Oh, my word. Every time I NEED help from the sanctuary, I get surprised all over again, amazed and shocked that the God of the Universe, the Creator of everything – yes, THAT God- our Father, the Blessed Redeemer, the Savior of mankind, the Alpha and Omega {the Beginning and the End}, the Holy Spirit of God Himself, He is also the One who is the Helper {MY help}, helping me, helping me!
He helps us. He is our Helper! I keep forgetting this and God keeps reminding me. I keep doubting it and He keeps proving it is true, time and again.
Circumstances can look bleak, the path obscured, answers seem hopelessly hidden. We shake our heads, barely breathing out to Him…We pray, God, help me…and then He does.
Reading Frank Viola, God’s Favorite Place on Earth, in his account of the raising of Lazarus from the dead:
“…as high as God is going to elevate you is as deep as He digs to lay the foundation.
Sometimes the brightest light comes from the darkest places. And what doesn’t destroy you ends up defining you in some significant way…
Interestingly, Lazarus is the shortened form of a name that means ‘God helps.'”
I’d say being raised from the DEAD qualifies as being helped! :)
The dictionary says to help isto give assistance or support; to make more pleasant or bearable (improve, relieve, rescue, save). It says to help is to be of use to (benefit); to further the advancement of (promote) or even to serve with food or drink as in a meal {Reminds me of “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies”}.
He is a very present HELP in time of need.
“I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord,
the Maker of heaven and earth.” Psalm 121
So here is this old song for this new Sunday: Made Me Glad by Hillsong, based on Psalm 46 and every word true!
I will bless the Lord forever
And I will trust Him at all times
He has delivered me from all fear
And he has set my feet upon a rock
And I will not be moved
And I’ll say of the Lord….
You are my shield
My strength
My portion
Deliverer
My shelter
Strong tower
My very present help in time of need
Whom have I in Heaven but you?
There’s none I desire beside you
You have made me glad
And I’ll say of the Lord….
You are my shield
My strength
My portion
Deliverer
My shelter
Strong tower
My very present help in time of need
Friends and family, let me declare/speak/pray this blessing over you:: May the everlasting One hear you today and send help from His sanctuary. May the most Helpful One come to your rescue, bringing provision and relief and providing the support you need right now and be so very, very present. I pray this for you – for the Help you need. Amen!
Gemma and I got some just-us time wholly unexpectedly this fine Saturday morning. It was so fun to have her all to myself – that hasn’t happened much since we used to have pre-school together weekly. We chatted about life (she is 6 now and heading in to full-day first grade!), played with Play-Doh, read a 1940s collection of Nursery Rhymes and tried to figure out what on earth some of them meant???, made pita-toast egg and cheese sandwiches, more Play-Doh time, then we watched 1 1/2 episodes of “My Little Pony” while she explained all the characters to me and how they interact (she does so love Pinkie-Pie, the party-loving pony) then we decided, before heading to the pool, that we’d do a major art project. She chose water-color painting.
We used some vinyl stick on letters to spell out her name on a big white sheet of kid’s art paper. Gemma used a black permanent marker to draw a design right over the letters and everything. She was a fan of the zig-zags and threw in some circles for good measure. We chose just 5 watercolors in an egg carton to paint in the areas she had created (though she did a little mixing right on the paper for more hues). Her Nonni made quite a mess with those and they are highly-stain-making {*ahem}. Nonna now has colorful hands – at least until time in the pool.
When Gemma was finished filling in all of the spaces she had created (and there were LOTS), she got to carefully-carefully-carefully peel off the vinyl lettering.
And VOILÀ!
Gemma and her watercolor-name art. So pretty – both Gemma and her art!!!
Song on video: Late 1977, “Hey, Deanie,” by Shaun Cassidy, which would have been a much better song if it had been “Hey, Jeanie!”
Amelie Belle is three years, 3 months and almost 3 weeks old. And she is a little worshipping, praise-dancer. I love how she loves this little purple and peach, pleated dress because when it goes on, the joy-dancing starts!
