<p>Yes, I had a skate key and I kept it around my neck on a piece of yarn. Gosh, I just think back and remember what a simple, fun childhood I had. We camped a boated a LOT and just had a great time outdoors. Bonfires and ghost stories, family reunions and hayrides every year on a big farm, cooking out almost daily in our backyard during the summer months, watching the fireworks every year at the same place while devouring the Krispy Kreme doughnuts. I hope in future years, my DD will have such warm, wonderful memories of her childhood.</p>
<p>Almaden Mountain Red bought illegally at the Alpha Beta and Neil Young, "Hello Cowgirl in the Sand".</p>
<p>Alu, great choice! I am a bigtime Neil Young freak. After the Gold Rush stayed on my turntable for a looooong time. You know, he's still pretty darn good when you catch him on TV now.</p>
<p>Curmudgeon - I had my first love to the strains of Cowgirl. Sad thing is, one of Neil Young's songs was playing on the radio in the car the other day. My son starts imitating Young's admittedly odd voice. I say, S, he is a classic! and said S just started in on an ironic imitation of Sugar Mountain. I couldn't really explain. On what TV show do you see him? We don't get cable....</p>
<p>S prefers Earth Wind and Fire, Tower of Power and the Ojays. What hath the iPod wrought?</p>
<p>Alu, just tell him Neil Young is an "acquired taste intended for a more thoughtful palette.;)".That should bring some guffaws. I don't know how to explain him either, really but every generation has artists just like him. We just had more than our share. LOL. I think it has something to do with a lack of barriers between them and their music and then ultimately to us. Thoughts and emotions could come directly through, without as much pretension or production.</p>
<p>Louis Armstrong certainly wasn't a classically trained vocalist, but I just about cry every time I hear him sing "And I think to myself, it's a wonderful world....".Don't get me wrong, I think that hitting every note can be beautiful, too. These "limited" singers always just felt more personal in a way.</p>
<p>Or I could have just been "altered". I'm pretty sure it was one of those things.</p>
<p>I figured I just love people who sound as though they are yearning.</p>
<p>Billie Holliday
Bruce Springsteen
Lead singer for the Cure
Even Destiny's Child...
And of course Neil Young and Louis Armstrong.</p>
<p>But in high school there was only Neil Young and Billie Holliday and, just in one instance, Mick Jagger - singing "Angie" from Goatshead Soup.</p>
<p>Ah, well, must go lie on the sofa and feel the poignant yearning of middle age. Kids, you out there, are you listening?</p>
<p>I have "everybody knows this is nowhere" on my ipod and the only way I got my husband to agree to go to vancouver BC to see Pearl Jam is because I mentioned that there was a * slight* possiblity that Neil would show up ( although since his surgery, he is probably just going to play in Winnipeg)</p>
<p>I love tower of power- they are playing here with Tom Jones- hmm he is more my mothers style
But I used to go see T of P at the Lake Hills roller rink on Saturday nights in high school- great fun.</p>
<p>Army/navy was a big style thing where I grew up-- the sailor pants (white canvas or navy blue wool) with the square front flap & buttons, plus the lacings up the back? Also "pinstripes" and pea coats available at army/navy.</p>
<p>Nobody has mentioned the truly horrible "Famolares" -- remember with the "curly" scalloped soles? </p>
<p>A classic 1976 look would have to be an "OP beachwear" striped polo or tee shirt, culottes, & some Famolares. Of course "wings" in your hair (which would smell of "Flex"). And the essential and alluring thick gelatinous roll-on flavored lip gloss (banana). Add to this priceless ensemble a hard-leather purse-- the kind with a garland of little colored/stamped flowers decorating it and a toggle/leather strap closure.</p>
<p>Spend the day at a party celebrating the bicentennial and you'd have the quintessential 1976 moment.</p>
<p>I forgot all about famolares- that would be junior high I think- I lived in such a suburban district that for choir the director was able to request what shoes we all wore and we all had to have the same pattern dress.
I also had earth shoes, which I had to have my dad take me to the udistrict to get- I was very granola for a junior high kid. I read the Whole Earth Catalog and Diet for a small Planet religiously.
I also really liked BonneBell musk oil which the Vermont country store still sells!
Yardley was also very big- all kinds of lightish color eye makeup which was great, because as a redhead, my eyelashes were blond, and the black mascara of Maybelline or Cover girl looked awful.</p>
<p>I met my husband in 1976. I still have the picture of the night we met at Golden Gardens ( a saltwater beach in Seattle). I was wearing a brown velvet sleeveless jumpsuit and I had given my leather coat to my friend because she was cold. He gave me his denim jacket ( not a "jean" jacket ) to wear- she gave me my coat right back ! lol
Jumpsuits were real big, I liked them cause I thought they made me look tall.
