"Sha-la-la-la-la-la, live for today..."

Rob Grill, the lead singer of The Grass Roots, died yesterday. He was 67.

Were you influenced, at an early age, by the lyrics of "Let's Live for Today"? I was!

When I think of all the worries people seem to find
And how they're in a hurry to complicate their mind
By chasing after money and dreams that can't come true
I'm glad that we are different, we've better things to do
May others plan their future, I'm busy lovin' you...

"Never walk alone, particularly at night."

Advice from the University of Wisconsin Police, which I just received by email.

Never walk alone, particularly at night. So... even in daytime, we're not supposed to walk alone? Even if I whistle "You'll Never Walk Alone" and make believe I'm brave?

According to UW Police, there's a "violent predator" at large. Twice, recently, a woman was walking alone on campus and a man came up behind her and hit her on the head. That's bad, admittedly. But never walk alone?

Entertainment at Miller Park.

I'm posting this 55-second clip because I got a request for more baseball posts. This video, shot by me, shows the end of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," and that other song they do after that at Miller Park...



... and the introduction of the Chorizo,

Beyond Obama's blue pill: folksingers!

What medical treatments will the government approve, in the future, for the aging population of America? Two years ago, President Obama let it slip that cheap painkillers would supervene more expensive cures. And here's a new, low-price palliative for the oldies:

Every week, three music therapists from MJHS Hospice and Palliative Care crisscross the city and suburbs to sing songs to the dying. With guitars strapped to their backs, a flute or tambourine and a songbook jammed in their backpacks, they play music for more than 100 patients, in housing projects, in nursing homes and even in a lavish waterfront home. The time for chemotherapy and radiation is over.

The music begins: a song to hold death at bay, a song to embrace death, or to praise God. A Vietnam veteran asks for a song in Vietnamese. One man asked only for songs with death in the lyrics, to force his family to talk to him about the future. He was ready to talk about it. They weren’t. So the therapist sang Queen’s version of “Another One Bites the Dust.” “Amazing Grace” and other spiritual songs are most often requested just before death.

It's a jobs program for sensitive young women who might feel uncomfortable busking on the city streets, waiting for cold-hearted businessmen to drop a dollar in their guitar cases. The government will drop the dollar in, and the elderly patients will be too polite (and also physically unable) to walk away.

Welcome to the hospice, where the strumming of Joan Baez wannabes will prepare you for death. They will ease your "final transition." You'll be ready to die before they're ready to leave.  If you hang out too long at the hospice, be forewarned: When you've heard "Amazing Grace" 10,000 times, you've only just begun.

Can't we please pick our own music? Recorded music played by virtuouso musicians? Maybe Beethoven's 6th Symphony.... or "The Man in the Box"....



IN THE COMMENTS: Jim said:

I was on the faculty in a music department with a music therapy program for ~25 years, and taught a couple of courses to students majoring in MT during that time.

The MT professors/practitioners have been relentlessly pursuing their dream of obtaining funding from medical insurance and the public schools. They point to a growing body of MT research - all of it advocacy, most of it incompetent, much of it just silly - to support their lobbying for the loot.

ALSO: When you get to that hospice and the folksinger arrives, remember John Belushi. (Suggestion via RLC in the email and Sixty Grit in the comments.)

"Everybody say freedom... I like unity of mankind...."

(Via Bloggingheads.)

Blaska attempts to extract details from Lueders about his unnamed sources in the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

Blaska's at the Isthmus, where Lueders worked for 25 years before moving on to the mysterious outfit that calls itself the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism.

Blaska asked Lueders about his “three knowledgeable sources” who supposedly had to remain unnamed to "maintain their professional relationships." Blaska said that his "inescapable conclusion" was that they were Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson, "and their liberal court ally, Justice Patrick Crooks."

Lueders replied:

The sources are people we considered reliable. We very carefully represented that they alleged certain events. They did. Justice Bradley has now made the same allegation in her comments to the Journal Sentinel. Your ‘inescapable conclusion’ is incorrect. Beyond that I have nothing more to say.

It's like a logic puzzle, isn't it? It's like in "Clue" when you make an accusation like Mr. Green with the lead pipe in the conservatory. You check the secret cards, and it's the wrench, not the lead pipe, but you were right about Mr. Green and the conservatory. You slip the cards back into the little black envelope and tell the other players you were wrong. They don't know how wrong.