This is a video of her at the big Dare2Share Conference in Lakewood this week while her daddy was leading some late-night worship. The room is big and dark, but the skirt is unmistakably neon! :)
Hey, btw – Amelie’s Auntie Stormie is rocking it on the bass!
This is a daylight look at the dress (she had gone to bed with wet hair and her cousin and sister fixed her up in ponies and flowers in the morning) at our house 2 days ago. AsAmelie often says: see??? This dress personifies the colorful, energetic, playful, happy, ornery, sugar and spice, super-sweetie-pie, girly-girl little Amelie is at this exact moment in her life.
I love the dress. I adore the darling Amelie Belle!
Karen Carpenter would be 63 if she were alive today. Oh wow-she was THE voice. When I first started diving into the pop music scene, I was ten, and I’d sneak my dad’s little leather-encased transitior radio outside and turn the buttons just so until I found the station and there it was: Close to You, and Bless the Beasts and the Children, both charting at that time. I’d hold it my ear as I sat in the tire swing as evening fell and her smooth voice just enchanted me, took me to a magical, romantic place.
I found this image of a transistor that was already sold on ebay. I think my dad won his in a contest at work and I am almost positive it was this exact model!
The Carpenters had such a mellow, beautiful, soft sound, it is almost a miracle, during the changing times then, with Woodstock, drugs and the 70s, that they’d be so successful. But Karen’s voice was like butter, so smooth, so low….I LOVED that because I was an alto. She became my hero, so easy to sing with.
Honestly, it would be harder for me to list 5 of their songs that I don’t care for, because I can’t think of any. But I decided that if I was going to make a list of 10, I’d just have to let the songs that come to mind first be the ones I list. Because on a different day – the list could be considerably changed and still be true, still be my top ten favorites.
For I love the first song I ever heard them sing (“Close to You”) the best, because it was the first. But I also find their cover of the Beatle’s “Ticket to Ride” just hauntingly beautiful. How did they have the nerve to do a Beatles song so soon and how was it able to be fully theirs and so amazing? And “It’s Gonna Take Some Time This Time,” was so picturesque, so beautiful in words, bending trees and wisdom on living through hard stuff and how you can learn something from everything, even the heartbreaks.
“Touch Me While We’re Dancing,” and “I Know I Need to be in Love” are also wonderful-wonderful-wonderful!
Oh-oh-oh-oh – as you know, one of my all-time ever fav songs is “Merry Christmas, Darling,” but I am not adding it here. Because it is a Christmas song. And a song about home and it has made other lists. But you know I LOVE it!
There were even post-humous releases, after Karen’s shocking death in 1983. “Make Believe it’s Your First Time,” and “Now,” among others. Richard has released more material as recently as 2001, including the much-recorded, “The Rainbow Connection,” and, as if no one else had ever recorded it, it is pure Karen. Just beautiful.
SO MUCH good music. I have taught my kids to appreciate the Carpenters. Sometimes we still play the vinyl albums.
Here is my list. Ten of my favorite Carpenter’s songs {not necessarily in order}, out of so many more favorites:
Hey-I finally got on Spotify and it is awesome! {The first track doesn’t work, but it is listed again later. Ignore it and listen to these amazing songs!} IF YOU ONLY LISTEN TO ONE, listen to “Good-Bye to Love.” Her voice is just UH-mazzzzzzzzing!
Close to You // “Why do birds suddenly appear everytime you are near? Just like me they long to be close to you.” This is a happy song of the general sense of well-being we get when we are loved and in love. Bright. Joyful. So sweet. The song just skips down the sunlit street of happiness. Hear the birds chirping, figuratively, anyway?
Good-Bye to Love // I was 11 and just loved (and sang along with great fervor) the dip-scoop of the melody, “I’ll say good-bye to love…no one ever cared if I should live or die...” Haha. It also appealed to the deep drama in the heart of a prepubescent girl – already longing for the love of her life to appear.
