical references to the classical tale through the centuries, including this one, originally featured as the title track on the Paul Winter Consort’s 1972 album “Icarus”. This is a later version of the piece from Winter’s 1978 album, “Common Ground”…tumbling conclusion and all.  How did I manage to get my wife in that basket?

 LISTEN TO TODAY’S SELECTION – Saturday 1 December

Its origins are red-blooded.  Still used in Italy, “bimbo” is an Italian derivation of “bambino,” a masculine gender word meaning “baby-or-little boy.”  Of course no one likes to mess with the nomenclature more than we Americans, and by the early 1920s “bimbo” was common American slang for a dull-witted or loutish man.  But why stop there?

In the 1929 film “Desert Nights” (John Gilbert’s last silent movie) it’s used to describe a female diamond thief (played by Imogene Wilson, a one-time Ziegfield showgirl who went by the name of Bubbles) and then later that year a chorus girl was referred to as “a bimbo,” in early Technicolor no less, as seen in “Broadway Melody” the first soundie to win an Academy Award for Best Picture.

Such Hollywood moments were hugely influential and the feminine connotation quickly made it into the Oxford English Dictionary, and then slowly evolved to become a derogatory term for a salaciously attractive, cosmetically-enhanced, assuredly promiscuous woman, who may or may not have bleached blonde hair, and is most certainly not known for her intellect or erudition…Did I get it all?

Of course, evolution never stops and in contemporary gossip magazines the term, though still referring to salaciously attractive, cosmetically-enhanced, vacuous women, has distressingly taken on a positive undertone. Where Harvey Hadaway was with all of this, who knows?  But he wrote this catchy song in 1948 and it was recorded both by Gene Autry and as sung here, by “Gentleman Jim” Reeves, becoming his second Number 1 hit (after “Mexican Joe”) on the Billboard Country Chart in 1953.

Although its context harkens back to the original Italian colloquialism for a little boy, one  has to wonder about this kid’s rather precocious motivation.

 LISTEN TO TODAY’S SELECTION – Friday 30 November

Bimbo

Bimbo, Bimbo, where ya’ gonna go-e-o

Bimbo, Bimbo, whatcha’ gonna do-e-o

Bimbo, Bimbo, does your mommy know

That you’re goin’ down the road to see a little girl-e-o

 Bimbo is a little boy, who’s got a million friends

And every time he passes by, they all invite him in

He’ll clap his hands and sing and dance, and talk his baby talk

With a hole in his pants and his knees stickin’ out

He’s just big enough to walk

 Bimbo, Bimbo, where ya’ gonna go-e-o

Bimbo, Bimbo, whatcha’ gonna do-e-o

Bimbo, Bimbo, does your mommy know

That you’re goin’ down the road to see a little girl-e-o

Bimbo’s got two big blue eyes that light up like a star

And the way to light them up is to buy him candy bars

Crackerjack and bubblegum will start his day off right

All the girlies follow him just a-beggin’ him for a bite

 Bimbo, Bimbo, candy on your face-e-o

Bimbo, Bimbo, chewin’ on your gum-e-o

Bimbo, Bimbo, when you gonna grow

Everybody loves you, little baby Bimbo

 You never catch him sittin’ still, he’s just the rovin’ kind,

Altho’ he’s just a little boy, he’s got a grown-up mind.

He’s always got a shaggy dog a-pullin’ at his clothes,

And everybody calls to him as down the street he goes.

Bimbo, Bimbo, where ya’ gonna go-e-o

Bimbo, Bimbo, whatcha gonna do-e-o

Bimbo, Bimbo, does your mommy know

That you’re goin’ down the road to see a little girl-e-o

When his Baptist minister father learned of his desire to make it as a songwriter in Los Angeles he told his son, “This songwriting thing is going to break your heart.” But he recognized the eighteen-year-old’s determination,  so he handed him $40 adding,  “It’s not much, but it’s all I have.”

