Today’s Musikal “Cloud” Crowd Computing

I like to be honest  and admit that I am not perfect all of the time.  More of us should embrace this policy- especially the politicos.  Regardless,  I will let you know that I did not understand the lyrics of every hit record that sounded great, or was a hit back in the glory days which defined my youth. This is what “tune wedgies” are for!  If you have lived two score and more, these tunes will gin-up into your brain if at all you were or are musically “insane”, like I am admittedly.

A horse named “Crowd Computing” won this year’s second leg of The Triple Crown, The Preakness Stakes. It did not last long and was maybe a sore name – yet of this generation.

Therefore, as Thoreau might have said, “music is of utmost importance, the very essence of life itself. According to him, music links humankind to nature, to the universal divine, and it offers to those who listen closely the potential for transcendence.

Fast-forward with diligence to the lyrics of The Rolling Stones and even further into today, I find that we often do not hear at first all of what the singer is saying, but in due-time, The Creator marries our ears to hear the originally intended message at the appropriate time in our lives – it becomes crystal-clear (with the help of on-line lyric translations, of course, lol!)

Thus is my latest “tune wedgie” and a few British lines that I never understood until I had to get up out of a light sleep, in the middle of last night to see on my computer. It was awesomely inspired by a SKYLINE t-shirt about “cloud computing”.  So, “Get off Of MY Cloud!” racked in my mental jukebox.  It is funny how that works, a ginned-up favorite song from my comeuppance!

(Actually, I loved this song, but due to the British accent, I never knew exactly what Mick was saying!)

“I live in an apartment on the ninety-ninth floor – of my block
And I sit at home looking out the window
Imagining the world has stopped
Then in flies a guy who’s all dressed up – like a Union Jack
And says, I’ve won five pounds if I have his – kind of detergent pack

I says, Hey! You! Get off of my cloud
Hey! You! Get off of my cloud
Hey! You! Get off of my cloud
Don’t hang around ’cause two’s a crowd
On my cloud, baby

The telephone is ringing
I say, “Hi, it’s me. Who is there on the line?”
A voice says, “Hi, hello, how are you?”
Well, I guess I’m doin’ fine
He says, “It’s three a.m., there’s too much noise
Don’t you people ever want to go to bed?
Just ’cause you feel so good,
Do you have to drive me out of my head ?”

I says, Hey! You! Get off of my cloud
Hey! You! Get off of my cloud
Hey! You! Get off of my cloud
Don’t hang around ’cause two’s a crowd
On my cloud, baby

I was sick and tired, fed up with this
And decided to take a drive downtown
It was so very quiet and peaceful
There was nobody, not a soul around
I laid myself out, I was so tired
And I started to dream
In the morning the parking tickets were just – like a flag stuck on my window screen

I says, Hey! You! Get off of my cloud
Hey! You! Get off of my cloud
Hey! You! Get off of my cloud
Don’t hang around ’cause two’s a crowd
On my cloud, baby

I says, Hey! You! Get off of my cloud
Hey! You! Get off of my cloud
Hey! You! Get off of my cloud
Don’t hang around ’cause two’s a crowd
On my cloud, baby…”

Below, is the original  performance that I will always remember seeing on TV as a boy!  Remember to check out my “mothership” blog since 2009 at http://www.achilliad.wordpress.com please and Comment!

Cheers.

 

“on my cloud, baby…”

 

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Trumpeter Whistling, “Lonely Bull”

Yesterday,  I’m sitting at my boring work desk and haven’t thought about this tune in decades, when suddenly it is in my mind all of the time and I whistled it aloud perfectly as when it was on the radio daily back in the 1960s. The magic of my “jukebox brain” is that when a tune from the past enters it and presses “play” automatically, I can usually find it and/or name it with the help of YouTube, in seconds! So I “google” Herb Alpert and as soon as the “Greatest Hits” album comes up first and I see that familiar A&M Records olive-green label and the first cut, “Lonely Bull”, I was confident that I had my tune du jour.

I believe that simple familiarity is part of the alluring beauty of the music of this bygone era. Suddenly, I could have been in a scene at a Riviera resort in a James Bond (Sean Connery) movie or something! lol  Doesn’t it sound like the background music for one of those scenes?

Herb played a Chicago Benge in the TJBrass days, later a Yamaha, and then a Sima trumpet. I’ve read where he said that the trumpet is not as important as practicing. Practicing scales on the trumpet is boring.   I wish I could interview Mr. Alpert.  I feel like I grew up with him or  maybe he helped me grow up because I used to play the trumpet. My dad, a stiff of the military’s World War II bands wanted me to just practice scales, but Herb Alpert, Al Hirt and Miles Davis shaped my interpretation of the horny horn through the years and I wanted to play words like they did!

Herb Alpert is the man who played the contemporary disco dance classic, “Rise”! I betcha didn’t know that.  More on it later because this post is about Herb Alpert and The Tijuana Brass’ “The Lonely Bull” as penned by me, “The Lonely Cheetah“.

Now lets jump to his many performances of it over fifty years beginning in 1962! I especially enjoy the one from 1969 where he wore the Star Trek-like “Captain Kirk” shirt and leaned a bit more to the right and waay back from the microphone! lol  I think it one of his signature stances.

Measure several of those performances of this against the slower and more tempered original studio version on the video below, please.  Pour yourself a class of Merlot or Cabernet Sauvignon and check out this first one, the whole “Lonely Bull” album.

Wow! What a run! I am glad he is still with us in the physical world to possibly blow more magical notes, if he so desires. I wanted to get in-touch with him for this post, but didn’t know how.  Googling A&M Records went nowhere and I gleaned that the label is a casualty of the corporatization of the music industry that we used to know. However, my interview of Herb Alpert research lead me to this insightful video, where we get a flavor of the cool of Mr. Alpert and his philosophies on life and his approach to playing.

Geez, we all age and grey to some extent, but I will always remember the suave, energetic and excitable band leader seen in the above videos – not that he is finished as I write this, by any extent.

And oh, about “Rise” my classic dance 12″ I mentioned above?  From “My Vinyl”collection, here you go:

Any similarities between “Rise” and “The Lonely Bull” that you’d like to discuss?  Just blow some comments at me below!