Isn’t it Time (1977) – The Babys

Posted on November 11, 2022 by observationblogger — 13 Comments

Isn’t It Time is an iconic 70’s track and always evokes fond memories whenever I hear it. It peaked at #1 in my home country, Australia and #13 on the Billboard Charts. It was performed by the English group The Babys in 1977 and was released on their album Broken Heart. It contains a distinctive piano introduction performed by Michael Corby which moves into an opening vocal performance by lead singer John Waite. The Babys were best known for today’s featured song and Every Time I Think of You.

Falling in love was the last thing I had on my mind
Holding you is a warmth that I thought I could never find

(Sitting here all alone) Just trying to decide
(Whether to go all alone) Or stay by your side
(Then I stop myself because) I know I could cry
I just can’t find the answers
To the questions that keep going through my mind
Hey, babe
Isn’t it time?

Isn’t It Time was not written by members of the group but by bass guitarist Jack Conrad along with Ray Kennedy. The lyrics were motivated by Ray Kennedy’s love for a French woman whom he knew during the writing of the song.  The song was first aired on the ABC program American Bandstand – 7 December 1977.
I agree with Max at Powerpop who wrote:

‘What I liked about The Baby’s was the voice of John Waite. He would later turn solo after the Babys broke up to have a few hits of his own. I never got to see them live but friends told me they were better live than on their records‘.

Reference:
1. Isn’t It Time (The Babys Song) – Wikipedia

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Introduction (The Journey of a Fool) 1979 – Mike Batt

Posted on November 10, 2022 by observationblogger — 5 Comments

Journey of a Fool is the instrumental introduction track of the record Tarot Suite by Mike Batt (with the London Symphony Orchestra). This is the second song to appear here from one of my most cherished records. I wrote about how underrated it is in my first post – Imbecile. That post remains one of the most viewed on my blog since there is hardly any information online about this immense production.

It’s hard to believe that this is now 40+ years old. No other album was played as often in our house during my youth than this one. A popular radio station in Sydney called Triple M played part of this song as their theme music in the 80’s. A lot more information about this album and comments from admirers can be found in that first post.

Tarot Suite was inspired by the 22 major arcana trump cards of the tarot deck. If the listener wants to make sense of the concept of this album, the insert provides a handy description and explanation of the various cards and how they relate to the music. This album is driven by the creative orchestral (London Symphony Orchestra) arrangements and songwriting of Batt. To his credit, Batt is not inhibited by allowing electric guitars and other instruments to assume a dominant role in his music rather than his own keyboard playing, which is utilized more for texture and mood purposes.

Reference:
1. Tarot Suite – Just for the Record

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Into My Arms (1997) – Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

Posted on November 9, 2022 by observationblogger — 5 Comments

Nick Cave’s delivery and lyric in this song are magnificent. It is one of my favourite songs of his although there are many. Into My Arms was released as the first single from Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ tenth studio album The Boatman’s Call in 1997. In Cave’s lecture “The Secret Life of the Love Song” to the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, he counts the song among those he is most proud of having written.

And I don’t believe in the existence of angels
But looking at you I wonder if that’s true
But if I did I would summon them together
And ask them to watch over you
Oh, to each burn a candle for you
To make bright and clear your path
And to walk like Christ in grace and love
And guide you into my arms

Into my arms, O Lord
Into my arms, O Lord

The song was also nominated for Single of the Year at the 1997 ARIA Awards, and came No. 18 in the Triple J Hottest 100 of that year. According to Songfacts: Cave wrote this piano-based love song whilst in rehab. He explained to Mojo magazine March 2009: “In the first couple of days when you haven’t slept, you’re withdrawing from drugs, you’re sick. You try and make the best of a bad situation.”

Regarding the song’s official music video, Nick Cave praised the video as well-produced, but said he considered it a poor fit with the song as the video’s depressing imagery overrode the melancholic optimism Cave had intended the song to convey. I have forwarded below a version with Spanish subtitles.

