I'm a 'sixties guy but I can relate to some of the 'seventies stuff. When the 'seventies rolled around I began tuning out popular music and began giving myself an education in classical music, the original 'long-haired' music. Classical, however, with its dynamic variations, is no good for the road, leastways not in the Jeeps I drive. So, it's popular music for purposes of the road and Saturday night nostalgia.
Bellamy Brothers, Let Your Love Flow
Jackson Browne, Running on Empty
Eagles, Hotel California
Abba, Fernando
Gerry Rafferty, Baker Street
Warren Zevon, Carmelita
YouTuber interpretation:
After listening to this song for a while, I think that Carmelita is the heroin itself. Warren talks about being with "her in Ensenada" but he's alone in Echo Park playing "solitaire". Shooting heroin makes him feel like he's on the beach in Mexico with a woman that he loves. The song itself is a great representation of what addiction does. He knows that it's not good for him but he has given up on trying to get better and just looks towards "Carmelita" to hold him tighter.
Billy Joel, Piano Man
Hotel California on the Chinese harp. Outstanding ! Cultural appropriation at its finest. Enjoy !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gf6v59c5yuY&list=RDgf6v59c5yuY&start_radio=1
If you like the ghuzeng Hotal California, you’ll love the Chinese harp version of “While My Guiter Gently Weeps:”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwwTfZ-A_RI&list=RDxwwTfZ-A_RI&start_radio=1
Here Brother Bill, you can post the words to that great Jackson Brown song:
Running on Empty
Song by Jackson Browne ‧ 1977
Lyrics
Lookin’ out at the road rushin’ under my wheels
Lookin’ back at the years gone by like so many summer fields
In ’65 I was seventeen and runnin’ up 101
I don’t know where I’m runnin’ now, I’m just runnin’ on
runnin’ on empty
(Runnin’ on) runnin’ blind
(Runnin’ on) runnin’ into the sun
But I’m runnin’ behind
Gotta do what you can just to keep your love alive
Tryin’ not to confuse it with what you do to survive
In ’69 I was twenty-one and I called the road my own
I don’t know when that road turned onto the road I’m on
runnin’ on empty
(Runnin’ on) runnin’ blind
(Runnin’ on) runnin’ into the sun
But I’m runnin’ behind
Everyone I know
Everywhere I go
People need some reason to believe
I don’t know about anyone but me
If it takes all night
That’d be alright
If I can get you to smile before I leave
Lookin’ out at the road rushin’ under my wheels
I don’t know how to tell you all just how crazy this life feels
I look around for the friends that I used to turn to to pull me through
Lookin’ into their eyes, I see them runnin’ too
runnin’ on empty
(Runnin’ on) runnin’ blind
(Runnin’ on) runnin’ into the sun
But I’m runnin’ behind
Honey, you really tempt me, you know, the way you look so kind
I’d love to stick around, but I’m runnin’ behind
(Runnin’ on)
You know I don’t even know what I’m hopin’ to find
(Runnin’ blind)
Runnin’ into the sun but I’m runnin’ behind
Was “Baker Street” a thing in the US?
Oz,
It was indeed. I don’t know whether it made #1 in the States, but according to Wikipedia it made the top three in the US, the UK, and elsewhere. It was all over the radio in the summer of ’78. It was theme music for a road trip with my quondam girlfriend, a trip from Boston to Dayton, Ohio, where I had landed a tenure-track job in the phil. dept.
Hi Brother Bill:
Jackson Browne and Dante are parallel here:
Browne:
“In ’69 I was twenty-one and I called the road my own
I don’t know when that road turned onto the road I’m on
runnin’ on empty…”
Dante:
Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita mi ritrovai per una selva oscura / ché la diritta via era smarrita
” In the middle of life’s journey, I found myself in a dark wood, and the straight path was lost…”
(We owe so much to the nuns of Saint Therese, and the Baltimore Catechism, which have kept the path so well illuminated for us).
Catacomb Joe
An interesting comparison, Joe. And thanks for the other links and comments.
We do owe a lot to the nuns. I can name every single one of them, and as I may have told you, I contacted Sr. Mary Stella Morrissey (third grade) a few years back and expressed my gratitude to her. She may not have remembered me but she sure did remember the Odegaard clan. I asked her whether any other student ever thanked her. She said No. What ingrates we are!
My Balt. Cat. got lost in the shuffle, but I still have my 1962 pre-Vat II missal and another little devotional book entitled “My Daily Bread.” Remember the latter?
Hi Brother Bill
I don’t recall “My Daily Bread” specifically.
But I do remember things from the Baltimore Catechism.
I have a copy here, but I think it is the copy of one of my brothers.
I says important things, like: “Sin is the cause of all war.” (WW2 had just ended, and was certainly fresh in the minds of the people who wrote the Baltimore Catechism.)
It is very instructive to look at the world, and history, with that in mind. (But also to keep inm mind “collective merit.” Look at a photo of the aftermath of the Battle of Gettysburg with that thought.)
C.J.