By the way, Blaska is making noises about a singalong in the Capitol today to rival the "Solidarity Singers who have been singing sad songs of dissent in the Capitol Rotunda for at least four months now." But for some reason, he thinks he needs a permit, and so — like that silent majority march the other day — he's proposing a silent demonstration:

Be there at 11:45 a.m. Bring your sheet music -- make 10 copies -- and signs (sans sticks). I’ll do likewise. We’ll stand silently in a group in the middle of the singers -- unless they have a permit for that day -- holding our pro-Walker signs but saying nothing. My sign will read “Can we have our Capitol back?”

What songs would the conservatives sing (if they could get permission)?

I’m thinking songs like “God Bless America,” the theme to the Flintstones, Gilligan’s Island and -- in honor of wheelchair-bound patriot Dave Zien, "Born to be Wild!" Sunny Schubert suggests the Beatles’ “Taxman.” 

Yeah, conservatives should show up and celebrate the signing of the budget bill, the momentous event that occurred yesterday. Maybe you didn't notice. It was overshadowed by the gigantic turd Lueders felt moved to drop at exactly that moment.

Blogging is like making albums, says Bob Mould, but writing a book is different.

A video interview with the Wall Street Journal.

Buy his memoir here. And here's "Husker Du: The Story of the Noise-Pop Pioneers Who Launched Modern Rock."

ADDED: At 7:55, the interviewer asks him about his sexual orientation: Mould knew from an early age that he was gay, but he didn't reveal that to the general public until much later. Does he regret that? Mould says he wonders what his "work would have appeared to be" if he had been out when he was, say, 23. "It would have recontextualized the work."

Noting that others did the "heavy lifting" of being the spokespersons for gay musicians, he says he was "so focused on my music that I didn't have time to be gay.... I was very self-hating.... I felt keeping my work separate from my sexuality was really important and was one of the things that drove me crazy... not wanting to admit that they were intertwined. Wanting songs to be gender neutral."

It's an odd stunt in rock music — isn't it? — to keep sexuality out of it, to make it gender neutral. But his point is that he wanted to reach a large audience, so, given the small proportion of potential listeners who are gay males, you can understand that he would want to make the songs seem applicable to more people — not that everyone listens to song lyrics to find resonance with things in their own lives.

AND: Writing that update got me thinking about Cole Porter, who was gay, but wrote some amazing love songs — like "Night and Day" — that millions of listeners who are not gay men resonate with, even knowing he was gay.

ADDED: Robert Christgau reviews both of the books I've mentioned. Christgau tells us that Mould claims to have a 175 IQ.

A song by men in knickers, searched out because Meade just said "Quit It" like that.

"I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore" — the first single by the Young Rascals. That clip is their first TV appearance (in 1965). I remember when their 2d single — "Good Lovin'" — came out: the radio DJ expressed relief that the band had improved the moral level of their music, as if "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore" was rather smutty. I was 14 at the time, and it was only much later that I was able to imagine that the DJ had disaggregated the words "eat out" from the idiomatic expression "eat your heart out."

The lyric at 1:11 prompts a search for that Prince song... what is it? It's one of the "Purple Rain" songs. Ah! Here.

Was Prince influenced by The Rascals? Did Prince misconstrue the 1965 lyric like that DJ maybe did? We all know Prince got terribly smutty. It upset Tipper Gore so much:



MORE: On the great lyrics scare of 1984:

Pick your "Perfect Day."

1. With Elvis Costello:



2. With Pavarotti:



3. With Bono, Dr. John, Elton John everybody:



4. Lou, alone:

Respect for "We Didn't Start the Fire."

"[Billy] Joel is the perfect vehicle for Baby Boomer self-possession and his choice of 20th century landmarks has led to more history essays than Millard Fillmore's presidency.... Joel does a fantastic job recreating a modern Gilbert & Sullivan patter song. These are not easy to make, with their every-word-that-we-can-think-of lyrics. Joel's succeed because he keeps the words crisp and the ideas relevant to (at least some of) his audience. Sure it is just a list, but what a list!"

Ha. I didn't know you were allowed to like that much-hated song, but it's #108 on the Top 200 #1 songs of all time.

I still prefer this version:

Weird Al was born this way.

And as for Lady Gaga, maybe she was born that way.

ADDED: The link on "that way," above, was wrong. Try it now! It's funny.

The Silent Majority Walk and the Naked Bike Ride.

Today at the Capitol Square. Video shot and edited by me. Small glimpses of genitalia from 6:03 to 6:30. Breast alert.

The event I came to see was the Silent Majority Walk, an event planned to show appreciation for Scott Walker and the Republican legislature that passed the Budget Repair Bill this week.



