Music has such a broad sphere of influence. I calm's, it excites, and importantly it is a means of speaking truth to the world, and avoid law suits, maybe not threat's. My two song selection's for today are John Lennon song's, and oh yea, he was assassinated for his views. The song's are The Luck of the Irish, and Woman is the Nigger of the World. I personally preferred George to John as both Beatle and solo works. For me, George's guitar, and the songs he wrote, were the favorites during their heyday. I've written before, that starting at the age of 8, I listened to Allen Watt's every Sunday, after Sunday school. When George chose to follow the Hindu path, and sing for more spiritual reason's, he still shared more of his own personal thought's, whereas John shared his music and thought's to speak his views to the world. Ringo, pretty much went into kid's TV music, and I have the least respect, by far for Sir Paul.
In three day's I will completely move out of my sister's home, it goes up for sale in 5 day's. I'm going to make it, but it has been an 11 month marathon. As a result, my preparation for my daily blog's has been limited, So, to quote Porky Pig, T,t,t,t,,,,tha's all folks. Back tomorrow with inspirational Tuesday's.
Well, I guess, tha, tha, that's not all folks. Sometime's I even surprise my self with how lame and stupid/forgetful I can be. I had never played these song's until this morning. One is as simple as it comes, the other has all sort's of, for me, weird chords, that don't even fit the melody line. About two years ago, I had decided I wanted to put together four different band's, one of them to be called "the decomposer's" with me and other's as they wish, transposing and re-arranging standards. So, I use an "Ultimate Guitar" sheet music app, and it has standard guitar fingering's, above the proper lyric and rhythm. So I tried moving the song up one key, nope, two full key's and Now we got a winner. All I have to do is mentally think two letter's of the alphabet, or four fret's and I can play along with the wrong chart's with the right new arrangement, At first it's rather slow, E to G, C#m7 to E#m7 and G to B; you get the picture. I started doing these decompositions when, on some gig, we played Moondance, A minor. Same key and Rhythm Van Morrison and Leroy Vinegar played when they recorded it. Same Key in Hawaii, Same Key in BeJing and Soporo, same key in Chile. And it always sounds the same. When you take it up by half's the song takes on an entirely different and acceptable sound. Moondance is in a sharp key arrangement, and if you go up, only a half, or one and a half note's you find your flat's. I have a stack of rearrangements at my fingertip's, and particularly like Southern Man, and Darkness Darkness where they landed.
So, my love and I were on the phone for some time yesterday, and it became clear that a Lennon theme was in order. I think these two song's arose during some of Lennon's most creative and critical lyrics. This is the Lennon, that became even more feared and despised, by the powerful on the right. A crazy son of one of the wealthy family's, associated with Ragan and Bush Sr. was who pulled the trigger in New York. I still remember that day and when I first heard the news of Lennon's death. It stunned me, and pretty much every professor and classmate at our medical school. It devastated my recently departed sister Virginia. She had already retreated and dropped out of most of society in 1980. She had held in there for years as a grass root's activist and advocate, but the sequential assassinations of JFK, RFK, Malcolm X, Che, and MLK had more than convinced her that if you really are about to make a change, you will be taken out. She continued to do advocacy work for senior and disabled care facility's until she and I became end of life caretakers for first dad, then a long, long time with mom. And I miss all three of them terribly, but am in no hurry to join them.
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