What/Who are you currently listening to?

[Axe]

1977... it's doesn't get any better than this

The back story..

"Xanadu" is a song by the Canadian rock band Rush from their 1977 album "A Farewell to Kings." It is approximately 11 minutes long, beginning with a five-minute-long instrumental section before transitioning to a narrative written by Neil Peart.

  This song is based on an unfinished poem called Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who started writing it while under the influence of drugs.

  Once the effects of the drugs wore off, he was unable to complete it.

 In Coleridge's poem, Xanadu is the fictional name of the land where Khubla Khan ordered the dome to be built: "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree." Coleridge goes on to describe the dome as a "Miracle of rare device, a sunny pleasure dome with caves of ice." The notion of the "Man from Porlock" is a famous yet unsubstantiated tale offered by Coleridge himself to explain why his poem is unfinished.

  The legend of Xanadu is related to a number of myths & legends going back to the prehistory of Asia, specifically that of Shamballa. There was a movement in the time of Coleridge to explore these legends, in doing so we are tapping into the universal consciousness, an ability that the members of Rush seem to be quite adept. In Peart's lyrics, the narrator describes searching for a place called "Xanadu" that will grant him immortality. After succeeding in this quest, a thousand years pass, and the narrator is left "waiting for the world to end", describing himself as "a mad immortal man".

  Although the song does not explicitly state where "Xanadu" is, references to Kubla Khan imply that it is a mythical place based on Shangdu, the historical summer capital of the Mongol Empire.

  *Kubla Khan, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge*

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure-dome decree:

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran

Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground With walls & towers were girdled round; And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills, Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;

And here were forests ancient as the hills, Enfolding sunny spots of greenery. But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!

A savage place! as holy & enchanted As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted By woman wailing for her demon-lover!

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething, As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing, A mighty fountain momently was forced:

Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail, Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:

And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever It flung up momently the sacred river. Five miles meandering with a mazy motion Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, Then reached the caverns measureless to man, And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean;

And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far Ancestral voices prophesying war! The shadow of the dome of pleasure Floated midway on the waves; Where was heard the mingled measure From the fountain and the caves.

It was a miracle of rare device, A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer In a vision once I saw: It was an Abyssinian maid And on her dulcimer she played, Singing of Mount Abora. Could I revive within me Her symphony and song, To such a deep delight ’twould win me, That with music loud and long, I would build that dome in air, That sunny dome!

Those caves of ice! And all who heard should see them there, And all should cry, Beware! Beware! His flashing eyes, his floating hair! Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your eyes with holy dread For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise.

J. R. R. Tolkien would be proud...

[TexasAg1969]

Jimmy Page discussing Stairway to Heaven.

[DieHardBrownsFan]

@fairhooker11 said:

back in those days I listened to WIXY 1260 AM radio - and could've sworn I heard Mike Reineri singing in that Lee Michael song ^ 

https://www.wixy1260.com/people/default.html

Wixy 1260, CKLW in Detroit (actually Windsor, Ontario) and WMMS.

[tiamat63]

@browns149 said:

Nothing says “Funk” like John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John

Ain't nobody bringing up Grease here.  You see anyone mentioning that shit? I don't. It's just you.  So unless you are just outside of your mind, you can drop the fixation.

[tiamat63]

Speaking of "fixation"

They did a cover of Holy Diver that was actually pretty good to.

[Westside Steve]

One man's sound track of his life is another man's cacophony.

WSS

[Axe]

@westside-steve said:

One man's sound track of his life is another man's cacophony.

WSS

I'm so glad you brought up Cacophony ?

Marty Friedman and Jason Becker... Two of the best Shred guitarists ever.. Jason Becker may be the longest surviving ALS victim ever..

Google is your friend..

[The Gipper]

Strippers posing as cheeleaders:

[Westside Steve]

 OK what the hell. As I see it this is the flagship song from my latest solo CD Great Wishes and Small. Probably not the most pop friendly but I really like this one. The lyrics are based on old East Ohio folk legend.

