Music

Song Lyric Sunday — Dream Weaver

Fandango11 Comments

Helen Vahdati’s Song Lyric Sunday prompt this week is “dream.”

I listen to a lot of classic rock and just the other day I heard Gary Wright’s “Dream Weaver.” So it just seemed to fit perfectly for this prompt.

“Dream Weaver” was released as the first single from Wright’s third studio album, The Dream Weaver, in December 1975. The song reached number 2 on the U.S. Billboard chart.

Wright said the song was about a kind of fantasy experience, a Dream Weaver train taking you through the cosmos. But he also said that the line, “Dream Weaver, I believe you can get me through the night…,” was about someone with infinite compassion and love carrying us through the night of our trials and suffering. “None other than God Himself,” Wright said.

Personally, I always thought the song was about a guy who was on an acid trip and was just trying to make it through the night until the morning light.

Here are the song’s lyrics.

I have just closed my eyes again
Climbed aboard the Dream Weaver train
Driver take away my worries of today
And leave tomorrow behind

Dream Weaver, I believe you can get me through the night
Dream Weaver, I believe we can reach the morning light

Fly me high through the starry skies
Or maybe to an astral plane
Cross the highways of fantasy
Help me to forget today’s pain

Dream Weaver, I believe you can get me through the night
Dream Weaver, I believe we can reach the morning light

Though the dawn may be coming soon
There still may be some time
Fly me away to the bright side of the moon
And meet me on the other side

Dream Weaver, I believe you can get me through the night
Dream Weaver, I believe we can reach the morning light

Song Lyric Sunday — Time

Fandango9 Comments

Helen Vahdati’s Song Lyric Sunday prompt today is all about time. Her challenge is to write a song about seconds, minutes, and/or hours. But what are seconds, minutes, and hours other than markers of time?

And that brought me to the highly philosophical question that the band, Chicago, asked in their song, “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?”

This song was included on Chicago’s 1969 debut album Chicago Transit Authority, but it wasn’t released as a single until 1970, after the band’s second album, Chicago (often called Chicago II), was released. It was written and sung by Robert Lamm.

According to Lamm, he was a teenager walking down the street in Brooklyn, New York where he grew up. He walked by a movie theater and there was an usher standing outside taking a cigarette break. Lamm said to him, “Hey man, what time is it?” and the guy said to Lamm, “Does anybody really know what time it is?”

Here are the song’s lyrics.

As I was walking down the street one day
A man came up to me and asked me what the time was that was on my watch, yeah
And I said

Does anybody really know what time it is (I don’t)
Does anybody really care (care about time)
If so I can’t imagine why (no, no)
We’ve all got time enough to cry

And I was walking down the street one day
A pretty lady looked at me and said her diamond watch had stopped cold dead
And I said

Does anybody really know what time it is (I don’t)
Does anybody really care (care about time)
If so I can’t imagine why (no, no)
We’ve all got time enough to cry

And I was walking down the street one day (people runnin’ everywhere)
Being pushed and shoved by people (don’t know where to go)
Trying to beat the clock, oh, no I just don’t know (don’t know where I am)
I don’t know, I dont know, oh (don’t have time to think past the last mile)
(Have no time to look around) And I said, yes I said (run around and think why)

Does anybody really know what time it is (I don’t)
Does anybody really care (care about time)
If so I can’t imagine why (no, no)
We’ve all got time enough to die

Everybody’s working (I don’t care)
I don’t care (about time)
About time (no, no)
I don’t care

Song Lyric Sunday — Hotel California

Fandango15 Comments

For this week’s Song Lyric Sunday prompt from Helen Vahdati, she has asked us to post a song with a metaphor in the title or lyrics.

The song that came to mind for me is the classic Eagles song, “Hotel California.” That song is arguably the Eagles’ most iconic song. It was a Billboard chart-topper, selling more than 16 million copies in the U.S. alone and was on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for 19 weeks, peaking at No. 1. In 1978, the song won a Grammy award for Record of the Year.

Written by Don Felder, Glenn Frey, and Don Henley, “Hotel California” is a metaphor for materialism and excess. While California is used as the setting, it could relate to anywhere in America. Don Henley said the song is “about the dark underbelly of the American Dream, and about excess in America which was something we knew about.”

Another popular interpretation of the song is that it’s a metaphor for Hollywood. The Eagles compare the fickle, temporary, and false nature of all the glamor found in Hollywood to that of a short-stay in a hotel. No one knows how long they are going to be famous, so they have to make the most out of it.

Whatever it means, it’s a haunting, surreal song. And here are the lyrics.

