Lady Madonna

Don't be deceived by the title.  This is not a song by Madonna, but rather a song by The Beatles.

What a great song it is too.  Go Beatles go.  Such a shame there isn't any more music for this group to produce. 

And with today's song, I have enough music for another compilation disc which, as you know, I like to give away right here on my blog along with other "valuable" prizes. 

So...... here we go friends.

PRIZE NUMBER 1

The best of the songs stuck in Brady's head volume 6-  19 songs I've blogged about since about Thanksgiving on.  Not only does this compilation have good music, it also represents music from the 60's, 70's 80's, 90's, 2000's and 2010's.  Your ears will be happy and it will be like you're having a history lesson in music.  Good stuff indeed.

PRIZE NUMBER 2

Ellis Peters' classic novel "A Morbid Taste For Bones" on cassette tape!  Described as "A Medieval Whodunnit" this book on tape is ideal if you're lucky enough to have hours and hours to kill and if you're lucky enough to run into a cassette tape player while killing time. 

And best yet, this classic is read by Glyn Houston.  (If you have to google search this person, shame on you.  Shame.)

PRIZE NUMBER 3

Do you love mediocre music performed by twins with beautiful long flowing blonde hair?  Well Nelson should fill your needs indeed!  Nelson's classic 1990 album "After The Rain" only here on thesongsstuckinmyhead.blogspot.com

PRIZE NUMBER 4

This is my most proud moment of generosity.  Yes, friends, you could be the lucky owner of this glass encased scorpion, 7 inches in length!  Impress your friends and family with fake stories about how you captured this beast in the jungles of Siberia just before it attacked you.  Don't tell them the truth, that it really came from Hy and Mike's Pawn shop (for 5 bucks) on 35th south. 

What's saddest about this scorpion is that it looks like it's been placed in there with an asbestos background.  For all I know he died from asbestos poisoning.  :(

Check out the sharpie pen I've placed on the 2nd picture to give you a perspective on how big this mofo is.



OK, here's the thing people.  THESE ARE SOME GENUINELY AWESOME PRIZES!  Seriously, you would be so lucky to win them.

All you need to do is comment on this blog post.  Say anything.  If you need some ideas, talk about corn dogs, or maybe Milli Vanilli, or maybe something deep like existentialism and stuff.  Just make a comment, it's just that easy!

And just for funzies, I'll enter you in this drawing twice if you can prove to me that you've shared this link with your friends through Facebook, Twitter, or poor Google Plus.

Here's the other thing.  I know a lot of you come and look at my blog, but few of you enter these contests.  Come on!  Have some fun and enter!  The way I see it there are 5 things that may be holding you back from entering.

1-  You are embarrassed that you read my blog and don't want anyone to publicly know that you do.  Fair enough, enter anyway!

2-  You've entered before and haven't won.  Fair enough, maybe today's your lucky day.

3-  You've entered before and HAVE won.  Enter again, there's no shame!  I can assure you that your odds of winning again are just as good.

4-  You just don't have the time to win free crap.  Well poo on you.  Enter anyway.

5-  You would feel guilty taking these prizes off my hands when I could keep them for myself.  Bless your kind soul, I don't want this stuff.  Please somebody take it!

Important, if you leave a comment and I don't know who you are, please leave an email address or twitter name so I can let you know that you won. 

There will be one winner of these 4 special prizes.  The random drawing will take place this coming Sunday night, February 3rd.  I will ship the winnings anywhere in the world for you!  

Have fun.

Michael Praytor/ Mr. Kite

I'm kind of cheating today.  You see, here's the thing, I just got back from a weekend get-away with my hot wife.  We went to Vegas, and each of us got to decide what we wanted to do each night.

My choice was to see Ben Folds Five for the first time.  The concert was Friday night, and it was fantastic.  If I had more time, I would go into detail.  I've never heard a piano sound so loud and amazing.  The show rocked, and I was in nerdy music bliss.

Saturday morning I woke up with a song from their new album stuck in my head.  Hearing the song live gave me a new appreciation for it.  Here it is, this is Michael Praytor, Five Years Later.