Though clearly not easy for the conservative clergyman, it was a wise decision, because Jimmy Layne Webb, born in Elk City, Oklahoma in 1946, would become the only artist ever to receive separate Grammy Awards for Music, Lyrics, and Orchestration.

Having learned to play piano and organ, at the age of 12 Webb was playing for his father’s services and although his was a religious upbringing with radio listening restricted to Country and Gospel music, he began to write songs.  When, at 14, he was allowed to buy his first record, it was by a singer he admired named Glen Campbell.

In California, Webb studied music at San Bernardino Valley College and landed a job as a transcriber for a small music publisher, which (with his discernable talent) paved the way to actual songwriting contracts, first with Motown in 1965 and then with (“Secret Agent Man”) singer and producer, Johnny Rivers in 1966.

It was Rivers who first recorded Webb’s “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” which would come to be recognized as the “third most performed song in the 50 years between 1940 and 1990.”  But it was the performer whom Webb first met at a television commercial recording session that turned the song into an “instant pop standard” in 1967.  When the now 21 year old Webb approached the much-admired Glenn Campbell, the singer looked up from his guitar and told him to get a haircut.

Of course, that conservative streak didn’t keep Campbell from crossing into the Pop charts and winning two Grammy Awards for his version of “By the Time I Get to Phoenix.” Nor would it keep him from again riding high on the Pop and Country charts in 1968 with Webb’s “Wichita Lineman,” later cited as “the first existential country song.”

Meanwhile, Johnny Rivers had asked Webb to write some songs for a new group he was producing called The 5^th Dimension, five of which were featured on their debut album.  This included the album’s title song, “Up, Up and Away” which went on to win the Grammy Award for Song of the Year.  As a matter of fact in 1967 “Up, Up and Away” and “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” received eight Grammy Awards between them.

The following year, while “Wichita Lineman” was all over the airwaves (and while The 5^th Dimension was hitting the charts with more of his songs), Jimmy Webb, whom some thought out of sync with the times, formed his own production company and scored big yet again.  After the song was rejected by The Association, it was included on a full album of Jimmy Webb songs performed by none-other than (“I wonder what the king is doing tonight”) Richard Harris.

While the Webb-produced album, “A Tramp Shining” remained on the charts for nearly a year, the curious single “MacArthur Park,” which ran for 7:21 and was based on actual events, reached Number 2 on the Billboard Charts.  Ten years later, Donna Summer’s version would reach Number 1.

Today’s selection, first recorded by Glen Campbell in 1969, made it to Number 4 on the Billboard Charts, while topping both the Country and Easy Listening Charts, and has been ranked by CMT (Country Music Television) at Number 8 in its “Greatest Songs in Country Music” tally.  Yet here, as performed by Jimmy Webb himself, it is the antithesis of Country.

As heard on “Ten Easy Pieces,” Webb’s 1996 album featuring new arrangements of his most popular songs, one is compelled to follow the advice that he sets down in his liner notes to… “Draw yourself a bath, pour yourself a snifter of Chateau de Pommes 1967 (a steal at only $98 a bottle) and [light up] a Partagas Series D.”

That last item, a well rolled Cuban cigar, is especially appropriate for “Galveston” which (contrary to popular belief) was not written as a protest song but is meant to reflect the laments of a young soldier engaged in battle during the Spanish-American War.

 LISTEN TO TODAY’S SELECTION – Thursday 28 November

Galveston

Galveston, oh Galveston

I still hear your sea winds blowing

I still see her dark eyes glowing

She was twenty-one

When I left Galveston

Galveston, oh Galveston

I still hear your sea waves crashing

While I watch the cannon flashing

And I clean my gun

And I dream of Galveston

I still see her standing by the water

Standing there, looking out to sea

And is she waiting there for me?

