This One Will Sneak up On You: The 367th Greatest Song

  

Cream's Top Ten hit, "White Room," was birthed by a period of drug and alcohol excess. We should have realized that the minute we heard the lyrics.

Let's allow CoPilot to visually interpret the first verse:

In a white room, with black curtains, near the station...

Black roof country, no gold pavements, tired starlings...

Silver horses, ran down moonbeams, in your dark eyes...

Dawn light smiles, on you leaving, my contentment...

All of which sounds and looks reasonably normal (moonbeam-running horses notwithstanding) until we hit the chorus:

I'll wait in this place where the sun never shines
Wait in this place where the shadows run from themselves...

Eeek!

Happy Dolly Parton Day!

 

Warping  9 to 5, what a way to cross the cosmos

Two levels down, they're holding a princess in a jail cell

Searchers for some droids
That is what we are
So we ambled in
This cantina/bar

Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene...

I'm begging of you, please don't take my Death Star plan

Almost the News XXXVII

 

Real Headlines. Fake News.

Rally Held in Minneapolis for Man Fatally Shot by Police in Madison
Rally spokesperson: "We were legally holding a rally for this man. The Madison PD had no right to fatally shoot us."

2 Teens Arrested After Attempted Carjacking in Minneapolis
"The fact that they couldn't successfully lift the car to change its tire is just a crime!"

Police Warn of Urban Exploring After Death
"There be ghosts wandrin' round these alleyways..."

St. Paul Could See Property Tax Hikes
A news release from forensic ancient literature expert, Along Tymago, states that the Apostle Paul predicted rising property tax rates as long ago as the first century AD.

Wolves to Retire Kevin Garnett's Jersey on Feb. 28
Starting March 1st, Garnett will be playing shirtless.

Testimony to Resume after Lindsay Clancy Jury Sent Home Early
"Okay, now that the bothersome jury is gone, let's get down to business..."

Attention: Airport Pick-ups/Drop-offs Could Be Cumbersome Next Few Days
This announcement from airport officials, of course, represents absolutely no change whatsoever from the normal state of affairs.

Bench Dedicated to Boy Killed in Minneapolis School Shooting Nearly 1 Year Ago
Why we're telling you about it now is a mystery.

Residents Weigh In on New Police Chief
...even though it would be much easier to use a bathroom scale

Desperate Search for Nepal Flood Survivors Enters Critical Phase
Search coordinator, Luke N. Finedem: "In this phase, everybody starts whining, complaining, and talking about how they would run things differently."

Three Minutes of Tuneful Self-Importance: The 368th Greatest Song

 

Depeche Mode started out orthodox enough:

Reach out and touch faith

Your own personal Jesus

Someone to hear your prayers

Someone who cares

Your own personal Jesus

Someone to hear your prayers

Someone who's there

But it soon becomes clear the singer is encouraging the listener to consider the singer to be the listener's supernatural confidant:

Feeling unknown and you're all alone

Flesh and bone by the telephone

Lift up the receiver, I'll make you a believer

Take second best, put me to the test

Things on your chest you need to confess

I will deliver, you know I'm a forgiver

I was going to continue with more lyrical analysis, but I just realized that I have already given you all the words in the song. Everything else is repeating what's already been sung.

So...

Not only is the singer manifesting a textbook case of Messiah Complex, but he is also making it clear his songwriting ability lacks...shall we say...depth.

Certainly length.

Stuph That Has No Reason Being in My Head, Vol. XI

  

I've always known that Donny Osmond and Michael Jackson were about the same age, but it boggles me that Prince (born June 7, 1958) was actually over two months older than MJ.

You know when someone sneezes and you say "Bless you"? THAT sounds like a sneeze, too.

Even though they were originally voiced by two separate people, since the late 1990s, Winnie the Pooh and Tigger have been voiced by the one and only Jim Cummings.

Snap, Crackle, and Pop were the first breakfast cereal mascots.

If you replace W with T in the words what, where, and when, you get the answer to each of them.

Julie Andrews was not cast to recreate her Broadway role of Eliza Doolittle in the film version of My Fair Lady, making her free to star in Mary Poppins instead . . . for which she won an Oscar.

The canine television sensation, Lassie, was always played by a male dog.

Speaking of dogs, we all know what a female dog is called, but I had to ask the WorldWideWackfest what the term for a male dog is. I learned that dogs used to be called hounds and that dog was the term for a male hound until it started being used for the whole species.  So now there is no specific term for "a male dog."

Whenever I write or type the word "Wednesday," I say three syllables to myself: wed - nes - day.

♫♪ The Mate was a mighty sailing man

The Skipper, brave and sure

Five passengers set sail that day

On a three-hour tour

A three

Hour

Tour ♪♫

How a Dead Tree Made My Thigh Twitch

Sometimes, my train of thought runs at breakneck speed and easily jumps onto a parallel track quicker than a cheetah with dysentery.

Case in point . . .

During a recent trek across South Dakota on I-90, Beloved was driving, and I was staring out the window at mile after mile of nothingness. Suddenly, just off the highway at an exit ramp, I saw a deathly-white tree, devoid of any leaves, and the train left the station.

That reminds me of the tree in "Legend of Sleepy Hollow." Man, Christopher Walken was super creepy in that. Who else was in  -  oh yeah, Johnny Depp. He was in "Sweeney Todd," too. Talk about super creepy. I can't believe high schools do that musical. At least "Little Shop of Horrors" has fun songs and a sense of humor. ActorBoy did great in that, but boy, when he jumped into the carnivorous plant/puppet at the end and stabbed his leg on an exposed bolt...eww.

Then Beloved asked me why I grabbed my inner thigh, and she got all confused when I said, "Did you see that dead tree back there?"

Repetition, Thy Name Is Bo: The 369th Greatest Song

 

According to the magazine Rolling Stone:

The B side of Diddley's first-ever single was built around a four-note guitar stomp that was a trademark of mid- Fifties Chicago blues. Songwriter Willie Dixon, who supervised the 1955 session, said it was Diddley's sense of rhythm that set him apart from everyone else at Chess [Records]: "The drums are speaking, and he'll tell you what the drums are saying."

Hmmm...

If Bo Diddley's "I'm a Man" is telling me what the drums are saying, I cannot help but be reminded of a Far Side comic wherein Larson translates the barking of dogs into English: We see a dog chasing a car and another dog excited about a person walking down the street and still another dog squaring off with something up a tree  . . . and in each instance, the dog is saying "Hey! Hey! Hey hey!"

In other words, the song is that four-note guitar riff (Da-DAA da-dah), endlessly repeated.

Over and over.

And over.

With Bo's two-note melody expressing lyrics that may not even be worthy of that many notes:

Now when I was a little boy (Da-DAA da-dah)

At the age of five (Da-DAA da-dah)

I had somethin' in my pocket (Da-DAA da-dah)

Keep a lot of folks alive (Da-DAA da-dah)

Now I'm a man (Da-DAA da-dah)

Made twenty-one (Da-DAA da-dah)

You know baby (Da-DAA da-dah)

We can have a lot of fun (Da-DAA da-dah)

I'm a man (Da-DAA da-dah)

I spell M (Da-DAA da-dah)

A (Da-DAA da-dah)

N (Da-DAA da-dah)

Man

I seriously (Da-DAA da-dah) cannot imagine (Da-DAA da-dah) picking this song (Da-DAA da-dah) over Chicago's totally different song with the same title...which didn't even make Rolling Stone's list.

Da-DAA da-dumb!