0:00 — The pro-Walker walkers congregate a block away from the square and receive instructions to walk completely silently, confident in the rightness of their position, without response to "any of the mud that going to be slung at us today."

0:28 — The group walks by a sidewalk café (Graze) and an old man on a bench who says "Boo from me. Boo from me. You get a boo from me. You get a boo from me. Hold that flag up straight."

0:57 — More walking, past various street musicians and people enjoying the lovely day. Zero heckling.

2:40 — A young man — wearing capris over leggings — registers some objections.

3:02 — An older couple on bikes call out, naming some accomplishments of the labor movement —"Let's hear it for minimum wage" — then switch to a fairly polite "shame, shame, shame." The woman smiles. I suggest they catch up with the group since they are on bikes. The man says, "No, we're not going to harass them any more." I say, "People haven't really been heckling them at all. I'm surprised how civil people are being." The man says, "For some reason, we just got turned on." I laugh and say, "You're the only ones."

4:28 — A bagpiper gives them the thumbs down.

4:38 — "That's brand new. I'm shocked as shit," says a black man, laughing. I ask him some questions about why he's shocked and try to find out if he might perhaps actually be a Walker supporter himself.

5:54 — We hear a hubbub and I realize "These are the naked bike riders!" They ride by chanting "Less gas, more ass." I continue my discussion with the shocked-as-shit guy, who declares "That's America! That's America! That's the freedom!"

7:48 — An old guy in a protest contraption with pinwheels and palm trees.

8:04 — I talk to a young man who is tending a table marked "Madison Objectivists." "Is there much interest in Ayn Rand here?" I ask.

"Is There a Scientific Explanation for Justin Bieber?"

Asks Eric Felten at the Wall Street Journal.

"We have scientifically demonstrated that you can, to some extent, use neuroimaging in a group of people to predict cultural popularity," proclaimed Gregory Berns, who styles himself a "neuroeconomist." The divination is performed with the help of a functional magnetic resonance imaging machine, or fMRI, scanning the brains of juveniles while they listen to demo records. Emory University plumped the findings with the bold headline, "Teen brain data predicts pop song success."

If true, this would be the equivalent of having tomorrow's stock pages today. Helpful, that. Determine what tickles the pleasure points of the adolescent id and you ought to be able to plot more efficiently how to separate teens from their money.

Aw, come on, guys! You should know the answer! Here, it's in this song:

If you knew me when the year I went to college...

... I would have tried to get you to listen to this:



Tyrannosaurus Rex - "Warlord Of The Royal Crocodiles." The album is "Unicorn."

Baby plays guitar.

His love for "I Only Have Eyes For You" by The Flamingos must be a kind of blind love.

Jaltcoh says: "I almost regret finding this, since I've been watching it compulsively over and over. It might not be the best song ever, but it's at least in the running."

This lushly romantic old song makes an interesting soundtrack to the news of the last couple weeks. Why didn't Anthony Weiner only have eyes for Huma Abedin? You could say that if he'd stuck to sexting — i.e., writing — he'd have saved his eyes for her. But he only started the writing when he liked the woman's photograph.

Is there really any love so fixated on one woman that the man can't even see other women? What a grand fantasy of love! I have no idea if this is the best song ever, but it is surely in the running as the song that creates the most unrealistic expectation of what love will be like.

"It is not that we are not allowing music or loud sound. It is that we are also allowing quiet..."

"... which isn’t automatic in this city."

Everybody's talking about...

... Paul Revere.

Let me help you with the real "Legend of Paul Revere":

In a little town in Idaho
Way back in '61
A man was frying burgers
Gee - it seemed like lots of fun
But to his friend the bun boy
He confessed his misery
I think I'd like to start a group
So come along with me...

Wow. In the list of greatest songs telling the story of the singer(s), that's so far below...



... "Creeque Alley."

But I know, you want the real story of the real Paul Revere, which every jackass knows, is the poem by Henry Wordsworth Longfellow, so here, listen carefully, because there will be a quiz:

"'The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,' that was about the fact that the first change that takes place is in your mind..."

"... You have to change your mind before you change the way you live and the way you move. So when we said that 'The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,' we were saying that the thing that’s gonna change people is something that no one will ever be able to capture on film. It will just be something that you see, and all of a sudden you realize I’m on the wrong page, or I’m on the right page but I’m on the wrong note, and I’ve got to get in sync with everyone else to understand what’s happening in this country."

Gil Scott-Heron, RIP.

"I love the opening thump thump of the drums..."

"... and once hit a dashboard so hard that it made the cassette eject."