Category: Music, Movies, TV
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Billy Joel Redux
I wrote a much longer post the last time I pulled a lyric from “We Didn’t Start the Fire” which does a much better job of telling the story of why this song will forever be stuck with me. A fun thing I’ve noticed is that if you use the opening lyric of a song,…
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To Rock a Rhyme that’s right on time
“It’s Tricky” by Run D.M.C. from their 4th album, Raising Hell. A hip hop standard now, it cribbed a large amount of influence both musically and lyrically from “My Sharona” by the Knack. The Music Video features an excellent cameo by Penn and Teller.
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Sometimes the live version is better.
“Night Train”, from Guns ‘N’ Roses debut album Appetite For Destruction. Still the best selling debut album of all time and always a top-10 candidate in Rock and Roll albums. I prefer the live versions of this song, which pick up the tempo ever so slightly from the album version. The song has this great…
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Don’t mess with the bull young man.
The Breakfast Club (1985) John Hughes movies hold a special place with Chicago People of a certain age. His run of movies from Sixteen Candles to Home Alone exposed the world to a certain segment of life, teenage angst, and what it was to grow up in this world. The fictional town of “Shermer, Illinois”…
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There is another matter…
The Hunt for Red October (1990). Having seen the movie hundreds of times, I finally read the book. The book as-is would have made a terrible movie, but used the extra space to really dig into some of the details of the end of the Cold War. It gives a bit more context to this…
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Shouldn’t you be the Three Rangers?
Airheads (1994). It’s a classic, probably a cult classic. Joe Mantanga’s portrayal of the jaded radio DJ perfectly captures the essence of everything right and wrong with the commercialization of rock and roll.
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This one’s for my Mom
The sign above is from “Come Sail Away”, off the 1977 “Grand Illusion” album. My mom passed away in early July, after a long battle with Alzheimer’s and Dementia. One of her favorite bands was Styx, a byproduct of growing up in Chicago in the early 70’s. She would claim her whole life she saw…
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The B-Side was titled My Clone Sleeps Alone
“Heartbreaker” by Pat Benatar, from the 1979 album In the Heat of the Night. It has been wonderfully covered by quite a list of people. Even Dolly Parton. (yes, really).
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Long Live the Prince of Darkness
John Michael “Ozzy” Osbourne (1948-2025). People will debate for years whether Heavy Metal existed before Ozzy. No one questions whether it existed after he showed up. He was an influence on music for almost 70 years, whose legacy will live on for generations. And if you didn’t know it, the lyric above is the opening…