On the beach where we used to run

Galveston, oh Galveston

I am so afraid of dying

Before I dry the tears she’s crying

Before I see your sea birds flying

In the sun, at Galveston

Although I believe I’m in the minority, and may even be speaking heresy in some circles, I rather like Facebook’s Timeline format…yes, okay, barring the occasional privacy issue, potential for identity theft, sporadic lack of total control and hypothetical hidden agendas.

Timeline, as most of us know, is a merging of the old Profile and Wall pages with a reverse-chronological blog-like timeline of one’s life. Though sometimes sluggish and not always easy to negotiate, it’s a first-rate way to chronicle one’s past and present and I, for one, have been an incorrigible chronicler since childhood, still utilizing whatever medium’s simple enough for a child to use.

Through the vanishing years this has included: reel-to-reel, then cassette, then digital audio recordings… photographs in their thousands, ranging from instamatic (110 cartridge) and 35 mm film prints to digital and now iPhone digital jpegs… VHS, then digital video recordings (capturing many a rolled eye from  my wife and kids)… and of course reams of handwritten, then typewritten, then dot matrix and inkjet (not to mention offset and digitally) printed, and “virtual online,” narrative accounts.

Although much now functions as insulation under the eves, today’s technology has provided me with the mind-boggling ability to incorporate any of this chronicled material in my Timeline. If I were boring enough to do it, I could easily represent every year of the life I’ve lived so far.  Actually I have gone so far as to include photographs from every year of my adult life and (although time consuming) the outcome has been astonishing.

Reach a certain age and suddenly you have a past. But it’s only when you’ve laid it out year-by-year (especially in pictures) that you appreciate how much has been forgotten and how the seasons, even the decades, tend to melt together once they’ve been lived. There are some who would rather forget, of course, and others who would prefer not to share.  But for all its faults Facebook’s Timeline is a free and basic means of resurrecting those winsome times gone by and (though sometimes they may be your own) relishing the present by fondly holding, holding, holding on to faces from the past.

Today’s selection, as many will remember, was an international hit for this memorable British soul band that was initially named for its trendy-carrot-topped lead singer, Mick “Red” Hucknell in 1985.  However, when an early promoter inquired about the group’s name, he received the reasonable answer, “It’s Red, simply Red.”

So many publicity posters were printed with the resulting misnomer that the group became known as….Simply Red, and over a 25-year dash recorded ten studio albums.  Since the band’s break up in 2010 Hucknell has gone on to a full-time solo career, although his now more conventionally styled hair is no longer simply….

Included on Simply Red’s debut album “Picture Book” in 1985, when it reached Number 2 on the UK Charts and Number 1 on the US Billboard Charts, “Holding Back the Years” was actually written many years earlier, when Hucknell was only seventeen.

LISTEN TO TODAY’S SELECTION – Wednesday 28 November

 Holding Back The Years

 Holding back the years

Thinking of the fear I’ve had so long

When somebody hears

Listen to the fear that’s gone

Strangled by the wishes of Pater

Hoping for the arms of Mater

Get to me the sooner or later

 I’ll keep holding on

I’ll keep holding on

Holding back the years

Chance for me to escape from all I’ve known

Holding back the tears

Cause nothing here has grown

I’ve wasted all my tears

Wasted all those years

And nothing had the chance to be good

Nothing ever could yeah

I’ll keep holding on

I’ll keep holding on

I’ll keep holding on

I’ll keep holding on

So tight

 I’ve wasted all my tears

Wasted all of those years

And nothing had the chance to be good

Cause nothing ever could oh yeah

I’ll keep holding on

I’ll keep holding on

I’ll keep holding on

I’ll keep holding on

Holding, holding, holding

That’s all I have today

It’s all I have to say

Ever notice how a house can be like an accordion? When there’s a holiday and the kids and their friends are back it feels compact and noisy, but when the festivities are over and it’s just you and your mate, it’s as if the old place has miraculously billowed out and become very spacious indeed.

