Season # 533: "Spring Break"

[jtsteam]

I don't really have any songs associated in my head with spring break (since that's not really a thing here) or even with summer holidays, so I've been looking for songs from the year I left school, 1995. The best album of 1995 was undoubtedly Different Class, by Pulp - you may not agree with this, in which case there must be an amazing album I've yet to hear from that year . And I hope there is because what could be better than discovering some amazing music after all!

However... while I've tried doing some songs from that album in the past, I've never been satisfied with the way they turn out. Jarvis' delivery is too good, I suppose. I'll keep trying, but in the meantime, here's another classic song that was never off the radio that summer, by the curiously spelled Edwyn Collins:



Not a major chord in sight, but plenty of fiddling about with midi.

 

[Mark Suszko]

I don't really have any songs associated in my head with spring break (since that's not really a thing here) or even with summer holidays, so I've been looking for songs from the year I left school, 1995. The best album of 1995 was undoubtedly Different Class, by Pulp - you may not agree with this, in which case there must be an amazing album I've yet to hear from that year . And I hope there is because what could be better than discovering some amazing music after all!

However... while I've tried doing some songs from that album in the past, I've never been satisfied with the way they turn out. Jarvis' delivery is too good, I suppose. I'll keep trying, but in the meantime, here's another classic song that was never off the radio that summer, by the curiously spelled Edwyn Collins:



Not a major chord in sight, but plenty of fiddling about with midi.

Neat. I enjoy their song: "Like A friend". Shatner has also covered them.

 

[mountain goat]

this, a song from Uncle Cliff!
filmed earlier this morning a few minutes walk from my house
@ the gorgeous Waterworks Reserve in Hobart, Tasmania

 

[Canada Jim]

"King Of the Road", but we get it. Nice job.

Thanks Mark. I'll go back and fix that.

 

[Mark Suszko]

this, a song from Uncle Cliff!
filmed earlier this morning a few minutes walk from my house
@ the gorgeous Waterworks Reserve in Hobart, Tasmania

Cliff was still charting in the US when I was a college Junior.

 

[joo]

Thanks for hosting, Mark!

here's a song written in 2016, inspired by a true story that happened to my friend. He called it the cactus monster but it was really a giant Flax plant, with long leaves like arms to "eat' tennis balls and wayward undergarments. This story happened in Summer 2016, so I am submitting this as an entry since we don't do Spring Break in Singapore or Hobart.

here are the words
There was a cactus monster in my father's backyard
It had no eyes, no mouth, no ears, no nose
But it ate tennis balls and flying undergarments
That had escaped from the clothesline outside our kitchen
I tried to dig it out one hot summer morning
With my bare hands and my old man watching me
He said "the plant's been here since we bought the house 50 years ago,
that son of a bitch's probably a century old."
My girlfriend started feeling sentimental and stuff
I told her it's just a tennis-ball-eating monster plant
I spent the whole morning digging the whole damn thing out
And found seven tennis balls and a shoe with an open mouth
My girlfriend asked me if the plant was dead before I dug it out
I said : No, it wasn't. But it sure is now.
When you cactus starts eating your tennis balls and undergarments
You know it's time to dig it out. The cactus monster has to go.

 

[Ila]

I graduated high school in 1981, and this was a song I loved back then. Somebody's Knockin' by Terri Gibbs.

 

[Mark Suszko]

Thanks for hosting, Mark!

here's a song written in 2016, inspired by a true story that happened to my friend. He called it the cactus monster but it was really a giant Flax plant, with long leaves like arms to "eat' tennis balls and wayward undergarments. This story happened in Summer 2016, so I am submitting this as an entry since we don't do Spring Break in Singapore or Hobart.

here are the words
There was a cactus monster in my father's backyard
It had no eyes, no mouth, no ears, no nose
But it ate tennis balls and flying undergarments
That had escaped from the clothesline outside our kitchen
I tried to dig it out one hot summer morning
With my bare hands and my old man watching me
He said "the plant's been here since we bought the house 50 years ago,
that son of a bitch's probably a century old."
My girlfriend started feeling sentimental and stuff
I told her it's just a tennis-ball-eating monster plant
I spent the whole morning digging the whole damn thing out
And found seven tennis balls and a shoe with an open mouth
My girlfriend asked me if the plant was dead before I dug it out
I said : No, it wasn't. But it sure is now.
When you cactus starts eating your tennis balls and undergarments
You know it's time to dig it out. The cactus monster has to go.

A spiritual relative to the old novelty song: "The Eggplant That Ate Chicago", maybe? That's certainly a unique memory, and highly original!

 

[Mark Suszko]

I graduated high school in 1981, and this was a song I loved back then. Somebody's Knockin' by Terri Gibbs.

