“I’m so glad, that she’s my little girl!
She’s so glad, she’s telling all the world.
That her baby buys her things, you know.
He buys her diamond rings, you know.
She said so!
I’m in love with her and I feel fine!”
The Beatles – “I feel fine” – 1964 – Lennon/McCartney
What could be better than cruisin’ down the road in the summertime, windows down and the wind blowin’ back your hair (if you have any left) and the radio cranked up to blast out one of your favorite tunes.
When you hear one of those songs that you instantly recognize from the opening riff and you just have to reach over and turn up the sound, you just know that a little part of your youth has come back to life.
For me, “I feel fine!” is a song that I know the moment that I hear John Lennon’s familiar feedback guitar. It is a signature riff – the first recorded use of feedback on a record. The song is credited to “Lennon/McCartney” but it was written by John. With Beatles songs, you can pretty much tell who wrote it by who sings lead vocals.
The Beatles are gone. John and George are dead, Ringo recently turned Seventy and Sir Paul buys “Just for Men” in 55 gallon drums. The music that they left us, however, will live on forever.
And so life goes on. As each day passes, we creep a moment closer to our date with fate. Life goes on, with you or without you. No matter how hard we mash our foot on the brake pedal of life, we cannot slow down or turn back time.
But we can turn up the radio for our old favorite songs and blast out the tunes that helped define our lives.
When I am feeling down, nothing brings my mood back faster than listening to that good old rock ‘n’ roll music that I loved in days gone by. It truly doesn’t matter what it is – Stones, Beatles, Detroit rock music, the British Invasion or Motown – my blood flows again with renewed vigor and my foot starts tapping out the beat.
For each of us, there is that song, one that brings back memories of the “good old days” or that lost love.
What is yours?
William Stephenson Clark
PrairiePopulistsAndProgressives.net 
I’m too sexy.
The Animals House of the Rising Sun
It’s the intensity of the music, and what I was doing for the very first time when I heard the song for the very first time. 😉
Ooooh, good song, fnord!
I can’t remember for sure how long I worried that I now looked different. Did anyone else worry about that?
I think a lot felt that way. I didn’t. It was during a very low time, and I think I compartmentalized it, as if it wasn’t me that did that.
I look back at pictures of me in Jr. High and High school I conclude I now look better.
Fine wine and all….
One song? One song?! Impossible!
Music and songs are the bookmarks of my life, especially throughout high school. I can peg the year of many songs, because they relate to something or someone.
Music can bring me up, and it can take me down. It can make me laugh at memories. It can make me cry. Sometimes one song can do both at different times.
I am truly blessed to have been a pre-teen and teen during the 60’s. As a child, I watched the birth of rock and roll. As a teen I watched it blossom, thanks to some of the greatest writers and performers music will ever know. My favorites? The list is long, but topping it are The Beatles and The Beach Boys. John Lennon. Brian Wilson. Any song of theirs will bring up the volume.
Here’s one that’s a never fail.
“People Got to be Free” by the Rascals
I remember singing to it at the top of my lungs as we dragged Main in Sandy’s red Opel. I can’t hit those high notes anymore though. 😦
The ringtone on my phone is the Doors, “Hello, I Love You.” And there’s that same memory again. Is that all we did? LOL
The one song that makes me smile and then brings me to tears is ‘Wipeout’.
My deceased brother had a band in his high school years (late 60’s). He was the drummer and the song Wipeout was his favorite.
I can still see him sitting there doing that drum solo and having the time of his life.
And then reality smacks me in the face halfway through the song and I remember that my brother died from a long tough battle with liver cancer and he was only 58 yrs old.
Damn, life is not fair.
Good Lord, WS; you may as well have asked how many grains of sand on the shore.
Stuff from various times that fit the criteria, in general:
Peggy Sue, Buddy Holly and the Crickets;
Like a Rolling Stone, Bob Dylan;
Surrealistic Pillow, the entire thing, Jefferson Airplane;
Dancing Queen, ABBA (guilty pleasure);
Won’t Get Fooled Again, The Who;
Hey, Jude, The Beatles;
Angel of the Morning, Merrilee Rush;
Lonely Days, Lonely Nights, Bee Gees;
Bridge Over Troubled Waters, Simon and Garfunkel;
Rumours, Fleetwood Mac (again, the whole damn thing);
I Don’t Like to Sleep Alone, Paul Anka;
anything by Janis Joplin or Jimi Hendrix;
Layla, Derek and the Dominoes;
And, not a rock song, or a song as such; Brandenburg Concerto No. 5, J.S. Bach, the recording by The Academy of St. Martin in the Fields one of my favorites.