I also actually liked the "annie hall" look ;)</p>
<p>Oh my gosh - I had totally forgotten about most of this stuff! But, I do now remember how cool I thought my hard-leather purse was, with the peg closure thingy. I seem to remember giving myself a sliver on it, though...</p>
<p>Well, for me the ultimate skate key holder was a <em>lanyard</em> made of <em>gimp</em>, preferably during summer day camp. And was the "bucket purse" the one you're calling the "hard" purse? Can't really remember the exact era. But it seems to me bucket purses, Canoe, English Leather all went together. They certainly came after the skate key era.</p>
<p>Remember the song by Melanie;
"I've got a brand new pair of roller skates,
You've got a brand new key."</p>
<p>Cowgirl in the Sand still makes me sad--my first love song also.</p>
<p>At a relive-your-college-days party a few weeks ago, we all brought our favorite college albums (remember how great album cover art was? CD cases are too small a palette.) I brought "Who's Next?" But we discussed all these great lost gems: Leonard Cohen ("Suzanne," a downer of a song) Tim Buckley and the album Happy Sad, Buffalo Springfield, things we don't hear on the classic oldies station.</p>
<p>I wrote a paper for freshman English in high school on Leonard Cohen. Like a bird, on a wire, like a drunk in a midnight choir, I have tried, in my way, to be free.</p>
<p>And they let me submit it! (It was a hippie school:)). And I think Melanie was the Macy Grey of the 70's with that voice...</p>
<p>No discussion of "yearning singers" would be complete without mentioning John Lennon singing "Mother," or Hank Williams, Sr. singing almost anything.</p>
<p>(Dickies are coming back? Be still my heart!)</p>
<p>'mudge, my thought on Neil Young is that he tried leaping across one of your barbed wire fences and didn't quite make it intact.</p>
<p>o/~ I've been a mi-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-ner for a heart of gold.</p>
<p>One of the few singers who can hit the "H" above "high C."</p>
<p>Hank Williams. "I'm So Lonesome I could Cry". Learned all the words in high school. Weren't a lot of country western kids in Northern CA:), learned about him from a girl who came from Modesto.</p>
<p>Alu, me, too-again.</p>
<p>and Cohen's Classic "Susanne" (from memory, I think I screwed a verse up. Still works.LOL.)
and Susanne takes you down,
to her place by the river,
you can see the boats go by,
you can spend the night forever,
and she feeds you tea and oranges that come all the way from china,
and she gets you on her wavelength,
and she lets the river answer
that you've always been her lover,</p>
<p>and you want to travel with her,
and you want to travel blind
and you think you'll maybe trust her ,
for she's touched your perfect body
with her mind.</p>
<p>Don't forget John Prine-</p>
<p>"There's a hole in Daddy's arm where all the money goes.
And Jesus Christ died for nothing-I suppose...."' </p>
<p>or "Angel from Montgomery". Dang , where IS my turntable?</p>
<p>close, 'mudge-
corrected lines:</p>
<p>You can HEAR the boats go by
You can spend the night BESIDE HER
AND YOU KNOW THAT SHE'S HALF CRAZY
BUT THAT'S WHY YOU WANT TO BE THERE---</p>
<h2>(and she feeds........ China)</h2>
<p>AND JUST WHEN YOU MEAN TO TELL HER
THAT YOU HAVE NO LOVE TO GIVE HER</p>
<p>(She gets you on.......blind)
And you KNOW THAT SHE CAN TRUST YOU
For YOU"VE touched HER perfect body with YOUR mind</p>
<p>Do you wasn verse two???
It starts with
"And Jesus was a sailor
And he walked upon the water...)</p>
<p>Let me know-
I used to sing this with another friend in HS. Unfortunately she died of leukemia her freshman yr in college. We sang Phil Ochs, , Peter, Paul and Mary, etc. Want the words to "The Cruel war is raging"?? I can do that one (like "Suzanne") by heart</p>
<p>(Note correction on the first line-- you can HEAR the boats go by)</p>
<p>Well, Jym I learned the lyrics on a senior trip to the beach.:eek: What can I say?</p>
<p>On that body mind thing, doesn't it reverse to my way at least once in the song? Throw me a bone, here "Teach". Partial credit? Whattya say? My edit time's long since ran out.</p>
<p>What a great song. Even my butchered version that I've been singing in my head for thirty years ain't bad.</p>
<p>No prob, 'mudge. BTW, there's a 3rd verse too..</p>