Nothing Of any consequence tonight. I spent most of the day at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth doing aquatic physical therapy, seeing me sleep doctor about my crazy dreams and need to increase my CPAP pressure, and waiting an ungodly amount of time in the pharmacy for new prescriptions.
However, tonight Judy and I went to the Sandler Center for the Performing Arts in Virginia Beach to see the tribute band ABBA the Concert. They are really good. They are from Sweden, they are not the original ABBA, but they are outstanding. As an ABBA fan since the day I first heard the song Waterloo on the AM radio of a bus going to 7th grade in 1972.
I have every album they ever did on CD, plus DVDs of the videos they released to promote their overseas concert tours well before any other groups did music videos. The concert was amazing and since many ABBA fans were a decade older than us, they drew a lot of older people, as well as new fans who got to know them through the Mama Mia play and movies.
ABBA’s songs speak so powerfully of love, loss, grief, joy, and almost every human emotion, in part because their songs reflected their own lives. The words to many of their songs, enhanced by their amazing vocals and incredibly tight instrumental works have made them an enduring force in music, long after they recorded their last record and stopped touring. But the legacy is bigger than life, ABBA never gets old.
I could write on this forever, but I have to be up very early in the morning,
Well shit. We didn’t get our absentee ballots from West Virginia so we could vote so we did what we normally would do and went to Gordon Biersch to eat and drink, especially for me drink. However, this afternoon a friend of ours got us tickets to the Toto concert at the Sandler Center in order to try out the new hearing assistance systems at the concert hall. Since Judy has worn hearing aids for almost 52 years and has all the latest gear for a profoundly deaf person who functions in a hearing world this is a chance to give him feedback on how the system works. My hearing aids are temporarily kaput until the Navy can get them fixed I am trying a set of the new headphones that work with the system.
This is actually good because if we weren’t here I would be tuned in to the latest election results that we cannot influence. Of course once the concert is over and we are home I will begin to check things but sanity sometimes requires that we take a few hours off to enjoy the good things.
I won’t forget my days as a college sophomore rolling out pizza dough at Shakey’s Pizza in Stockton California to the tunes of American Top 40 and hearing Toto and their first hits Ninety-nine, Hold The Line, and Africa. I loved them and I never thought that I would get the chance to see them. So this is pretty cool.
So until we actually know something about the election results and what it may portent for our country and the world, I wish you a good night.
Since today is an odd confluence of Valentine’s Day, Ash Wednesday, and the opening of Spring Training I am going to hopefully avoid any controversy by sharing some of my favorite love songs for Valentine’s Day.
I have spent many Valentine’s Days away from my wife Judy over the course of my military career. Tonight we’ll be together she has a class that I don’t want to take her away from and on her way there she’ll drop me off at Gordon Biersch and then when she is done comes back and meet me for dinner there.
We have spent a lot of time away from each other during the course of my military career. I added up the time between when I was mobilized from the Army Reserve in 1996 to support the Bosnia Operation until when I returned from Camp LeJeune in August of 2013 and I figured at we had been apart 10 of 17 years between 1996 and 2013 due to military assignments. I am glad I am hopefully won’t have to spend months or years away from her again as I enter the twilight years of my career.
In all of these times I have loved music. I remember dating Judy and every week bring in new LP albums or pop 45 singles on vinyl back in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Most of the songs were popular on the radio and I would hear them on American Top 40.
I find that music expresses love in ways that I find difficult to do on my own. Perhaps this is because of the fact that I am a historian and not a poet or artist. Here are 25 of my favorites of all time. They are songs that express the emotions of love, love embraced and love requited the joy of love and the agony of losing it.
These are songs that men and women express the feelings of those who have loved, lost and longed for love. They are songs of men and women who sometimes are geographically far away but still close and others that can be sitting next to each other but be as far from each other emotionally and even spiritually as Earth is from the furthest star system in the galaxy.
I think that in my life that many speak to the relationship that I have with the woman that I have loved since the day that I met her back in the late summer of 1978 at San Joaquin Delta College in Stockton California.
It is interested because a number of years later Barry Manilow wrote a song called The Summer of 78 which expresses much of what I felt and still feel about her.
It was one of those summer’s
lasting forever
making the winter wait
a summer of music and passion
the summer of ’78
you appeared like the summer
sudden and perfect
and not a day too late
I swear there was music when I found you
that summer of ’78
it seem we floated through the days
and nights were always filled with stars and it seemed every song they played on the radio was ours it was one of those summer’s only for lovers touched by the hand of faith and now when the winter’s are long I remember the summer of ’78
I think any compilation of love songs has to begin with Barry Manilow’s “Weekend in New England” I think for me, as a career military man who has spent many years away from my wife, sometimes in harm’s way the questions asked in the song resonate. “When will our eyes meet?” “When can I touch you?” “When will this long journey end and when will I hold you again?” have particular meaning and they are part of the longing that I have.
The Carpenter’s breakthrough hit “Close to You” written by Burt Bacharach is a song that is fitting for the love that many young lovers feel when they first meet. I remember when we first started dating I could hardly stand to be away from Judy. The song is more one of infatuation than actual love, but I think unless we first have that infatuation that love often remains dormant.
Bread’s classic mellow ballad “If” is a song that expresses an almost eternal nature to love. Jim Croce’s hit “I’ll Just Have to Say I Love You in a Song” is one that expresses how badly the words often come out when we try to communicate with the one that we love. There are so many times the words that I have said have not come across how I meant them. So much of a relationship that is based on how we communicate that care and love for each other, the lament that “every time I’d try to tell you, the words just came out wrong” can be true for many of us.
England Dan (Dan Seals and John Ford Coley) “I’d Really Love to See You Tonight” Sometimes when we love someone we somehow lose contact, or maybe have grown apart emotionally. The song begins with small talk on a phone call and is the words of someone who wants very badly to be together again with the one that he misses.
