Give the Meme a Twist

My brother the Stinger is playing the old "Next Five" game over at his place. You've probably seen this one before; in fact, I'm pretty sure I've played it here. The game is to put your music player (iPod or whatever else) on shuffle and report what the next five songs are. It's usually fun and it tells you a little about the person who plays.

We need a break from politics anyway, so here's my twist on the game:

• Find the next five songs on your player (in my place, the Media player on my laptop)


• Find an accompanying video for each on YouTube (if you can)


• Report your results and say one thing about each song

So, here is what I've come up with:

First, it's Donald Fagen with New Frontier. This one reminds me of my sophomore year in college - it was a minor hit in 1982.

Second, we get Marvin Gaye and Tami Terrell in a classic from 1968, You're All I Need to Get By. This one doesn't have any special resonance for me, other than the fact it's a great song.

Third, we get the pride of Tulsa, the Gap Band, with Early in the Morning. This is also from 1982. Another college song for me - we weren't always too much into dance music in those days, but this was a good one. Also, you gotta love the cowboy hats.

Fourth, we return to the 60s, and we get Jimi Hendrix with Freedom. This song is pure 60s and an example of something that's easy to forget with Hendrix -- for all the guitar pyrotechnics, he was pretty firmly grounded in traditional song forms and there's a little bit of everything here - 12 bar blues, a great bridge and some excellent countermelodies. Man, he left too soon.

Last, we get someone else who left way too soon, also a guitar hero and sometime Hendrix acolyte, Stevie Ray Vaughan, with Life By the Drop. Stevie died in August, 1990, in a helicopter crash after a triumphant concert with Eric Clapton and Robert Cray at Alpine Valley in Wisconsin. It's easy to remember that, because my dad died four days later. This particular song came out posthumously but it's an apt summation of how Vaughan was living his life following the wild times he'd had earlier. He was really great and was poised for outright superstardom. Sometimes fate intervenes.

Totally random selection -- I have thousands of songs. Music can tell you many things. So if you're interested, put a few links in the comments section and tell me a story or two.