Thursday Inspiration

Thursday Inspiration — Summer Breeze

Fandango6 Comments

For this week’s Thursday Inspiration prompt, Jim Adams has instructed us to respond to this challenge by either by using the prompt word peace, or going with the above picture, or by means of the song ‘Summer Rain’, or by going with another song by Johnny Rivers, or anything else that you think fits. I decided to go with the song “Summer Breeze” from Seals & Crofts.

In the summer of 1969, Jim Seals and Dash Crofts released their first album as a duo. “Summer Breeze” was their first hit single, appearing on their fourth album in the fall of 1972. Their next single, “Hummingbird,” also evoked nature and was a solid hit. They later scored with “Diamond Girl” and “Get Closer.”

Seals & Crofts were devoted to the Baha’i faith, and believed that by writing about life itself, many meanings would emerge for the listener. Seals said that “Summer Breeze” was “a very simple song about a man coming home from work and hearing the dog barking and things like that.”

The refrain “Blowing through the jasmine in my mind” was something Seals & Crofts used to bring about feelings of contentment, harmony, and peace in this song, which is a feel-good classic about enjoying some simple pleasures in life with the ones you love. Seals explained, “We operate on a different level, we try to create images, impressions and trains of thought in the minds of our listeners.”

To me, the lyrics and the melody bring about a peaceful, easy feeling (which was a song from The Eagles that I almost used for this prompt).

See the curtains hangin' in the window
In the evenin' on a Friday night
A little light a-shinin' through the window
Lets me know everything's alright

Summer breeze, makes me feel fine
Blowing through the jasmine in my mind
Summer breeze, makes me feel fine
Blowing through the jasmine in my mind

See the paper layin' on the sidewalk
A little music from the house next door
So I walked on up to the doorstep
Through the screen and across the floor

Summer breeze, makes me feel fine
Blowing through the jasmine in my mind
Summer breeze, makes me feel fine
Blowing through the jasmine in my mind

Sweet days of summer, the jasmine's in bloom
July is dressed up and playing her tune
And I come home from a hard day's work
And you're waiting there, not a care in the world

See the smile a-waitin' in the kitchen
Food cookin' and the plates for two
Feel the arms that reach out to hold me
In the evening when the day is through

Summer breeze, makes me feel fine
Blowing through the jasmine in my mind
Summer breeze, makes me feel fine
Blowing through the jasmine in my mind

Bonus:

Thursday Inspiration — Time is On My Side

Fandango6 Comments

For this week’s Thursday Inspiration prompt, Jim Adams has instructed us to respond to this challenge by either by using the prompt word time, or going with the above picture, or by means of the song ‘When Will I Be Loved,’ or by going with another song by the Everly Brothers, or by Linda Ronstadt, or anything else that you think fits. I decided to go with the song “Time is On My Side” from The Rolling Stones.

The Rolling Stones released this song in 1964, and for the past 59 years I thought this song was written by Mick Jagger and/or someone else on The Rolling Stones. But today, writing this post, I learned that I was wrong. According to Wikipedia, the song was written by Jerry Ragovoy (using the pseudonym “Norman Meade”). It was first recorded by jazz trombonist Kai Winding and his orchestra in 1963. Winding’s version was mostly instrumental with just the lyric “time is on my side” sung by the background trio of Cissy Houston, Dionne Warwick, and Dee Dee Warwick.

The first fully vocal version was recorded by the New Orleans soul singer Irma Thomas. It was released in June 1964. The Rolling Stones released their version of the song in the U.S. on September 26, 1964, and it became their first Top 10 hit in America.

Who knew? Did you know that “Time is On My Side” was not a Rolling Stones original? I didn’t.

In this song, Mick Jagger has lost his girl, but he knows it’s just a matter of time until she returns. After all, he’s got “the real love, the kind that you need.”