Superstar // The funnest lyrics to sing ever: “Baby-baby-baby-baby-oh-baby…” :) Actually, this song is so haunting and full of longing, “Long ago and oh so far away, I fell in love with you before the second show. Your guitar, it sounds so sweet and clear, but you’re not really here, it’s just the radio...” See? Doesn’t this work in a way it almost couldn’t now? Because it would be “You’re not really here, it’s just Pandora or Spotify or live steaming or an online station or YouTube or iTunes or…? “Come back to me again and play your sad guitar…” *sigh*
Hurting Each Other // “Closer than the leaves on a weeping willow, baby, we are…” I mean – songs that have lyrics that can create a picture like this in your mind just stand the test of time!
Rainy Days and Mondays //“…always get me down.” Melancholy at its’ absolute finest. And if it’s Monday AND it’s raining, then I probably will be found, “Talking to myself and feelin’ old,” but don’t worry – “…we know what it’s all about…”
Yesterday Once More // Sweet. “When I was young I’d listen to the radio waitin’ for my favorite songs. When they played I’d sing along, it made me smile…” For me, this is a true story. Music is everywhere now, you don’t have to wait for your favorite songs on commercial radio. But as this song goes, when I hear an old song from past times, “Those old melodies still sound so good to me as they melt the years away. Every sha-la-la-la, Every wo-o-wo-o, still shines…” Memories in music are the deepest and sweetest.
I Won’t Last a Day Without You // Dave sang this to me at our wedding. Before that, it was just another in a long line of beautiful Carpenter’s songs, in the hit-after-hit line-up they had going. But Steve Hellwig played, and Dave sang, holding my hands and looking straight into my eyes. That was 32 years ago (in 8 days). “It’s nice to know that you’ll be there if I need you, and you’ll always smile, it’s all worthwhile...” I hope he still thinks that. :)
Bless the Beasts and the Children // This is a universal song about just being nice, about covering and caring for little children and helpless animals. Just be nice. Live here and protect the world God created. “Give them love, let it shine all around them…”
For All We Know // I wonder if there was a wedding between 1971 and 1985 that didn’t have this played or sung? Quintessential wedding song!
We’ve Only Just Begun // Rolling Stone Magazine included this as one of their top 500 songs of all time. Ok-if there was a wedding between 1971 and 1985 that didn’t include #9, I bet they used this song! “We’ve only just begun to live, white lace and promises. A kiss for luck and we’re on our way. We’ve only begun…”
Karen was the {most amazing} voice, Richard, the genius behind the production and arrangements, the lyrics and the clear-cut direction they had musically. Smooth, clear, timeless songs, a sound that flows like a clear mountain stream through the 70s soundtrack of my heart and soul, their deeply felt and beautifully communicated music will always be important and very high on the songlist of my life. From a transistor radio to 45s and LPs, to 8-tracks to boom boxes and stereos, to digital, I love the Carpenters! Always have, always will.
Matt Redman is the greatest hymnist of our day. If the Lord tarries, the church will be singing his songs a hundred years from now. They will last.
He just writes the best lyrics, ancient truth with fresh words.
My favorite line:
Whatever may pass and whatever lies before me, let me be singing when the evening comes.
I am watching Kai this early Sunday morning while his parents lead worship at two services in Loveland. The drive over was magical. The sun rose like a ball of pink and orange fire and I let it consume my rear-view mirror and nearly blind me to be lit up by it. Ahead of me were crystal-clear, generously snow-capped mountains (yes, it is majesty) and on each side of the road, steamy-fog was rising rapidly, dancing wildly and burning off in the blaze of morning glory.
Kai and I are sitting in the morning sun now, singing…singing…singing to the bird-chip sounds.
It’s easy to sing in the new light of day.