Now even our driveway is about to seem bigger. After much dinner-table deliberation a beloved family member that has been with us for 14 years will soon be leaving for good.

When we bought a Volvo wagon (quickly christened “Tyroam” by our then-five-year-old) in 1998, it was a big step-up from the cranberry ‘91 Jeep Cherokee that preceded it. Strong believers in preventive maintenance, we like to hang onto our cars, and while Tyroam’s original garage-mate, a 1990 Honda Accord, remained in good nick right up until it was sold in ‘04 to make room for a new Sienna (that has also aged well) the leaky, problematic Jeep that suited our family when it was very young was surprisingly not built to last.

We were in the market for something different and after a nephew had flipped his father’s Volvo and walked away, we decided to take the safety route. Tyroam was an excellent choice, with leather interior and technology (it even had rear seat warmers) that never seemed outdated. When, at the age of 9, its garage space was usurped by a sturdy ’07 Audi, Tyroam became the perfect third car for the kids.

Driven to far off music-fests, and who knows where else, in the days when it was packed with high school football players and referred to as “the man car,” it conversely came to resemble a spritely closet on wheels, with spirit-day slogans written across its windows in its later, high school cheerleader phase.

Then there was the time that Tyroam took one for the team, displaying those “cage-within-a car” safety chops after another driver cut off our newly licensed daughter on the Concord Rotary and plowed away the front bumper and grill.  Like our nephew, she walked away…and the other driver even received the citation.

Having just missed being totaled, Tyroam served us for another three years after a rejuvenating trip to the body shop. But of course even our most beloved automobiles show their age in the end.  With slipping reliability it’s time for the ‘ol Nordic-built machine to go, and so we await a scheduled collection visit from “Sally Ann” (The Salvation Army), for whom Tyroam will become a heart-felt donation.

Time for something upbeat, and where better to turn than a New Wave group with Nordic (albeit Norwegian) origins. Formed in Oslo in 1982, A-ha took its name from a song their guitarist wrote (“terrible song but a great name”) just prior to leaving for London in search of a producer.  Famously they were able to land one, despite the fact that they had gone to him because his studio had a Space Invaders machine.

Credited to the entire group (with English-as-a-Second-Language lyrics), a version of “Take on Me” was first released as a single in 1984 before being re-worked for the group’s 1985 debut album, “Hunting High and Low”.

LISTEN TO TODAY’S SELECTION – Tuesday 27 November

It’s the second version that reached Number 2 in the UK and, in conjunction with its MTV-Award winning sketch-animation video, topped the US Billboard Charts. Still fun to watch to this day it just goes to show that along with well-engineered function, Scandinavian form is designed to last.

Take on Me

We’re talking away

I don’t know what I’m to say

I’ll say it anyway

Today’s another day to find you

Shying away

I’ll be coming for your love, OK?

Take on me, take me on

I’ll be gone

In a day or two

 So needless to say

I’m odds and ends

But I’ll be stumbling away

Slowly learning that life is OK

Say after me

It’s no better to be safe than sorry

Take on me, take me on

I’ll be gone

In a day or two

 Oh the things that you say

Is it life or

Just a play my worries away

You’re all the things I’ve got to
 remember

You’re shying away

I’ll be coming for you anyway

Take on me, take me on

I’ll be gone

In a day or two

Although it is the largest county in Ulster Province, the extreme northwestern County Donegal remains a part of the Republic of Ireland, with which it shares a narrow geographic connection between British Northern Ireland and the sea.  Celebrated for its distinct cultural identity (a county slogan is “Up here it’s different”) Donegal is known to hold fast to traditional Irish customs and in some parishes, such as coastal Gweedore, to the ancient Irish language itself.

