inappropriate song for a strange time

My immediate area, which is presently the hospital,  is in the middle of an unforecast thunderstorm. I don;'t think the weather service has even figured out it is happening. We don't have tons of thunderstorms here, so it's a bit exciting. I'm operating on battery,so my computer's not going to be blasted. I have no idea if the hospital needs to shut down its server at some point, but  that's not really my problem.

Anyway the video I posted, which is  "Song for a Winter's Night" by Gordon Lightfoot, poet laureate of Canada, seems inappropriate for the weather we're currently experiencing here, except that  i once attended a Lightfoot concert where he told the audience that the song -- with all its winter imagery -- was written in a Cleveland hotel during a thunderstorm.  If I seem to be age-inappropriately obsessed with the works of Gordon Lightfoot, I'm not. My dad knew Lightfoot's longtime lead guitarist (who passed away about a year ago) so anytime there was a concert anywhere near us, we usually went. Rest in peace, Terry, and everyone else, give the song a listen if you have a chance. It's quite pretty. Sarah MacLachlan and several others also covered it, but it was and always will be Lightfoot's song.
My Dad's late friend Terry is playing lead guitar on this version.

It's good that I have all my class work finished, as I would have an extremely hard time concentrating on it now. I have a one more test this week and three next week. The late midterms are things I could manage if I were the one sick and not my aunt. I'll need my full cognitive function for finals, but those are almost three weeks away. My aunt will probably be running and playing tennis by then, or at least taking her dog for short walks.

I'm at the hospital visiting my aunt. "Visiting" is probably a misnomer. I'm watching her sleep and occasionally open her eyes and try to say something, which is not easy with all the tubes she has connected to her. This falls under the heading of "too much information," but one tube she does not have is a bladder catheter because they're breeding grounds for pseudomonas aeruginosa, and the last thing in the world she needs is one more way for that pathogen to invade her body. Once she regained consciousness, she demanded her regular undies back in place of the pull-ups she was wearing. (They were actual Pull-ups brand; the largest kiddie size fits her right now.) Bedpans were too gross for her as well. Even though she's not strong enough to to hold her own glass of orange juice, she demands to be helped to the bathroom because the remaining options gross her out too much. My dad says it's a sign that she's most likely going to live. Another sign that she'll ultimately defeat the evil pseudomonas aeruginosa, my dad said, is the expletives she utters despite her multiple tubes each time her pleural cavity is drained.

I'm too much of a coward to be out in the middle of a thunderstorm,  creating a photograhic history of the event. This is a generic photo I found somewhere. It basically captures the essence of what's happening here without my traipsing out in the middle of lightning like the complete fool that I usually am, which is how I justify its inclusion.

Whatever you think of me, I'm still your friend, with or without a tattoo.

Risking the wrath of Uncle Scott, Jared sent me another video, along with a message that he had a tattoo bearing my name applied to his upper arm. He's probably the first person in his family on either side of a long line of Mormons who date all the way back to the days of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young to have gotten a tattoo. The significance of the tattoo is that now Jared cannot go on a mission. LDS missionaries, at least in the US culture, do not sport tattoos. It's conceivable that at some later date the tattoo could be removed, and Jared could repent and still serve his mission. It won't happen anytime soon, though, and probably won't happen at all.

Gossip travels fast in Mormon student congregations even at UCLA. Jared's bishop got wind of the tattoo, called Jared in to see it for himself, and promptly called Jared's father, telling him the mission is a no go. (This is one of my major issues with the LDS church. Jared, at  eighteen, is a legal adult.  Why did an ecclesiastical authority feel the need to inform Jared's father of his son's most egregious sin,  which isn't a violation of any state or local law -- only a Mormon law. For that matter,  it's a damned tenuous "Mormon law" he broke. Some random "prophet" has a "revelation" that tattoos are bad, and BOOM! It's a commandment! Jared didn't break any of the ten commandments except possibly #5, "Honor thy parents," and that one was broken only in the vaguest sense. At some point a young man's body ceases to be the property of his parents, and if he chooses a piercing or a tattoo, it's not dishonoring one's parent; it's self expression. Does a parent have a son (sorry to be crude) by the testicles until the day either the parent or child dies by hanging the threat of the fifth commandment and the consequences of its violation over the son's head for as long as the parent can speak? In a civilized society, I would certainly hope not.  

