365 Day Song Challenge

365 Day Song Challenge: Day 164 – “Touch And Go”

Posted on by Joe Parker

Day 164: A song that features your favorite guitar solo.

“Touch And Go” – The Cars

The Cars - Touch And GoSo, apparently “Touch And Go” was released 35 years ago today.

So I guess that’s as good a reason as any to get off my butt and finally post this entry. Because, y’know, it’s only been 4 months since the last one. But who’s counting?

Normally I would see “35 years” and freak out because I had been alive for a while when this was released, and dammit, 35 years is freakin’ long time.

But I don’t feel it so much on this one, because I don’t actually remember this song as a single. When it was released, I guess I wasn’t paying attention. (Neither was anyone else, apparently, since it only got to #37 on the charts.) Read More

365 Day Song Challenge: Day 163 – “Gods Of War”

Posted on by Joe Parker

Day 163: A song that reminds you of your best friend. (Volume IV)

“Gods Of War” – Def Leppard

Def LeppardThis is the fourth in a series of posts dedicated to my best friends, posted on their birthdays. (Where it stops, nobody knows.) You can read the first three installments here and here and here.

I seem to have gotten in the habit of these “just in time” postings for people’s birthdays. Perhaps I need people to have birthdays more often so I can actually get to day 365. But anyway…

My friend Pete and I go back to high school as well, but unlike my friend Kris, who I met the first day and immediately clicked with, it took a while to build the friendship with Pete.

Read More

365 Day Song Challenge: Day 162 – “Hit Me With Your Best Shot”

Posted on by Joe Parker

Day 162: It’s Laura’s Day. You may not know her, but she was the first one who discovered we were missing song #162. So dedicate a random song to Laura, and have fun with it, make up a story, the more creative and fictitious the better.

“Hit Me With Your Best Shot” – Pat Benatar

Hit Me With Your Best ShotAlthough my spouse is Laura, this post has absolutely nothing to do with her. Or does it? It’s for you to decide.

I gotta tell ya, Day 162 has been hard.

Day 162 has kicked my ass.

I’ve tried to figure out what to publish for Day 162 for literally months (not solely, of course). And that’s because publishing the Laura story you’re about to read is fraught with danger. It may get myself and others in trouble.

Because Laura is in the Witness Protection program.

How do I know this? Because she told me. Not with words, but through a dream. Read More

365 Day Song Challenge: Day 161 – “Red Sector A”

Posted on by Joe Parker

Day 161: A song that reminds you of your best friend. (Volume III)

“Red Sector A” – Rush

Red Sector AThis is the third in a series of posts dedicated to my best friends, posted on their birthdays. (Where it stops, nobody knows.) You can read the first two installments here and here.

My friend Kris and I spent a lot of time together in high school, during summers in college, and even after college once we both returned home and got jobs. A lot of time. So much time, in fact, that I think I owe his parents somewhere in the area of $42,000 for chips and soda consumed at their house.

I met Kris the very first day of high school. He sat behind me in Sister Diane Tetreault’s European History class. (“That would be good. That would be fine. Et cetera.”) Read More

365 Day Song Challenge: Day 160 – “Heat Of The Moment”

Posted on by Joe Parker

Day 160: Your favorite song beginning with “H”.

“Heat Of The Moment” – Asia

Heat Of The Moment“Heat Of The Moment” is one of those songs that instantly takes me to a place and time. The time is summer 1982, a time when the summers seemed much longer and much hotter than today. (That probably has something to do with central air conditioning.)

And while I remember the song being everywhere that spring and summer, the specific place that it takes me to is the back of St. Thomas the Apostle school. (Yes, that was year 5 of the twelve I did in Catholic school. I emerged surprisingly unscathed and—perhaps more surprisingly given recent headlines—unmolested.)

Toward the end of every school year we had “Field Day.” The name was a misnomer in that it was actually more than one day and the area where it was held was more of a large, oddly-shaped empty area behind the school rather than an actual field. Read More