Before I play the song, I want to tell you that it's about a guy named Michael Praytor, who has no real significance in the singer's life- but the singer seems to run into him every five years, completely random and inexplicable.

There is this guy I used to work with at Wendy's.  His name is Dustin.  He's my Michael Praytor.  I've run into him so many times, in the strangest places, and we always laugh about it when we see each other.

(The next time I run into Dustin, I'll take a picture and post it here)

OK- moving on.....

So, wifey poo really wanted to see The Beatles "Love" by Cirque du Soleil.  The Beatles are sure neato, so of course I went.  For me, I had to get used to what it might feel like to do acid (I've never done drugs) for the first 30 minutes of the show.  But once I adjusted to the artificial "trip" the Soleil-ites were giving me, I had a jolly good time.

Not trying to sound trite, wow, The Beatles wrote some pretty incredible music and wow, some of those performers in Cirque du Soleil were incredible athletes and performers.  The drunk guy behind me shouted   through the whole show, but that is the only criticism I can give about the performance.

Sunday morning (fittingly) I woke up with a song by The Beatles that is (fittingly) about the circus.

Here's "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite."

Here's something interesting I came across in all my deep and intense web research I do.

This is the very poster that inspired John Lennon to write this song.  Lyrically, you can see that he is quite literal with his inspiration.  I never knew this before now, and I likey.  You can read more about it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Being_for_the_benefit_of_mr_kite

Above is a sign I saw in town.  I may be the only one who finds this funny.  Perhaps there is something I'm missing, but I read this as "If it's here, then it's here!"

Lastly, here is a picture of me and my sweetheart.  We've been married 7 years now.  I don't regret a single second and I'm happy as I look at this to see that we are starting to look older. Hopefully we've become more sophisticated as well.  I love that she shares my passion for music and has an even stronger passion for tolerating me.  But musically, what a fun weekend for me:  Ben Folds Five and The Beatles.  Awesome.

Now back to the grind.  

Weights and Measures

I won't say anything and just let the music speak for itself today. 

Here's "Weights and Measures" by Dry the River. 

Turn

Wow, it can be exhausting trying to come up with creative things to say about songs.  Hopefully some people stop by here to just hear the music!?

I'm sure if I had more time, if I were a better writer and if I were more clever, that I could make this blog really fun and hundreds of people would come to visit, rather than the 50 or so that come each day.  I don't know who a lot of you are, but I feel sorry for you that you like my blog.

(Forgive the dialogue, the song starts at about 1:10) (Also, it baffles me that any band would want any lines spoken through a music video, it should just be the music and visuals, but here you go anyway)

Today's song is from TRAVIS, a band that I should have been listening to years ago- and I've blogged about.  They just have such a great sound.  I love this song too, it seems to be in my head a lot lately. 

Anyway, I'm feeling realy uninspired, which says to me that I should stop right now. 

But first, here are some pictures of us messing around with camera effects.  The kids thought this was the funniest thing we had ever done.

Human Nature

I think this is the 4th or 5th time I've posted a M.J. song on this blog.  Without much to say about it, here's the song:

Thanks for caring. 

Brady

Rubber Duckie

Fun Fact #1-  This song was stuck in my head this morning

Fun Fact #2-  It was written in 1970. 

Fun Fact #3-  To everyone's surprise, the song charted at #16 in September of 1970. 

Fun Fact #4-  Jellyfish are 98% water and evaporate in the sun.

Don't you feel smart now? 

On My Own

Today's post is probably one of the reasons that I took a 3 week long break from this blog. 

The music from Les Miserables is so darn catchy!  There was a time (high school) when I listened to Les Mis almost every day.  I couldn't get enough of the poppy 80's musical theater power ballads that Les Mis had to offer.  I wonder if REO Speedwagon has ever tried to cover a song from Les Mis?  They should.

So, I guess what I'm getting at, is that even though I haven't listened to the music from Les Miserables for more than 10 years, I finally saw the movie a few weeks ago and the gull darn music is not leaving my brain. 

Here's "On My Own."  You know it, you probably love it.  Here you go. 

