Last week social media was flooded with AI generated pictures of people’s “action figures.” You basically upload a picture of yourself and ask AI to generate it with whatever accessories you want. And while there were memes making fun of everyone doing this, I had to try it for myself.
This made me laugh out loud. It also got me wondering what else it could do. I asked it to make me and Larry from the Three Stooges doctors.
They got Larry’s hair right, but not so much the face.
Then I asked it to make me and Moe from the Three Stooges mechanics.
This was a bit closer. The face is a bit off, and I have no idea why they have my name as Chris here. I figured they’d get better as I kept going.
So I asked it to make me and Dean Martin singing a duet.
This is actually pretty good. Dean’s eyes are a bit off, but I was impressed. The best one of them all though was when I asked it to make me having a nice pasta dinner with Frank Sinatra.
All that’s missing are the pinky rings! I was totally blown away by this one. I have a few more ideas I want to try with a few other celebrities. If they are worth posting, I’ll share them.
Last May I began this feature. Today, I will finish it off by looking at 2020 through the present. As I got closer to the end, it became difficult for me to pick ten songs from each year. Proof of this will be evident from this post.
The songs that I featured each year had to connect with me in some way. It was attached to a core memory. Maybe it reminded me of one of my kids or a friend. Maybe it was a song from my years DJing. Maybe it was just a song that I liked a lot. The only real rule was that it had to be released in the year featured. With that in mind, let’s see how the last five years of music connects with me….
2020
There were no songs that really hit me in 2020. Thank you, Covid
2021
The world was still reeling from the pandemic. There was so much uncertainty. Many folks reconnected with their faith, as I did. I went back and watched the Bible classes I had taken. There I found comfort and the strength to get through things.
I want to say that a friend of mine asked if I had ever heard the song “My Jesus” before. I hadn’t and I found it online. It hit me immediately and I shared it with my wife. It is a powerful song, but even more powerful when you hear the story behind it.
Anne Wilson’s life changed in more ways than one when her older brother, Jacob, died in a car accident at 23. She told songfacts.com: “It was so tragic. He was my best friend. That’s actually how I started singing and how I got into music and that’s why I wrote the song ‘My Jesus.'”
After losing her brother, Wilson processed her emotions through journal entries. As she flicked through her entries before a writing session with Matthew West and Jeff Pardo, the young singer had an idea for a song. She told Billboard: “I walked through a really tough season of grief. I remember having this moment where I wanted to give up on life. When I looked back at my journals, I saw how God pulled me through. I also realized I never referred to God as anything else, except ‘My Jesus.'”
When she brought the title into the writing room, it turned out that the two others had that same exact title as an idea. None of the three had spoken about it, so it must have been “a total God thing.”
My Jesus
2022
No songs
2023
When I heard that they were releasing a new Beatles song, I hoped it would be better than Free As a Bird. When they released that for the Anthology stuff, the technology wasn’t as good as it was in 2023. Because of this, Lennon’s vocal sounds tinty.
Songfacts tells the story:
“Now and Then” was originally written and recorded by John Lennon around 1977 as a solo piano track. After his death in 1980, the unfinished demo floated in limbo until 1994 when his widow, Yoko Ono Lennon, gave the recording to the three surviving Beatles, along with Lennon’s demos for “Free as a Bird” and “Real Love.”
Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr considered “Now and Then” as the third Beatles reunion single for their 1995–1996 retrospective project The Beatles Anthology, following “Free as a Bird” and “Real Love.” After two days of recording, it was scrapped, largely because Harrison’s didn’t like it.
In 2022, using advanced technology and a curatorial touch, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr completed the track. The same AI restoration technology Peter Jackson used on the Beatles documentary Get Back was applied to Lennon’s vocal take.
“Back in 1995, after several days in the studio working on the track, George felt the technical issues with the demo were insurmountable and concluded that it was not possible to finish the track to a high enough standard,” Harrison’s widow, Olivia, said. “If he were here today, Dhani and I know he would have whole-heartedly joined Paul and Ringo in completing the recording of ‘Now And Then.'”