But the song – It is like a prayer:whatever happens today, Lord, whatever obstacles I face, whatever pain I encounter, whatever hardship, whatever doesn’t go like I thought it should; all the good, the bad and the ugly I see, I say to my own soul {my mind-my will-my emotions} Bless the Lord, oh my soul. And even if I am limping to get there, Let me be singing {still} when the evening comes.Amen!
Dave hauled these in from the cassette graveyard-mausoleum, also known as the garage: two heavy-duty totes filled at least 2/3 the way up with old cassettes. Yes, cassettes!
Why do we have them, you wonder?
I have no answer. Except to say that when we moved to this house, we actually did still use some of them, along with our growing CD collection. Most of our “players” at that time played both CD and cassette – remember that? It was more than 10 years ago and honestly, we had already thinned it out when we moved – gotten rid of tons of soundtracks (from our church-performance singing days, haha) and many other cassettes. We felt we had organized to the bare essentials…apparently not, though.
As one by one, cassette players broke down or got sold in a former car or two and as we started buying CDs exclusively, Dave just put them in these totes “for later.”
The other day he hauled them in, hooked up an old stereo cassette player he found hiding in the garage rafters to the surround sound and told me to have fun.
I have the Bee Gees and multiple Kenny Rogers tapes, Deniece Williams, The Rocky Soundtracks (“Eye of the Tiger”), Michael Jackson, Elvis,1980s mixed tapes, 1970s mixed tapes, tons more performance soundtracks (everything from Sandi Patti to Brittany Spears and back, but mostly Christian or wedding-type), kid’s worship tapes and Sunday School songs, many Christian artists like Reba Rambo and Steven Curtis Chapman, Carmen (of course!) and lots of the old Hosannas! Integrity worship recordings from the 80s when they had that $4.99-each tape-of-the-month club deal. I was a charter member! :)
I have preaching tapes, oh boy, do I have preaching tapes. There are tapes of my dad, my brother Tim, my brother, Joe, Coach McCartney and other Promise Keeper types, James Ryle, James Robison, my husband, some sermon-of-the-month tapes including Jack Hayford’s (my all-time favorite) “Instructed in the Song of the Lord.”
There may even be tapes of me speaking. I know there are some of me singing with a Catholic group I was in (Parousia) back in the day. Dave was in the college group, Chara and before that here in Denver with The Gospel Lights and we have tape of them.
There are health and diet tapes, work-out tapes, Word of Faith tapes from the 1970s with people like Kenneth Hagin (Dave brought these to the marriage) and Marilyn Hickey before she was known around the world (kept them purely for the historical value). We have books on tape (Louis L’Amor and O. Henry, to name a couple). There are tapes that were taped over and crossed out so much I don’t know what is on them. There are “keepsake” tapes like the recording I did for Sacred Heart Academy (my first studio experience), “In the Sacred Heart of Jesus” and a whole bunch of cassettes of my children when they were young. Some I captured as they were babies, cooing and being sweet. Others were them, as they got older and loved to tape over EVERTHING to create radio shows and do interviews and just them being silly. I cannot wait to dig into those and listen!
Oh but some…yikes, might have been better never found. There is this one of Dave and I singing at the church in Kokomo and ya know – it was the day of Sandi Patti trilling all the way to an octave and half above high C. I was a low-voiced girl, better suited to Karen Carpenter’s range, or Anne Murray, or even Amy Grant. Oh, but Sandi was all the rage so I had to do it, didn’t I? Oh-horrible, painful, awful to listen to. Ugh!
What the heck will I do with all of these cassette tapes?
Oh my. Well, I will get rid of many-many-many of them. But I will also make sure that the ones I find with music I cannot live without is still available on iTunes. If not, I will digitize them. And of course, I will digitize all of the ones with my kids and other keepsake-types (a recording of my sister in her college touring group, let’s say). I will digitize anything with my father’s voice and powerful words, of course. I will sort and decide…sort and decide…at some point I will probably get overwhelmed and want to throw it all away all at once. But instead, will place what stays for the time being back in the cassette-casket for another day.
