Music to My Ears

Here’s another song—two songs. It seems no matter how we do it at a market gig, making our way through our song book, there we are again, face to face with the Beatles and the Dream.

Saturday we played the Sun Rise Farmers Market and had the best time. Since the Christmas gig in Folsom, we’ve been rained out—until Saturday. So there was some pent up energy in our playing. The market manager set up some tables in front of the music pop-up, and we drew a semblance of a crowd coming and going. We had some sun breaking through the clouds, which brought with it a festive feel. A teen, probably twelve, asked for our autograph and told her mother she’d finally seen a “pop phenom!” Everyone in ear shot cracked up.

I recorded maybe fifteen songs on my phone, something I do routinely to help me see into the songs. We were set up between two gasoline generators, between a rock and a hard place, so there’s noise. I found two that are tolerable, not studio quality for sure, but bearable. If the generators are unbearable or the songs aren’t your cup of tea, just push stop on your device.

Come Together (Lennon-McCartney)

As I understand the history, "Come Together" was written by John Lennon and credited to Lennon-McCartney; John and Paul agreed early on that they would always write together even when they didn’t. It was released as a single along with "Something” written by George Harrison.

Lennon was inspired to write "Come Together" for Timothy Leary's campaign for governor of California against Ronald Reagan. Leary was taken off the ballot, however, (unlike someone with orange hair) and sent to prison for marijuana possession. The campaign slogan was "Come together, join the party.”

The lyrics are Dylanesque, filled with surreal lines like, "He got joo-joo eyeball / He one holy roller." We all know what he means, of course. Dylan spent time with John in London right around the composition of the song. The song fed into the whole “Paul is dead” publicity stunt. Why else would Paul be barefoot in the cover photo of Abbey Road?

“Come Together" became the subject of a lawsuit when music publisher Morris Levy alleged that the song infringed on Chuck Berry's "You Can't Catch Me." Chuck indeed has a line about “Ol’ Flattop,” and in my mind Lennon must have heard the song. The lawsuit was settled out of court.

Dreams (Stevie Nicks)

"Dreams" by Fleetwood Mac comes from their eleventh studio album, "Rumours," released in 1977. Stevie Nicks wrote and recorded it during a rough time for the band members, who were going through divorces or separations, including Nicks and her boyfriend, Lindsey Buckingham, a hell of a finger picking guitarist, who was also in the band. Some say that "Dreams" is Nicks' response to the end of her loving relationship with Buckingham.

I believe the song became Fleetwood Mac's only number-one hit on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the United States and has become one of the band's best-known songs. It saw a resurgence in 2020 after a viral TikTok video featured the song. Believe me, people love this tune. It’s like Landslide, another Nicks’ song we do. Tip jars don’t tell lies. Dreams always turns many marketers into swingers and swayers, dancing in the street. I’m always amazed that people know every line of the lyric. I screwed up the second line in the second verse, one of my favorite lines in the song. Darn distractions… Apologies.