Besides Lennon’s John’s vocals, “Now And Then” includes electric and acoustic guitar recorded from the scrapped 1995 sessions by Harrison, a new drum part by Starr, and bass, guitar and piano from McCartney that matches Lennon’s original playing. McCartney added a slide guitar solo in Harrison’s style “as a tribute to George.”
“Now And Then” became the first AI-assisted song to earn a Grammy nomination, and the first to win, when it took the award for Best Rock Performance at the 2025 ceremony.
As a life long Beatles fan, I was impressed with just how good this one turned out.
Now and Then
2024
My wife will often listen to Pandora as she gets ready for work. The next song seemed to play on there at lot. It also seemed to play on her Sirius XM station when we went anywhere. It sort of had a catchy hook, but it wasn’t so good that I’d buy it.
One day I was driving with the kids in the back of the car and my daughter started singing “Excuse me, you look like you love me…” over and over again. It made me chuckle.
You Look Like You Love Me
2025
There has not been any songs from this year that connect with me. I tend to listen to audio books or songs from my iPod when I drive, so I don’t really get to hear anything new anyway. I’m ok with that.
Wow. Five years and only three songs. What a way to wrap up a feature, huh? Well, technically, I had wanted to wrap this up in May. So I have an idea on how to fill a couple Wednesdays and still keep it musical. Tune in next week to find out more….
On this day in 1994, the great Tony Bennett recorded his MTV Unplugged special. It would be released in June of the same year.
Think about this for a minute. It is 1994. It was the year of dance music like Another Night by Real McCoy. It was the year of rap music like Tootsee Roll by the 69 Boyz and Regulate by Warren G. It was the year of rock like Closer by Oasis and Black Hole Sun by Soundgarden.
The Unplugged appearance by Tony Bennett consisted of songs from the Great American Songbook. Tony on MTV?? How could this possibly work?! Would the MTV generation even consider watching this old crooner? You bet they did! Unplugged helped introduce some classics to an entirely new audience.
The show itself was like any other Tony Bennett show. It was Tony and a small group. This time he was backed by the Ralph Sharon Trio. The show also included guest appearances by Elvis Costello and k.d. lang. The audience was mesmerized by Tony and the album went platinum. It also won Grammy Awards in 1995 for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance and Album of the Year!
The set list included It Had to Be You, Fly Me To The Moon, and A Foggy Day. It also featured some of Tony’s big hits. He sang I Left My Heart In San Francisco, Rags to Riches, I Wanna Be Around and Steppin’ Out With My Baby.
For me, the highlight was Tony and k.d. lang singing Moonglow together. The harmony is not an easy one, yet k.d. nails it. She said this about Tony, “He asked me to perform on his MTV Unplugged album in 1994 and the sparks started flying when we sang together. I felt elevated, comfortable and just in sync with him when we were doing Moonglow – as if I was with a teacher but also a friend. It was like an opening. It just felt right.”
As you watch the clip, you can see the mutual love that these two have for each other. Eight years later, the two would get together for an entire album called “A Wonderful World.”
Tony was a legend. His performances were pure magic!
Loretta Lynn was born on this day in 1932. She really was born a coal miner’s daughter and the song is autobiographical. It reflects on the hardships her family faced growing up in rural Kentucky, where there was little money but a lot of love.
She called her autobiography “Coal Miner’s Daughter” and that was adapted into the movie of the same name in 1980. Sissy Spacek was cast as Lynn. Originally, she was supposed to lip synch with the songs for the film. However, it is Spacek who does all the singing in the movie. As a matter of fact, her version of the title song went to #23 on the country charts.
According to songfacts.com, the song had an extra four verses to it. Her producer, Owen Bradley, told her to remove them because the song was too long. “He said, ‘There’s already been one ‘El Paso,” and there’s never going to be another one,’ referring to the 4 minute song by Marty Robbins. Lynn said, “So I fiddled around and fiddled around, and finally I got four verses that I took off of ‘Coal Miner’s Daughter.’ I wished I hadn’t, but I did.”
