I remember all 3 of these tunes as themes for television shows back in the '60s. #1, "A Swingin' Safari," introduced, I think, The Match Game. #2, "The Syncopated Clock," signaled the beginning of more than one channel's late movie. #3, "Java," opened a hosted cartoon show in Los Angeles, the name of which I can no longer remember (I also tend to confuse #s 1 & 3 with "Baby Elephant Walk" and several tunes by The Tijuana Brass, which may also turn up here eventually).
The weepy part.
Okay, so here we're jumping into the heart of this mix, with 1) A song (slash-rant) that might be a problem for playing in mixed politically-correct company, and 2) The greatest rock-n-roll song of all time, except for the lyrics, (and, well... perhaps the gender of the singer) which might tend to disturb many rockers, and 3) A fine answer song to #2, aside from the fact that it's not nearly as funny or as rockin' (yet it always makes me smile in juxtaposition). "Ooo, my head!" as Richie Valens once said.
After getting high, of course, you have to come down -- so that's what this set is about. Hippies had their share of songs about getting the creeps, and I have the feeling I'm forgetting some important ones. Left out David Crosby's "Almost Cut My Hair" on purpose, though, because he always gave me the creeps (hell, even Donovan pushes my limits)!
Another completed mix CD from olden times past. This one was made for a fan of cuckoo clocks, and I believe it was not well-liked because it was so all-over-the-place. Well, what can you expect from a cuckoo? Also, it runs a little short, which makes it just the right length for one side of a C-90.
Some things just go together -- trust me, this will work. Themes for movies and TV shows have to stand out -- they are introductions, they need to be ingratiating and set a tone to the proceedings. They establish leitmotifs, for heaven's sake! Anomalous instrumentals are the tunes that appear somewhere in otherwise vocally-oriented musical proceedings -- they stand out by their very nature, yet they exist only according to the whim of the artist. Usually, they fill a space that would otherwise be blank, or filled by an unfinished vocal number. These things work together, in some weird way; I hope to prove that here.
Just my luck: I go looking for a picture of Loudon Wainwright III to use for this post, and I drown in pictures of his brats. Well, OK, there are a few pictures of him, but they all look so clean and sober! Clearly, things weren't always that way for ol' Lou, as I hope Part 3 of the Wine Mix, the all-Loudon Wainwright III set, will show.
If you haven't quite figured it out yet, this blog is part of my drive to complete mix CDs. Thinking-up ideas for them is loads of fun, but completing the song selection is a burden I can rarely bear. Our big picture, here, must therefore wait until several sub-assemblies are readied for final construction. Thus, "Pt. 1", "Pt. 2", etc. Mostly, these "parts" are put together in a definite order, ready to be patched into the mix, but this segment will be an exception. I couldn't do a dog-themed mix without several cover versions of The Stooges' "I Wanna Be Your Dog", but it seemed much easier to upload them all together, then scatter them around the mix later.
Back again, and transitioning gracefully from Part 3 ("Have another hit... of fresh air...") to Part 4, the dope set. During the period I'm exploring, there were so many tunes about toking on the airwaves that this whole mix could have been compiled entirely from stoner songs (which is not to say that I could have listened to it if it were). Limiting this episode to only three numbers (heh), in fact, meant leaving out a couple of semi-essential goodies -- but I have other plans, later, for The New Riders of The Purple Sage and John Prine.