In a similar vein to “I’d really love to See You Tonight” but perhaps even more heart wrenching is Paul Davis’ “I Go Crazy” because the woman that he loves is now with someone else and he sings “when I look in your eyes I still go crazy. That old flame comes alive, it starts burning inside…”
All couples sometimes have arguments and sometimes those arguments lead to complete silence and even the break up of a relationship. Sir Cliff Richard’s “We Don’t Talk Anymore” is one of those songs where one partner blames the other for the breakup and boldly states that he isn’t losing sleep over the end of the relationship. Not a very good way to go, but a very real feeling for many people in the Lonely Heart’s Club.
Olivia Newton John and Cliff Richard’s duet “Suddenly” is a song that is a 180 out from We Don’t Talk Anymore. This song is one that speaks of a deep love and admiration for each of the two people in the relationship that they are willing to do anything and go anywhere to be with one another.
But we really do, at least most of us hope that we will find that person who will take a chance on us like in the Abba song, or in some cases if we have been hurt someone who will take a chance again as Barry Manilow sang about.
But “It’s so Easy to Fall in Love” as Linda Ronstadt lets us know, but holding on to that love can be a different matter.
When we do fall in love we hope that they will be our First, my Last, My Everything.
But holding on to love can be difficult and can end up on the rocks when our love stops bringing flowers or singing love songs.
The Dr. Hook hit “Years from Now” is one that always manages to bring a tear to my eye. It came out about a year after Judy and I started dating and even though it is now well over 30 years since I first heard it I imagined the future, now we are deep into it and I feel the same way. One verse says “I know this world that we live in can be hard, Now and then and it will be again, Many times we’ve been down, Still love has kept us together the flame never dies, When I look in your eyes the future I see.” Since we have gone through many difficult times it is a song that is intensely personal and one that I almost feel that I could have written the lyrics.
David Soul riding high on his success in Starsky and Hutch released “Don’t Give up on Us Baby” in 1977. It hit number one in both the US and UK and was his one big hit. It is a song of a man trying to convince a woman that they have a relationship that is more than just one night. “Don’t give up on us, baby, We’re still worth one more try, I know we put a last one by, Just for a rainy evening, When maybe stars are few, Don’t give up on us, I know, We can still come through.” I find the Chicago ballad If You Leave Me Now evokes similar feelings.
Dan Hill’s “Sometimes When We Touch” is a song that means a great deal to both Judy and I. The words are somehow haunting and healing. One verse and the chorus really get to me. “Romance and all its strategy leaves me battlin’ with my pride, But through the insecurity some tenderness survives, I’m just another writer, still trapped within my truth, A hesitant prize fighter, still trapped within my youth. And sometimes when we touch, the honesty’s too much, And I have to close my eyes and hide, I wanna hold you till I die, till we both break down and cry, I wanna hold you till the fear in me subsides.”
Van Morrison wrote “Have I Told You Lately That I Love You” in 1989. Recorded and released by Rod Stewart in 1993 it is a song that originally was written as a prayer by Morrison. It is sung at many weddings and it a song that I will stop and listen to whenever I hear it.
The Australian duo Air Supply is known for their mellow love songs and one of them“Two Less Lonely People in the World” is one that I like. Sometimes I think that had I not met Judy that I never would have married. I am quite the introvert and often a loner that prefers the adventure of being independent and adventurous and does not like to be tied down. When my father retired from the Navy in 1974 I thought that my life was over, because we were going to remain in one place. Judy had spent most of her life in one city but I took her away from that because throughout my life I have been afflicted with this wanderlust and spirit of adventure. That being said the fact that we are together means that even though we are often apart that there are still “two less lonely people in the world tonight.”
Meat Loaf’s “I Would do Anything for Love”from his 1993 Bat Out of Hell Album is one of the big world wide rock power ballads of the past two decades. The focus is probably more on the physical relationship that some of the other songs in this list but it has a resonance because the physical is also a big part of why we fall in love with each other. “As long as the planets are turning, As long as the stars are burning, As long dreams are coming true, You’d better believe it, that I would do, Anything for love, And I’l be there until the final act, I would do anything for love, and I’ll take a vow and seal a pact…”
Elton John’s “Your Song” is a tender ballad of a musician who has little to give his love except a song.
One of the tenderest duets for Valentine’s Day comes from Lionel Richie and Diana Ross, the hit Endless Love was written for the movie of the same name. The Bee Gee’s Disco era smash How Deep is Your Love is another tender song of devotion to a love as is Al Green’s classic Let’s Stay Together.
Chicago’s “Hard to Say I’m Sorry” is a song that hits hard at a situation that many couples that love each other find themselves. That is when for whatever reason they find that they need to be away from each other, but the key is that they find their way back.
REO Speedwagon’s “I Can’t Fight this Feeling” is actually quite good because it is a song that sees a relationship go from a friendship to something more, something that sometimes scares the people involved because somehow we often think that we don’t want to “ruin the friendship.” I really think that any relationship that is meant to be has to begin with friendship and the words in the song “What started out as friendship, Has grown stronger. I only wish I had the strength to let it show” is a reality for so many people.
Anne Murray released a song called Daydream Believer that had been recorded years before by the Monkees, but in 1980 it became one of my favorites as my relationship with Judy began to really develop
Bonnie Tyler’s “It’s a Heartache” has been recorded and been a hit for Juice Newton and Rod Stewart as well as Tyler. It is a song that speaks of the pain of a broken relationship when one of the people involved is more dependent on the other person than that person is committed to them, and sometimes when we fall for someone we are in over our heads, as Fleetwood Mac’s Over My Head so bluntly states.
Juice Newton’s “Angel of the Morning” is a song that describes the breakup of what may be an illicit love affair. Since a lot of people become involved in such relationships it is a powerful reminder of the pain associated with the end of those relationships. A similar theme is part of Laura Branigan’s “How am I Supposed to Live Without You” though it seems that this song is not about an illicit relationship but the betrayal felt by a person who finds that the one that they love is leaving them. Her song Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow? tells the story of a woman wondering if her love will still love her, but there is always the Power of Love. However when all else fails it is helpful to know that Storms Never Last.
