FOOTLOOSE DREAM ZONE

Some of you may have noticed that all was quiet on the southern front yesterday. That is my quippy way of saying that I didn't blog. I did read a couple of blogs, but not many. My head was killing me and it just didn't let up. Usually I can squeeze a few good hours out of a day, but the last few days... make it the last week or couple of weeks, it has been challenging. And it has been manifesting itself in every aspect of my life. The migraine meds just don't work for me, so it has all been pain mgmt via pain pills. Well... I know that too much of that stuff is bad for you.

I have been living on pain medication for years, so I really try to not take it unless it is necessary. Well... for the last couple of weeks my migraines have been so bad that they have been waking me out of a sound sleep between 3-5am. Ladies and gentlemen, this is not good. This means that I am taking meds all day long; as soon as the medication wears off, the migraine kicks back in. Not surprisingly, the last few days my stomach has really been hurting. I have no doubt that it is a response to all of the pain medication. I sent off an email to my doctor today. Fortunately, she is excellent about replying.

Normally, I don't post this kind of crap on my blog. No one wants to hear about your medical junk. Besides, I know many of you have medical junk of your own. I am also a big believer of negative builds on negative and positive builds on positive. So, I really try to throw positive stuff out into the universe because that is the foundation that I want to build on. I believe in positive comments, positive thinking, positive visualization, asking for what you want, believing you will get it, and that there truly is a Grand Design (no matter how messed up everything looks at any given moment).



Yesterday was supposed to be my magical music day. That didn't happen. It was my spend the day in bed day. Yuck. And my laptop is at the computer fix-it place being wiped. That has me less than happy. All of my wonderful youtube footage saved in my favorites for later are very likely lost in space. *sigh* Ironically, I didn't even have an 80s group picked out because I was feeling so bad all week long. Yeah, it was really that kind of week. So, now I am sitting at my step dad's computer and thinking about how I might accomplish this mission without totally annoying my mom. She is at the next desk, which is only a few feet away. I love listening to youtube music. It drives her up the wall. I have nothing saved and no ideas. It is entirely possible that she might kill me, even though she loves me like crazy, and I am her only daughter. It would be a crime of passion. Totally an "in the moment" thing. I know that she would feel terrible later.

Well, I will try doing some listening and see what happens. If she gets that look in her eye and goes for the iron skillet in the kitchen, I might have to switch gears and do something else.

Well, this turned out to be easier than I thought. I strongly encourage you to listen to the inspirational song for today. You will probably look at the name of the song and band and scratch your head. The only reason I am familiar is because this song came out at a time when I was actively watching CMT. Why CMT? Because if I felt cruddy and only could stand 10 minutes of TV it was no big to turn it off. There was no emotional investment in a "show." However, as soon as I saw this song I LOVED it. However, I never heard it on the radio... of course. Because it was awesome. Probably not country enough for country radio, rock enough for rock radio, etc. Basically it just didn't fit in anywhere. In other words, it was awesome. So, give it a listen even if you hate country. It may never rank up there with your faves, but it is a very cool song. Definitely inspirational.

Click here to watch the video. It would not embed.


I have been thinking that I wanted to do an 80s soundtrack for a while. My original thought was to take a successful soundtrack and pick a couple of songs that had particularly interesting videos. Well, that isn't how this post is going to work. However, that idea is still on the backburner. Instead, I am going to go with an 80s artist that had two REALLY successful songs on two DIFFERENT soundtracks. In both cases, this artist shot the videos using footage from the movies. That was brilliant. Had the movies been duds, that would not have been a good idea. However, both of these movies were box office blockbusters and this was a case of a song using MTV in yet another visual way. The movie, the song, and MTV all were using each other to ride each of these separate, but interlocked, entities to success. People watched the video and then had to see the movie. People watched the movie and then loved the video. People loved the video and had to buy the soundtrack. It was one more unanswered question of which of these caused the other to become the unparalleled success that it became. Who knows?

The only thing that was certain was that the fans were glued to MTV, buying the soundtracks as fast as they could, and hearts were palpitating all over America for Kevin Bacon and Tom Cruise. Yep, the artist we are talking about was Kenny Loggins. In the 70s and early 80s he was "speaking" to our parents. In the mid-80s, he jumped the generational gap when he became the musical voice for FOOTLOOSE and TOP GUN. Yep, Kenny Loggins jumped back on the musical rollercoaster and became a hot property. If you don't remember, or doubt what I am saying, just watch the footage. Kenny Loggins knew when to step in and when to step out and it put him back on top. Yeah, he was, once again, a top gun.... lol.







I have to admit that both of those movies were HOT HOT HOT back in the 80s. And Tom Cruise was the sh*t before he lost his freaking mind. Kevin Bacon still is the sh*t. I have a funny story to tell about high school, but today isn't the day. One day when I am lacking material I will share it. Well, it was funny then... maybe not so much now. Maybe it was a had to be there story. I don't know. But, Kenny Loggins always was classy to me. I always loved that song that he wrote for his father THIS IS IT. At least, I understood that it was for his father. As I understood it, his dad had cancer and was mentally giving up. It was the kick in the ass song that Kenny wrote for his dad. It was him drawing the line in the sand letting his dad know that he had a lot of fight left in him and no one else was giving up. It makes me cry every time I listen to it. So, yeah, I think Kenny Loggins is hardcore. In his soul. Where it counts. And I think he knows something about walking in the Danger Zone. Not necessarily where there is artillery and gunfire (I don't know about that), but fighting the good fight. Yeah, I think he knows about that. And he isn't a quitter. I like that.

