This list will always be changing.
1. Fortunate Son-Creedence Clearwater Revival.
I've loved this song as long as I can remember and I suppose I always will. It's a toss up between this one and my number 2 for the ultimate Vietnam song. No band represents my growing up years more than CCR.
2. All Along the Watchtower-Jimi Hendrix.
Jimi died more than 40 years ago, but for guys like me he will live forever. Greatest guitarist to ever live and I am not sure it's even close for the guy that is second best.
All Along the Watchtower is actually a cover song by Hendrix and I love cover songs if they are done well and this song was done well. So well, in fact, that everyone thinks this is a Hendrix song. It was first written and performed by Bob Dylan and even Dylan admits that Hendrix ruled with this song.
Nearly every Vietnam movie plays this song. So much so that a lot of people think of this song as THE Vietnam Song.
Fogerty may be my favorite all time vocalist, but Hendrix is my all time favorite guitarist. Well, he's my favorite guitarist after my son.
All Along the Watchtower has been covered many times and many of the covers are very good, but not of them come close to Jimi Hendrix.
3. Free Bird-Lynyrd Skynard. Nothing quite says the 70s like Free Bird. I promise that I am not totally living in the past but my first 3 songs were huge, huge, huge.
This song while being one of the greatest guitar songs ever, gives you a sense of freedom like no other music unless you are a fan of rap music and then there's really no hope for you.
4. Moon River-Any number of artists.
Some songs just give me the warm fuzzies and this one is maybe the best. Not sure I have a favorite version but if I did it might be by Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck two legendary guitar players.
5. Somewhere Over the Rainbow-like Moon River I don't care who sings it.
I suppose Judy Garland may have been the first, but there have been a number of good versions of this classic. I might even like the Eric Clapton/Jeff Beck version the best.
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Harper's Woods
I am proud to say that I grew up in the 1960s and 1970s. I realize that this does make me somewhat old but I am very proud of my era. I am a product of the 60s, I suppose.
Hollywood somehow managed to come up with a television show that reminded me so much of my youth. The Wonder Years was a classic and ran from 1988 to 1993.
The Wonder Years covered the early life of Kevin Arnold played by Fred Savage. In reality, I am nothing like Kevin Arnold but his life reminded me so much of my own. The setting was the late 60s and early 70s covering Kevin in elementary school, middle school and high school.
I often record reruns of The Wonder Years on any given night and start my day each morning by watching the shows. I've seen them all, but nearly every show has a special meaning for me.
The episode I am writing about in this blog was about Harper's Woods.
Harper's Woods was a small wooded area near where Kevin Arnold and his friends grew up. It had special meaning for them because they played there so much as children.
One day they discovered bulldozers were on their way to tear down Harper's Woods to build a shopping area.
That's progress. But, progress often has a price and for these kids it was bulldozing a very special place for them.
They decided to fight the construction project and did all they could to stop the development.
Needless to say they failed and the shopping center was built. Tragically, Harper's Woods was no more.
Small sections of wooded land disappearing in this world is a problem but that is a problem for another blog to solve. A lot of us have had our Harper's Woods. A place we went as children and had a lot of fun in our youth. I certainly had my own.
But, the disappearance of Harper's Woods was not even the point of this episode.
People are born on this planet every second of any given day. People also die at nearly the same rate. People come and people go. With the exception of a George Washington, or a Cesar Chavez, or a Martin Luther King a vast, vast majority come and go and hardly a trace of their existence even remains. We are born, we die, and we are quickly forgotten.
That is we are forgotten if anyone ever knows we are even alive in the first place.
I have driven by the local cemetery and personally witnessed a grave side funeral with all of three people in attendance. I felt saddened by somebody passing and nobody at all even caring.
I am afraid my own life will be the same.
At the end of this Wonder Years episode, Kevin had gotten in trouble at school. His junior high principle sat him down and told Kevin that he thought of himself as 'special'. The Principle had been at his job for 20 years and showed Kevin pictures on the wall of others that also thought they were 'special' and nobody even remembered who they were after a little time had passed.
Nobody remembers Harper's Woods and nobody remembers us.
That's just the way it is.
Hollywood somehow managed to come up with a television show that reminded me so much of my youth. The Wonder Years was a classic and ran from 1988 to 1993.
The Wonder Years covered the early life of Kevin Arnold played by Fred Savage. In reality, I am nothing like Kevin Arnold but his life reminded me so much of my own. The setting was the late 60s and early 70s covering Kevin in elementary school, middle school and high school.
I often record reruns of The Wonder Years on any given night and start my day each morning by watching the shows. I've seen them all, but nearly every show has a special meaning for me.
The episode I am writing about in this blog was about Harper's Woods.
Harper's Woods was a small wooded area near where Kevin Arnold and his friends grew up. It had special meaning for them because they played there so much as children.
One day they discovered bulldozers were on their way to tear down Harper's Woods to build a shopping area.
That's progress. But, progress often has a price and for these kids it was bulldozing a very special place for them.
They decided to fight the construction project and did all they could to stop the development.
Needless to say they failed and the shopping center was built. Tragically, Harper's Woods was no more.
Small sections of wooded land disappearing in this world is a problem but that is a problem for another blog to solve. A lot of us have had our Harper's Woods. A place we went as children and had a lot of fun in our youth. I certainly had my own.
But, the disappearance of Harper's Woods was not even the point of this episode.
People are born on this planet every second of any given day. People also die at nearly the same rate. People come and people go. With the exception of a George Washington, or a Cesar Chavez, or a Martin Luther King a vast, vast majority come and go and hardly a trace of their existence even remains. We are born, we die, and we are quickly forgotten.
That is we are forgotten if anyone ever knows we are even alive in the first place.
I have driven by the local cemetery and personally witnessed a grave side funeral with all of three people in attendance. I felt saddened by somebody passing and nobody at all even caring.
I am afraid my own life will be the same.
At the end of this Wonder Years episode, Kevin had gotten in trouble at school. His junior high principle sat him down and told Kevin that he thought of himself as 'special'. The Principle had been at his job for 20 years and showed Kevin pictures on the wall of others that also thought they were 'special' and nobody even remembered who they were after a little time had passed.
Nobody remembers Harper's Woods and nobody remembers us.
That's just the way it is.
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