Loretta had been releasing music since 1960. She released almost 20 albums before she released Coal Miner’s Daughter. The song was different for her because had gained popularity with tough-talking, assertive country classics like “Don’t Come Home A’ Drinkin (With Lovin’ on Your Mind)” and “You Ain’t Woman Enough (To Take My Man)”
She continued to make music through 2021. She passed away October 4, 2022.
I wanted to share this story last week, but time got away from me. I love to hear positive news stories because it seems there is a plethora of negative ones. This one happened in my home state.
The story begins with every parent’s worst nightmare. A two-year old toddler was watching TV when his parents left the room. When they returned, they found the apartment door open and the child missing. This was about 8:45pm.
A search effort, including two K-9 units and an Michigan State police helicopter, was launched. Law enforcement officers and volunteer community members also participated in the search. The mission was critical since temperatures dropped into the 40s that night and the parents said their toddler was only wearing a diaper at the time.
The helicopter was already in the air when the call came in. It was piloted by Michigan State Police Sgt. Cole Martin and Tactical Flight Officer Brandon Franklin.
“En route, we said, ‘We got to find this baby as soon as possible.’ We have children of our own,” Franklin recalled. “We weren’t leaving until we found that child,” Martin added.
The two were using “Heat-seeking technology” to locate the child. After searching for 15 minutes, Martin and Franklin said they saw something moving in a ditch, just off a highway. It was about 11:30pm.
The helicopter began tracking a heat signal in a wooded area. The signal was detected about 15 minutes after entering the area. “It’s in a ditch. I can’t tell if it’s an animal or the child,” a Michigan State Police trooper can be heard saying during the two-minute video. Then one of the troopers can be heard saying, “We got him!” What a relief that must have been. The two hovered over the area and directed the police on the ground to the child.
The toddler was found conscious and alert and taken to an area hospital before reuniting with his parents.
The Department of Public Safety said the “incident would have undoubtedly ended in tragedy” without the use of technology and the dedicated people who were searching for the child.
When I read the premise of this book, it peaked my interest. Can you imagine if you were able to read your co-workers messages to each other? Would you want to know what they think about you? What could you do with the information? I was anxious to find out.
Natalie Sue’s “I Hope This Finds You Well” is a book that had very high praise from bloggers, book sites, and even my local Barnes and Noble. Once I was able to find the audio version, I scooped it up. It didn’t disappoint. Let’s go a little deeper with the Goodreads synopsis:
As far as Jolene is concerned, her interactions with her colleagues should start and end with her official duties as an admin for Supershops, Inc. Unfortunately, her irritating, incompetent coworkers don’t seem to understand the importance of boundaries. Her secret to survival? She vents her grievances in petty email postscripts, then changes the text color to white so no one can see. That is, until one of her secret messages is exposed. Her punishment: sensitivity training (led by the suspiciously friendly HR guy, Cliff) and rigorous email restrictions.
When an IT mix-up grants her access to her entire department’s private emails and DMs, Jolene knows she should report it, but who could resist reading what their coworkers are really saying? And when she discovers layoffs are coming, she realizes this might just be the key to saving her job. The plan is simple: gain her boss’s favor, convince HR she’s Supershops material and beat out the competition.
But as Jolene is drawn further into her coworker’s private worlds and secrets, her carefully constructed walls begin to crumble—especially around Cliff, who she definitely cannot have feelings for. Soon she will need to decide if she’s ready to leave the comfort of her cubicle, even if it means coming clean to her colleagues.
Crackling with laugh-out-loud dialogue and relatable observations, I Hope This Finds You Well is a fresh and surprisingly tender comedy about loneliness and love beyond our computer screens. This sparkling debut novel will open your heart to the everyday eccentricities of work culture and the undeniable human connection that comes with it.
I went into this book with an idea of what to expect, however, there was much more to this story. I really found myself connecting with the characters. Each one seemed to be relatable to someone I had worked with in the past or currently. “We’ve all worked with someone like (Fill in the blank)” they say….
