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Pop Rock Nation

Author: Jenny

  • Playing SongPop against random Germans…

    Playing SongPop against random Germans…

    Ever since our move back to Germany, I’ve taken to playing SongPop against random Germans I don’t know…

    A couple of years ago, there was a hot new game on Facebook called Song Pop. Since I am a “music nerd”, I took to that game with a vengeance. In fact, I was such an enthusiastic player that I caught the attention of George Bounacos, owner of Pop Rock Nation. He realized I knew a lot about popular music and asked me to contribute to this blog. For awhile, George and I squared off regularly, wasting lots of time on the fast paced music identification game.


    A demonstration of SongPop on YouTube.

    Since 2012, most of my American Facebook friends have abandoned SongPop. I only have one actual Facebook friend who still plays regularly. Truth be told, I had kind of slacked off on the game myself, like I inevitably do with most games on Facebook. But then in August of this year, I found myself stuck in hotels and a temporary apartment, with not enough things to do to occupy my time. I picked up SongPop again, but I started issuing challenges to suggested opponents. Since I am now in Germany, my opponents, I presume, are all Deutschers!

    It’s been interesting playing SongPop with these folks. For one thing, they are all uniformly really good at the game. It’s a challenge to beat them. In fact, one guy I’ve been playing goes by the name of Yotam. He lives in Berlin and regularly whips my ass at Song Pop. I have found only a few genres he doesn’t know well and he has found many more with which I am unfamiliar. He seems to really like dance music and I picture him as at least ten years younger than I am and big on the club scene. Given the nature of Song Pop and the fact that you only hear a few seconds of each song, it’s hard for me to get much better at the Trance, Electronic, and Hip Hop categories he seems to favor. On the other hand, I can’t deny that I have been exposed to some interesting new sounds. I will have to do some exploring soon.

    There’s another guy named Thorsten I’ve been playing who lives in Vaihingen Enz, which I don’t think is that far from where I live now. He likes industrial music and 70s era punk. He’s not as hard to beat as Yotam is, but he is definitely a respectable Song Pop opponent. I feel good when I achieve a victory over Thorsten. So far, those two have stuck with me the longest.

    For awhile, I was also playing “Adriane”, who knew her stuff when it came to modern country music. I’m not sure if she’s German or not, but based on some of the games we played, I suspect she is. And she was also challenging me to genres I have no clue about like Brazilian pop divas! But then, I am guilty of such gamesmanship, too. I’ve been known to challenge people with Christian rock, national anthems, and opera. I’m usually pleasantly surprised when it turns out they know about those categories!

    I don’t know if Germans are uniformly tougher opponents in SongPop than Americans are, but I do know that the ones I’ve been playing have been as good or better than I am at the game. And I think, too, that the categories SongPop players choose say a lot about the type of people they are. If I were still academically inclined, I might even do a formal study on it. But as it is now, SongPop remains a fun way to pass all the free time I have.

  • Sometimes songs say things better…

    Sometimes songs say things better…

    Sometimes when you have something important to say, songs say things better…

    I was going to post about a much lighter subject this morning, but I have something on my mind today. And as I’ve been sitting here reflecting on that which is on my mind, it occurred to me that sometimes song lyrics get the point across better than my prose ever could. This morning, I’m thinking about the death of a friendship. I had kind of hoped it was mostly buried, but it was unintentionally exhumed last night by someone who has known me since I was about eight years old.

    I got an email last night from a woman who used to keep me occupied in church. She is now in her 80s, but she and I have a very long history. Because my dad was in the choir, my mom was usually the organist at either our church or another one, and my sisters are much older and were either out of the house or no longer required to go to church, as an eight year old, I was expected to sit by myself every Sunday. This church lady was in a similar predicament. Her husband was in the choir and her kids were all grown. So she used to sit next to me every Sunday and entertain me with candy, Tic Tac Toe, and coloring books. She sat next to me until I quit attending church as a teenager. She was at my wedding and still keeps in contact with my family, even though my family hasn’t attended that church in some time.

    Now, because the church lady knew me when I was a child, she also knew some of my friends. One friend in particular used to spend a lot of time with me when we were growing up. But as the years have passed, we’ve grown apart and, in fact, I feel quite a lot of animosity toward this ex friend of mine. I’m at the point at which I’d like to try to forget about her. It’s not so easy to do that, though, because my former friend still lives in my hometown and now attends the church I was raised in. The church lady also still goes to that church. Last night, she sent me an email about my former friend. To be honest, I was pretty annoyed to get the unwanted update about someone I’d like to stop thinking about.