I find a lot of commonality with Journey’s power ballad “Faithfully.” Written about the love of a couple, one of whom spends his life on the road as a musician and rediscovers his love for his bride. I think that it is a song that any man or woman in the military, or for that matter any other profession that spends much time away from home can relate as is Elton John’s I Guess that’s Why they Call it the Blues.
The tender ballad by Kiss “Beth” is a song that I think expresses how many people deal with the tension between what they love and who they love. The song is about a man who promises to come home as soon as he is done playing music with his band and keeps calling back until finally he admits that he will not be coming home that night.
Blondie’s Heart of Glass is another song that talks about misplaced love and how many relationships appear to be real but then end with at least one partner hurting and wondering what happened. The Tide is High is Judy’s ringtone on my iPhone, it is about a girl who won’t give up on her love and Dreaming is another song of dreams of love as is Fleetwood Mac’s Say You Love Me.
The Swedish super group Abba had numerous songs dealing love, hope, love lost and love found. “One of Us” is song about a relationship where one partner thinks that they can do better only to find out that they were wrong. The chorus “One of us is crying, One of us is lying, In her lonely bed, Staring at the ceiling, Wishing she was somewhere else instead, One of us is lonely, One of us is only, Waiting for a call, Sorry for herself, feeling stupid feeling small, Wishing she had never left at all….” finds an echo in many of the people that I meet. Their lesser known song, Our Last Summer tells the story of a woman remembering her last summer in Paris with a former lover. Knowing Me Knowing You tells the story of a breakup as does The Winner Takes it All.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s Kenny Rogers released a number of songs suitable for the Valentine’s Day. She Believes in Me is wonderful because it talks of an experience that many young lovers know that of having someone who believes in them and their dreams, even when they wonder. You Decorated My Life talks about the difference a love makes in life, while Don’t Fall in Love with a Dreamer a duet he sang with singer songwriter Kim Carnes talks about the hazards of falling in love with a dreamer, or a person like me, and love can be difficult even when we give the best that we have, as the Eagles noted in The Best of My Love.
Finally there is a song that from the first time I heard it has been a song that speaks to me about my love for Judy. It is a song that like Dr Hook’s Years from Now, is a reminder of how far we have come and how much we have been through; that song is Kenny Rogers’ “Through the Years” which was released in 1982, a year before we were married.
Of course there is one that is Judy’s ringtone for me, The Partridge Family and I Think I Love You. I do think I love you too Judy, “So what am I so afraid of? I’m afraid that I’m not sure of, A love there is no cure for…”
But then I am in love with a beautiful woman…
And I Will Always Love You.
So to all of my readers, enjoy the music and have a happy Valentine’s Day.
Yesterday was an eventful day. I’ll tell you details over the next few days but last night we had the privilege of being able to see Art Garfunkel in concert.
I admit it. I am a child of the 1960s and 1970s and I am not ashamed. When I look at my life which includes 36 years of military service, multiple deployments, two of which were combat deployments I am still basically a anti-war 1960s and 1970s person. Likewise, I believe that in terms of speaking out for the poor, the disenfranchised, the weak, the sick, the elderly, those wounded in war, that all of us have a responsibility as citizens to do our best to alleviate the conditions that do harm to the least, the lost, and the lonely.
One of the songs that was a part of my life back then was The Sound of Silence. It is as hauntingly relevant, maybe more today, than when it was first written and performed by Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel. As he sang it last night I closed my eyes and listened with tears flowing down my cheeks. I imagined the young Simon and Garfunkel singing it and me listening to it on the LP and on my 8 track cassette tape.
In the age of Trump and Imperial Evangicslism those words are prophetic and etched in my mind especially after my tour in Iraq which changed my life in so many ways.
Hello darkness, my old friend, I’ve come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping, Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain, Still remains, Within the sound of silence
After Iraq I came to know the darkness, and in my most desperate times, the darkness became an old friend, one that I continue to converse with, especially at night and in my dreams and nightmares. I had a particularly violent one of those Saturday night and early yesterday morning. I’ll write about it later in the week.
In restless dreams I walked alone, Narrow streets of cobblestone
‘Neath the halo of a street lamp, I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light, That split the night
And touched the sound of silence
My dreams, even the good ones are restless and in them I am alone and I have visions that are often not for the faint of heart.
And in the naked light I saw, Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking, People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share, And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence
Before Iraq I did little to disturb the sound of silence, but after Iraq, in the despair, depression, and discombobulating of PTSD, I found that I must speak, or perhaps perish.
Fools, said I, you do not know, Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you, Take my arms that I might reach you
But my words, like silent raindrops fell,
And echoed in the wells of silence
I have found that many people are content to talk without speaking, hear without listening, write songs that voices never share, because they are all too willing not to disturb the sound of silence.
And the people bowed and prayed, To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning, In the words that it was forming
And the sign said, the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls, And tenement halls
And whispered in the sounds of silence
And the people in the churches bow and pray, to the inauthentic god they made, a god that they fashioned in their image, one that on occasion might resemble that of the Bible, the Torah, or the Koran, but which is far removed from an conception of truth.
Garfunkel sang a couple of songs and after that concluding with a variation the nighttime prayer that I learned as a child, one that I actually find more comforting than the one I learned, and one that I pray will take me through each night.
Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
Guide me safely through the night,
Wake me with the morning light.
I am glad that we got the chance to see this amazing American troubadour; to hear his songs, and listen to his stories and poems. He is a treasure. So until tomorrow.
With these changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes Nothing remains quite the same; With all of my running and all of my cunning If I couldn’t laugh I just would go insane; If we couldn’t laugh we just would go insane, If we weren’t all crazy we would go insane
Jimmy Buffet: Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes
I had the good fortune to be able to see the Jimmy Buffet concert here on Thursday night and that was followed up Friday by the visit of an old friend who had a great influence on my early Navy career as my detailer, and who as a retired contract Priest at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth was there for me during some of my darkest times after my return from Iraq. It was good to see Father Fred Elkin, a wonderful Priest, friend, and confidant. I also met a new friend, an Army Reserve Chaplain doing some of his training over at Fort Story. Last week I had a long telephone conversation with one of my old enlisted shipmates who served on the boarding time that I served on in the Persian Gulf back in 2002. It is really nice to have those experiences, to have a life, and to interact with people face to face.
