A One Week Milkshake

         I lived in St. Louis for a decade and a half—the second-longest I’ve lived in any one place.  I lived longer in California where I was born and grew up, making me a California girl.  Still, I consider myself a St. Louisan somewhat.  I still perk up at the sight of the Arch on a TV show or commercial or the mere mention of the city.  I am a Cardinals fan, though now displaced.  I will still sing “Gloria” for the Blues and grouse about the Rams.  I don’t mind the square cut, cracker-thin crust of St. Louis style pizza; hold the [bleah] Provel cheese, please (there are some things about St. Louis I refuse to adopt).

                All this leads me to a joke:  A woman is complaining to her friend about her husband: Lately he’s been obsessed with the musical group the Barenaked Ladies.  He’s been listening to their music, reading articles about them, trying to find out their tour schedule, etc.  Finally the friend asks, “Just how long has this been going on?”  The woman answers, “It’s been. . .”

                “One Week” was a chart-topper for Barenaked Ladies. It mixes stream-of-consciousness rap lyrics with a sung chorus about a man and woman who had a fight.  The rap part is not designed to correlate to the story in the chorus.  All in all, it’s rather a weird song when one stops to think about it; still, it’s an awesome song. 

                It takes a number of listenings to quite hear what they’re really saying, and even then a person may miss many of the pop culture references.  The words fly by so quickly.  Even now, I can’t keep pace with the line, “Gonna get a set of better clubs/Gonna find the kind with tiny nubs/Just so my irons aren’t always flying off the back-swing.”  Someday. . .

                Of course, with so many words coming at the listener so fast, there is ample opportunity for misunderhearing.  This is where St. Louis comes in.

                The fast-food chain Steak N Shake may have originated in Illinois, but it is beloved by St. Louisans.  Most in “the Lou” know the iconic “In sight, it must be right,” and that “Takhomasak” means to bring home a bag of burgers.  Of course, everyone knows the name is what they sell—steak burgers and delicious milkshakes. 

                All that said, it is no surprise that I believed the lyrics said, “I like Steak N Shake/ I like vanilla it’s the finest of the flavors.”  Of course, who wouldn’t want Steak N Shake and a delicious milkshake?   Well, of course that’s not the lyrics.  It is “I’d like a stinking aching shake.”  I don’t even know what that means.

                When we lived in St. Louis, I won tickets through the radio station WARH [The Arch] to see Barenaked Ladies in concert.  It was a great concert, despite being in the nosebleed seats (hey, they were free!).  They even sang “One Week”.   I’d like to think that maybe, just maybe, they went to Steak N Shake and then changed the words.  Yeah, right.

Busch Stadium, home of the Cardinals.

 

The Goode City

 

    St. Louis takes pride in its own.  When a local kid, makes it big, The Lou is proud.  Jon Hamm and Kevin Kline are revered in the city as acting icons—not to mention Ken Page is adored as a local treasure.  In the music world, Nelly and Sheryl Crow rank up there with Ike and Tina Turner as St. Louis locals who made good.  Yet, of all these notables, the king of St. Louis’ own is the patriarch of rock n roll: Chuck Berry.

                Chuck Berry attended Sumner High School where he gave his first on-stage performance.  His life, of course, did not always run smoothly—whose ever does?  Still, at his death at age 90, the city of St. Louis mourned collectively. 

                Of all Chuck Berry’s music, “Johnny B. Goode” is likely the best known.  It was a hit in its own right, but had a resurgence in the 1980s with its prominent placement in the movie Back to the Future (pretty sure Marvin Berry is apocryphal).

                As with many other songs, there was always a question in my young mind about why someone kept telling Johnny to be good.  Was the kid prone to misbehavior?  After all, he did not do so well with reading and writing.  He did play the guitar well—perhaps they were encouraging Johnny to always play his best.  The people passing by seemed to be pleased with his playing.