There are more that surely will occur to me, but these are “off the top of my head”.
A couple more:
Diamonds and Rust, Joan Baez;
(Lay Down) Candles in the Rain, Melanie Sofka.
How could I forget:
I’m Just a Singer in a Rock and Roll Band, Moody Blues.
“How could I forget…”
Entering into your 7th decade on this Earth probably didn’t cause this.
Curse you, Will!
I had to pull up my playlist, but grandkids are here and want to listen. The almost-3-year-old immediately requested his favorite: “Barbara Ann.” He was babbling bah bah bah one day when he was really small, so I dl’d the song (forgot I had it on a CD), and it has now become “his song.” He also enjoys “Dude” (Looks Like a Lady) and the original Lady Marmelade.
I’m still trying to wean the two oldest granddaughters (7 & 8) away from current music. The words are disgusting, and the music (melody) is definitely lacking.
LOL 7 and 8.
I’ll have to remember the 8). 😉
Gotcha all workin’ today, on a subject that’s a lot more fun than all the gloomy news of the day!
The Who – “the Kids Are Alright.”
The Beatles – “Please, Mr. Postman.”
Jimi – “Stone Free.”
Dylan – “Percy’s Song.”
Airplane – “White Rabbit.”
The Stones – “Sympathy.”
The Four Tops – “Just Ask the Lonely.”
The Temptation – “Get Ready!”
The Dead – “Truckin'”
Joan Baez – “Joe Hill.”
Janis – “Cry, Baby!”
The Moody’s – “Go, Now.”
Springfield – “Bluebird”
Richie Havens – “Freedom!”
Peter, Paul and Mary – “Puff.”
Fleetwood – “Green Manalishi”
Jeff Beck – “Bolero”
Cream – “Spoonful”*
* (I lost something once while that was playing in the background.)
i hate wordpress
Here’s mine that I must listen to at high decibels.
Since I get to work an hour and a half before everyone else, I sometimes sit in the dark and play this on my computer (headphones on) as loud as I can stand. What a start to the day!
Check it out:
It is really hard to pick one for me too, once I came across a site that had music from the different decades.
OH MAN, it was hours of listening to music I had not hear for decades brought back memories.
And made me think why today is different then those days, I worked and had bills to pay yet somehow that was only a part of my life not my life.
But the one that does come to mind is “American pie” by Don Mclean. Seemed the anthem of the people.
It was the song he did at the concert that sold me on being a Garth Books fan.
But Wipe out was important too, no one I ran around with did not beat out the drumming sole on tables and anything that was flat enough. Love potion number nine too.
But to this day there is one group and one song of their that is like finger nail on a chalk board.
Tommy James and Big girls don’t cry!
The friend I bought up in the White privilege thread had gotten a record player for Christmas and one LP.
LOL yes he had to fix something on the record player before he could use it!
That being the only record he had it played damn near all day and night.
Every time I was there I had to listen to it and got so sick of it even today if I hear Big girls don’t cry it causes me to react like an attack of hemorrhoids!
It is nice to see so many others here that appreciate a wide variety of music. I can’t list the playlist of my life-like Wicked said, too many to list! But I love artists and music from Billie Holiday to Billy Corrigan, from Glen Miller to Steve Miller, from Rush to Rancid, Bee Gees to Beck, Buddy Holly to Marvin Gaye. (I was on a roll there for a minute)
I grew up listening to my parents Big Band music and still recognize it to this day.
There was a time in the 50’s before the birth of R&R that I especially remember. I have an album that has a lot of the most popular songs of that particular time, all gold record song. Let’s see how many are familiar–either song or artist–to anyone but me.
“Too Young” – Nat “King” Cole
“Manana” – Peggy Lee
“Vaya Con Dios” – Les Paul and Mary Ford
“The Poor People of Paris” – Les Baxter
“Memories Are Made of This” – Dean Martin
“Sixteen Tons” – Tennessee Ernie Ford
“Lisbon Antigua” – Nelson Riddle
“Young Love” – Sonny James
“Wheel of Fortune” – Kay Starr
“Twelfth Street Rag” – Pee Wee Hunt
Recognized every one, wicked, as befits one of my advanced years.
My parents were Big Band people, too, Glen Miller being a “biggie”, Benny Goodman another. The Dorsey brothers, Harry James; the list goes on.
