45 – Daydream Believer – John Stewart- 1971, and

Daydream Believer - John Stewart

Daydream Believer - The Monkees

            The Monkees’ take on this simple song is their last #1 hit and is one of the perfect pop songs of the 1960s. From the moment the jingle jangle piano opening starts (Peter Tork on piano) it always makes me smile. It’s the late 60s, JFK is gone, but MLK and RFK are still around (for awhile yet) and everything is groovy.

            My whole life is ahead of me and everything in Suburbia (Algonquin) is good.

            Years later, I heard John Stewart on the Steve Dahl show explain how the Monkees changed one of his words, to not freak out people like me, I suppose.

            In the line, “You once thought of me as a white knight on his steed, now you know how happy I can be”, which doesn’t make sense, really, had been changed from “…now you know how funky I can be.”

            When John Stewart recorded his version in 1971 for his album, “Lonesome Picker Rides Again,” he replaces the word and adds a few changes o the chorus at the end.

            The song’s 3:07 construction is super simple, in the Monkees’ versions it’s Verse, Chorus, Verse, Chorus, repeat 4-5 times, to fade.

            John Stewart repeats the chorus 2 times then begins to make some substitutions.

            “…to a Daydream Believer and a homecoming queen” becomes

            “’…to a Lonesome Picker and a homecoming queen.”

                        then

            “…to an old surfer drummer and a homecoming queen.”

                        then

            “…to old Nashville Carter and a homecoming queen.”

                        and finally

            “…to a daydream deceiver and an old closet quee…” and he breaks up laughing.

            Great song.

44 – Keep Me in Your Heart – Warren Zevon – 2003

Keep Me in Your Heart - Warren Zevon

            That Warren Zevon could write and produce this song knowing how little time he had left is amazing to me.

            It’s the song I want played at my memorial service.

            ‘Nuff said.

43 – Hallelujah – John Cale – 1991

Hallelujah - John Cale

            This is the John Cale version of Leonard Cohen’s great song, “Hallelujah”.  It has been used many times, in many shows and movies, such as “Shrek”, “House”, and “Scrubs”, but the one it always reminds me of is “The West Wing”.

            Actually, the version used in the West Wing was Jeff Buckley’s, but regardless, the song reminds me of  “Posse Comitatus”, the unforgettable episode where Mark Harmon, playing C.J.’s Secret Service agent/new boyfriend, is gunned down when he inadvertently walks in on a robbery in progress in a NYC convenience store.

            It’s also the one where the President (Martin Sheen, the President we pretended was real during the GW Bush years) runs into his opponent for reelection played by James Brolin and Brolin, when told of the death says, “Crime. Boy. I don’t know” and President Bartlett (Sheen) after some more strained small talk, says “In the future, if you're wondering, 'Crime, boy, I don't know,' is when I decided to kick your ass."

            You know by its context that somebody’s going to die when you hear “Hallelujah”, it never accompanies good news. It was a classic use of popular music in television to comment on or act as a counterpoint to what was going on onscreen.

            (If you read Ken Levine’s blog, and I do religiously, that’s why I link to it on mine; he feels that the use of music in this way is a cheat, a lazy way to make a point. I agree to a point, but this song is emotionally wrenching in its use here. C.J. finally gets a life outside the West Wing and “Bang!” it’s over)

            Most people agree the first use of popular music in TV drama was Michael Mann’s “Miami Vice”. Or at least it was the first time I was made conscious of the powerful emotions that the right song with the right image can produce.

            “Hallelujah’s use in the West Wing was heartbreaking. I don’t know if it’s Aaron Sorkin who chose the music, but “The West Wing” always used the perfect song at the perfect time.

            There’s another song on my Zune that was used brilliantly by “The West Wing”, about 15 postings from now, as I look at my list, so be forewarned.

41 – Walk Your Feet in the Sunshine – Jimmy Webb – 1974

Walk Your Feet in the Sunshine - 5th Dimension version

            This has always been my favorite Jimmy Webb song (and there’s so many to choose from: Wichita Lineman, The Highwayman, Galveston, and Christian, No (foreshadowing!)). It’s great to sing along with and has Joni Mitchell singing back-up vocals.

            It brings back memories of a specific time and place, Accutronics in 1980, when I played the song daily.

            In 1980, I was the Process Engineer/Quality Manager at Accutronics. My boss, and mentor, Mr. Mortimer, knew I liked variety in the jobs I held there, so he gave me a task…

            From my start in 1974, to 1980, Accutronics only built single sided printed circuit boards, but in 1980 they decided to begin building double sided boards, allowing circuitry on each side, connected by the plated through hole barrels. My task, with a budget of $10,000, was to build and prove out a prototype plating line to do this.

            The $10,000 was used to purchase plating tanks, bath heaters, chemistry, lab ware for analyzing the chemistry, and equipment to perform cross-sectioning; including a microscope and camera set-up (state of the art in 1980 was a Polaroid attachment for the microscope). I kept the microscope in my front office so that it was out of the corrosive plating atmosphere.

            I was given a part of the shipping dock that had been a plating room when the company was called Poncher Industries. All the plating tanks, anodes, rectifiers, racks, and other equipment I re-purchased in 1980 had been sold off in 1974, when Accutronics decided they didn’t want to do plating.