But I do have some special plans for a lot of those old performance soundtracks (what we would now call “karaoke”). Oh yes!
Before getting rid of them, I am calling the family together and we are going to hook up the sound system and sing! Oh yes we are. Do not try to argue with me about this, kiddos. I found “Testify!” Hahhahaha. Early 90s…everytime we visited a different church, it was always requested for the Rhoades family to come up and sing. :p Can you imagine? Dave and Jeanie (big, red, sparkly hair – to signify the “anointing,” I have to laugh at myself) and 5 little ones, ages 5-12 or 13 singing loudly:
I wanna testify, I wanna testify
What the Lord has done for me – He set my spirit free
He has made me whole, put joy down in my soul
I-I-I-I-I——–wanna testify! Testify!!!
Omygoodness. Yes, that is one of the things I will be doing with these historical relics, these compact little pieces of my history.
With so many hundreds of cassettes surrounding me, you’d probably be surprised to know there are some I remember that are gone, lost, and I can never replace. These shown are only a fraction of all that Dave and I owned over our lifetimes (I got my first cassette recorder for Christmas when I was 14, for goodness’ sake) and only recently, I had been collecting cassette images for a new little thing for this very blog (yet to be unveiled). The time is right to remember.
Do you know why these two things go together?
We used to listen to cassettes. We did. Remember?…
I was known in the neighborhood, on Washington Street is Des Moines, and later on York Street, by the age of 3, for swinging high and singing loud. I love to sing. Just more quietly now...
I have a spreadsheet in the music file on my desktop called “Best Songs.” I have listed hundreds of songs and the artists’ who sang them, the songs that collectively make up the melody of my life, tracking every possible emotion and moment in time. Each song represents an era or strong memory. Some are great, really noteworthy songs and some weren’t that special to anyone else, but they make me happy and stir up a wonderful concoction of highly-desirable happy-neurotransmitters for my brain.
Everytime I randomly recall a portion of a song I have ever fancied, I throw it on the list. And when I put the title there, despite the fact that I can’t tell you what I had for breakfast yesterday, I can remember where I was, what I was doing and who else was there when I heard it playing on the radio so many years ago. Going over the list a few months back, I realized that there were an inordinate amount of songs from 1974, when I was 14 and attending Harding Junior High in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
1974, ahhh the 70s…
Who can know the mind of a fourteen year old girl? She is silly and coming alive. She is crushing and seriously in love with love. She is forward-looking for the amazingly gorgeous hunk who will arrive and sweep her off her feet and they will dance to the romantic hits of the early 70s ~ forever. *smile
Oh, my. Yes, 1974 was a very romantic and good year for all that. “You Make Me Feel Brand New” by the Stylistics (my FAV group at the time) was at the top of my own personal hits list. And John Denver singing “Sunshine on My Shoulders” or “Annie’s Song” (You fill up my senses like night in a forest, like the mountains in springtime, like a walk in the rain…” swoooooon) just got me looking for some one to sing like that to me. And wasn’t Olivia Newton-John just communicating what my silly-little-heart wanted to pour out to some unknown lover “I honestly…{wait for it}…love you“? Oh yes, she was!
But 1974 also had some way light-hearted songs that are etched into my memory, like “My Girl Bill,” by Jim Stafford, considered pretty hilarious at the time, I think now would not get any play at, as politically incorrect as it may come across. Of course, “Seasons in the Sun,” so melodramatically captured our emotional fancies. And Ray Stevens was even able to turn the streaking fad into a hit single with “The Streak.” Songs like that preserve history with humor.
All in all, 1974 was a full-on chorus of melodies and lyrics that really have become “golden” if you’re talking oldies.