Have you ever told a lie and then have to cover it up with another lie and another lie until you are at your wits end? As the storyline progresses, it is sort of like that. The situations that Jolene finds herself in build up into the chaos you might see in an old sitcom. By the end, you can’t help but wonder if things are all going to work out in the end.
Not really knowing what to expect, I can say that it exceeded my expectations. It was a good and relatable story with likable and unlikable characters. It keep moving in such a way that you want to know what will come of the situation presented. “How is she going to get out of that?” I found myself saying.
If you’ve ever worked for an annoying boss or co-worker you will relate and enjoy this story. If you work in an office setting, you will enjoy it and relate to it a bit more.
Today I want to wish my oldest son, Dante’, a Happy 23rd Birthday! It is truly hard to believe he is that old. It seems like yesterday that he was born. What an amazing day that was!
This picture is one of my favorites of him. The way his eyes are looking off to the side reminds me of a mob boss. I can see that face sitting at a meeting of the Five Families and he’s takinig it all in. LOL.
This was in his bassinet, which had a Noah’s Ark theme. His whole room was done up in Noah’s Ark. There was a border on the wall, the crib sheets, the mobile, a lamp, and so many other things. I had no idea that they could make so many things for a theme. It was crazy.
Many know that he was diagnosed with Autism early on in his life. Thanks to early intervention and therapies, he is high functioning. He has Asperger’s Syndrome. He never let that define him. He was in the mainstream classes in school. He graduated and found work. He manages his money well and recently moved in to his own apartment.
I am so proud of all that he has accomplished in his life. I know he will continue to to grow and mature in the years ahead. He’s one amazing kid, well, a man now.
People say we look and act alike and I take that as a huge compliment. He is my Mini-Me and I love him very much. Happy Birthday, son. May your day be filled with love and happiness.
Recently, I replaced the main light in our kitchen. It was surprisingly easy. Black wire to black wire, white wire to white wire, and ground to ground. Bingo. It was done. Because of this I got extra cocky and decided to put a new light in above our kitchen sink. Boy, did I make a mistake thinking I could do that!
If you’re not sure what I mean with the wires, here is a diagram that is kind of close to what I was looking at:
My light didn’t have a fan, so imagine this without that fan wire and you will understand. The orange and yellow caps holding the wires together are wire nuts – for future reference. So let’s proceed from the point where I turn off the power at the breaker box to begin this project.
To aid you in my story, I have created a visual of the kitchen area where the fiasco happened.
I thought the main power would be in the ceiling, where the mount is. Instead, a wire came down from the mount through a chain and went into a plate on the wall. There is a plastic wire cover coming from the cupboard that also went to the plate on the wall.
Now, above my stove and connected to the bottom of the cupboard is one of those light/fan hoods. The lights help you see the stove and the fan helps suck up any smoke from what your are cooking. That died a while back and I wanted to take it down. I disconnected the hood from the wires that went from the vent/light to the plate on the wall (hidden by the plastic wire cover). So now I have two wires that I don’t need that are connected to the main power wire, which is under the plate.
I now have to remove cover from the plate to expose the wires underneath. What I see is this huge asbestos wire coming out of a huge hole in the drywall. The wires kinda look like this:
Now that picture is a lot neater than my wire. The first thing my father-in-law, who I have now called for assistance, does is disconnect all of the wires by removing the wire nuts. Of course, we didn’t really pay attention to them when we did it.
Once the wires are disconnected, we get rid of the two that were connected to the vent/light. So from here on out, it should be easy, right? Black to black, white to white, etc…WRONG!
We wire it up and my father-in law tells me to go downstairs and turn on the breaker. When I flip it the bulb in the light goes on. Good? No. The light switch is in the off position. When he flips it on, the breaker snaps off. So we figure we got the two wires from the switch messed up and swap them to the other wires. We turn the power back on again and the breaker snaps again.
My father-in-law didn’t have his voltage tester, so we made a quick trip to the hardware store. I pick up a cheap one and we come home. My father-in-law tells me that the black wire should be hot and the white should be neutral. When we test the wires, it is the opposite! He is perplexed and so am I. That is NOT the way it is supposed to be.