I took off for a weekend last month Just to try and recall the whole year; All of the faces and all of the places; Wonderin’ where they all disappeared I didn’t ponder the question too long; I was hungry and went out for a bite Ran into a chum with a bottle of rum; And we wound up drinkin all night
I find that it is all too easy to miss simple things like that, all too easy to become too busy to keep those friendships and find new ones as well. I hate losing friends too. Over the years I’ve lost my share and some of them were due to by own negligence or stupidity and others for reasons that I don’t understand, but I’ve lost more over politics in the past year and a half than I could have ever imagine, again at least a of these were of my doing, mostly for self-protect in the toxic political climate, but then others I just don’t know, but that’s life too.
Of course there are the friends that die too early and often unexpectedly. I have had too many of those lately, and as I look through my various picture albums I remember the good things about them even as I still feel the pangs of grief at their loss. I cherish their memory and pray that one day we will meet again.
Even so I find particular value in long term friendships and relationships that have endured the years, one of which goes back to 5th grade. Others, schoolmates, military friends, veterans, teachers, others who I have worked, attended church, marched for civil rights, or imbibed heavily of adult beverages with over the years mean so much to me. I guess that’s one reason that Buffet’s Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes speaks to me. Over the years all of us have grown up and changed, we aren’t the same as we were when we first met each other because of life and our experiences, but we’re still friends.
Reading departure signs in some big airport; Reminds me of the places I’ve been Visions of good times that brought so much pleasure, Makes me want to go back again; If it suddenly ended tomorrow I could somehow adjust to the fall; Good times and riches and son of a bitches I’ve seen more than I can recall
Some of these folks and I have gone through tremendously difficult times together; we’ve faced career crises, health issues, deployments, family separations, lived in the field, and in combat conditions facing danger, coming home to changed family situations, facing physical injury, and the craziness that is part of dealing with PTSD, TBI, and chronic sleep disorders. I have a friend going through chemotherapy for stage-four lymphoma, and others who have recently gone through life threatening health crises. The cool thing is that we are friends and that we have stood by each other. We can disagree about politics, religion, and so many things that destroy other friendships. I am reminded of what William Tecumseh Sherman said of his friendship with Ulysses S. Grant, “Grant stood by me when I was crazy, I stood by him when he was drunk, now we stand together.”
I think about Paris when I’m high on red wine I wish I could jump on a plane; So many nights I just dream of the ocean God; I wish I was sailin’ again; Oh, yesterday’s over my shoulder So I can’t look back for too long; There’s just too much to see waiting in front of me And I know that I just can’t go wrong
The good thing is that life continues and friendships do as well and if I can speak for myself, if I couldn’t laugh and I weren’t crazy I would go insane.
For once nothing serious, not that I have not been doing some very serious writing and research on my Civil War and Gettysburg texts. But tonight we had a tapping party at the place that is my version of the Cheers bar. Our great brewer, Adam Gurtshaw put a Session IPA and a really nice Belgian Wit on tap. It was a nice eating, drinking, and music experience.
The theme of the tapping party was super heroes, so I wore my Madison Bumgarner 2012 World Series jersey. That man is more of a super-hero than anyone wearing tights, three World Seria titles, a WS MVP, and a no-hitter, and in addition to pitching he can hit with power. Top that Clayton Kershaw.
But then as Benjamin Franklin allegedly said, “Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.”
I have spent many Valentine’s Days away from my wife Judy over the course of my military career. Tonight though, for the third time in a row time. I will be with her. Three years ago I was stationed away from her and holding the duty pager for the hospital where I served as the Director of Pastoral Care. I added up the time between when I was mobilized from the Army Reserve in 1996 to support the Bosnia Operation until when I returned from Camp Lejeune in August of 2013 and I figured at we had been apart 10 of 17 years due to military assignments. I am glad I am hopefully won’t have to spend months or years away from her again as I enter the twilight years of my career.
In all of these times I have loved music. I remember dating Judy and every week bring in new LP albums or pop 45 singles on vinyl back in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Most of the songs were popular on the radio and I would hear them on American Top 40.
I find that music expresses love in ways that I find difficult to do on my own. Perhaps this is because of the fact that I am a historian and not a poet or artist. Here are 25 of my favorites of all time. They are songs that express the emotions of love, love embraced and love requited the joy of love and the agony of losing it.
These are songs that men and women express the feelings of those who have loved, lost and longed for love. They are songs of men and women who sometimes are geographically far away but still close and others that can be sitting next to each other but be as far from each other emotionally and even spiritually as Earth is from the furthest star system in the galaxy.
I think that in my life that many speak to the relationship that I have with the woman that I have loved since the day that I met her back in the late summer of 1978.
It is interested because a number of years later Barry Manilow wrote a song called The Summer of 78 which expresses much of what I felt and still feel about her.
It was one of those summer’s
lasting forever
making the winter wait
a summer of music and passion
the summer of ’78
you appeared like the summer
sudden and perfect
and not a day too late
I swear there was music when I found you
that summer of ’78
it seem we floated through the days
and nights were always filled with stars and it seemed every song they played on the radio was ours it was one of those summer’s only for lovers touched by the hand of faith and now when the winter’s are long I remember the summer of ’78
I think any compilation of love songs has to begin with Barry Manilow’s “Weekend in New England” I think for me, as a career military man who has spent many years away from my wife, sometimes in harm’s way the questions asked in the song resonate. “When will our eyes meet?” “When can I touch you?” “When will this long journey end and when will I hold you again?” have particular meaning and they are part of the longing that I have.
The Carpenter’s breakthrough hit “Close to You” written by Burt Bacharach is a song that is fitting for the love that many young lovers feel when they first meet. I remember when we first started dating I could hardly stand to be away from Judy. The song is more one of infatuation than actual love, but I think unless we first have that infatuation that love often remains dormant.
