I just need to vent, here. I'm sick of love songs. I love some of them, but I'm tired of most of them. They're all I hear on the radio any more!! I was talking to M. about this a couple days ago. Love songs are nice, but it's the morbid "love lost" songs that get under my skin. I hate hearing a song and feeling utterly DEPRESSED after I listen to it, no matter how pretty it is. I feel that music should uplift you, ya know? Unless I'm already in a bad mood and want to hear something morbid.
And, they're all basically the same thing! It's like, I'm so lonely and depressed and you're gone and I miss you and I'll die without you please come back. *siiiiiiiigh*
Guess I'm just not one to sing the blues.
I prefer them "songs about the Southland", workin', everyday life - you know, stuff we can all relate to. I guess that's why I like gritty, Southern rock so much. And country of course. All the good stuff about mama... and trains... and trucks... and prison... and gettin' drunk. Because they're songs about me...and who I am...songs about lovin' and livin' and good-hearted women and family and God...
I'll tell you the kind of love songs I like... Hold On Loosely (38 Special), Girl From Ohio (The Outlaws), Holdin' You (Gretchen Wilson), I Need You (Lynyrd Skynyrd), Heard It In A Love Song (Marshall Tucker Band), If You Ever Stop Lovin' Me (Montgomery Gentry), Take It Easy (The Eagles), In A Dream (Badlands, covered by Bo Bice). That kinda stuff. Makes you feel good.
I like some "love lost" songs too, but the majority of them aren't the type that get depressing. Like Train, Train (by Blackfoot, and one of my favorite songs), There Goes Another Love Song (by The Outlaws, and wouldn't you know it, this song is playing on the radio right now!!! LOVE it!), Tuesday's Gone (Lynyrd Skynyrd), Gone (Montgomery Gentry), Can't You See (Marshall Tucker) ....you get the idea. Oh, and Free Bird of course. I just realized all the songs I listed are pretty much by all the same artists... but hey, they're my favorites, so of course I'm partial to them because they're what I know.
The only sad(der) love songs that I like are mostly by Gretchen. I just adore her.
All this made me think of Diana Ross for some reason. I want to STRANGLE. HER. (not really but...you know). All her stupid songs (no offense to anybody that likes her) are the same thing. Stop cheating on me before it's too late and save our love!!! ...what the crap?? I mean... goshdarn! If I had a boyfriend or husband cheating on me, I'd SHOOT him. I'm not kidding. Not go and fall on my knees and beg for the dog to come back. (for Nat: "Come back tah me!!")
I'm pretty much just ranting here, naming off songs, and dreaming of beating the crap out of Diana Ross, but I've intended to write about the love song thing for a while. I'll get off A.E.'s soap box now!
*sings* Well, I was drunk the day my mom got out of prison And I went to pick her up, in the rain But before I could get to the station, in my pickup truck She got runned over by a damned old train!
Dad and I were driving through and around a small town in South Carolina. Or maybe it was Wisconsin. Anyway. It was fall and all the leaves were blowing and all the surroundings were brown/red/orange/etc. We were driving along all these backroads, when we drove up to this little barn-shaped building. An elderly couple were standing outside and we got to talking to them, and the man was a pilot and owned a P-51 Mustang.
He took me to see it and offered me a ride in it. There was a second leather seat behind the pilot's seat. It looked like a seat from a luxery sedan or something. I said I'd love to but those old planes guzzle fuel like you wouldn't believe, and with fuel prices the way they are, I'd hate to do that to the poor guy. But he assured me he was filthy rich and didn't get many opportunities to fly the plane, so I accepted. Dad told me to be careful, then we took off and started flying around. The man was pointing out landmarks and bridges and lakes and stuff. During the course of the flight, we must've taken off and and landed at least 7 times. Not only that, the places we landed/took off were only about 30 feet long, usually dirt roads or something (and covered with trees, so I have no idea how we landed in the first place).
On one of the dirt roads we landed on, we almost hit a large man who was dressed like a lumberjack, had cartoonish facial features, and was riding a moose. We said howdy to him, then took off again. We flew along for a while, when suddenly we were in a black cloud. It was like a regular foggy cloud, but the color of black smoke. Then the pilot started explaining to me that it takes a really good pilot to be able to discern whether he's flying through a normal cloud or about to fly into something. We emerged from the cloud, and suddenly we were ten feet from flying into the bottom of a GIANT black iron bridge (I mean heck, we must've been a few hundred feet in the air).
The pilot put the plane in a steep dive to avoid hitting the bridge, then we landed on the field we originally took off from (we never straightened out and slowed down or did a circle and came around to land - we landed straight after coming out of a dive). Dad and the pilot's elderly wife were there to greet us. Dad hugged me and asked if we'd seen the ceramic moose man while we were gone (ceramic??). I said we'd almost hit him, but he'd been very nice about it. Then I looked up and there was a picture of the same man (with his moose) on a large billboard sign in the trees across the street from the barn-shaped building (with the 400-foot bridge in the distance). Then I woke up.
Gretchen 99.9 is an HD internet radio sister station of 99.9 KISS Country. It's brand new, I've only been listening for two days and it's awesome. It's country radio... Gretchen-style.
Within an hour of turning it on, I'd already heard Lynyrd Skynyrd, Marshall Tucker, The Allman Brothers, Blackfoot, Molly Hatchet, .38 Special, and Vant Zant. Not to mention all the best current country artists; Montgomery Gentry, Gretchen of course, Toby Keith, Trace Adkins, etc.
Now this is my kind of station. I usually listen to 43 The Hawk, which is 24/7 Southern rock (and with a brand new, shiny logo...!). I love The Hawk, but I love my country station too, so Gretchen 99.9 is a perfect cross between them. I'm just South of Heaven, here...
I freaked out and got excited and sent A.E. about 14 emails describing this station and all the great songs it's been playing and how STOKED I am and how they played Blackfoot (!!!) (with TEH RIKAY HAWTNAS!!!!!!!!!111!!1 OMG WTF) and even the Rossington Collins band (which was totally unexpected) and Skynyrd and all my favorite bands and have you realized that I'm very happy? Yeah.
Oh and by the way, I'm home. But I'm sure you've realized that as I am here, typing this blog... but annnnnyhoo. I spent a week in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, from the 18th to the 26th. Had a GREAT time; new pictures from the trip are now up on Daft & Demented. Also added some pictures from the Dinosaur Walk Museum in Pigeon Forge (taken on the same trip), and some older pictures from our Tennessee vacation in 2002. They're all under "Photo Galleries".
Hang in there Darrell, you're gonna make it just fine! You know we love you.
