Being the continuation of InstaPunk and InstaPunk Rules
The Voices that Haunt Our Dreams
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How this post got started…
No secret that my sleep habits are a lot like That Man’s, the one so many Americans love to hate. I’ve been losing my optimism about 2.0 for a long time now, not because I don’t trust his resolve or motives but because the pessimism is a powerful force I’ve struggled against all my adult life. Which began too soon, as I’ve described elsewhere. Like him, I’m running out of time in the natural human sense of it. More still to do than likely years to do it in. My sleep comes only in chunks, punctuated by dream-induced wake-up calls that send me to the keyboard and the net and the pile of work sitting there in the in-basket.
I sympathize with the champions of MAGA who are sounding so tetchy and miserable at the moment. They’re convinced they must keep trying to impress on the low-attention-span voters in their audience just how important it is to understand the depth and depravity and dastardly deeds of the Deep State. But I don’t need to be reminded. What I need are reminders of the buried goodness in us that might still resurface and prevail against a tsunami of obsessions with grievances and death as a cure-all.
Complicating my sleep/work cycles is the fact that the input software I must use has become progressively (irony intended) more obstructive of my efforts to type in the words and edits that used to be accomplished without constant interrupts by new algorithms in system software point releases I can’t prevent from installing automatically. I don’t believe in coincidences. Too many of them in a short period of time lead to an unprovable inference of conspiracy. I would be more qualified to have a conviction about this than almost anyone, because I have been writing more than anyone else for half a century now. I’m pretty knowledgeable when it comes to assessing field conditions of the turf writers play on.
Getting so hard to write on Facebook now that I’ve been reduced to posting principally with reels requiring only a couple of sentences of setup. Except for this, I’m losing my day to day focus on “the news” in favor of seeking out sleep background transmissions that minimize the bad dream ejections from sleep. Lately, the sounds I use to put myself to sleep are increasingly musical.
The advantages are that it works pretty well, and writing posts about music is a lot easier because they can be done with straight video links instead of charts, tables, graphs, and maps of the omnipresent disaster terrain that cries out for explanation.
Not from me. Not right now anyway. Last night I searched the ROKU music category for voices that wouldn’t intrude on my Zzzz-time. Found a good long documentary about Linda Ronstadt, whom I hadn’t thought about lately. Then, about an hour in, I woke up anyway, realized the documentary was worth actually watching, and here we are. This will be about Linda Ronstadt, and the many voices she has given us over the years. Plus some other musical context that should deepen our appreciation of her as an iconic member of a unique genre of music.
Ronstadt had been a late discovery of mine in terms of her career. She was identified as ‘country,’ although it was obvious her pure singing talent was a distinct cut above most female country stars. I heard her on the radio, and the country label didn’t ring true, but neither did any other label. Then, completely by accident, I heard a couple of songs from this album and became an immediate fan. Why does a girl with a German surname suddenly go all-Hispanic like this?
You can come back for more of this later, but I’m getting specific next…
The song that sold me instantly.
I thought immediately of signature love songs in French, German, Italian…
one more that needs no translation. Other songs just as strong.
Which leads me back to the documentary I almost slept all the way through. Here it is. The whole thing. The first minutes alone are as beautifully American as anything gets..
When your first two testimonials are by Dolly Parton and Bonnie Raitt,
in almost exactly the same terms, you’re a unique force of nature…
Yeah. I’m suggesting you settle in right here and watch the whole thing. Subtitles could be all over the lot… ‘The legacy of Two Grandfathers,’ ‘The Melting Pot that Rewrites the Rainbow Paradigm,’ ‘The World-Absorbing Power of American Exceptionalism,’ ‘The Rugged Individualist as Apotheosis of Ecumenical Roots’ and even more pretentious promulgations of lessons, patriotic preening, and manipulative propaganda. But not here. Not today.
Just watch the video. Make your own situation room full of photos and maps and news items connected with color-coded yarn tying one possible meaning to another. That would be your business. All I’m giving you is an introduction to a remarkable and beautiful American life.
What did it do for me? Sent my old brain on a search for the other voices women uniquely offer to show that hearts are stronger than words and music styles because they sing to our own needy souls.
That self indulgence is confined to the considerable chunk of this post that is Below the Fold. Meaning all of the most important stuff was communicated in about 800 words, and only that long because writing here is less horrendously difficult than writing a thoughtful Facebook post. The words have to come out somewhere, and I get to decide what goes in here.
Enjoy Linda Ronstadt. A great lady.
_______________________
Below the Fold
Yes, there are all kinds of great women singers who have added their distinct voices to the book of love, including joy and heartbreak. The language used doesn’t matter, or who wrote the songs, although it is kind of amazing the extent to which all these wide-ranging talents have American connections if not roots. All I’ll say about that in these anti-American times is that these ladies are all the proof anyone needs of just how exceptional the American dominance of western culture has been. Would the world be better without it? I think not.
Now for a little tour of highlights from participating countries of origin. They all enjoyed huge successes here and vast audiences in life and in death. Why this is, in large measure, a Thank You note to all of them…
France
Humphrey Bogart once locked her in the bathroom. He was scared of her.
Germany
She could fall in love again in English too.
Greece
This one’s in Italian. She knew all the languages of romance.
Slight problem here. Special relationship and all that. Let’s just say it’s probably one of these three, depending on your age and stuff:
Points scored for partly in French…?
She’s still with us. That’s one out of three.
In a few years time, she said it all.
American-Americans
If the English get three, we better get three four:
No one better ever*
No one better ever*
No one better ever*
*Except maybe this one
And, obviously, Linda Ronstadt is also the best ever, with and without asterisks. You have your lists, I have mine. A competition(?) anyone can participate in, that being the true heart of the American Way.
P.S. Couldn’t resist this rousing rollicker as a closer…
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