    However, this morning, in thinking about my reaction to that email and the friendship I no longer have, I was reminded of an old Supertramp song. It’s particularly fitting that this song would pop into my head, since my ex friend and I shared a mutual affection for Supertramp and, in particular, their 1979 album, Breakfast in America. My friend was partial to “The Logical Song” and used to sing it all the time.


    “The Logical Song” is indeed very clever and timeless…

    We both liked “Take The Long Way Home”…


    Apologies for this version of “Take The Long Way Home”. YouTube is not long on videos by Supertramp.

    Many years later, I bought the album, Breakfast in America. I loved it and played it all the time. It wasn’t until years later that I really listened and paid attention to the lyrics of most of the songs on that album and realized just how cynical and negative they were. I did some research and learned that Rick Davies and Roger Hodgson, the two leaders of Supertramp, were not getting along when they made that album. It was their sixth album and was a huge success. And there are some truly great songs on it. But if you listen to the words and not just the music, you’ll hear that though Hodgson and Davies made great music together, they weren’t really on the same page. In fact, some songs reveal frank animosity between Davies and Hodgson. One song in particular that always stood out to me is “Goodbye Stranger”. It’s a song about about the dissolution of a partnership/friendship. Or, at least that’s what it sounds like to me.


    This song was on my mind this morning. It’s a song about two people going in different directions. Again, it would have been to find a studio version of this, if only because Davies fails when he whistles.

    “Goodbye Stranger” pretty much sums up how I feel about this person who shared so much of my life with me. We don’t know each other anymore and we’re going in different directions. If you read the lyrics, they are about a guy who decides it’s time to move on. It’s not necessarily about leaving a romantic partner, though it probably could be. I think “Goodbye Stranger” is more about two professionals parting ways, but the words of this song really convey the impersonal sentiments of two people who share nothing anymore. And that song, with its bitter lyrics, says more about how I feel about my dissolved friendship better than I ever could.

    I hope everyone has a great weekend.

    Click here to read the lyrics to “Goodbye Stranger”…

  • Beep beep!

    Beep beep!

    Our cars are finally here! Beep beep! Time for a few automotive tunes!

    We shipped our two cars from Texas to Germany in late July. It’s now September 23 and supposedly our cars are finally ready for us to collect them. In retrospect, we probably should have just driven up to Bremerhaven in northern Germany and picked them up. We would have had them a lot sooner. But that would have involved about six hours on a train or flying somewhere and finding our way to the port. Our dogs would have had to go into a kennel. We opted to have them shipped to southern Germany and now they’re finally here.

    Since we have maybe another week or two of weather that might be agreeable to driving with the top down, I decided today’s post would be about cars and the many songs that have been written about them. I don’t mean driving music… I’ve already done a post or two about that. This is a post celebrating cars and how glad I am that we’re finally getting ours. I just hope that I don’t have an accident trying to drive again after two months.


    Believe it or not, it was Martha Stewart who introduced me to the great singer-songwriter David Wilcox, who contributes a great guitar laced number, “Rusty Old American Dream”. This is a great song about a classic car waiting for the right last owner.

    Some years ago, I bought a CD of songs compiled by someone in Martha Stewart’s company. It was full of adult friendly songs that are gentle enough to soothe babies to sleep. One of the songs on the compilation was by David Wilcox. I liked it so much that I bought one of his live CDs and “Rusty Old American Dream” was on it. Neither of our cars are American and I doubt either is made of much chrome. But we’re glad to have them back, anyway, as long as neither was damaged in transit.


    Gary Numan joins Nine Inch Nails at a concert in London singing his classic hit, “Cars”.

    This song from the late 70s always reminds me of roller skating or watching shitty movies on HBO. But given that the song is called “Cars”, I think it belongs in this post. Besides, how cool is it that Gary Numan is doing this song live with Nine Inch Nails? This is a pretty great live clip. Sometimes YouTube makes me so happy!


    Paul McCartney sings a classic Beatles hit, “Drive My Car”.

    Actually, I think the greatest version of “Drive My Car” I ever heard, aside from the original, was done by Melissa Etheridge. And here I’ve found a video of a bunch of stars singing “Drive My Car” and Melissa Etheridge is among them, belting out the chorus…


    This video is fun, though a little odd…

    Speaking of Melissa Etheridge…


    “Baby, You Can Sleep While I Drive” is quite sexy. I like Melissa’s original and Trisha Yearwood’s cover, too.

    And finally, there’s the very annoying yet whimsical 50s era song, “Beep Beep” by The Playmates.


    Does anyone drive a Nash anymore?

    Today, as we collect our vehicles, I imagine we’ll be dealing with Germans beeping at us. I look forward to taking my Mini Cooper, which I bought here in Germany five years ago, on the autobahn with the top down… the car’s, not mine. Have a great Tuesday!