By now the bird poop has hit the fan.  Jared's father wanted him to come home tonight. Jared refused to go, as he has classes for the rest of the week, and he didn't feel like fighting traffic along US 101 just to be screamed at in person, then to have to fight traffic back down US 101 to get back to campus. It seemed like a waste of both time and gasoline.

I'm sending along the video Jared sent me. It's of a Gordon Lightfoot song about a guy who had too much to drink, then went into a tattoo parlour and had a woman's name tattooed somewhere on his body. The melody to me doesn't fit the subject matter of the song. It sounds more like a tune for a song about the Duchess of Wales' new baby, or maybe about Jesus feeding the mutitudes with five loaves of bread and two fish. The melody is just too dolce to be about a tattoo. Regardless, it's Gordon Lightfoot's song, and I supose he can write it about anything he wants. At least it's not about a shipwreck in which twenty-nine people lost their lives.

So it appears Jared has made his decision, and in a unique way, I might add. I applaud his creativity as I applaud his courage in doing what he feels is best for his own life despite considerable pressure to do otherwise.  My only regret in the entire matter is, first, that he felt that a tattoo was his only way out of serving a mission, and second, that it is my name tattooed on his arm. Only God knows, if even He knows, where Jared  and I will be relationship-wise in ten years.

I hope Jared's father considers one point. What if it hadn't occurred to Jared to get a tattoo to avoid serving a mission? What if Jared had taken a more drastic step?  Jared would not have been the first young LDS man to take his own life to avoid serving a mission, or to do the same because he couldn't cope with the craziness once he found himself in the mission environment.  Jared's father should be thanking the God he worships that he still has a living, breathing son, even if that son does have the name "Alexis" emblazoned across his right bicep.

      

Perverts, Yellow Ribbons, and Massacre of the English Language: Truly Abominable Songs That I HATE

Dave Barry once wrote a book about songs he strongly disliked called Dave Barry's Book of Bad Songs, or something very similar. He solicited the opinions of readers, which he used along with his own personal takes on various works of music. He employed certain criteria, most of which I don't remember. One criterion I do recall is that the song had to have attained at least a modicum of popularity or radio play time for consideration. Another was that the song could not have been presumably written as a joke. For example, at some point in the late sixties or early seventies, a song entitled "Muh Nuh Muh Nuh" actually received airtime and possibly even achieved top forties status, yet was not considered among Barry's "bad songs" because it must have been intended as a joke of some sort, albeit not a very funny one, except to the composer and recording artists, who laughed their way to the bank.

Barry had e few memorable takes on the songs he discussed. I remember Dan Hill's recording of "Sometimes When We Touch" described as sounding as though it was sung by someone as he was receiving a prostate exam from Captain Hook. barry also took shots at songs I actually like, such as "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitgerald." I can't remember exactly what offended him about that particular song; it may have been the line "As big freighters go, it was bigger than most, with a crew and a captain well-seasoned." I'll concede that the line wasn't one of Lightfoot's most profound. The man has a catalogue of thousands of works, with some truly poetic language ["Triangle, triangle, oh see my ship dangle" happens to be one of my personal favorites, but there are great lines from scads of Lightfoot's songs from which to choose.] In any event, I feel that Barry found one mediocre line out of a very long ballad and declared a better-than-average song bad based solely on that one line. In any event, it's OK. Dave Barry certainly doesn't need to seek my permission before criticizing a song. Besides, I don't think I was even born when he wrote his book.

I have neither the knowledge nor the stature among literari or in life in general to compose such a book of my own. Nothing, however, stops me from writing a blog on the topic of songs I hate with every bit as much intensity as I hate child pornography.

Song Number five on my list would never have made it on Barry's list because Dave Barry only used pop songs. This one's a hymn, and an obscure one at that. It's called "Truth Reflects Upon Our Senses." It's uniquely Mormon in origin and use, and is so bad that many Mormons don't even know it exists. My grandfather, however, LOVES the song, and sings it to the family at every family gathering. You'll probably never hear this song, and so you'll have to take my word for it that even if you love hymns, this is one you would NOT love, and if you hate hymns, hearing this one could cause you to want to drive nails through your own eardrums.