Bread’s classic mellow ballad “If” is a song that expresses an almost eternal nature to love. Jim Croce’s hit “I’ll Just Have to Say I Love You in a Song” is one that expresses how badly the words often come out when we try to communicate with the one that we love. There are so many times the words that I have said have not come across how I meant them. So much of a relationship that is based on how we communicate that care and love for each other, the lament that “every time I’d try to tell you, the words just came out wrong” can be true for many of us.
England Dan (Dan Seals and John Ford Coley) “I’d Really Love to See You Tonight” Sometimes when we love someone we somehow lose contact, or maybe have grown apart emotionally. The song begins with small talk on a phone call and is the words of someone who wants very badly to be together again with the one that he misses.
In a similar vein to “I’d really love to See You Tonight” but perhaps even more heart wrenching is Paul Davis’ “I Go Crazy” because the woman that he loves is now with someone else and he sings “when I look in your eyes I still go crazy. That old flame comes alive, it starts burning inside…”
All couples sometimes have arguments and sometimes those arguments lead to complete silence and even the break up of a relationship. Sir Cliff Richard’s “We Don’t Talk Anymore” is one of those songs where one partner blames the other for the breakup and boldly states that he isn’t losing sleep over the end of the relationship. Not a very good way to go, but a very real feeling for many people in the Lonely Heart’s Club.
Olivia Newton John and Cliff Richard’s duet “Suddenly” is a song that is a 180 out from We Don’t Talk Anymore. This song is one that speaks of a deep love and admiration for each of the two people in the relationship that they are willing to do anything and go anywhere to be with one another.
The Dr. Hook hit “Years from Now” is one that always manages to bring a tear to my eye. It came out about a year after Judy and I started dating and even though it is now well over 30 years since I first heard it I imagined the future, now we are deep into it and I feel the same way. One verse says “I know this world that we live in can be hard, Now and then and it will be again, Many times we’ve been down, Still love has kept us together the flame never dies, When I look in your eyes the future I see.” Since we have gone through many difficult times it is a song that is intensely personal and one that I almost feel that I could have written the lyrics.
David Soul riding high on his success in Starsky and Hutch released “Don’t Give up on Us Baby” in 1977. It hit number one in both the US and UK and was his one big hit. It is a song of a man trying to convince a woman that they have a relationship that is more than just one night. “Don’t give up on us, baby, We’re still worth one more try, I know we put a last one by, Just for a rainy evening, When maybe stars are few, Don’t give up on us, I know, We can still come through.” I find the Chicago ballad If You Leave Me Now evokes similar feelings.
Dan Hill’s “Sometimes When We Touch” is a song that means a great deal to both Judy and I. The words are somehow haunting and healing. One verse and the chorus really get to me. “Romance and all its strategy leaves me battlin’ with my pride, But through the insecurity some tenderness survives, I’m just another writer, still trapped within my truth, A hesitant prize fighter, still trapped within my youth. And sometimes when we touch, the honesty’s too much, And I have to close my eyes and hide, I wanna hold you till I die, till we both break down and cry, I wanna hold you till the fear in me subsides.”
Van Morrison wrote “Have I Told You Lately That I Love You” in 1989. Recorded and released by Rod Stewart in 1993 it is a song that originally was written as a prayer by Morrison. It is sung at many weddings and it a song that I will stop and listen to whenever I hear it.
The Australian duo Air Supply is known for their mellow love songs and one of them“Two Less Lonely People in the World” is one that I like. Sometimes I think that had I not met Judy that I never would have married. I am quite the introvert and often a loner that prefers the adventure of being independent and adventurous and does not like to be tied down. When my father retired from the Navy in 1974 I thought that my life was over, because we were going to remain in one place. Judy had spent most of her life in one city but I took her away from that because throughout my life I have been afflicted with this wanderlust and spirit of adventure. That being said the fact that we are together means that even though we are often apart that there are still “two less lonely people in the world tonight.”
Meat Loaf’s “I Would do Anything for Love”from his 1993 Bat Out of Hell Album is one of the big world wide rock power ballads of the past two decades. The focus is probably more on the physical relationship that some of the other songs in this list but it has a resonance because the physical is also a big part of why we fall in love with each other. “As long as the planets are turning, As long as the stars are burning, As long dreams are coming true, You’d better believe it, that I would do, Anything for love, And I’l be there until the final act, I would do anything for love, and I’ll take a vow and seal a pact…”
Elton John’s “Your Song” is a tender ballad of a musician who has little to give his love except a song.
One of the tenderest duets for Valentine’s Day comes from Lionel Richie and Diana Ross, the hit Endless Love was written for the movie of the same name. The Bee Gee’s Disco era smash How Deep is Your Love is another tender song of devotion to a love as is Al Green’s classic Let’s Stay Together.
Chicago’s “Hard to Say I’m Sorry” is a song that hits hard at a situation that many couples that love each other find themselves. That is when for whatever reason they find that they need to be away from each other, but the key is that they find their way back.
REO Speedwagon’s “I Can’t Fight this Feeling” is actually quite good because it is a song that sees a relationship go from a friendship to something more, something that sometimes scares the people involved because somehow we often think that we don’t want to “ruin the friendship.” I really think that any relationship that is meant to be has to begin with friendship and the words in the song “What started out as friendship, Has grown stronger. I only wish I had the strength to let it show” is a reality for so many people.
Anne Murray released a song called Daydream Believer that had been recorded years before by the Monkees, but in 1980 it became one of my favorites as my relationship with Judy began to really develop
Bonnie Tyler’s “It’s a Heartache” has been recorded and been a hit for Juice Newton and Rod Stewart as well as Tyler. It is a song that speaks of the pain of a broken relationship when one of the people involved is more dependent on the other person than that person is committed to them, and sometimes when we fall for someone we are in over our heads, as Fleetwood Mac’s Over My Head so bluntly states.
