web analytics

Pop Rock Nation

Tag: ABBA

  • My dad’s music…

    My dad’s music…

    Today’s post is about my dad’s music… because his music influenced my music…

    Last week, I wrote about how I was in the market for funeral songs. At that time, my dad was on his death bed. He has since died and I’m left remembering him. The full impact of grief has not yet hit me. Intellectually, I know he’s gone and not coming back and yet I just saw him eight days ago. I haven’t had time to miss him yet, I guess. As I wrote in my last post, my dad was very much a music lover and he passed a lot of his passion on to me. We did not share the same musical tastes once I got old enough to determine what I liked and what I didn’t like. I do remember listening to some of his music in the car when I was very young.

    My dad introduced me to the fluffy sweetness of Olivia Newton-John’s voice. He used to play her cassettes in the car and for some reason, I just adored her. She was pretty and had a great style, or so five year old me thought, anyway. In those days, Olivia was a country star.


    I remember this song from Olivia Newton-John’s 1974 album, If You Love Me Let Me Know.

    About a year ago, I went looking for Olivia’s deep cut “Mary Skeffington” and learned that it was also sung by Gerry Rafferty. As I listened to Gerry’s version, I ran into a British musician on YouTube who covered it. We’ve sort of become correspondents since then. I listen to his music and he listens to mine. And all because my dad exposed me to Olivia Newton-John back in the day.


    I need to listen to more Gerry Rafferty… He’s done more than “Baker Street” and “Right Down The Line”.

    The Carpenters were another musical act I shared with my dad. He loved Karen Carpenter’s clear vocals and Richard Carpenter’s virtuoso piano playing. I didn’t appreciate The Carpenters until I was a lot older. But my dad owned a couple of their albums and he’d play them on road trips.


    “Sometimes” was written by Henry Mancini, Felice Mancini, and Bob Seger. The words came from a letter written to Henry Mancini by his daughter.

    The song “Sometimes” seems very poignant to me right now. It’s about the importance of remembering loved ones while you still can and appreciating them for who they are.


    “You” was another great sleeper hit on The Carpenters’ 1976 album, A Kind of Hush.

    A lot of The Carpenters’ hits were kind of saccharine and overwrought. And yet, there was no denying their talent. My dad was a big fan and he passed his appreciation on to me, even as I can see why some people thought they were a bit too square to be hip.

    My dad liked Jim Croce. He had a couple of Croce’s albums on 8-track that he’d play sometimes. While I never got as much into Croce as my dad did, I did find a few of his songs very beautiful.


    One of my favorite Jim Croce songs is “I Got A Name”. There is something majestic and strong about this song that moves me every time.


    This song always makes me laugh. I have a friend who changed the lyrics to something naughty and I think of the revised lyrics every time I hear this.

    And… very strangely, my dad was also an ABBA fan. Well, he owned one of their albums, anyway. I don’t think he bought more than one. I guess he liked their sound, though he was not one to listen to music you could boogie to. The album my dad owned was their 1979 release, Voulez-Vous, which seems especially funny, since that album was known as their “disco” album. I used to listen to it all the time.


    “As Good As New” was one of my favorite songs on Voulez-Vous. The lyrics were a little lame, but I loved the funky melody. I think my dad was more partial to songs like “I Have A Dream”.


    Ahh… how inspiring!


    “Kisses of Fire” was another favorite of mine, but it probably made my dad nervous. Most music with a strong beat did.

    There were other albums, of course. I used to raid my parents’ music all the time. I liked listening to their copy of Herb Alpert’s Whipped Cream and Other Delights. I was also enchanted by the album cover, which featured a beautiful woman covered in what appeared to be whipped cream. I hope it was shaving cream, otherwise it would not be very pleasant for long…


    “A Taste of Honey” was a favorite…

    As I remember my dad, I realize that he had a lot to do with my love of music. I didn’t always like what he liked, but I liked enough of it. I hope wherever he is now, he’s got all the tunes he could ever wish for… and his voice back strong and clear.

  • Happy New Year!

    As 2013 draws to a close, here’s hoping we’ll all have a Happy New Year!

    I hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season thus far. I had a relatively nice Christmas, except my husband gifted me with a particularly nasty bout of swine flu and I spent four days in bed. I feel mostly better now, except for a hacking cough, sore nose (from all the running), slight hoarseness, and lingering fatigue. I managed to get dressed yesterday, but I have a feeling I will stay in my nightie today. It’s dark, chilly, and cloudy outside and I might still be persuaded to curl up in bed with a good book and maybe some new tunes.