Acknowledged, as the “cradle of Irish culture” it’s no coincidence that the Emerald Island’s most successful music family, with combined sales of over 90 million records, has its roots in a local pub here, opened in 1968 by a cabaret musician and his music teacher wife. Leo’s Tavern, as it was called, quickly became a popular music venue for traditional music.  On slow nights the couple’s children also began to perform, singing and playing Celtic songs along with popular cover versions of Beatles and Beach Boys numbers.

Which is what they were doing late one school night when a local policeman walked in.  Fearing a summons everyone stopped playing, but the constable had an entry form for a local music competition in his hand. As the competition required a name someone suggested Clann As Dobhar (Irish for “the family from Dore”) and so Clannad was born in 1970.

Known for its broad mix of folk, rock, Irish, Celtic and New Age, performed in various languages, including: English, both Scottish and Irish Gaelic, Latin and (when they recorded the theme from “Last of the Mohicans”) Mohican, Clannad is comprised of siblings Ciarán, Pól, and Moya Brennan and their twin uncles Noel and Pádraig Duggan.  Another Brennan sister, Eithne was once a part of the group but she left in 1981 to pursue a solo career, using the Anglicized stage name (perhaps you’ve heard of her?) …Enya.

Still flourishing, Leo’s Tavern is rather a musical Mecca with the likes of Bono and Clannad themselves dropping by.  Since none of us are likely to make it there this evening, here’s a song written by the Duggan twins, from the group’s 1985 album “Macalla” (Irish for “Echo”).  At the end of this joyous but heartburn prone weekend may you eat lightly, enjoy a little exercise and with the journey at an end…relax.

 LISTEN TO TODAY’S SELECTION – Sunday 25 November 

Journey’s End

 Blue waves are rolling

Visions in my mind

Of a strange voice calling

Journey’s at an end, journey’s at an end

Journey’s at an end, journey’s at an end

 Hear the anchor sinking

Voices ringing clear

Farewell from my kindred

And friends I love so dear, and friends I love so dear

Journey’s at an end, journey’s at an end

 Lost streams are fading

They sweep across the vale

And with oceans of meadows

To bring me back again, to bring me back again

Journey’s at an end, journey’s at an end

Long have I traveled

In storm, in the sun, in the rain

And it’s homeward singing

Journey’s at an end, journey’s at an end

Journey’s at an end, journey’s at an end

Journey’s at an end, journey’s at an end

Sometimes the best part of a story is in the name. Take for example the word for an activity that is literally running rampant on this post-Thanksgiving “cool-down” day.

While the act of running as a means of training for skilled athletes dates back to at least the ancient Greeks and their Olympics, the general notion of physical fitness has its origins in Medieval Europe. This was a time when swordsmanship was highly esteemed, both as a means of self-defense and a measure of social standing.  But swordsmanship requires stamina, and it was well understood that strength and endurance could be developed by lifting weights and, although it wouldn’t be called “jogging” for another half-a-millenium, regularly running at a measured pace.

Somewhere in the 16th Century the word “jog” first came into usage as in “to shake, jolt or move with a jerk” (hence “jog your memory”) and it would also eventually pertain to the activity involved in keeping a horse in condition. By the 19^th Century (in Britain but not the United States) “jogging” would also refer to a full training regimen for soldiers and athletes.

As for “joggers” as we know them,  i.e. those who leisurely trot for health, pleasure and to work off the previous day’s excesses, we can thank the Kiwis. Formed in 1962, for athletic enthusiasts (those accustomed to a fitness training regimen in the British sense) who would meet specifically to run “for fitness and sociability,” the Auckland Joggers Club is believed to have been the first to use “jogger” as a noun.  When University of Oregon track coach (and Nike shoe designer), Bill Bowerman came for a visit he was so taken with the concept that he borrowed the name and wrote the book that is now credited for igniting the running revolution, “Jogging” in 1966.

Coincidentally that was the very year that today’s selection was a Number 1 hit in the UK for a group whose name also comes with an interesting story. Formed in Birmingham when, in 1963, Welsh guitarist Spencer Davis recruited organist Steve Winwood and his bass playing brother Muff, along with Pete York on drums, the band was originally called the Rhythm and Blues Quartette.