Since the resurgence of this beloved musical, thanks to Hollywood, something has come up a few times for me as I talk to people about this show.  It concerns how to classify Les Miserables.  Is it an Opera?  Is it Musical Theater?  Or is it in its a class of its own?  This may not be a common discussion for most people, but being married to an Opera singer, people sometimes ask me, "has your wife ever perfomed in Les Miserables?"  Of course, I always respond with "no, Les Miserables is not an Opera."  And then I get this:  "But there's no talking!" 

I'll try not to rant- I don't claim to be an expert on music.  If anything I'm a certified music obsessive spazz, nothing more.  Nothing less.  But this is how I see it.  Opera, or a better way of putting it, classical singing, has everything to do with the style of singing you're doing!  Opera singers have gotten their voice to the level where it cannot get any stronger.  They are the best singers in the world.  Yes, many of the singers in Les Miserables are great singers, but few of them could fill their voice in an auditorium without a microphone, or belt out the high notes to the queen of the night aria or do this.  I assure you that cute little Cosette's character from Les Miserables would explode if she even attempted to sing either of these songs.

 

So there are my thoughts on the matter.  Now are you wondering whether or not I liked Les Mis?  The answer is "yes."  Much more than I thought I would.  I just don't consider it an opera.  

ABC

I've taken another little break.  Who has missed me the most?  (Cricket Noises) 

Anyway, I'm back, for better or worse.  I'm also starting to wonder if I'll tire of doing this someday.  The model I've chosen for this blog has been to write every other day.  I made this choice intentionally, so that I could show you the varying music that's playing through my head- and to make it a little crazy.  Who knows how long it will be before I throw in the towel, or write less frequently. 

Bored are you?  Welp, let me tell you what was playing in my head this morning.  In fact, I'll even play you a video.

Isn't little Michael just the cutest little thing you've ever seen? 

The first thing I thought about this morning as I heard this song, is one of my earliest memories of school.  I have lots of memories, most would bore you.  Since I have no shame, I'll tell you this story anyway. 

In the first grade I was almost as cute as young Michael Jackson.  In fact, here's a picture. 

After you hear this story, you probably won't think I was a cute kid.  You'll probably wonder instead how I've made it this far in life.  Most people do. 

In the first grade, I was terrified of when we, as a school, would do a fire drill.  I don't know why this scared me.  Maybe it was the loud bell that rang, followed by the announcement.  Maybe I thought it was a real emergency.  Maybe I never recovered from having watched the Challenger space shuttle explode on live television while I was in class (does anyone else remember that?) 

Well, for whatever reason, I was really really really terrified of doing the fire drill.  I swear, we did it once a week too, further heightening my day-to-day anxieties.  With such severe anxiety, I had an even more irrational fear that the fire drill would happen while I was alone in the bathroom one day.  Of course, the bathroom was attached to the classroom and I would have been fine, but in the mind of a six year-old, going to the bathroom was not an option. 

So.... I did what any other bright kid would do, I wet my pants every day.  I would do it during class.  I distinctly remember the warm feeling of pee filling my underwear and slowly finding its way down into my pants.  Then slowly it would turn cold and itchy, intolerably itchy.  When we would be released to go to recess, I remember seeing a puddle in the curves of my school chair.  When I would return from recess, the puddle would magically have "evaporated." 


I bet I wet my pants intentionally at least 10 times that year.  But here's the odd thing-  Nobody said anything to me about it!  If my teacher knew, he was covering for me, wiping up my pee and never drawing attention to it.  If the kids knew, they had the decency to not make fun of me for it (we all know kids would never do this, cruel little bastards that they are.)  And if my mom knew about it, she certainly never said anything to me, in spite of having to clean my stinky laundry.  If I was ever scolded for it, I certainly don't remember it.

So, what I learned from this experience is that it's perfectly OK to have irrational fears and to deal with them in irrational ways.  And most importantly, there is no consequence to peeing your pants.  I wonder, even now, at 33 years-old, if there were a fire drill at work, or a false alarm of some kind, if I might pee my pants out of sheer terror.