It's time once more for Mama Kat's Wednesday Writer's Challenge (which shows up on Thursday). This week the prompts are:
1.) What was the first CD (or record or cassette) you ever purchased? Write about the way that particular album made you feel then. Write about how it makes you feel now. writersdigest.com
2.) You were recently laid off. Instead of moping around, you've viewed it as a chance to start fresh. Pick a new career and write about your first day on the job. writersdigest.com
3.) List your five most recent favorite things.I choose to write about #1.
4.) I'm hungry. Share your very favorite recipe!!
The very first vinyl (yes vinyl) record I ever bought, excluding the selected Donald Duck records I had as a little kid, was The Cowsils' "Indian Lake" single. This record, aka "Indian Lake"/"Newspaper Blanket" (MGM 13944, 1968), made it up the charts to US #10. As a further hint, 1968 is near the end of my junior high school career.
That album, with the rather simple thrumming bass line and the plaintive lyrics greatly appealed to my younger self. In the midst of the pubescent angst and other agonies of my life the time, it served as an oasis on the edge of the harder rock that I would discover in a year or so. A few years later I was reminded of this song by Mungo Jerry's "In the Summer Time" as bubble gum headed toward funkifacation.
I find that the music continues to speak to me even now. In spite of the fact that it is a forerunner of bubble gum pop, I like it. It gets crammed in there between the earlier Iron Butterfly "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" and the later Led Zeppelin "Stairway to Heaven" in my set of musical road markers of the journey that is my life. In fact, way back in October, I waxed rhapsodic about "Indian Lake" and some of the impact it had on me. Click here for the highlights.
Strange how an acid rock afficianado like me could like a bubble gum song like "Indian Lake", but there you have it. Just no explanation for good taste. {*grin*}
That's the prompt I'm thinking about writing :) Indian Lake is awesome. My first vinyl single was Strawberry Fields Forever :-D
ReplyDeleteMust confess I've never heard of this song ... but good for you for "owning" it. I know it must have taken a lot for you to admit this in a public forum like this. HAHA!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed how you wrote about it especially ... "it served as an oasis on the edge of the harder rock that I would discover in a year or so."
And I did not choose this prompt because I didn't want to admit to the shame of having my first record be Donna Summer's "Hot Stuff." There, I said it. Now please delete this comment after you've read it so there is no public record of this.
Ok. So who would you replace George Clooney with? I like your list, I especially like how your words flow together. You have such a way with words. Sounds corny but you know how badly I write. You did visit my blog.
ReplyDeleteI can't remember my first album purchase. I have 3 posts on my blog called "Tone Deaf" ---which sort of explains my relative disinterest in music. But despite the disinterest, there are songs, that when I hear them, I can picture where I was the first time they reached my ears. Despite being older than you (I was in college when you were completing Jr. Hi) I don't remember this one, but I do remember some of the others you mentioned.
ReplyDeleteFunkification? You are too hip for me!
ReplyDeleteBut just so you know... I had vinyls too! Though I missed the 8 track days.
I just looked up this on YouTube... What a glorious song! I miss the days that pop music wasn't just all about "relations" and substances.
ReplyDeleteBut what a great place to start your musical journey... But having said that, being younger, most things from the 60s sounds better than the options of today!
You missed Joey Lawrence and I COMPLETELY missed the Cowsils. Maybe I'll have to check them out?
ReplyDeleteI first bought Tigra and Bunny. And I'd try to learn all the words so I could rap the entire album. Yes, I rapped. I'm not a rapper.
ReplyDeleteTo each their own, huh?
I had to look this one up on YouTube, since I'd never heard of it. I love it!
ReplyDelete(PS: I also looked up your oven post. It was TERRIFYING! As if I don't have enough phobias on my own! Haha.)
I'll have to check this out. I'm over all the lovey dovey pop music
ReplyDeleteThis is way before my time.. I am a youngin' I guess. Except Stair to Heaven.. pure classics.
ReplyDeleteCan't fool me. I know a hip hop pop wannabe when I see one...or...read one.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to listen to that one because I've never heard of it. The only one I recognize is of course, Stairway to Heaven. Everybody knows that one, right?
ReplyDelete