After consulting my brother-in-law, they agree that somewhere in the walls of our house, whoever wired the house, swapped the wires. Maybe at a hotbox or somewhere else. There is more discussion and it is decided that if we take the “hot”(black) wire from the lamp and put it on the white wire coming from the wall (which is now the “hot”) and the neutral (white) wire to the black wire (now neutral) coming from the wall – it should work. So we do that and add the two wires from the switch and TA DA! We have light and the breaker doesn’t snap off.
I tell you all of that to tell you this….
All in all, I must have run up and down the stairs 30 times during this project. Once we got the the vent off the cupboard, I pushed the stove back in place and plugged it in to the 220 plug behind it.
After flipping the breaker off one time, I came back upstairs to see my father-in-law on the counter with the main power wire in his hands. I noticed the clock for the stove was on, so I yell, “WAIT A MINUTE, DAD!!” He almost falls off the ladder as he asks what was the matter. I told him, “The stove light is on and it has power!” I said this totally forgetting that the 220 plug is an entirely separate line. My father-in-law reminded me of this.
“You scared the hell out me, Dad!” I told him.
“I had my hands on the wire. You scared the hell out of me!” he replied.
My three year old son, Andrew was watching all of this and said, “You both scared the hells out of my body, too!”
That was the best moment of the project! A laugh we both needed!
Welcome back to The Music of My Life. I began this feature last May on my birthday. Over the past 11 months, I have featured 10 songs from every year of my life. The songs featured were released in that week’s particular year. It may have been a bigger hit the following year, but I decided to stick with the rules I had put in place.
Like last week, this week I will be focusing on two years because I couldn’t really come up with 10 songs from each year. As I went through the songs from the more current years, I found that the lyrics were just to raunchy, or I found myself looking at songs I disliked or had never heard of. Every once in a while, I’d come across a song or two, but it has become very difficult.
So today, let’s tackle two years 2018 and 2019. In 2018, life began to change for me. I had found my soul mate and we got married. In 2019, we found out we were expecting our daughter. Life began to get better and better.
2018
I was back at the country station in 2018. Honestly, I was not really liking the whole “Bro Country” scene. I felt that the format was steering too far away from its roots. I never understood why rap would need to be in a country song.
Florida Georgia Line was a duo made up of Tyler Hubbard and Brian Kelley. They came on the scene in 2013 and had matured by 2018. This song came after each of them had gotten married. Their writing became deeper, yet simpler.
Simple is a song that I can relate to. It hit me when I was playing it on the air because of my new found love.
Simple
Down to the Honky Tonk is yet another country song from my days at the station. This one stuck with me every time I played it and for days after. Apparently, that was the intention. Jake Owen chose to record the tune as he suspected it was one that would easily get stuck in listeners’ heads.
“It’s a special kinda song. I think when people hear that song, it’s one of those that’s just like an earworm,” he said. “It’s something that connects, and I feel like in a world of a lot of music and art and ways to distract us and our attention, it’s super-important if you’re gonna put out any sort of content, that it’s content that grabs people’s attention.”
Personally, I liked the words and word play in the song. I think the chorus of the song fits me at a particular time in my life. I spent a lot of time in the bars in my 30’s.
I might not end up in the Hall of Fame With a star on the sidewalk with my name Or a statue in my hometown when I’m gone Nobody gonna name their babies after me I might not go down in history But I’ll go down to the honkytonk
Who’d want a statue of me anyway?
Down To The Honky Tonk
I never saw the remake of A Star is Born and I don’t have a desire to do so. However, I remember playing Shallow on the Adult Contemporary station and thinking that it sounded “out of place,” but in a good way.
(From songfacts.com) This dramatic duet features Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper (Who knew he could sing?). Gaga plays the rising star Ally, and Cooper the established musician Jackson Maine, who becomes her mentor and lover. Gaga explained that the song serves a crucial moment in the film. She told Zane Lowe on his Beats 1 Radio show: “It’s two people talking to each other about the need and the drive to dive into the deep end and stay away from the shallow area.”