Time is on my side, yes it is
Time is on my side, yes it is
Now you all were saying that you want to be free
But you'll come runnin' back (I said you would baby)
You'll come runnin' back (like I told you so many times before)
You'll come runnin' back to me, yeah

Time is on my side, yes it is
Time is on my side, yes it is
You're searching for good times but just wait and see
You'll come runnin' back (I said you would darling)
You'll come runnin back (spend the rest of life with ya baby)
You'll come runnin' back to me

Go ahead baby, go ahead, go ahead and light up the town
And baby, do anything your heart desires
Remember, I'll always be around
And I know, I know like I told you so many times before
You're gonna come back
Yeah you're going to come back baby
Knockin', yeah knockin' right on my door, yeah

Time is on my side, yes it is
Time is on my side, yes it is
'Cause I got the real love, the kind that you need
You'll come runnin' back (I knew you would one day)
You'll come runnin' back (baby I told you before)
You'll come runnin' back to me, yeah

Time, time, time is on my side, yes it is, I said
Time, time, time is on my side, yes it is, I said
Time, time, time is on my side

Interesting factoid: Irma Thomas was touring in England when Mick Jagger and Keith Richards caught one of her shows and heard her sing the tune. They told her they loved it and planned to record it with their band. By early December, the Stones’ cover was a big hit in the U.S. Thomas grew so tired of explaining to people that she recorded the song first, she quit singing it altogether for nearly 30 years. She only relented when her friend Bonnie Raitt invited Thomas to sing it with her for a 1992 New Year’s Eve broadcast from New Orleans.

Here are Kai Winding’s and Irma Thomas’ recordings of the song. Which one do you like best?

Thursday Inspiration — Nothing

Fandango7 Comments

For this week’s Thursday Inspiration prompt, Jim Adams has “nothing.” Literally, he has nothing. He explained that he didn’t have a song prepared for today because he was busy helping out a blogging friend. Despite that, there is still going to be a challenge today. Jim said we can respond to it by either using the prompt word nothing, or going with the above picture, or by means of any song, or anything else that you think fits.as our challenge.

What came to mind for me was the song, “I Who Have Nothing,” originally recorded by Ben E. King in 1963. The song’s melody was based on an Italian song, “Uno Dei Tanti,” which translates to “One of Many.” King had heard the song in Italy and asked his producers, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, to translate the lyrics into English.

It was covered by other artists, including Shirley Bassey and Tom Jones. Produced by George Martin, Bassey released the song in the U.K. three months after King’s release in the U.S. Tom Jones recorded a version that was released in 1970. This became the most popular version of the song in the United States, peaking at number 14 in 1970 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 2 on the Easy Listening chart.

I, I who have nothing
I, I who have no one
Adore you and want you so
I'm just a no one with nothing to give you but, oh
I love you

He, he buys you diamonds
Bright, sparkling diamonds
But, believe me, dear, when I say
That he can give you the world but he'll never love the way
I love you

He can take you any place he wants
To fancy clubs and restaurants
But I can only watch you with
My nose pressed up against the window pane

I, I who have nothing
I, I who have no one
Must watch you go dancing by
Wrapped in the arms of somebody else when, darling, it's I
Who loves you

I love you
I love you
I love you

Here are the three versions of the song I referenced. Which one do you like best?

Thursday Inspiration — Don’t Fly Away

Fandango11 Comments

For this week’s Thursday Inspiration prompt, Jim Adams has given us the word “fly” as our challenge. He also featured the Crosby Stills & Nash song, “Helplessly Hoping” in this post. I’ve been a long time fan of CSN (and later, CSNY), and the rather melancholy “Helplessly Hoping,” with it’s beautiful harmonies, has always been one of my favorites.

But what came to mind when I saw Jim’s prompt was another song that has delightful harmonies and is rather melancholy, but at the same time, hopeful. It’s “Hummingbird” from the duo, Seals & Crofts.

I enjoyed this song for its different tempos and, while listening to the song without really thinking too much about the meaning of the words, I naively thought it was a just simple song about someone watching a graceful hummingbird flitting around the nectar-filled flowers and not wanting it to fly away.