Juice Newton’s “Angel of the Morning” is a song that describes the breakup of what may be an illicit love affair. Since a lot of people become involved in such relationships it is a powerful reminder of the pain associated with the end of those relationships. A similar theme is part of Laura Branigan’s “How am I Supposed to Live Without You” though it seems that this song is not about an illicit relationship but the betrayal felt by a person who finds that the one that they love is leaving them. Her song Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow? tells the story of a woman wondering if her love will still love her.
I find a lot of commonality with Journey’s power ballad “Faithfully.” Written about the love of a couple, one of whom spends his life on the road as a musician and rediscovers his love for his bride. I think that it is a song that any man or woman in the military, or for that matter any other profession that spends much time away from home can relate as is Elton John’s I Guess that’s Why they Call it the Blues.
The tender ballad by Kiss “Beth” is a song that I think expresses how many people deal with the tension between what they love and who they love. The song is about a man who promises to come home as soon as he is done playing music with his band and keeps calling back until finally he admits that he will not be coming home that night.
Blondie’s Heart of Glass is another song that talks about misplaced love and how many relationships appear to be real but then end with at least one partner hurting and wondering what happened. The Tide is High is Judy’s ringtone on my iPhone, it is about a girl who won’t give up on her love and Dreaming is another song of dreams of love as is Fleetwood Mac’s Say You Love Me.
The Swedish super group Abba had numerous songs dealing love, hope, love lost and love found. “One of Us” is song about a relationship where one partner thinks that they can do better only to find out that they were wrong. The chorus “One of us is crying, One of us is lying, In her lonely bed, Staring at the ceiling, Wishing she was somewhere else instead, One of us is lonely, One of us is only, Waiting for a call, Sorry for herself, feeling stupid feeling small, Wishing she had never left at all….” finds an echo in many of the people that I meet. Their lesser known song, Our Last Summer tells the story of a woman remembering her last summer in Paris with a former lover. Knowing Me Knowing You tells the story of a breakup as does The Winner Takes it All.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s Kenny Rogers released a number of songs suitable for the Valentine’s Day. She Believes in Me is wonderful because it talks of an experience that many young lovers know that of having someone who believes in them and their dreams, even when they wonder. You Decorated My Life talks about the difference a love makes in life, while Don’t Fall in Love with a Dreamer a duet he sang with singer songwriter Kim Carnes talks about the hazards of falling in love with a dreamer, or a person like me, and love can be difficult even when we give the best that we have, as the Eagles noted in The Best of My Love.
Finally there is a song that from the first time I heard it has been a song that speaks to me about my love for Judy. It is a song that like Dr Hook’s Years from Now, is a reminder of how far we have come and how much we have been through; that song is Kenny Rogers’ “Through the Years” which was released in 1982, a year before we were married.
So to all of my readers, enjoy the music and have a happy Valentine’s Day.
Something a little bit different. A while back I was asked to write and article for a periodical called “The Liturgical Singer” which is published by the That National Association of Pastoral Musicians. The article came out only in hard copy and at the request of a couple of friends I am posting it here. Have a great night.
Peace
Padre Steve+
“And whenever the evil spirit from God came upon Saul, David took the lyre and played it with his hand, and Saul would be relieved and feel better, and the evil spirit would depart from him.” 1 Samuel 16:23
When I was in seminary one of the most valuable courses I ever took was an introductory course in Church Music. The course opened my heart to music in the liturgical setting. Now I am not a musician, I play the radio and sing monotone. Like many pastors, priests and theologians I am a word person; written, spoken I am a word person. That being said I learned early on that music can be a balm for the wounded and suffering soul.
Sadly, I don’t think that many priests or pastors truly understand this. I am a Priest and Navy Chaplain. But, I am one of the wounded. I suffer from severe PTSD, anxiety, and more often than not I find going to church often makes things worse. As an Iraq Veteran I can somewhat relate to King Saul. Sometimes the effects of PTSD feel like an evil spirit, and when I came home from war I went through a spiritual crisis that was so bad that for nearly two years I was for all practical purposes an agnostic hoping that God still existed.
Hans Christian Anderson wrote that “Where words fail, music speaks.” All too often our worship, even in liturgical churches focuses more on words, than it does the healing property of music.
Those who suffer from trauma of any kind, including PTSD, or who suffer from anxiety, depression or other afflictions of the soul don’t usually come to church to see a show or to get yet another self-help lecture baptized with a few selected Bible verses. They don’t come to be entertained. They come for solace, they come to encounter God as do most regular churchgoers. But a recent Barna survey noted that less than 20% of regular churchgoers feel close to God on even a monthly basis. Martin Luther, who suffered from tremendous depression and despair for much of his life wrote “My heart, which is so full to overflowing, has often been solaced and refreshed by music when sick and weary.”
One has to ask why this is. I think one reason is that in many churches, even liturgical churches music has become entertainment. While this is pervasive in our American church culture it is not new. Erasmus of Rotterdam wrote:
“We have brought into our churches certain operatic and theatrical music; such a confused, disorderly chattering of some words as I hardly think was ever in any of the Grecian or Roman theatres. The church rings with the noise of trumpets, pipes, and dulcimers; and human voices strive to bear their part with them….”
As entertain it really is no longer part of liturgy, which is by definition the work of the people. I think the type or style of music is less important than the message that it conveys. I honestly believe different types of music touch our soul in different ways. That being said I think that the message of the music should lead people into the presence of God and to do that church music directors and liturgists need to back off of the culture of entertainment that has invaded the Church. I can say that there are songs, hymns and psalms of almost every musical style which reside in my heart. In the midst of my spiritual crisis I found that some of these songs stayed with me. One verse of Abide With Me was one of my prayers during that time:
Come not in terrors, as the King of kings, But kind and good, with healing in Thy wings, Tears for all woes, a heart for every plea— Come, Friend of sinners, and thus abide with me.
I have found that when a liturgist leads a people into the presence of God it is that the songs, hymns and songs they use actually allow the people to participate in the liturgy. The songs speak of God’s presence even in the midst of suffering, they allow those who suffer a measure of hope, even in the midst of what St. John of the Cross referred to as “the dark night of the soul.” When this happens the music becomes part of the participant’s experience of God, it takes up residence in the depth of the soul and there it remains reminding the person that they are not alone. Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote that “Music, when soft voices die, vibrates in the memory.”