    2013 has been a fairly decent year, I guess. I remember finding out just days into the 2013 that my husband and I would be packing up and leaving North Carolina and moving to Texas, which has been a whole new world for me. In 2014, my husband will leave the Army and we’ll be in transition yet again. We don’t have any big trips planned… at least not officially. On January 10th, we do plan a “military hop”, which will probably land us in Europe somewhere for a week or two. But then we’ll come back and start wrapping up our active duty Army business. It’ll be time to embrace the civilian life and decide if we want to buy a house in Texas and put down roots. To tell you the truth, I’m not quite sold on Texas yet. I don’t hate it, but I’m not quite used to it yet.

    I suppose I could do a “best of” 2013 list today, except my mind is so fogged with flu meds that my mind is a bit of a blank. One song that I do usually play on New Year’s Eve is an old one by ABBA…


    “Happy New Year” by ABBA was a deep cut on their Super Trouper album in 1979…

    I will never forget the first time I ever heard this song. I was living in Yerevan, Armenia, serving with the Peace Corps. I often listened to the radio when I was at home in my apartment and there was a station from Moscow called Nostalgie. The Russian station would play all kinds of obscure songs in English from the 70s and 80s. Of course, being a 70s and 80s music nerd, this was a great thing for me. I could even overlook the station’s annoying overuse of sound effects and the fact that I don’t speak or understand Russian.

    One day, “Happy New Year” started playing. I listened to it and enjoyed it, even though it was nowhere near New Year’s Eve on the calendar. The song was kind of poignant, with a sweet melody and earnest singing from Agnetha Faltskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad. I got a kick out of the fact that the song mentioned 1989 in the future, when I was listening to it in the 90s. Of course, now that 1989 was about 25 years ago, it’s even funnier to listen to ABBA’s “Happy New Year”. But then I realize how many years have passed and how I somehow went from being young to middle-aged.

    Another song I often play for New Year’s is “New Year’s Day” by U2.


    U2’s “New Year’s Day”…

    U2’s political anthem about the Polish Solidarity Movement was released about 31 years ago, which makes me feel even older. Nevertheless, even though the song isn’t so much about New Year’s as it is politics, I am always reminded of it as one year fades into the next. That song also reminds me of high school, mainly because U2 was all the rage when I was a teenager. And it still doesn’t seem like that was so long ago, even though it really was.

    As usual, Bill and I don’t have New Year’s Eve plans. We gave some thought to going out, but that was before we were struck down by the flu. And though we are both now feeling much better, it’s just as easy to stay home, drink bubbly in our jammies, and listen to music as we talk to each other. 2014 is going to be a big year, I think. I hope everyone enjoys this last day of 2013 and rings in the new year with joy and the expectation of something good to come.

    Happy New Year!

  • MisenPOPic: The Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame Is A Fuckin’ Joke!

    Every year around this time, the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame nominating committee submits their list of finalists of which five artists will be selected for future induction.  I always get excited each time but then always forget that the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame is a fuckin’ joke.  Instead of inducting bands that have truly made an impact on popular music, what seems to happen is that Jann Wenner and his cronies go with the bands on their personal favorites list.  If they don’t like the artist,  accomplishments like album sales and influences on other artists still won’t matter.  Jann Wenner is such an egotistical bastard that he even inducted himself into the Hall Of Fame.  I won’t discredit his contributions as founder and editor of Rolling Stone, but shouldn’t he be inducted when he’s bit older, or maybe when he’s dead?  I understand that listening to music is very subjective, and we all love to argue about who’s deserving to be in the hall of fame as much as we do about best songs of a decade, or greatest guitarist, etc.  But of any shrine to an art form or sport, the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame has totally missed the boat.  I respect the following artists, but of any bands in the Hall Of Fame, they are the best examples of musicians whose overall impact is questionable: Traffic, Frank Zappa, Buffalo Springfield, Sex Pistols, and The Talking Heads.   Traffic introduced the world to Steve Winwood, but have they really ever produced a meaningful song?  Frank Zappa might have been innovative, but for a guy whose best known song is Valley Girl, does he really deserve to be in the hall?  Buffalo Springfield only had one album with Stephen Stills and Neil Young and have only one relevant song (For What It’s Worth)!  The Sex Pistols are also known for one album, and it’s a fact that Sid Vicious wasn’t even good enough to play bass, so he performed without his guitar even plugged in.  I personally like the Talking Heads, but they are more known for their unique videos on MTV than their actual music. Only the creme de la creme should be in the Hall Of Fame: those that no sane person could argue such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and Michael Jackson.

    (more…)