Asked to change their name after signing a recording contract the following year Muff Winwood later commented, “Spencer was the only one who enjoyed doing interviews, so I pointed out that if we called it The Spencer Davis Group, the rest of us could stay in bed and let him do them.”

Although “his” group would disband not long after Steve Winwood left to form Traffic, the wide-awake Spencer Davis had plenty of interview opportunities in the mean time, with such international hits as “Gimme Some Lovin”, “I’m a Man” and … (written by Jamaican-born singer Jackie Edwards)  “Keep On Running”

LISTEN TO TODAY’S SELECTION – Friday 23 November 

Keep On Running

 Keep on running

Keep on hiding

One fine day I’m gonna’ be the one

To make you understand

Oh yeah

I’m gonna be your man

Keep on running

Running from my arms

One fine day I’m gonna be the one

To make you understand

Oh yeah

I’m gonna be your man

 Hey, Hey, Hey

Everyone is talking about me

It makes me feels so bad

Hey, Hey, Hey

Everyone is laughing at me

It makes me feel so sad

So keep on running

Hey, Hey, Hey

All right

Hey hey hey…

Keep on running

Running from my arms

One fine day I’m gonna be the one

To make you understand

Oh yeah

I’m gonna be your man

Hey, Hey, Hey

Everyone is talking about me

It makes me feels so sad

Hey, Hey, Hey

Everyone is laughing at me

It makes me feel so bad

Keep on running

Running from my arms

One fine day I’m gonna be the one

To make you understand

Oh yeah

I’m gonna be your man

Make me feel so good

I wanna be your man

All right

Come on baby

I wanna be your man

You know you make feel so good

Hey, Hey, Hey…

When they sailed from Plymouth in search of their religious freedom the Pilgrims brought a tradition of Days of Fasting and Days of Thanksgiving to their “New Plymouth” settlement. Fasting was certainly more common in those early years and while the “first” Thanksgiving was observed in 1621, the next one had to wait until 1623. However, by the second half of the 17^th Century, annual days of Thanksgiving after the harvest had become customary throughout the colonies and this tradition continued until the colonies became states.

The first federally designated Thanksgiving was proclaimed by George Washington in 1789 and though some succeeding presidents followed suit, others did not.  It was therefore up to a state’s governor to make such a proclamation, which was commonly done in the Northeast but grew less frequent in the deep South where such an observance was viewed as a “relic of Puritanical bigotry.”

Although it wasn’t recognized by every state until after the Civil War, in 1863 Abraham Lincoln proclaimed that a National Day of Thanksgiving should be celebrated on the final Thursday of each November.  It has been observed annually in the United States ever since, traditionally with intrinsically American dishes (turkey, sweet potatoes, corn, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, etc.) that were ostensibly served during that 1621 celebration.

By the end of 1941, with the Christmas season nipping at its heels and spurred on by the Roosevelt Administration’s belief that a slightly earlier observation might give the nation a needed economic boost, the holiday was changed from the last Thursday to the fourth Thursday in November.  Thanksgiving has since been celebrated as early as November 22^nd on numerous occasions.

Such is the case this year, just as it was a half a century ago on November 22, 1962 while the United States was dismantaling its air and sea blockade and the Soviet Union (remember those guys?) was removing their final nuclear warheads from Cuba. A year later in 1963, when Thanksgiving was celebrated on the 28^th , November 22^nd had poignantly become a date freighted with raw and painful emotions.

And so we celebrate freedom using a few of its many frames of reference, with a song that was conceived at another emotionally freighted time for the nation.  Written by Dick Holler and Phil Gernhard, who were previously (and incongruently) known for penning the 1966 Royal Guardsmen novelty hit, “Snoopy vs. the Red Baron,” today’s selection was first, and most memorably, recorded by Dion Francis Dimucci, known for his late 1950s vocal group, Dion and the Belmonts (“A Teenager in Love”) and then for such early-’60s solo hits as “Runaround Sue” and the “Wanderer.”