                Silly me, the song is not “Johnny, be good”; the song is “Johnny B. Goode”.  Johnny’s surname of Goode was a reference to Goode Avenue which, incidentally, runs along one side of Sumner High School.  You will not find Goode Avenue anymore.  The road’s name was changed to Annie Malone Drive in honor of Annie Malone who was an inventor, entrepreneur, and philanthropist.  She was a benefactor for the Orphans Home and helped them purchase a facility on Goode Avenue, hence its renaming.

                So there you have it.  Johnny B. Goode was good, and St. Louis couldn’t be prouder.

Waking Up Daydreamers

 

    As I have said previously, my father liked to “culture up” his children by playing us selections from his 45s.  His selections were as varied as his records.  Sometimes it would be Jimmy Dean telling us about a hero in the mine; other times it would be Ray Stevens singing about a jungle musician and his girl and monkey. 

                Speaking of Monkees (what a segue that was!), my dad would play us a sweet song about a daydreaming guy singing about his homecoming queen girl.  There was, as usual, a couple lines in there that as a youngster I couldn’t understand:

“Oh, and our good times start to dance

And a follow want to squee;

But how much, baby do we really need?”

It’s a morning song about a man who wakes up and finds himself in a dream world where he has his homecoming queen who thinks of him as her white knight.  He couldn’t be happier, and she should be cheerful because their good times can only get better—they start to dance, after all, and they don’t really need more because they have each other.  Whatever that middle line means, I don’t know, but it’s probably not anything much important.

Pity the child when their idyllic world is shattered by reality.  Come to find out, this is not a sweet song of romance and good times.  Nor is the line “And a follow want to squee” (or whatever that mumble is).  The lyrics are as follows:

“Oh, and our good times start and end

Without dollar one to spend

But how much, baby, do we really need?”

 

It turns out that my interpretation of the song is rather opposite of what I thought.  Things are not going sweetly with Jean, and the man is not anxious to get out of bed.  Apparently daydream believers become middle-aged disillusioned realists when homecoming queens are more materialistic than romantic, and their relationships crumble.  Kind of a downer, actually.

So, wake up, cheer up, and follow want to squee.

Stuff I like (Apparently that would be hyperlinks)

 

                When it comes to music, I am eccentric.  I inherited my father’s record collection from ABBA to Frankie Yankovic.  (Literally: I cataloged all his 45s.)  To this record collection, I added some ELO, Billy Joel, and La Bionda(Do you know how hard it is to get a La Bionda record?!); among others. In my own music collection of CDs (yes, I still have CDs—I’m old school), I have a weird assortment.  I have (among other things) Throat Culture (an a capella group), Moxy Früvous, The Chieftains, Counting Crows, and Judy Garland: that doesn’t even cover my husband’s country music or my extensive Lost and Found collection.

                My XM radio in my minivan (I’m a mom—don’t judge) is set to. . .PopRocks.  If you are unfamiliar with this Sirius station, it plays pop/rock songs from the 1990s and the 2000s.  I love Bing Crosby, but I also love Fall OutBoy and Imagine Dragons.  Yes, I have eclectic musical taste.

                All that being said, what I really like is the sound.  I’m not talking the “it’s got a good beat and I can dance to it” or “I don’t listen to the words but the sound” philosophies.  A song with good lyrics can transport a listener or make one think.  Take, for example, “99 Red Balloons” by Nena: The English version is far more moving than the original German “99 Luftballons”.  “You and I in a little toy shop buy a bag of balloons with the money we’ve got” is far more poetic than “Do you have time for me?  I will sing you a song of 99 balloons.”

I like the music too.  The opening harmonization of “Some Nights” by Fun. is amazing—or a great piano line such as in “A Thousand Miles” by Vanessa Carlton or “I Would Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)” by Meatloaf will make me want to listen to a song over and over.  Then there is the rhythm, such as the opening of “It’s Time” by Imagine Dragons.   Let’s not forget the awesome synth in “Something Just Like This” by The Chainsmokers and Coldplay.

Today, I’m going to leave you with a song I became recently familiar with.  I’m normally a Josh Groban fan more than a Michael Bublé fan: in fact, I didn’t even know this song was by Michael Bublé .  I happened to hear it in a made-for-TV-movie and liked it.  It’s got a good piano part and sweet lyrics.  Enjoy “Everything”.