Reference:
1. Into My Arms – Wikipedia
2. Into My Arms – Songfacts

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Special Edition Post – Can We Trust Social – Emotional Learning (SEL)? James Lindsay

Posted on November 8, 2022 by observationblogger — Leave a comment

This is the latest of James Lindsay’s podcasts about the infiltration / penetration of Post Modernism and Neo- Communism into western education systems (and more-over culture and Governments) by the United Nations and other leading organizations / multinationals in recent times.

The reason for this post is to see Lindsay go out on a limb from 50:00 minutes in this video. From 53:00 onwards I consider it to be the best unintentional stand-up material I have heard in quite a while, and I laughed my backside off. To read the sh/te from these f/ckers trying to groom kids and society, made my blood boil. At least Lindsay was able to let off steam too. There is another part in this where they have converted Einstein’s E=MC² into a SEL acronym to push their agenda. Now that’s scary stuff.

The problem is No one…. nearly no one is paying attention to what is happening. It’s mindboggling. It’s either people agree with this, or they have no ‘balls’ in the Goodfellas sense of that term.

‘I’m sure that was NOT a gigantic circle-jerk’

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Inside Out (1990) – Traveling Wilburys

Posted on November 8, 2022 by observationblogger — 4 Comments

I think Inside Out is one of the 2 most congenial efforts by the Traveling Wilburys from their 2 albums. It might not reach the heights of Orbison’s solo contribution of You’re Not Alone or Dylan’s Tweeter and the Monkey Man, but as a group this and Handle Me With Care are their best collaborative songs for mine. The song is playful, humorous and expertly written and delivered. These songs appeal to a wide audience base because they incorporate so many genres of music and are appealing to even the most novice afficionado (ie a younger music audience).

Look out your window
That grass ain’t green
It’s kinda yellow
See what I mean?

Look up your chimney
The sky ain’t blue
It’s kinda yellow
You know it’s true

It’s so hard to figure what it’s all about

When your outside’s in (Inside out)

Inside Out was written by all 4 members of the band and was the first they worked on for the Vol 3. Traveling Wilburys record. The song was issued as a promotional single in the United States, where it peaked at number 16 on Billboard‘s chart. Following the death of Roy Orbison in December 1988, the group gathered at a private house they dubbed “Camp Wilbury“, in Bel Air, Los Angeles. George Harrison recalled that he, Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne and Bob Dylan had the musical part of the song finished “within an hour” of starting work. He said this encouraged him to realise that the band would be able to continue as before, despite the loss of Orbison.

Bob or Tom came up with the idea: “Look out your window, the grass ain’t green …” and I said, “It’s kinda yellow …” then somebody else said, “See what I mean?” So then we got the next bit: “Look up your chimney, the sky ain’t blue, it’s kinda yellow …” 

I’m not normally a fan of how ‘bridges‘ sound in songs, but George hit the ball out of the park in this song. Just spectacular music.

Reference:
1. Inside Out (Traveling Wilburys song)

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31/10 – 6/11/22 – Fiona Hill on Russia & Perpetual Cultural Revolution

Posted on November 7, 2022 by observationblogger — 2 Comments
news on the march

Welcome to Monday’s News on the March – The week that was in my digital world.

Fiona Hill: Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump | Lex Fridman Podcast #335
Video podcast interview at Lex Fridmen

Fiona Hill is a presidential advisor and foreign policy expert specializing in Russia. Some of the topics in this fascinating discussion include: How she started from humble beginnings, what the Soviet Union was like before it collapsed, advice to Lex Fridman for interview with Vladimir Putin, Why Putin invaded Ukraine, and is Putin Good or Bad for Russia. (Watch entire interview here)

Paulo Freire’s Perpetual Cultural Revolution – James Lindsay
Audio podcast at New Discourses