But according to Jim Seals, the song is actually about the lifelong persecution Baha’i founder Baha u’llah endured because of his beliefs. The refrain “Hummingbird, don’t fly away” is a plea for forgiveness. Seals explained that the song relates to “how each one of the world’s spiritual teachers is misunderstood, and the first thing we do is strike out at them, behead them, hang them on a cross or whatever. Here mankind waits thousands of years for the coming of someone to help the unity of mankind, and then when he comes, they throw him in jail for 40 years and torture him. I was more or less trying to speak for the human race — presumptuous, I know — saying we were sorry.”

I am not a particularly spiritual person and I don’t really know anything about the Baha’i faith. But after gaining this insight about the song’s meaning, I was reminded of another favorite song of mine by a different duo, Simon & Garfunkel, “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” a song that also has spiritual roots.

Oh hummingbird, mankind was waiting for you to come flying along.
Heavenly songbird, we were so wrong. We've harmed you.
Oh hummingbird, lend us your wings. Let us soar in the atmosphere of Abha.
Lift us up to the heaven of holiness, oh source of our being, oh hummingbird.

Hummingbird don't fly away, fly away. Hummingbird don't fly away, fly away.
In you I've found a fragrance. I'll love you 'til I die.
I just love you, love you, love you. I don't even know the reason why.

Hummingbird don't fly away, fly away. Hummingbird don't fly away, fly away.
The sweetness of your nectar has drawn me like a fly.
I just love you, love you, love you. I don't even know the reason why. Now,

Hummingbird don't fly away, fly away. Hummingbird don't fly away, fly away.
Haven't you noticed the days somehow keep getting longer?
And the spirit voices whisper in us all.
Haven't you noticed the rays? The spirit sun in stronger
And a new day is dawning for us all.

Hummingbird don't fly away, fly away. Hummingbird don't fly away, fly away.
Hummingbird don't fly away, fly away. Hummingbird don't fly away, fly away.
The draught of understanding; wisdom, peace and love is ours.
Hummingbird don't fly away, fly away. Hummingbird don't fly away, fly away.

Thursday Inspiration — A Good Choice

Fandango9 Comments

For this week’s Thursday Inspiration prompt, Jim Adams has given us the word “wrong” as our challenge.

My whole effort to respond to Jim’s challenge today was wrong. Probably because I started writing it after dinner tonight and I was tired. I wrote and edited pretty much the whole response in an app I have on my iPhone called “Simplenote.”

I do that quite often without encountering any problems. But not tonight. First, instead of doing a “copy and paste” of what I had written in Simplenote, I did a “cut and paste.” My intent was to open up the iOS WordPress app and paste the text I thought I had copied into the WordPress block editor and fine tune it from there.

But that’s where I went wrong. Before I posted the text from my Simplenote app into WordPress, I got distracted and used the Image block to insert the image that now appears at the top of this post. But that was okay. My big mistake was tapping out the first sentence you see beneath the photo. When I got to the words “Thursday Inspiration,” I decided to create my pingback to Jim’s prompt post. So I selected those words, clicked on the little pingback icon on the task bar (see below)…

And then I went to Jim’s blog, copied the URL, and pasted it into the dialog box that the icon opened up (see below)…

At that point I was ready to paste the text from Simplenote into WordPress and was shocked when this was all that showed up.

https://jimadamsauthordotcom.wordpress.com/2023/02/16/thursday-inspiration-197-me-and-mrs-jones/

My heart sank when I realized that by copying Jim’s blog address into the pingpack dialog box, I had overwritten the Simplenote text with Jim’s post’s URL. Shit!

So I’m sorry, Jim, but my response to your Thursday Inspiration post, which was supposed to be about fear of making a wrong decision, turns out to be a stupid explanation of why my response is about my frustration with myself for doing something wrong in creating this post.

Does anyone have any idea what I’m talking about?