Song number four on my list is sort of the "song to hate" du jour. "Friday," by Rebecca Black, is particularly unpopular among people my age, as well as those older and younger. The lyrics sound like a poetry assignment scratched out in a hallway thirty seconds before the tardy bell by a seventh-grader who was a C-student at best. The melody sounds like a Music Composition I assignment attempted by a student randomly plucked from the home economics department.


Song number three is not exactly a hymn; it's a church song for Mormon children. It's not actually in any church songbook as far as I know, but it was written by an LDS composer. The title alone is insulting to the intelligence of the profoundly retarded. It's occasionally sung by Mormon children for special performances, and refusing to sing it once caused me to be taken out of a church building and beaten by an evil aunt. The song is called, "I Did and I Does and I Do." Need I say more?

Song number two, sung by Roberta Flack and written by I have no idea who, is "Killing Me Softly With His Song." If he's really killing her with his song, why doesn't she just die and get it over with? Leave the rest of us out of the process, please. It's like a person who commits suicide but isn't content merely to kill himself or herself, but must take an entire busload of people along with him or her. My mother knows how much I hate this song. She insists that she will sing it at my wedding. I've told her it's in no way appropriate to be sung at anyone's wedding. Some songs, such as "If You're Happy and You Know It, Clap Your Hands," are not wedding songs. "Killing Me Softly With His Song" falls into that category, in addition to being a really grating song. I've told my mom that the moment she stands up and sings one note or word of that song at my wedding, I will grab my groom by the collar and drag him down the aisle, and we'll complete our nuptials at an undisclosed location. I hope she knows I MEAN it.

Song number One is from the seventies. "Tie a Yellow Ribbon 'Round the Old Oak Tree" is the title, and I'd hate to have lived through its prime. Just hearing it on oldies stations when my parents force them on me in the car is enough to cause me to beg for anti-nausea medication. The melody alone is vexing beyond belief. Once when my Bluebirds group went to visit a Senior Citizens' Center, some old geezer was playing it on an organ there, and it was all I could do even at the age of six to keep from running out of the building to avoid hearing more of that awful melody, and that was without the words. Add the words, and it would have caused Ghandi to advocate nuclear war. The song is about a guy who was in prison. He didn't know whether the woman he loved before he did his time in the pokey wanted him back after his release. The signal she was to leave as to whether she still desired his services was a yellow ribbon, which was to be tied around "the old oak tree." Wherever the hell that was, it must have been somewhere right along the bus route, because the ex-con asked the bus driver to look for the yellow ribbon because he (the ex-con) could not bear to look for himself. Of course the yellow ribbon was there; in fact, not just one ribbon, but a hundred yellow ribbons were tied around the freaking tree. You know how it went, I'm sure, with whole damn bus cheering and all. We'll leave the analysis of the melody to some musicologist, who, I'm fairly certain would rip it to shreds, while we merely analyze the plot. Obviously some form of mail existed, because the ex-con wrote his woman to tell her how to indicate her desire. Why couldn't the woman just write him back and tell him "Yes, I can't wait to be in your arms again," or "I don't ever want to see your perverted face again, you sucking wad of stachbotrys mold!"? (The song never revealed why the guy was incarcerated, but I've always assumed it must have been a sex crime of some sort.) Any average freshman English student could tell you in analysis of the plot that there should have been clues somewhere along the way. Did the woman ever visit the guy in prison? Did she scrawl "Return to Sender" on every piece of mail he sent to her and have them delivered back to him, or did she respond with her own letters of endearment? If an eight-grader submitted this plot in story form, depending upon the mechanics of the writing, either a "D" or and "F" would be boldly written in red at the top of the paper. It's almost as trite as the classic, "And I woke up and it was all just a dream" ending, which hardly any teacher past first grade accepts.

If I thought about it for longer, I'm sure I'd come up with more truly abhorrent songs, but I've probably already caused nightmares just with what I've writen. Feel free to share your own list of truly abominable songs in the "comments" section.