This episode of the New Discourses Podcast continues a long miniseries exploring Paulo Freire’s landmark 1985 book The Politics of Education: Culture, Power, and Liberation. In this episode, James takes up the seventh chapter of The Politics of Education, wherein Freire outlines the need for and process of “conscientization.” That is, in this chapter, Freire makes it clear that the neo-Marxist consciousness-raising process is what education is actually about. Join him to understand that for Freire, education is about becoming a Marxist and a radical explicitly in the mold of revolutionary guerrillas like Che Guevara. (Listen to audio presentation here)

news on the march the end
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Innocent When You Dream (1987) – Tom Waits

Posted on November 6, 2022 by observationblogger — 2 Comments

Innocent When You Dream is the second song here from Tom Wait’s 10th studio album Franks Wild Years. If anyone wanted to find out what an imaginative composer Tom Waits is, in style presentation and substance, then look no further than this song. I like what someone said about this song at songmeanings: ‘this song will be playing while my friends & family inebriate themselves around my casket.’

Running through the graveyard
We laughed my friends and I
We swore we’d be together
Until the day we died
Until the day we died

It’s such a sad old feeling
The fields are soft and green
It’s memories that I’m stealing
But you’re innocent when you dream
When you dream
You’re innocent when you dream

Apart from the polyphony minstrel performance, the lyrics really struck me. It seems to be about dying alone with regret. The song was used as the soundtrack to the closing sequence, Auggie Wren’s Christmas Story, in the 1995 film, Smoke.

Barry Pomeroy at his web site wrote about Waits 80’s transition in music:

The piano-playing hard-drinking and smoking Waits of The Heart of Saturday Night and Nighthawks at the Diner settled down into the much stranger magician and carnival roustabout of the eighties. Drawing upon three-penny opera, vaudeville, classic blues and industrial music, Waits began to experiment with non-traditional instruments, bagpipes, marimba, pump organs, and odd percussive “instruments” such as brake drums, a damaged Chamberlin, and a Stroh violin.

Reference:
1. Innocent When You Dream (song) – Wikipedia
2. Innocent When You Dream: Narrative in Tom Waits’ Songs – Barry Pomeroy

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Independence Day (1980) – Bruce Springsteen

Posted on November 5, 2022 by observationblogger — 2 Comments
Springsteen Live in Dublin 2016 singing Independance Day.

Recently, I wrote about X – and their 4th of July song and now we have another which has nothing to do with today’s date. This was one of the first melancholy songs I heard from Bruce that made a big impact. I didn’t really understand it back then but listening to it now; Springsteen is alluding to his father’s life. It reminds me of what he sings about in Factory from the record Darkness on the Edge of Town: ‘I see my daddy walking through the factory gates in the rain. Factory takes his hearing; the factory gives him life‘.

Bruce Springsteen discussed that his father was a mill worker, then a soldier, and later in life between shifts at the Ford Motor plant in New Brunswick and other jobs, He was a heavy drinker, someone who suffered from mental health problems and lacked appropriate care or understanding for his family. “My father was my hero, and my greatest foe,” said Springsteen.

Well Papa, go to bed now, it’s getting late
Nothing we can say is gonna change anything now
I’ll be leaving in the morning from St. Mary’s Gate
We wouldn’t change this thing even if we could somehow

‘Cause the darkness of this house has got the best of us
There’s a darkness in this town that’s got us too
But they can’t touch me now and you can’t touch me now
They ain’t gonna do to me what I watched them do to you

Independence Day is the hardened and stoic immediate reality that finalises the break. There’s no celebration or triumph or even relief, just understanding that separation is necessary for survival. Its roots can certainly be found in the real-life relationship between Bruce and Dutch Springsteen.