Then, there were the “nonsense” songs, and there was Spike Jones. What can I say?
Amazing!
I have another with songs like “Love Letters in the Sand” and “A White Sports Coat and a Pink Carnation.”
One of my favorites to listen to as a kid was “How Much is that Doggie in the Window.” LOL
But it’s Tennessee Ernie Ford’s “Sixteen Tons” that brings back the really strong memories of before I even started school. My parents owned a small neighborhood grocery store, and I can remember that song playing from a radio on a shelf up high in the corner of the building, back by the meat department. That memory goes along with the yellow gumballs with orange speckles that got you a free twist of the machine if your penny produced one.
Damn. Penny gumballs.
I had an old record player, one of those that could be toted around, and I played my neighbors r&r 45s on it. (Neighbors were 5+ years older. Oldest was a huge Elvis fan…which is why I’m not.) The first 45 I bought was “Look for a Star” by Garry Miles. That was 1960. A few years later, I bought “Last Kiss.” I know a bunch of you remember that tearjerker. My cousin had me play it over and over and over one Thanksgiving, and I now hate the song.
But it was my first stereo that I remember best. It was a Christmas gift from my parents in 1966 and came with the album I was dying to have: Rubber Soul. Of course, the album wasn’t stereo. My parents were clueless about stereo. I toted that damn stereo to parties and school dances for years. We always played Brenda Lee’s “I’m Sorry” as the last dance.
Ah, J. Frank Wilson; how could I have omitted thar classic? /sarcasm
Rubber Soul was a Christmas gift to my older younger sister; I grew to hate that album….
I think that’s what they mean by overkill. 🙂
This said it all for itself.
Not to be left out…
For Kraig
WoW good one, I said that the written word is the gift we give to people we never know.
Hundreds of years after we have died.
The same it true of those artists, forever their music will be the gift they gave for their short time on this planet.
While I was watching this, I noticed a pic of Jan and Dean, and it threw me off. I know some people think Jan died in that accident near Deadman’s Curve, but he didn’t. I missed seeing him in person at Fridaze, up on north Woodlawn, back in the late 70’s. He’d done one show, of which I saw photos of the next day. One of the photographers at the studio where I worked had been there and taken them. The club was packed with fans. I went up that second night for the second show, but the club was closed and a sign on the door said Jan had suffered a seizure and had been flown back to California. He’s still around. According to wikipedia, Dean passed in 2004.
We all have a memory of a song, how sweet it sounded and how it made us feel at the time.
In a instant it plays in our mind and we are there again, but I found a bother.
Like the above I went to youtube to find it to post, I end up playing many different version.
over time they are made and remakes any song that has an impact ends up being redone by different artists.
Even the recording of the original artist played seem to not be as you remember it, not having the same flow and feel. It is a good thing we have memories of such songs they are always the better versions.
I work on the weekends in the office by myself – so I get to choose the radio station. Thank God for small favors.
There is a radio station on the AM dial that plays a very wide range of music from the 40’s up to the 80’s. There is not even alot of talking in between the songs – adn that is what I love about this station.
I don’t even know the call letters or what number this station is on the dial. Would anyone else happen to know of it?
I don’t know if i know anyone on this bloggything, but we are lonely progressives way out in left field in elk county, kansas.
My summer song, the first that i identified with, is ‘Satisfaction’, which my friend marilyn and i listened to ‘foot cruising’ in our southern california town, too young for a car and too old to bike. every time i hear it i am transported to those hot california sidewalks, walking not too fast or too slow in front of the homes of boys we liked. the transistor radio wasn’t even ours, it was my dad’s special 40th birthday present from my mom, that i sneaked out on a daily basis.
I needed this break from the realities of life on the planet….
Hi Hannah J, and welcome to PPP’s You’ve found friends in this red state. Visit whenever and pull up a chair and stay a while.
Music, the universal language! 😉
Played it many times on acoustic.
Sorry to be a stranger, but aside from family health issues (including my own), I’ve been dealing with power at a fairly dangerous level. I’m not kidding.
More when I can talk, in the meantime, please read this story in the LA times.
Then read this:
Obama blames GOP on small business lending bill
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hyMG_nvAYJDW2Wdul70zzhaE4OigD9HA49J80
This is more vitally important than you can imagine. Nearly half of corporate profits now come from the banking sector. “Too big to fail”?
How about “too big to control”?
What song is it you want to hear?
Freebird!