I made my list of my top, favorite LOVE-these-1974-songs, and there were about 50. So, I was forced to edit myself to try to get the list to 20…or 25…and really truly rank them and am listing only my REALLY-SUPER-TOP-FAVORITE-1974 SONGS. And oh, they just keep jumping past the count-barrier…Numbers 1-7 are probably in order of my TOP favorites, but the rest, just LOVE them all!!! I have created a YouTube Playlist (for my own fun) that you may feel free to enjoy. :) And how could you not? Enjoy it, I mean. Sooooooooo good!!!
1. You Make Me Feel Brand New, The Stylistics
They sing “God bless you” in this song, which, preacher’s daughter that I was, gave it extra cachet with me.
2. Hello, It’s Me, Todd Rundgren
Hello, Todd! Riding the bus home after school…hoping that guy would call me…This song makes so many of my playlists, it’s ridiculous. Love.
3. Best Thing that Ever Happened to me, Gladys Knight and the Pips
This song is just high-quality classic. I sang it to Dave just after our first anniversary. He didn’t even know it before then. Can you imagine? Not knowing every Gladys-song??? He appreciates it now.
4. Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me, Elton John
I wasn’t supposed to be listening to “secular music” but I convinced my mom this was based on the scripture “Don’t let the sun go down on your wrath” and so she supported me listening to it as she drove me here and there. And she used it as a teaching moment, the opportunity to present a devotional about never going to bed angry. Oh, mamala, :)
Didn’t this song get even better when he sang it with George Michael in the 90s? Just a good song.
5. I Will Always Love You, Dolly Parton
Until Whitney Houston took this song to super-hit status for the film, Bodyguard, in 1992, it was not known quite as widely. However, I like to think I know a good song when I hear it and I loved this song in 1974 even though I was certainly too young to even understand the full-on passion of it. The song itself has always-always-always been one of my all-time favorites, and as for Dolly – I like it best of all her work.
5. Sunshine on My Shoulders, John Denver — Annie’s Song, John Denver
Yes, I am cheating. There are 2. “Sunshine” was the theme for a movie which was a 1000-level *sniffer based on the true story of a dying mom leaving cassette recorded messages for her baby girl since she wouldn’t be there to raise her. “If I had a day I could to give you…” Ah, gentle and sweet! As for “Annie’s Song,” she was John Denver’s wife, and I have never understood how she could FILL all his senses and then he could divorce her? But really-check out the words and imagine being in the mountains of Colorado which is what he depicted, and beau-ti-ful!
6. You’re Having My Baby, Paul Anka — One Man Woman/One Woman Man
And I am cheating again. Two songs for the continually prolific singer/songwriter, Paul Anka, who’d actually started charting hits as far back as when my mom was a teenager. He hit a whole new audience in the early 70s and his songs were just so singable. Duets. I love duets. I want to sing with all the great people. Maybe Paul Anka will come to town and call me from the audience to sing with him? I am ready Paul, for both of these songs! The show, Glee, covered “You’re Having My Baby” a couple years back. Slightly less “innocent” version.
7. I Honestly Love You, Olivia Newton-John — If You Love Me, Let me Know, Olivia Newton-John
Omygosh, I cannot be trusted. Here I am trying to shorten the list and now I have given Olivia Newton-John two songs on my list. Well, some of these people were just hitting their stride that year, obviously. My hands are tied.
8. Seasons in the Sun, Terry Jacks
A dying friend is traumatic for a young, teen girl. Add that the song was French. Bon! Tres bon!
9. Rock and Roll Heaven, The Righteous Brothers
“Helluva” band in said rock-n-roll heaven. My parents would not have been happy. But these guys sang with such great passion.
10. Takin’ Care of Business, Bachman-Turner Overdrive
Driving to youth camp, windows down. Fun to sing and easy to dance to. Which I was not allowed to do. Haha.
11. Billy, Don’t be a Hero, Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods
Two words: Bill Roby. I was fourteen and crushing on the class president like crazy (he wore size 13 shoes, mine were size 6 and only went to his instep…I know this for we compared them) and a song with his name? Come on! Doesn’t matter how lightweight it may have been, it HAS to make my list.