INSPIRATIONAL SONG SATURDAY

For those of you keeping up with this blog, this has been a stressful week here at Your Daily Dose. Well, that would actually be me. Stress and migraines do not work and play nice with one another. So.... I have been eating pain pills like candy and still been pretty much feeling like crap. Yeah, we are talking those kind of migraines. It's just been fun fun fun. So, Inspirational Song Saturday is something I have looked forward to pretty much all week. It is the easy blog to write. I don't have to dig deep and do any house cleaning for my mental health. I can just kick back and listen to some tunes. I also get to play around on youtube, yahoo video, and even myspace video (if it comes to that), in an effort to find the videos I am looking for to spotlight an 80s singer or band. Then I begin thinking about what is speaking to me today.

This week I didn't actively start looking for footage for my 80s singer until yesterday, or last night, if we are going to be precise. I had someone in mind and didn't think it would be that hard. Boy was I wrong. The irony here is that this singer had a lot of videos on MTV back in the day. I do not know what happened, but those videos are not anywhere in their original form. That isn't the case for the ALL of the songs, just MOST of the songs. I am not going to tell you who it is, because I am hoping that eventually they will make their way out of the archives and onto youtube. However, I was shocked, and that was immediately followed by scrambling around for someone else to highlight for today. I will get into that story when I get there.

For now, let's start with the video that is inspirational to me. I might as well try to stick to some sort of format. I am sure it won't surprise you when I tell you that I still didn't have a clue what MY Inspirational song was going to be when I woke up this morning. I was feeling a bit overwhelmed by a lot of things. At times like that, it is time to put on an upbeat record and dance it out and sing it out. (By the way, I did neither. My voice is froggy and all of my joints hurt. But the thought is nice:-) I had two songs in mind that fit the bill for that, but I don't like the original vids for them. So, I thought about trying to find a video using their music, but clips from something else. That didn't make me happy, either. Are you feeling a theme here? It was at that point that inspiration struck, and I knew the perfect song. I love the song and the video and it couldn't be more on target; it hits me right where I am living now. Maybe it will hit you where you are living, too.

Don't forget to turn off my music player at the bottom of the screen. If you want the video to fill the screen, click the square in the corner. Hit the escape to make it small again.




Build it anyway. Dream it anyway. Believe it anyway. Love them anyway. Sing it anyway. God is great, but life ain't always good. When I pray it doesn't always turn out like I think it should, but I do it anyway. Build. Dream. Believe. Love. Sing. Pray. Do. Anyway.

The person we are going to look at for the 80s is Bonnie Tyler. I don't recall her having that many hit songs. I didn't search her on wikipedia to find out either. There were not that many choices on youtube; however, I am learning that it isn't always that reliable a source after it let me down on first pick for today. Bonnie Tyler has this gravelly voice that just works on some songs. Rod Stewart has one, too, and he is uber-successful. Hold on a second. I need to write his name down on my 80s list. Okay, done. I plucked out two videos for Bonnie Tyler, and being totally honest, I don't recall ever seeing either one on MTV. However, she is a girl and I was all about Duran Duran at the time, so... who knows?

The first one, in my opinion, is the better video. I love both of the songs. In fact, I think I had the 45 for this song, TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE HEART, back in the day. If you don't know what that is I might have to hit my head against the wall. I know that some of you 20somethings don't know what that is. *sigh* It is a single song on a record. The "A" side of the record was the popular song getting radio play, and the "B" side was a song they never intended to release that was pulled off the record, and put on the other side. However, sometimes the "B" song was so good it would entice you to buy the entire record. That was the strategy I am thinking. I didn't think that far ahead back then. I was a kid. The 45s were cheap and kids didn't have a lot of money, so there was definitely a market there. Moving on... here is the vid for song number one:

BONNIE TYLER TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE HEART @ Yahoo! Video

Bonnie Tyler's other big song that I remember is HOLDING OUT FOR A HERO. I had this one on a record, too. However, it was on the soundtrack for the movie FOOTLOOSE. I loved that soundtrack (and this song). Heck, I loved that movie. We, and by we I mean me, are being honest. My friend Shelle C said it best (she saw the movie before I did, so I got her review), "I knew I was going to love it when it started by panning across all of the feet in various shoes dancing in place." She didn't say it quite like that, but she was impressed with the unusual opening with the shoes. She was right; it was cool.

Anyway, my point is that whenever I think of this Bonnie Tyler song, I think about the movie FOOTLOOSE. I even think about the specific scene in the movie where this song was playing. Eventually, singers/bands who created songs for soundtracks used movie footage in their video, because people wanted to see both the band and the movie. All I can think here is that the song must have already come out, and the video already been made, OR Bonnie Tyler had a screw loose, because this has to be one of the worst videos I have ever seen. I am tempted, even now, to look and see if she made a follow-up after the movie came out with movie footage, and a totally different theme. I was trying to stick strictly with the original videos, but this is so terrible that I will post this and then take a quick look. You have to look for yourself and weigh in. Am I right that it is awful, or do you think it is the best thing since sliced bread? Or just a medium amount of bad? Where does it factor in for you on a scale of 1 -10, with 1 being The Worst, and 10 being The Best? You can use this same scale to rate the above video, too. Let's take it one step further. Rate the song. The song and the video together. The video alone. For both of them. I am curious to get your feedback.




As I expected, there was zippo on a video remake from Bonnie Tyler, which is a crying shame. Unfortunately, she probably made that disaster after the movie came out. Please keep in mind that it is only my opinion. However, I did find the clip from the movie that I referred to above where the song plays. It is still just as awesome today as it was 20+ years ago.




What did you think of the movie scene? You have to rate it in context; that means you have to share whether or not you have seen the whole movie or not when you comment on it. You can just thumbs up or thumbs down. Or you can say thumbs up to this scene, but... if you saw the whole movie. You get where I am going. I want an actual opinion based on *something.*


image found at www.weheartit.com