I don’t know about you but the music that I really enjoy is the music that was popular when I was in Junior High, High School and College. For me that period spanned the years 1971-1983.
It was a turbulent era. The Vietnam War was ending and Nixon was resigning due to the Watergate break in cover-up despite going to China and establishing the beginning of detente with the Soviet Union. Assassination attempts on political leaders, successful and unsuccessful, were common. Two attempts were made on Gerald Ford. Prime Minister Aldo Moro of Italy and President Anwar Sadat of Egypt victim fell to terrorists while President Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II were felled by bullets which did not prove fatal.
The Cold War was tense despite the beginning of detente and signing of Nuclear Weapons treaties between the United States and the Soviet Union. The Middle East was in turmoil even as Egypt and Israel hammered out a peace treaty withe the help of US President Jimmy Carter. In Iran a revolution swept the Shah of Iran out of power bringing the Ayatollah Khomeini into power. The seizure of the US Embassy and the 444 day hostage crisis punctuated by a failed rescue attempt demoralized the United States. In October 1983 247 Marines were killed in a terror bombing of their barracks at the Beirut International Airport.
The Soviets invaded Afghanistan which would become their Vietnam, as part of the Cold War this lead to US involvement with Mujahideen. The US support with the Mujahideen was a fateful alliance that brought the Taliban to prominence and introduced the world to Osama Bin Laden. The Cubans were fighting in Angola while the Anti-Apartheid movement struggled with its leader Nelson Mandela languishing in a South African prison.
High profile terrorist attacks became common. The Palestinian terrorist group Black September killed Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. European terrorist organizations including the Red Brigades, the Red Army Faction and Bader Meinhof gang, the Irish Republican Army and the American Weather Underground provided a constant string of terrorist attacks even as Middle Eastern terrorist groups highjacked airliners in daring fashion, matched at times by equally rescues by Israeli and German anti-terrorist units.
The American and the world economies were in a state of recession much of the era. There was a major recession, the American auto industry needed bailouts, inflation was running in double digits as was the unemployment rate. The dollar was weak and OPEC wreaked havoc on world oil markets with embargoes in 1973 and 1979.
However it was music in the 1970s and early 1980s that provided a diversion for many people looking for respite from all the bad news that echoed around the airwaves and in the newspapers. Thankfully there wasn’t a 24 hour cable news cycle yet otherwise people would have probably been jumping off of buildings. It was the heyday of AM Top 40 type stations and the beginning of rock oriented FM music stations. Kasey Kasem gave voice to the hits with American Top 40. As for me I had countless 45s and LPs of my favorite groups and artists.
I listened Doctor Donald D Rose of KFRC in San Francisco and my car, a 1966 Buick LeSabre 400 had a retro-fitted 8-Track tape player and speakers.
Great groups and artists ruled the pop and rock airwaves and the era produced some of the best rock, pop, R&B, soul, country-rock, disco and new-wave music ever done. It really was an amazing era both in quality and diversity of music .
It was not “message music” like much 60’s music but focused on entertainment. Power groups like Journey, Starship, REO Speedwagon and Boston made power ballads, while AC/DC and KISS shocked and entertained at the same time. Groups like the Blondie, the Eagles, Chicago, Paul McCartney and Wings, Abba and the Commodores dominated the pop charts while individual artists such as Olivia Newton-John, Elton John, Carly Simon, John Denver, Lionel Ritchie, Barry Manilow and others satisfied the more mainstream pop crown. Disco enjoyed a brief heyday with the popularity of Saturday Night Fever and the Bee Gees. R&B enjoyed a renaissance due to the unlikely duo of the Blues Brothers who helped re-launch the careers of Aretha Franklin, Johnny Lee Hooker, Cab Calloway and a host of others. Country crossovers became big with Kenny Rogers, Dolly Parton and Glenn Campbell leading the way. As the 80’s came along new groups and styles were introduced including New Wave and Rap. It was music that helped us through those times.
I listen to that music all the time and remember those turbulent days well. It certainly wasn’t the fact that things were great in the world. That being said despite bad news there was still some sense of that things would work out okay. Music helped provide part of that sense of hope. It was an escape and the music of that time is still with us. Many of those those groups haven’t gone away and people look back with fondness to the music of the era even as the artists age and pass away.
Here are some of my favorites with links to the videos, they are in no particular order nor are the representative of all the groups that I have in my library of CDs and DVDs, but I enjoy the heck out of them. Have fun and enjoy.
What nobler employment, or more valuable to the state, than that of the man who instructs the rising generation. Marcus Tullius Cicero
Today is National Teacher’s Day and not a moment too soon. However most people probably don’t know or care that it is. Teachers are not valued highly in our society. They used to be but not anymore. Ask a teacher how they feel about classroom conditions, support from the elected officials on school boards that use their office to attack the institutions that they have been elected to serve. Ask any teacher about the effects of the “No Child Left Behind” on their ability to teach and be able to reach out to students that learn differently from the rote memory exercises needed to pass a standardized test.
Higher education likewise is being gutted the formerly amazing California State University System, and the California Junior College system which I attended is being decimated. Professors have not competitive wages in years, programs are being cut while tuition is increased. I attended San Joaquin Delta College and paid $5 a semester plus books. I averaged $200 a year at Cal State Northridge. Programs were amazing, class sizes good, professors and instructors, excellent. That system and many others are in crisis.
You see teachers, especially those in Public Schools have for the last 30 years or so, ever since Howard Jarvis’s Proposition 13 passed in California and gutted educational spending the target of right wing pundits, politicians and preachers. They are blamed by some people for almost every ill in the educational system. If teachers complain or take their case to the media they are made the villain. In most States they don’t make a lot of money for all the education, training and certifications that they are required to have to teach. They have few protections and those that they do have, mainly in the protections that they gained through their participation in organized labor are being stripped away in state after state.