Reference:
1. Independence Day (Bruce Springsteen song) – Wikipedia
2. The Story Behind The Song: How Bruce Springsteen created ‘Independence Day’ – Far Out Magazine

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Romancing the Stone (1984) – Robert Zemeckis (Friday’s Finest)

Posted on November 4, 2022 by observationblogger — Leave a comment

Last Friday featured the soundtrack of another Robert Zemeckis film – Cast Away. Zemeckis was originally working on the movie Cocoon but was pulled off it after an early screening of today’s featured film – Romancing the Stone failed to impress studio executives. Romancing the Stone won critics praises with 86% positive feedback, but audiences weren’t as affirming with just a 69% rating, but it did earn over $115 million worldwide at the box office and allowed Zemeckis to make Back to the Future. I have a strong affinity with Romancing since it is set in Colombia where I have lived for the past 13 years, but in reality, was mainly filmed in Mexico.

IMDB Storyline:

Joan Wilder, a mousy romance novelist, receives a treasure map in the mail from her recently murdered brother-in-law. Meanwhile, her sister Elaine is kidnapped in Colombia and the two criminals responsible demand that she travel to Colombia to exchange the map for her sister. Joan does, and quickly becomes lost in the jungle after being waylayed by Zolo, a vicious and corrupt Colombian cop who will stop at nothing to obtain the map. There, she meets an irreverent soldier-of-fortune named Jack Colton who agrees to bring her back to civilization. Together, they embark upon an adventure that could be straight out of Joan’s novels.

This was the only produced screenplay for writer Diane Thomas. She had been working as a waitress in Malibu when producer/star Michael Douglas optioned her script for $250,000, allowing her to quit her job. Sadly, Thomas died in a car accident, while working on a new movie project with Steven Spielberg the following year. She was a passenger while her boyfriend was driving a Porsche that Douglas had bought for her as a thank you gift.

Michael Douglas and Danny DeVito were roommates during their time in NYC when starting out in show business. Additionally, DeVito notes that Douglas got his break first with the TV series The Streets of San Francisco (1972) but continued to pay his share of the rent even after leaving their apartment in NYC for Hollywood. He would later, as producer and reluctant lead character, Jack T. Colton, offer the part of ‘Ralph’ to DeVito which DeVito admits was good exposure and helpful to his career.

In the famous dance scene of Romancing below, Michael Douglas was not aware that he was being filmed. He was dancing with Kathleen Turner and some extras and was surprised to find Robert Zemeckis had been filming the entire time. You can see Michael Douglas talk about his experience working on this movie here. As stated in the previous post about Cast Away, this film marked the beginning of director Robert Zemeckis’s partnership with composer Alan Silvestri.

References:
1. Romancing the Stone – Wikipedia
2. Romancing the Stone – IMDB

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Don’t Stop Believin’ (1981) – Journey

Posted on November 3, 2022 by observationblogger — 5 Comments

We are full steam ahead on the 80’s track. ‘Choo-Choo’! Don’t Stop Believin’ was released by another LA Band ‘Journey‘ at the dawn of the decade in the October 1981. It starts with a catchy keyboard riff by then new band-member Jonathan Cain who collaborated in the writing of this song reflecting on the encouragement his father gave him as a struggling musician living on Los Angeles’ Sunset Boulevard. Steve Perry’s vocals are excellent here.

You don’t get much more quintessential 80’s than what this song produced. I imagine it was a trendsetter for many other bands, since I’ve heard so many songs which resemble Don’t Stop Believin’ especially in movie soundtracks like The Karate Kid or Rocky IV etc. A Christian singer Kenny Marks whose music – a school-friend put me onto also captured this kind of sound in his 80’s releases.

Just a small-town girl, livin’ in a lonely world
She took the midnight train goin’ anywhere
Just a city boy, born and raised in South Detroit
He took the midnight train goin’ anywhere

A singer in a smoky room
The smell of wine and cheap perfume
For a smile, they can share the night
It goes on and on and on and on

The song is unusual in that its chorus does not arrive until the song is nearly finished. The verses are what appeal to me here. The Pre-chorus’ don’t ‘wow’ me at all. The band recorded the song in one take. It was a top -10 worldwide hit and became the group’s signature song. Decades after its release, it became the best-selling digital track from the twentieth century, with over seven million downloads. Rolling Stone ranked it among its 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

Reference:
1. Don’t Stop Believin’ – Journey

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