The Beatles

I've really not spoken about music though it is one of the greatest influences and loves of my life.  I have no musical talent at all so I can't play or sing and maybe that is why I love music so much.  And, the instruments and melody are fine but it is the words that speak to me.

I've been sitting here this evening going through The Beatles on You Tube.  I don't think anyone who is very much younger than I can conceive what a change the Beatles wrought on the world of popular American music.

They were the point company in the British Invasion of the 60's.  They played their own music but they also played a lot of black music.  Lots of the early rock & rollers played "black" music that would otherwise not have had air time on "white" radio.  So many of the groups in the late 50s and early 60s were heavily influenced by black rock and roll and black gospel.  Times were so bad then it took white groups covering songs black artists originated to get them played on the radio.  This is very much pre MTV.

When I was a  pre-teen I had a radio my brother bought for me and I'd carry it everywhere listening to the music.  When I was a teen I would lie in bed listening to the music.  Every week I'd buy a "Hit Parade" magazine and memorize the lyrics to every top 40 song. 

At the time I had no idea about what songs were by black groups and what songs were by white.  I always thought the group, "Chicago" was black and Doby Grey (RIP) was white and I was wrong in both cases.  But music in those ages taught me a lot of lessons.  I guess one never knows where the lessons are coming from and what will impact one in later years.

Like "Brother Louie"..

"She was black as the night,
Louie was whiter than white
There's a danger when you taste brown sugar
Louie fell in love overnight"

"Living in the Love of the Common People"

"Have You Seen Her"

So many, many others.  No real idea who was black or white, just what the music said to me.  The injustices, the stupidities, the way people acted that so contradicted their words.  Music has always been both a refuge and a revolution for me. 

I guess that is one reason instead of a conventional funeral when I die I want some very special songs played.  I imagine no one else will understand what they mean to me but that really does not matter.  Not as long as it makes someone think, makes some one wonder, makes one look inside and take the tinted glasses off and really sees what is there.

I wish I had the gift of music.  I'd love to be able to put down in words the things I've felt throughout my life and sing them "in tune".  People have told me I should write a book.  Perhaps that is true but the most of it would be considered porn in most states.    Once that might have been lucrative but now there is so much free stuff on the Internet no one bothers to read porn any more.  Just one more nail in our coffin of illiteracy.

Now it is time for me to try to get to sleep before my latest pain pills have worn off.  I just cannot imagine what it must have been like to have to go through this back in history before all of our pain concoctions were invented.  Vive la medicine.  :-)

There was one song recorded by TG Sheppard I think I have to put on my funeral play list. :-)

"I've known some painted ladies
who sparkled in the night,
Country girls who loved a lover's moon.
Some that I never knew
Even though I wanted to
Some I only met once in a room.
Some said they liked my style
Others of them stayed a while
Others left me on the run"

Music... It has to be the greatest gift one group of humans can pass on to another.