I remember when this one came out. Big on the country crossover stations.

 

[wee_ginga_yin]

During the summer and at most weekend Finns exit the cities and go to their summerhouse. You should feel highly honoured if you get invited to someones summerhouse. It is like entering the holy of holies.

An Egyptian lady I knew, who was used to the bustle of night time Cairo finally receive an invite to someones summerhouse, and she could not believe what all the fuss was about. Nothing exciting happened. Folks relaxed in sauna and had a beer and watched the sunset and went to bed early.

To understand this you have to know that the Finns only recently came out of the forest, and at every opportunity they go back in.

 

[Joko]

Technically, the album from which this song comes was released in 1987, the year before my high school graduation, but it didn't chart until the SPring of '88, and by the summer of that year, you couldn't turn on the radio without hearing GnR

 

[Mark Suszko]

During the summer and at most weekend Finns exit the cities and go to their summerhouse. You should feel highly honoured if you get invited to someones summerhouse. It is like entering the holy of holies.

An Egyptian lady I knew, who was used to the bustle of night time Cairo finally receive an invite to someones summerhouse, and she could not believe what all the fuss was about. Nothing exciting happened. Folks relaxed in sauna and had a beer and watched the sunset and went to bed early.

To understand this you have to know that the Finns only recently came out of the forest, and at every opportunity they go back in.

Hyvää työtä!

 

[Mark Suszko]

Technically, the album from which this song comes was released in 1987, the year before my high school graduation, but it didn't chart until the SPring of '88, and by the summer of that year, you couldn't turn on the radio without hearing GnR

Welcome to the jungle.

 

[hendulele]

My spring breaks were breaks from school only. My folks owned a nursery, so I worked the whole time.

But at my high school prom, this song from Dickie Betts and the Allmans was all the rage.

 

[Bystander]

One that was kicking around the US charts back in the summer of 1972 when I left school. The first version I actually heard was by the Isley Brothers who had a hit with it over here in the UK in 1974, it led me to the original by Seals and Crofts. I like both versions but I've just done my own thing here, thank you for hosting Sir.

 

[Mark Suszko]

My spring breaks were breaks from school only. My folks owned a nursery, so I worked the whole time.

But at my high school prom, this song from Dickie Betts and the Allmans was all the rage.

Great job; this is another one in my uke band's catalog. Depending on the key, you can bend the chord to make that little twang, like on the record.

 

[Mark Suszko]

One that was kicking around the US charts back in the summer of 1972 when I left school. The first version I actually heard was by the Isley Brothers who had a hit with it over here in the UK in 1974, it led me to the original by Seals and Crofts. I like both versions but I've just done my own thing here, thank you for hosting Sir.

Nice original take on a cover; pretty picking pattern. It's a hard song to sing in the Seals and Crofts key, but the harmonies and chord choice are lovely.

I'm curious why the apparent majority of entries so far isn't from the continental US members... perhaps they are all off on break still... But I'm also glad to be meeting such a cosmopolitan and diverse bunch of folks. I'm glad to be here and to meet you all in this way.

 

[mountain goat]

this, an original song for the season
lamenting how fast time flies when one is on holidays...

 

[pabrizzer]

i finished high school in 1972. one of the things i had to look forward to was the possibility of mandatory military service at age 20 if i was unlucky in the conscription lottery. the vietnam war was very topical with large antiwar protests taking place. so i was very interested in the federal election held that year with the prospective labor prime minister gough whitlam promising to end conscription and our involvement in the mess that was vietnam.
voting age at that time was 21 so i was unable to vote but i was so pleased that a labor government was elected for the first time in 23 years.
the labor win changed my life - gough whitlam brought in many reforms - he immediately put an end to conscription and ended our involvement in vietnam - he abolished the last remnants of the white australia policy - he put steps in place to bring about equal pay for women and lowered the voting age to 18 - he ended fees for university study - he began the process that resulted in 'free' universal health care - he put in place tentative steps towards aboriginal land rights
obviously conservative forces were not pleased with the swift and sweeping reforms and he lost office in 1975 by being dismissed by our governor general (the queen's representative here in australia) - the most contraversial change of government in australia's history
the it's time part of this song is the jingle that helped him gain election in 1972
the verses are my own

 

[One Man And His Uke]

I left school in 1980, so I had a look at the songs that were in the charts around that Summer, and I was pleased that Messages by Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark was a hit around that time. Luckily enough I saw them live the next year in Lyons, really good gig it was. We even hung around the stage door and had a chat with them when they came out, thoroughly decent chaps they were too. This is off their first album, the bigger hit, Enola Gay was off their second, and other than those two albums and the odd single, like Souvenir, I have no idea what they have released since then. But this song takes me back to that time.