Late Night Travels
May 30th, 2013. Filed under: Reruns, Thursday's Travels.
First posted March 19, 2009
I traveled for a long time last night and managed to cover a lot of territory. Some of it was exciting, some inspiring, some sentimental and some just made me smile. A lot. I started with the incredible sounds of Il Divo andAmaging Grace. I just recently discovered this group when a friend sent me the link. I still get chills when I hear this. Of course, while I was there, I had to listen to every Il Divo song on YouTube.
From there I jumped back in time to the Righteous Brothers and Unchained Melody. I’m not sure now just what connection I was making between the two, but it seemed like a natural transition at the time. Then I slid on over to the Mamas and the Papas and listened to Mama Cass and Dream a Little Dream of Me. That bit of dreaming took me over to Audrey Hepburn, Moon River and a lot of dreams of the young girl who wanted to grow up to be Audrey Hepburn or at least Holly Golightly.
Okay, now the mood needed to lighten up a bit so I hit the New England coast and spent time with the Kingston Trio and a fun song called MTA. Then on to the beach where I wrote Love Letters in the Sand with Pat Boone. After that I checked out his daughter, Debbie, and dreamed about Consumer Man lighting up my life and sang along with her on Baby, I’m Yours. You Light Up My Life was her big hit, but I’ll take Baby, I’m Yours any day. So, while I was checking out famous offspring, I strolled on over to listen to Nancy Sinatra and These Boots Are Made for Walkin.’ That was a theme song of mine for awhile. And then there was Something Stupid with Nancy and Frank, Jr. After that I had to let Frank, Sr. Fly Me to the Moon. And, of course, Frank reminded me of the Rat Pack, so I had Dino remind me that Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime. Oh, yes. We all loved Dean Martin and that seductive voice of his. Now, I couldn’t leave the Rat Pack without a little visit with Sammy Davis, Jr. and two of his signature songs, Mr. Bojangles Man and I’ve Gotta Be Me. Mr. Bojangles was part of Sammy’s act when he was only a 7 year old.
I traveled through YouTube territory for way too many hours, but couldn’t leave without dropping in on our own poet laureate, Rod McKuen. The words, the voice. The poet who can sing. Songs and memorable poems. A Cat Named Sloopy, The Tender Earth, A Man Alone. I could keep traveling all night except someone is playing a lullaby and I’m going to have to go lie down for awhile.