The song was something special as it won many awards: It won the Golden Globe award for Best Original Song From A Motion Picture; It won the Grammy Award for Best Pop/Duo Group Performance at the 2019 ceremony; and it won the Oscar for Best Original Song.
Shallow
Did you ever see a video that leaves you wondering just what the heck it was all about? My buddy is always sending me crazy videos and stuff, so when he sent this I didn’t know what to expect. I watched this and really couldn’t understand a thing I was watching. It is basically everyone doing this weird walk while moving their arms in and out.
It still perplexes me, which is why I include it on my list. It is by a Russian band called Little Big. According to Wikipedia:
On 26 January 2019, the music video won the category “Hype of the year” of the Ketnet award “Het Gala van de Gouden K’s 2018”, which took place in Belgium The song was also nominated for the “ZD Awards-2018” for “Trends of the Year” and “Hype of the Year”, which were presented on 28 February 2019. On 16 February 2019, the music video was awarded the “Chart’s Dozen” prize for “Best video”. On 10 April of the same year, the video was nominated for the awards for “Best video” and “Best Song in a Foreign Language” at the Muz-TV 2019 awards.
So, it is an award winning song that went viral. Little Big challenged fans to post their own Skibidi dance videos, which they called the “Skibidi Challenge”. I would imagine if I walked into work like this, they’d call and have me committed!
Skibidi
When I found my wife, I knew I had found my soulmate. The next song says, no matter what life throws at you and whatever money worries you might have, you’ll be fine if you have the right person by your side. It also is a great reminder that life is short, so “Make It Sweet.”
The guys from Old Dominion say writing it came easy, “…t he words just came tumbling out.” The next thing they knew, they had recorded “Make It Sweet.”
“That [final] recording is probably the second time we’ve ever played that song,” lead singer Matthew Ramsey said in an interview with Billboard. “You can kind of hear the excitement and the energy we have for it right there, because we had just created it and said, ‘Okay, let’s record it.'”
Make It Sweet
The older I get, the older I feel. Some days it is just hard to get up in the morning. The I read the story of how the next song came about:
(From songfacts.com) Toby Keith wrote “Don’t Let the Old Man” for Clint Eastwood’s 2018 film The Mule and it featured in its trailer. He told Billboard that he was inspired to write the song after a conversation he had with the 88-year-old Eastwood while the two played golf.
When Eastwood told him he was about to start working on a new movie called The Mule, Keith asked him, “How do you do it, man?” Eastwood responded, “I just get up every morning and go out. And I don’t let the old man in.”
Keith immediately started writing around Eastwood’s “don’t let the old man in” line and what he knew about his character in the movie.
The day he recorded the demo for Eastwood, he was sick with a bad cold. “I gave it the best vocal I could that day, and I sent it off,” he recalled. “It’s a real raspy, sleepy, tired, sick vocal. I said, ‘Well now you’ve got a reference, and I’ll go back and put a vocal on it for you.'”
Eastwood liked the recording because Keith’s raspy delivery fit the movie. “He wanted it sick and tired and dark like that,” said Keith. Clint didn’t want Toby to change his vocal and used that version for the movie.
The song took on a personal meaning for Toby. He performed it at the 2023 People’s Choice Country Awards after being awarded the Country Icon award. The performance was his first time back on red carpets and television after his diagnosis of stomach cancer the previous year. Keith said he chose the ballad because it inspires those who’ve been touched by his cancer journey.
Don’t Let The Old Man In
Let’s wrap up the week’s list by moving into 2019 ….
2019
The next song was one I played on both the country station and the AC station. It was a nice crossover hit. Maren Morris wrote The Bones when she was getting ready to marry singer Ryan Hurd. It is “a story of a long-lasting partnership where the couple have been through many storms together.”
When the bones are good, the rest don’t matter Yeah, the paint could peel The glass could shatter Let it rain You and I remain the same The house don’t fall when the bones are good
When the song came out the two were already married. The video features clips of Morris and Hurd during their vacation in Hawaii in June 2019. The couple split in 2023.