On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair
Warm smell of colitas, rising up through the air
Up ahead in the distance, I saw a shimmering light
My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim
I had to stop for the night
There she stood in the doorway
I heard the mission bell
And I was thinking to myself
“This could be Heaven or this could be Hell”
Then she lit up a candle and she showed me the way
There were voices down the corridor
I thought I heard them say

Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place (Such a lovely place)
Such a lovely face
Plenty of room at the Hotel California
Any time of year (Any time of year)
You can find it here

Her mind is Tiffany-twisted, she got the Mercedes bends
She got a lot of pretty, pretty boys she calls friends
How they dance in the courtyard, sweet summer sweat
Some dance to remember, some dance to forget

So I called up the Captain
“Please bring me my wine.”
He said, “We haven’t had that spirit here since nineteen sixty nine.”
And still those voices are calling from far away
Wake you up in the middle of the night
Just to hear them say

Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place (Such a lovely place)
Such a lovely face
They livin’ it up at the Hotel California
What a nice surprise (what a nice surprise)
Bring your alibis

Mirrors on the ceiling
The pink champagne on ice
And she said “We are all just prisoners here, of our own device”
And in the master’s chambers
They gathered for the feast
They stab it with their steely knives
But they just can’t kill the beast

Last thing I remember
I was running for the door
I had to find the passage back to the place I was before
“Relax,” said the night man
“We are programmed to receive
You can check-out any time you like
But you can never leave!”

Song Lyric Sunday — Sara Smile

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This week’s Song Lyric Sunday prompt from Helen Vahdati focuses on the word “smile.” I’ve no doubt that I won’t be the only participant to choose the Hall & Oates classic, “Sara Smile” as my choice for this week.

“Sara Smile” was written by Daryl Hall and John Oates and was released in January 1976 as the second single from their album Daryl Hall & John Oates. The song was the group’s first Top 10 hit in the US, reaching number four on the Billboard Hot 100.

Daryl Hall wrote this for his collaborator and girlfriend, Sara Allen. They never got married, but Daryl and Sara were together for about 28 years before they broke up in 2001. Hall explained that the song was “a postcard to Sara Allen, who was my partner for many, many years, a ‘having a great time, wish you were here,’ kind of thing.” He added, “I cannot tell you how many girls have told me they were named for it!”

Here are the lyrics.

Baby hair with a woman’s eyes
I can feel you watching in the night
All alone with me and we’re waiting for the sunlight

When I feel cold, you warm me
And when I feel I can’t go on, you come and hold me
It’s you and me forever

Sara, smile
Oh, won’t you smile awhile for me, Sara?

If you feel like leaving you know you can go
But why don’t you stay until tomorrow?
And if you want to be free
You know all you got to do is say so

When you feel cold, I’ll warm you
And when you feel you can’t go on, I’ll come and hold you
It’s you and me forever

Sara, smile
Oh, won’t you smile awhile for me, Sara?
Sara, smile
Oh, won’t you smile awhile, Sara?

Smile
Oh, won’t you smile awhile for me, Sara?
Oh, smile awhile
Won’t you laugh, Sara?
Thank you for making me feel like a man
Keeping me crazy, crazy
Smile awhile

Song Lyric Sunday — Back Down or Let Go

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I knew, as soon as I saw that “let go” was the theme for this week’s Song Lyric Sunday prompt, that I wanted to use that Tom Petty song. You know, it goes, “I won’t let go, no I won’t let go.”

Except that’s not how it goes. The lyrics are, “I won’t back down, no I won’t back down.” Oh what the hell! “Let go” or “back down”? Same difference, right?

So I’m going with my first impulse and will be using Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down.”

Released in April 1989 on Petty’s first solo album, Full Moon Fever, “I Won’t Back Down” was written by Petty and Jeff Lynne, his writing partner for the album. It reached number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The song is simply about someone who is standing up and fighting for what he believes in and for what he wants, even if being criticized for it.

Petty played this song on September 21, 2001 as part of a telethon to benefit the victims of the terrorist attacks on America. As a result, it became thought of as a sort of patriotic anthem. Petty said that it was never his intention for the song to be considered a patriotic song, adding, “I just write them, I can’t control where it ends up.”

Here are the song’s lyrics.

Well, I won’t back down
No, I won’t back down
You can stand me up at the gates of hell
But I won’t back down

No, I’ll stand my ground
Won’t be turned around
And I’ll keep this world from draggin’ me down
Gonna stand my ground
And I won’t back down

(I won’t back down) Hey, baby
There ain’t no easy way out
(I won’t back down) Hey, I
Will stand my ground
And I won’t back down

Well, I know what’s right
I got just one life
In a world that keeps on pushin’ me around
But I’ll stand my ground
And I won’t back down

(I won’t back down) Hey, baby
There ain’t no easy way out
(I won’t back down) Hey, I
Will stand my ground
(I won’t back down) And I won’t back down

(I won’t back down) Hey, baby
There ain’t no easy way out
(I won’t back down) Hey, I
Won’t back down

(I won’t back down) Hey, baby
There ain’t no easy way out
(I won’t back down) Hey, I
Will stand my ground
(I won’t back down) And I won’t back down
(I won’t back down) No, I won’t back down