on blogging, road trips, 80's pop

I am noticing that my blogging posts tend to go in cycles--there are times when I clearly have a brain full of ideas and words to express them, and other times when I am too thick-headed to think clearly, let alone abstractly. And those last times are when I tend to post music--something that might be going through my head that I enjoy and think is share worthy and does not require any of my own mental input! Of course this means I will be sharing some music with you all today--we got back last night from a weekend visit to D's family about 5 hours north of us, and we had late nights and early risings three days in a row, so we are all completely pooped and I won't even pretend to have anything interesting to say. ; )

But it was too bad I did not have a laptop with me in the car on the long drive up. My brain was swimming with ideas that wanted to be developed*, and I was really fighting sleep. In fact, I did fall asleep numerous times--you know, those terrible head-bobbing, teeth knocking jerks of semi-awakefullness and painful/blissful slips back into momentary oblivion. Ugh--I hate that. I would rather be tired than be in that battle between awake and asleep. But I do not allow myself to sleep when D is driving at night, even if it is not all that late if I know he is tired. When we were sophomores (freshmen?) in h.s. a couple of senior girls were driving back from a Spring Break trip and one was driving and one was sleeping--and the driver fell asleep and they had an accident and her best friend (the one sleeping in the back seat) was killed. That incident taught me never to trust one driver to stay awake by him/herself late at night. So no matter how late or how tired, I always stay awake and engage D in conversation to help him stay awake and focused. The best way to keep him awake is not to talk to him, but to listen to him talk, and so Fri night I chose one of his favorites to bring up: the world economy. A while later, as I roused, D commented that it took me less than 5 minutes to fall asleep. Frankly, I am surprised I made it remotely close to 5 min! But what could I do? His other favorite topics are computers, beer, cars/motorcycles, and mortgage rates.

My favorite car-trip topics include talking through house project options and dilemmas, esp. mentally solving design problems. Or dissecting family relationships. Or reminiscing about the olden days. Or babbling on about nothing much important. I am sure he has the urge to snooze too.

Anyway, last night as we drove back, I was the driver this time and so I chose the topic--or, I should say, the game: singing obscure or long-forgotten early 80's pop favorites. We came up with some good ones, including Pop Goes the World (Men Without Hats), I Can't Wait (Nu Shooz), One Night in Bangkok (Murray Head), These Dreams (Heart), Don't Come Around Here No More (Tom Petty), Major Tom (Peter Schilling), The Man With the Child In His Eyes (Kate Bush), Cry Wolf (a-ha), The Chauffer (Duran Duran, Jackie (Sinead O'Connor), Cool it Now (New Edition). . .

We also covered some of my all time favorite belt-em in the car when no one is with you songs: Enjoy the Silence (Depeche Mode--it's in a perfect range for my lower register!), Zombie (the Cranberries), and that song I can't remember the name of or who sings it but which has a strong, husky female singing "and then I scream at the top of my lungs, what's going on"--anyone? They are not nearly as fun when there are others in the car with you (except maybe Mina and Susan).

(And Mina, if you are catching my blog these days, what was that song we used to belt out together in the car, the guy singing a love song in a bar and at the end he pauses and embellishes a few riffs before finishing the last words, which might be "no more"? It was on the radio around the same time as Robert Plant singing "Sea of Love")

It was fun--I even got D to sing some of the orchestration with me on "Mexican Radio" (wall of voodoo) and "Don't Pay the Ferryman" (Chris DeBurgh). And, most importantly, we stayed awake.

So, on that note, I will leave you with an amazing video of one of the best songs to come out of the 80's, Sinead O'Connor singing "Troy." The quality of this video is not ideal, but I have not seen any other postings of this particular live event, and it is simply mesmerizing. Watch her face, the intensity of her body language--how could you make a song you had undoubtedly sung a multitude of times sound so raw, so new? How could you sing so intimately, laid bare, before thousands of fans?

Wow. I hope you enjoy it.

(Sorry I have lost the ability to make official-looking-like-a-real-blog you-tube screens here to click on--something about messing up the format my computer saves the files as. You will just have to click on an ugly link)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeIHZvZTJTg

*at one point in the car on the way up, after D and I briefly stumbled upon a subject about which I am very touchy right now, I mentioned I wished I had a laptop so I could be blogging, and D said, "Well, you can blog to me" and I replied, "Actually, I want to blog about you."