WSS

[TexasAg1969]

@westside-steve said:

OK what the hell. As I see it this is the flagship song from my latest solo CD Great Wishes and Small. Probably not the most pop friendly but I really like this one. The lyrics are based on old East Ohio folk legend.

WSS

Nice song. So what is the full legend behind the song Steve?

[DieHardBrownsFan]

[Axe]

Steve, please watch this

[gumby73]

F R I D A Y !

[TexasAg1969]

And now we slow it downnnnnnnnnnnnnn................... with the Eagles.?  Don Henley is another Texas boy.

[Westside Steve]

@texasag1969 said:

Nice song. So what is the full legend behind the song Steve?

 About 10 years after the war of 1812 some business people decided to dig a canal from the Ohio Erie canal in Stark County to Glasgow, beaver county Pennsylvania linking the Great Lakes to the Ohio river. Should have been a gold mine. It was a monumental program because they were going through the rocks and trees and mountains of East Ohio A world renowned civil engineer EH Gill was brought over from Paris.  He made the trip with his wife and child but his wife died and was buried at sea. Determined to finish his task Mr. Gill worked while his little daughter Gretchen stayed with the farmers wives.  Gretchen died of a fever and her body interred under one of the locks which they call Gretchens lock.  Eventually a financial crash and his broken heart forced Gill to take her coffin back to Paris. The workers said they could hear him at night praying for nothing else but his family to be back together. On the way back to Paris legend has it a storm sank the ship and now Mr. Gill his wife and child are together at the bottom of the Atlantic.  Some nights,  near Gretchens lock some folks claim they can hear a baby cry.

 My song on the same album the Sandy and Beaver Canal is actually a historic telling of the project. The  Ballad of Gretchens Lock of course is a ghost story.

WSS

[mjp28]

@texasag1969 said:

And now we slow it downnnnnnnnnnnnnn................... with the Eagles.?  Don Henley is another Texas boy.

Oh yes I can get into some Eagles !

When we got a nice new stereo for our downstairs hallway I updated our CD collection.  The first CD WAS the Eagles.

[tiamat63]

Not much better to listen to on a gloomy April morning.

smells like...revenge.

[TexasAg1969]

@tiamat63 said:

Not much better to listen to on a gloomy April morning.

smells like...revenge.

And what a tragic life when your own dad shoots you down.

[The Gipper]

[hoorta]

@tiamat63 said:

You can fuck right off with that.

70's Nuge, Aero & Kiss was solid.  80's? Not so much.  You're off by a decade.

There's been crap music in every decade.  Early 70s you still had Led Zep and Jethro Tull. Late 70s- you had America's answer to the Beatles- Fleetwood Mac.  

@browns149 said:

Please. The 80’s were way better. Metallica, Guns & Roses, Social Distortion, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Iron Maiden, are all WAY better then Nugent, Kiss or Aeroshit

Kiss is the MOST overrated band of all time. Unless you need to sell a lunch box or a pinball machine or a casket

Otherwise their music is childish and lame

Kiss sold a ton of records- do you want to talk $$$ sales or technical mastery from guys like Yngwie Malmsteen or Joe Satriani who probably haven't sold 1\10th the records Kiss did?  

Let's back the truck up to the 70s- this band hit their stride in the 70s- they're usually rated up there with the GOATS- you may have heard of them- Pink Floyd. (I was fortunate enough to catch them in a small venue (2,000 seat 20th row) before they hit the big time, and if you twisted my arm, I would have to put it as the best concert I was ever at- close second would be The Who with James Taylor, Joe Walsh & The James Gang as the opening acts)....   

More 70s- Black Sabbath & Ozzie damn near invented Metal. Love Metallica and to a lesser extent Guns & Roses- the strike thoughs are strictly a matter of personal opinion if they're any better than the bands you're dissing.   Personally- I'll take 80s Van Halen anytime over the not so Hot- to my mind- Chili Peppers.  PS- my biggest disappointment? I was never able to catch Hendrix live. 

One of my favorites from 1970...