By 1968 Dion had been long out of the limelight when he begged his record label for a new contract.  After some deliberation they agreed, on the condition that he record this timely single… which would go on to sell more than a million copies…

 LISTEN TO TODAY’S SELECTION – Happy Thanksgiving

Abraham Martin and John

Has anybody here seen my old friend Abraham?

Can you tell me where he’s gone?

He freed a lot of people,

But it seems the good they die young.

You know, I just looked around and he’s gone.

Anybody here seen my old friend John?

Can you tell me where he’s gone?

He freed a lot of people,

But it seems the good they die young.

I just looked around and he’s gone.

Anybody here seen my old friend Martin?

Can you tell me where he’s gone?

He freed a lot of people,

But it seems the good they die young.

I just looked ’round and he’s gone.

Didn’t you love the things that they stood for?

Didn’t they try to find some good for you and me?

And we’ll be free

Some day soon, and it’s a-gonna be one day …

Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?

Can you tell me where he’s gone?

I thought I saw him walkin’ up over the hill,

With Abraham, Martin and John.

Here in the Northeast they’re the culmination of the regular season, these Thanksgiving Day games with traditional schoolboy rivalries.  A surprising number date back well over a century.  Certainly my son, a rough-and-tumble offensive lineman, was an enthusiastic participant; as was my rough-and-tumble offensive lineman father in his day; as a matter of fact his father was also a rough-and-tumble offensive lineman in an era when American Football was a relatively new sport.

I too was an offensive lineman in high school, but whereas my son, father and grandfather (not to mention my two brothers) all excelled in the gridiron trenches, I did not. Nor is there much glory to be recalled from playing the other side, as a middle linebacker…although it is a rather nice segue for me to defensively affirm that I fared better in other more individualistic seasons, earning six varsity letters as a pole vaulter, high jumper and wrestler.

Perhaps it was simply a lack of football sensibilities that led to my customary bench-seat view, helmet in hand. Whatever the reason, it’s the celebratory air of those Thanksgiving games to which I now fondly harken back, marveling at the cheerleaders and grooving to the marching band, whose members always seemed to be having the most fun out there, particularly when they played a sing-along rendition of this peculiar popular song.

Written and recorded by a 49 year-old ex-World War II RAF glider pilot named Norman Smith, the single reached Number 4 in the UK and Number 3 on the US Billboard Charts (while topping the Cashbox Charts) in 1972.  Smith, who had tried to make it as a jazz musician after the war, eventually landed an apprenticeship as a sound engineer in 1959, with EMI.  Unflappable and unhurried, it was John Lennon who bestowed the nickname that stuck with him throughout the nearly 100 Beatles songs he recorded between 1962 and 1965…”Normal”.

After recording “Rubber Soul” EMI promoted him to producer and it was in this role that he worked with Pink Floyd, producing three of their first four studio albums.  Famously, when drummer Nick Mason became unglued while trying to find the right sound for “Remember a Day” Normal Smith stepped in and played the part himself.

An inveterate songwriter, in 1971 he recorded a demo of something he hoped might interest John Lennon, using the pseudonym, “Hurricane” Smith.  But when he played it for a fellow producer he was urged to release it himself.

“The melody was happy and simple,” he later said. “It was the producer in me that designed the lyric to recapture the era I grew up in. It’s almost a true story of my life. I would go to a ballroom, but I was so shy I couldn’t even ask someone to dance.”

After “Oh Babe What Would You Say” replaced “Crocodile Rock” as the Cashbox chart topper, Lennon sent a congratulatory telegram to Hurricane Smith; who may have been too shy to ask, but with a score that quickly became a marching band standard, got ‘em dancing in a very big way.