When I was a kid growing up in the 1960s and 1970s my dad was in the Navy. It was a turbulent time for our family. Due my dad’s transfers as well as a school boundary change in one district I ended up attending six different elementary schools in three states, three schools in three states in 4th grade alone. During that time our lives were in a constant state of flux and as a grade school student it was my teachers that helped me get through that time. Because of the transfers I didn’t get to have the opportunity to remain in a community long enough to get established until Junior High School. I was always “the new kid in town.” Not that that is bad or that I have any bad memories of that childhood. I found the new places, people and schools to be a grand adventure. In fact when my dad retired from the Navy I was not happy. I wanted him to stay in because I liked the adventure.
I remember every one of my elementary school teachers names, save one in 4th grade where were we not at the school long. There was the strict Kindergarten teacher, Mrs Brandenburg who made sure that she write with my right hand. To this day my handwriting is illegible but who cares now when I type everything. Then there was my 1st Grade Teacher at Oak Harbor Elementary School, Mrs Christian. She was a sweetheart her husband was an airline pilot and in 1st grade, probably because of my handwriting I was tested for some learning difficulties. I guess that there was nothing wrong because that didn’t last long. In Second Grade I had Mrs Jackson. Then in 3rd grade a new school was opened and I attended Olympic View Elementary School. My 3rd Grade Teacher was Mrs King. It was in 3rd grade that I really began my adventure in reading. I devoured every book in the biography and history section that I could find in the Library, especially those dealing with military and political leaders, sports figures (especially baseball players) and military history.
I began 4th Grade at Olympic View but my dad was transferred to a travel intensive assignment in Long Beach California in the fall of 1968. I had my first male teacher at Olympic View, Mr Alguire who I really liked. We moved to Long Beach and it was a difficult move. there were a number of deaths and serious illnesses in the extended family and I attended Robert E Lee Elementary in Long Beach for just a few weeks before my dad had my mom, brother and I go live with my Grandparents in Huntington West Virginia. We arrived there in early December and I found that I was out of my element. My teacher at Miller Elementary was Mrs Gates. She was very tough and I was hammered with more homework than I had ever seen. I was also the “new kid” and since we had just moved from Long Beach a “city slicker” and was challenged to a fight in my first week. It was a draw. However Mrs Gates was a great teacher and I continued to read, write well but illegibly and learn to speak in front of the class.
When the school year was done we moved back to Long Beach when in a different neighborhood just across the cement lined San Gabriel River from Orange County I attended Hawaiian Gardens Elementary School where I met my friend Chris Brockel who I have managed to stay in contact over the years. That was probably my most fun year in school. I was asked if I wanted to skip 5th grade but I told the principle that I wanted to remain in my 5th Grade Class. My teacher was another gem, Mr Oliver. It was a great school year combined with the fact that my dad was always taking us to California Angeles baseball games. But dad received orders to the elderly Aircraft Carrier USS Hancock CVA-19home ported in Alameda California at the end of that school year which made another move necessary and initially thought had ruined my life. heck I had baseball, Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farm, the Queen Mary and Sea World. I saw my first professional hockey and basketball games and it was a dream life.
Since it was the early 1970s and the Bay Area was in turmoil and I had a great Aunt in Stockton we moved to Stockton just down the street from her. In Stockton I attended Grover Cleveland Elementary School and had the woman that I think was my best teacher of elementary school Mrs Dietrich. My dad was underway or deployed most of the time between 1971 and 1974 when he retired. That first year was hard and like my other teachers Mrs Dietrich was a rock of stability who encouraged me to learn and think for myself.
I attended Stockton Junior High and Edison High School and there are were teachers at every grade level who I remember fondly. My French Teacher from 7th-9th Grade was Mrs Milhousen who was very patient with me. My history teacher was Mr Silvaggio who my brother would later teach on the same faculty in his first teaching assignment. I remember my Printing Shop and Wood Shop teachers, back then you had to become familiar with trade skills as well as academics. I learned to play the French Horn in band class which was taught by Mr Hull.
At Edison I still remember great teachers like Gloria Nomura, Mr Riley, Mr Oji, all who taught History or Social Studies, Donovan Cummings my Speech teacher, Coaches Charlie Washington, Vick Berg, Duke Pasquini. There were others but two of the most important were my Naval Junior ROTC instructors LCDR James Breedlove and Senior Chief Petty Officer John Ness. I could go on and on about teacher.
That continued in college and seminary. I am indebted to the wonderful, gifted and dedicated men and women that were my teachers. My mom was a teacher’s aid when life settled down in Stockton when dad left the Navy and retired from the school district. Likewise my brother Jeff is a teacher and in administration at an alternative school in the district, his wife is an elementary school teacher. I now have a BA and three graduate degrees. I am indebted to my teachers and cannot forget them. Teaching is hard. I have taught a couple of undergraduate level Western Civilization classes and the amount of work is enormous.
When I hear the Unholy Trinity of Right Wing Politicians, Pundits and Preachers that beat up public school teachers at every opportunity. School Board members who seem to be more interested in political careers than education and those that hack away at programs that cater to the whole person I am disgusted. When I went to school those things that made me what I am today, the library, the gym classes, athletic programs, the foreign languages, art, music, speech, and things like shop were required. They helped give me an appreciation for the world and for people in general. They helped make me a more rounded person. From what I see now those kind of programs are being decimated and our kids will be poorer for it. This is not the fault of the teachers. They work with the crap being forced on them by politicians in Congress, statehouses and on school boards with ever shrinking resources and always increasing requirements.
We need to actually care about our teachers and educational systems. Policy and budget priorities set by politicians coupled with parents that are either bullies or absentee are the reason our schools are in trouble.
I hate to lecture but teachers matter. Education policy matters. Educational funding matters. If we want to be competitive in the world we need to make education a priority again and start giving teachers some measure of respect and stop using them as a straw man to divert attention from the real causes of our educational crisis.
Today is National Teacher’s Day. Admittedly it is after hours but take some time in the next few days to thank a teacher. If you don’t have kids, go back and thank one of your own.
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Peace
Padre Steve+
The Inglorius Padre Steve's World 