“The Bones” hit #1 in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and remained a big hit throughout lockdown. Morris said she feels it resonated as it’s more than just a love song.
“It’s kind of amounted to being this really medicinal cry for hope in a time where it’s a very unsteady and unpredictable time that we’re in right now,” she said. “I feel like the whole message of ‘if the bones are good the rest doesn’t matter’ has applied to this year of 2020 being a complete mess. A ton of fans had reached out and said, ‘This feels like a cry for the world right now. Like we’re in the homestretch of the hard times.’ So it graduated beyond earthly love to something broader.”
The Bones
The Jonas Brothers had broken up six years before, so it was a big surprise when they released Sucker in 2019. The song speaks of being a “sucker” for the love of a woman.
I’ve been dancing on top of cars and stumbling out of bars I follow you through the dark, can’t get enough
The song debuted at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. This was their first ever #1 song. It was one that I not only played on the radio, but at some of the last few DJ jobs I did. It always made folks dance and I liked the sound of it.
It would go on to be the most-heard song on US radio in 2019 with 3.49 billion audience impressions. I guess I was a sucker for this song.
Sucker
You can thank Tik Tok for the next song. Old Town Road gained popularity as a result of memes on the social media platform, where users uploaded clips using snippets of the song, plus the hashtag #oldtownroad. Lil Nas X uploaded the song to TikTok himself, masterfully using the platform to launch the track.
On April 5, 2019, a remix featuring Billy Ray Cyrus was released and the song exploded, going to #1 on the Hot 100. It was one of the few songs that was so popular, I’d have to play it twice at dances to make the audience happy.
Personally, I disliked the song, as I felt it fell into that rap/country category. However, I did laugh at the 2020 Super Bowl commercial for Doritos. It featured Lil Nas X and Sam Elliott. They line up for a duel, and when Elliott says, “make your move,” Nas busts out a dance move, triggering a dance-off. Billy Ray Cyrus appears in the kicker, saying “I ain’t dancing.”
Old Town Road
The deaths of my grandparents devastated me. They were so important to me. So when I was at the country station and played the next song from Riley Green, it hit home. It’s about more than grandparents, though, it is about those great things in life that end a bit too soon.
I wish high school home teams never lost And backroad-drinking kids never got caught I wish the price of gas was low and cotton was high I wish honky-tonks didn’t have no closing time And I wish grandpas never died
It, like a few other songs on my list this week, was thought provoking.
I Wish Grandpa’s Never Died
So that wraps up this week. I know many of my readers are unfamiliar with songs after the 2010, so apologies to them. For those familiar with new stuff, what did I miss that was your favorite from 2018 and 2019? You can drop it in the comments.
Next week, believe it or not, we will wrap up the feature, or at least this aspect of it. Looking ahead, I was able to go through 2020-2025 and come up with a few tunes. That sort of tells you how I feel about the last 5 years of music. It will be a short list next week. I hope to see you then.
25 years ago today a catchphrase was born. One of Saturday Night Live’s funniest sketches aired for the first time. The host? Christopher Walken. On Cowbell – Will Ferrell.
It’s a Behind The Music sendup, with Walken playing producer Bruce Dickinson, sent to deliver a hit. We see Blue Oyster Cult rehearsing the song (Don’t Fear) The Reaper. When they run through the song, Ferrell plays the cowbell with alarming enthusiasm. Walken loves it, ordering “more cowbell” and telling him to “really explore the studio space,” which he does. Jimmy Fallon, playing the drummer, almost ruins the bit by laughing his way through it.
Incidentally, there really is a Bruce Dickinson, but he wasn’t the band’s producer – he worked on re-mastering the album, which is likely how his name got used.
On a recent visit to the Tonight Show, Ferrell told Jimmy Fallon:
“I went to see Christopher Walken years later in a play he was doing and I talked to him backstage and he’s like, ‘You know, you’ve ruined my life,’ “
When Ferrell asked how, Walken responded:
“Every show, people bring cowbells for the curtain call and bang them and it’s quite disconcerting.”
Various Ramblings of a Nostalgic Italian 