12. Rock and Roll Baby, The Stylistics
Such a Stylistics fan! I wanted to have one (a rock-n-roll baby) and I got him: Rocky!
13. Then Came You, Dionne Warwick and the Spinners
I really loved early 70s soul music, or rhythm and blues. Yet Dionne was a classy pop singer. The mix makes this song easy and fun to sing along. Happy day.
14. Good-bye Yellow Brick Road, Elton John
Debating the meaning of lyrics ws a fun thing in the 70s. I am not at all sure what they meant, but you can’t plant me in your penthouse, doggone it! Don’t even try.
15. Sweet Home Alabama, Lynyrd Skynyrd
The Harding Keys even performed this. They were the dancing-singing early 70s version of Glee Club. They wore white and chartreuse and were probably just opposite of Lynyrd Skynyrd. But this song is just so much fun to sing. I taught it to my kids blasting it on the very good and loud limo stereo in the early 90s. I am now singing it with my grandkids. Because it is a song that gets better with age.
16. Honey Honey, Abba
The lyrics make me blush now, sure. But then, it was just fun. “I feel like I wanna sing when you do your thing…”
17. Angie Baby, Helen Reddy
Oh, how mysterious.
18. Bennie and the Jets, Elton John
Elton was just prolific! I remember the girls locker room after PE, all of us sining away getting ready for the next class.
19. A Love Song, Anne Murray
My dad actually introduced me to Anne Murray, and she, like Karen Carpenter before her, sang in my range. One of the greatest voices ever.
20. Please Come to Boston, Dave Loggins
Passionate pleading. Please-please-please come here! This minute!!!
21. I Love, Tom T. Hall
I wasn’t really able to admit to liking anything country at that time (how uncool it might seem), but this song crossed over, so it was sort of OK. I love it way more today than then, because now I have experienced some life and he is really right about all the things there are to love. And I love country. So, there.
22. Come Monday, Jimmy Buffet
Spring. Slight breeze…I recall an outdoor art class painting project and this song.
23. Cat’s in the Cradle, Harry Chapin
The singer-songwriter, thought-provoker-type was waning to a degree (following the folk songs that had shaped social thought in the late 60s), but this one was too powerful to ignore.
24. The Streak, Ray Stevens
People just got naked and ran through public places and events. Scandulous! Ray Stevens gave us an historical and humorous song to remember it by.
25. Until You Come back to Me (that’s what I’m gonna do), Aretha Franklin
Aretha! Come on – “Though you don’t call me anymore, I sit and wait in vain…” because every 14-year-old girl was waiting the THE call! :)
26. Midnight at the Oasis, Maria Muldaur
I didn’t know what it meant, but it sounded a little naughty. But you know, Cactus is our friend. {???}
There. I have tempered all I can possibly temper. And if you count accurately, there may or may not be 29 (30?) songs in actuality…
OH, WAIT!!! I just realized I failed to includeSundown by Gordon Lightfoot // Rock Me Gently, Andy Kim // The Air that I Breathe by The Hollies // or The Night Chicago Died, Paper Lace (which my own kids love). Oh, forget it. 1974 was just an incredible year for music that moved me.
Dang it! How can I not add “I’ll Have to Say I Love You in a Song,” Jim Croce? And I was not allowed to like Mac Davis’ “One #### of a Woman,” but I actually sort of did/do. :)
Notably: at least 4 songs from my Telephone-Songs Playlist were from 1974, which may or may not have been a telephone high-usage year for me.
There is this driven, heavy snow naturally Christmas-flocking the trees and bushes and tapping on our window panes. Which would be ever-so-perfect if Christmas weren’t, oh, you know – 291 days away. *ahem
This was out my window and out my door about an hour ago:
Our Amelie-Belle-is-turning-three celebration has been postponed and almost any organization or business that can has cancelled everything. Back to the 50s on Monday. Until then, snowed in. :)
