A MEMORIAL DAY STORY

There's a story of Memorial Day on Wikipedia that blew me away. It seems, according to a professor David Blight of Yale University, that freed slaves from the South were the first to observe Memorial Day. They did this by going to a Union soldier's mass gravesite in Charleston, North Carolina, digging up their remains and re-interring them in individual graves. They then placed a sign proclaiming it as a Union soldiers graveyard.

Imagine this for a moment, someone actually thought this up. To dig up dead bodies that have been dead for a few years. Then separate the corpses and bury them in separate graves. This is crazy. And then,he, or she, probably a he, told others this cockamamie idea. And they went along with it. In other words, other people thought it was a good idea too. This, in and of itself, is an amazing thing to me. And to top it off, they did this in the South, where memories were still fresh in the minds of many people in the area about Union soldiers killing their Confederate comrades and destroying their home towns.

I can just imagine some of these former Confederates harrassing the former slaves about digging up the enemy and giving them a proper burial. Where the memorial part began was that a few years later, in 1868, they went back to the graves and decorated the graves with flowers. Memorial Day first began as Decoration Day. It also was first a memorial for Union soldiers, but then it expanded to all other soldiers as well.

I usually don't think twice about Memorial Day, other than what to put on the grill or where to find the best deals. But this year I will think of these former slaves who put their lives on the line to give thanks to these soldiers who lost their lives to free them. It is so easy to just say thanks, say a little prayer for someone and then move on. It takes a special someone to do something as moving and as memorable as these former slaves did to these unknown soldiers. On second thought, it might not be such a crazy idea after all. I salute these people whoever they were.

Ray Charles is a true American genius and he performed the best rendition of "America The Beautiful" ever. Some people have wanted this song to be the national anthem but The Star Spangled Banner won out. Anyway, here is Ray performing the song for your enjoyment.

Happy Memorial Day.

BALLAD OF JOHN AND YOKO VIDEO

I'm trying to do some changes to the blog and one of the changes is to have a video embedded on the blog. This being so, I figured which video to place. I mean, there are literelly thousands and thousands of videos out there. The easiest thing to do was to have one of what I was listening to at the moment. So "The Ballad of John and Yoko" became the one and I thought, I wonder if they have a video. And so they do. The great thing about this song is how John Lennon sings "You know how hard it can be." He sings "be" with four syllables. Check it out. The bass part is also great. One thing I might've said before is that the good thing about Yoko, if there is such a thing, is that she inspired John to create some great songs. And this is one of them.

The interesting thing about the song is that only John and Paul recorded it. George and Ringo were not involved. Another thing is that the song was banned in some radio stations in the U.S. because one of the lyrics says "Christ" and "crucify." One of the things I haven't noticed, which they have on Wikipedia is that Paul sings back up vocals but does not sing the "Christ" lyric. I'll have to check that out as well.

Anyway, enjoy the video and hopefully there will be more changes. Eventually.

MORE SONGS ABOUT MOTHERS

John Lennon isn't the only singer-songwriter who's composed songs about mothers. On last weeks entry, I wrote about three songs John recorded about his mother. Other artists have as well. One of these is Paul Simon, who had his first solo hit with a song called "Mother and Child Reunion." It's a terrific song, although it's really not about his mother. One of the more interesting interpretations about the song is that it is about a chicken and egg dish called mother and child reunion. Amusing, but far-fetched. Unlike Weird Al, Paul Simon doesn't sing about food. I actually prefer Simon's voice over Garfunkel's if you can believe it. Garfunkel has a nicer voice and Simon and Garfunkel's hits probably wouldn't sound as good if they were sung by Paul. Simon has a more interesting voice though.

Pink Floyd has a pretty good song called "Mother" on their album "The Wall." "The Wall" is an amazing concept album that has become an absolute classic for good reason. Supposedly, the idea for the album came to Roger Waters as a result of spitting on a fan during a concert. It also became a movie of the same title. "Mother" is a song about an over protective mother. In the song, Roger Waters sings the son's part while David Gilmore sing's the mother's part. They sound the same to me though. But what do I know. To my untrained ear, the legendary Bon Scott and Brian Johnson of AC/DC sound the same.

Madonna has a song out called "Mother and Father," from the "American Life" album. Madonna lost her mother to breast cancer when she was six years old.

There are more songs about mothers out there that I haven't really heard. If you're interested, check out Allan Raible's blog about mothers.

For all the mothers out there, Have a Happy Mother's Day.

JOHN LENNON'S SONGS ABOUT HIS MOTHER

It's not often you get a renown singer-songwriter who records three songs about his mother. And yet, that is what John Lennon of The Beatles did. He wrote "Julia" for the White Album. He wrote two songs as a solo artist in his debut album John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band about his mother. One simply called "Mother" and one I never heard of called "My Mummy's Dead."

Julia Lennon gave birth to John while the Germans were bombing Liverpool during World War II. Her sister Mimi ran to the hospital during the air raid to help her sister. Around the age of five, John started living in his aunt Mimi's house because her aunt kept complaining to Social Services that Julia was living in sin with an unmarried man and sleeping in the same bed with them. Mimi was the one who raised him although Julia was in daily contact with John. I don't think John wrote any songs about his aunt Mimi.

Julia seemed like a fun girl. She had a great sense of humor and knew how to play guitar and accordion. She bought John his first guitar, but John could only play it at her house because John's aunt Mimi was against it. She taught John how to play guitar and piano accordion. The song "Julia" is from the White Album. John sang and played the instruments without the help of any of The Beatles. John took some of the lyrics straight out of a poem by Kahlil Gibran called “Sand and Foam.” These lyrics are “Half of what I say is meaningless.” The lyric “Julia, Julia, oceanchild, calls me,” is supposedly about Yoko Ono. Yoko means “child of the sea” in Japanese.

The song "Mother" was written by John and produced by Phil Specter. Ringo played on drums and supposedly John asked George to play but George refused because he hated the song. The song was influenced by John doing primal therapy. This therapy is based on the belief that neurosis is caused by childhood trauma that has been repressed. This trauma has to be re-lived to be cured. The song also mentions his father though not by name.  His name was Alfred, but was known as Alf. Never heard a name like that except for a smart alecky life form with a sitcom by the same name. Alf was an absent father, although he almost ran off with John to New Zealand when John was six.

The third song that John Lennon recorded about his mother was called “Mummy's Dead.” The song is only 49 seconds long. The song is about the pain of losing his mother. Julia was killed by an off-duty police officer who was driving under the influence. John was seventeen at the time.

Who knows how many songs John wrote about Yoko. Gotta figure that one out one of these days. Some of them are actually really good. So in that sense, thank God for Yoko. There must've been something John saw in her that most of us don't see. Still don't in fact.