 LISTEN TO TODAY’S SELECTION – Wednesday 21 November

Oh Babe What Would You Say

As I have hoped for half a chance

To even ask if I could dance with you, you oo

Would you greet me or politely turn away

Would there suddenly be sunshine on a cold and rainy day

Oh, Babe

What would you say?

 For there are you sweet lollipops

Here am I with such a lot to say, hey hey

Just to walk with you along the Milky Way

To caress you through the night time

Bring you flowers everyday

Oh Babe

What would you say?

Just so, Baby I know

I know I could be so in love with you

And I know that I could make you love me too

And if I could only hear you say you do, oo oo oo oo

But anyway

What would you say?

Just so, Baby I know

I know I could be so in love with you

And I know that I could make you love me too

And if I could only hear you say you do, oo oo oo oo

But anyway

What would you say?

I’ve experienced it myself and have watched my wife, siblings, cousins, nieces, nephews, in-laws and friends (along with their parents and children) do the same. Seeing as I know how to use a calendar you would think it the most obvious expectation in the world.  And yet when my kids come home from college and I see evidence of their advancement from one life-stage to the next (and there are countless ways to tally this) it takes me by surprise…as if I’ve never heard this song and others like it.

Written by Joni Mitchell in 1965, while in Winnipeg, Manitoba, it was a response to an equally well-known song that her friend Neil Young had written not long before, on his 19th birthday.   As she later recalled:

“There was a friend of mine up there who had just left a rock ‘n’ roll band … he had just newly turned 19, and that meant he was no longer allowed into his favorite hangout, which was kind of a teeny-bopper club and once you’re over 18 you couldn’t get in there anymore … one of the things that drove him to become a folk singer was that he couldn’t play in this club anymore … He was over the hill, so he wrote this song that was called [“Sugar Mountain”] which was a lament for his lost youth … And I thought, God, you know, if we get to 19 and there’s nothing after that, that’s a pretty bleak future, so I wrote a song for him, and for myself just to give me some hope. It’s called ‘The Circle Game’.”

First released by Tom Rush on his album of the same name in 1968, Mitchell herself featured “The Circle Game” (with Neil Young, as well as Crosby, Stills and Nash singing background vocals) on her 1970 album, “Ladies of the Canyon”.  Then in 1974 she released this particular version on her live album, “Miles of Aisles.” Go on you empty nesters, try to sing along without welling up, I defy you…

LISTEN TO TODAY’S SELECTION – Tuesday 20 November

Circle Game

Yesterday, a child came out to wander

Caught a dragonfly inside a jar

Fearful when the sky was full of thunder

And tearful at the falling of a star

And the seasons they go ’round and ’round

And the painted ponies go up and down

We’re captive on the carousel of time

We can’t return we can only look behind

From where we came

And go round and round and round

In the circle game

Then, the child moved ten times ’round the seasons

Skated over ten clear frozen streams

Words like, “When you’re older”, must appease him

And promises of someday make his dreams

And the seasons they go ’round and ’round

And the painted ponies go up and down

We’re captive on the carousel of time

We can’t return we can only look behind

From where we came

And go round and round and round

In the circle game

Sixteen springs and sixteen summers gone now

Cartwheels turn to car wheels through the town

You tell them, “Take your time. It won’t be long now.

‘Til you drag your feet to slow the circles down”

And the seasons they go ’round and ’round

And the painted ponies go up and down

We’re captive on the carousel of time

We can’t return we can only look behind

From where we came

And go round and round and round

In the circle game

So the years spin by and now the boy is twenty

Though his dreams have lost some grandeur coming true

There’ll be new dreams, maybe better dreams and plenty

Before the last revolving year is through.

And the seasons they go ’round and ’round

And the painted ponies go up and down

We’re captive on the carousel of time

We can’t return, we can only look behind

From where we came

And go round and ’round and ’round

In the circle game

And go ’round and ’round and ’round in the circle game.