            I was also given a small, 6x9 room to set up my lab in. I had a great time, scrounging tables, ¼” sheets of PVC plastic to use as countertops, and three different kinds of paneling to finish off my cubbyhole lab/office. I also built the wooden platform to hold the nine 25 gallon plating baths and did all the wiring (having maintenance take a look at my work, I didn’t want to electrocute myself).

            But the best part of this project was I was able to set up a stereo system to listen to tapes and music while I worked. I had a Sony Tuner/Amplifier that was basically 2 cubes, one with an FM tuner, one with an amplifier, with speakers built into each. Connect a tape deck, separate the speakers, and “voila” you had stereo.

            And “Walk Your Feet in the Sunshine” was #1 on my Hit Parade. Along with a cassette tape whose loss I still mourn (it jammed and wrapped itself around the capstan), a tape of the stereo simulcast on FM radio of Cat Stevens on “ABC In Concert”, from 1973. It was a 90 minute concert with Dr. John, and Linda Ronstadt as guests singing Cat’s songs (“Pop Star” and “Fill My Eyes”, respectively). He also performed the full, 20+ minute version, of “Foreigner Suite”, uninterrupted by commercials. I’ve been searching for a Tape or DVD online for a long time, must be tied up in some sort of rights issues?

            I’ve always been at my best (in my mind anyway) as a scrounger. I am able to jerry rig and work around most impediments, to my detriment, Lynn would say sometimes. (She’s experienced my attempts at plumbing)

            I still recall a weekend shift I worked one summer at Accutronics when I needed solder bars to run a machine and a pump to change out baths. And I had no access to either. The bars were locked in a front room that I didn’t have a key to and the pump was locked in the Maintenance shop in the basement there.

            I knew a key for the room where the solder bars were was in a locked desk. I climbed under the desk and found I could manipulate the locking mechanism so that I could open the drawer with the key and I used a pair of pliers to pull out staples that held the chicken wire that encased the Maintenance shop.

            I was able to access both, run production, and fix what I had undone so that nobody (especially the Maintenance guys) was the wiser. Until now.

            Maybe I missed my calling as a B & E guy.

40 – Lonely Boy – Andrew Gold – 1977

Lonely Boy - Andrew Gold

            I always liked this song, I identified with it because he describes a boy being born in 1951 and how a couple years later his “mother brought him a sister”. (I was born in 1954, my sister 3 years later) But I was not a lonely boy in any way I can recall. The one line that resonates is “When they said I was the only son, I thought I was the only one.”

            Andrew Gold was the son of Marni Nixon, who sang the vocals for several stars in the 50’s, Audrey Hepburn, in “My Fair Lady”, Natalie Wood in “West Side Story”, and Deborah Kerr in “The King and I”. He also played on many albums in the 70’s and produced one for Linda Ronstadt.

            I don’t recall being jealous of my sister as a toddler. For years I thought I remembered, at 3, when my mom went to the hospital to have my sister and I was left with my grandparents, but years later my mom said it was probably when she went to deliver my brother, Greg, who died of SIDS.

            I do remember that. I remember my grandfather coming to the apartment in a big blue Plymouth and everyone being sad. I called him (my baby brother) Gregory Pecker for some reason. I remember going out to Bluff City Cemetery and seeing my dad’s parent’s graves, with a simple “Kammrad” stone, but I’m not sure where the baby was buried. There was no headstone, and we almost never talked about “the baby” after that.

            I also vividly remember the nightmares I had in that apartment. They always took place in the bathroom (it had a tub with a window high up in the wall) and they always included a star-shaped thing appearing in that window. In them I would be frozen, I couldn’t scream or call out or do anything. I’m not sure what stars mean in dreams. (I guess that’s what Google’s for, no?)

            I remember nothing of the layout of the apartment, I think it was on the second floor, but I do recall a telephone pole in the backyard that had rungs driven into it about 4 feet off the ground (they were usually higher, so that a repair man needed a ladder to reach them) and I was obsessed with finding something to boost me that 2 feet or so, so that I could climb it (just like Dad! See #37).

            Several years later our landlord from that apartment was arrested with a couple other guys counterfeiting currency. They actually made an appearance in the Sunday Tribune’s funny papers, “Dick Tracy’s Crimestopper Tips”, because the only reason they got caught was that they threw out their rejects in the garbage and someone saw them and turned them in. (The Crimestopper tip was, “always look in the garbage at a suspect’s house” or something like that)          

            He was also indicted in connection with Silas Jayne’s plot to murder his brother George in 1970. (George was killed by a sniper as he played bridge in his house). His lawyer was also the lawyer for E. Howard Hunt of Watergate fame.

            I was 4 when we moved from that apartment to our house in Algonquin in 1959, and I entered kindergarten at Eastview Grade School (now owned by St. Margaret Mary and run as a Catholic Grade School) that Fall. The school is about five blocks from our house, but if you cut through someone’s yard, it was about two blocks. There was a small strip of trees that was on the edge of the property that over the last 50 years has grown into a forest that has deer living in it, my mom tells me.

            There was one particular house that we dared not cut through because the two brothers that lived there went to Lutheran grade school and they laid in wait for us public school kids to try to cut through, and then threw rocks at us and chased us away. One of the brothers became one of my best friends in junior high and high school; I drove him to high school each day in my mom’s Pontiac Catalina. If I woke up and didn’t see any lights on in his house I would call their phone number and hang up when they answered (waking them up, which I’m sure they appreciated) in those pre-caller ID days.