Song Lyric Sunday:What’s in Traffic?

Sunday is upon us again and it time Jim Adams to host Song Lyric Sunday. Today July 25 the prompt is – Automobile, Car, Jalopy, Vehicle suggested by Melanie B Cee of sparksfromacombustiblemind.

So I thought what shall I choose there are so many great tunes out there. I was taken back to 1979. We had escaped from Exmouth in Devon, we had not quite made it back home to London but we were back in the hub. Life with two out of what would end up as three boys was not so hard. I always had my music. Gary Newman , part of the new wave was right up my street. I didn’t drive in those days, I had to walk everywhere! This song was actually released on our eighth wedding anniversary!

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“Cars” is the debut solo single by English musician Gary Numan. It was released on 21 August 1979 and is from his debut studio album, The Pleasure Principle. The song reached the top of the charts in several countries, and today is considered a new wave staple.

The song was the first release credited solely to Gary Numan after he dropped the band name Tubeway Army, under which name he had released four singles and two LPs, including the number one UK hit “Are ‘Friends’ Electric?“, and its parent album, Replicas. Musically, the new song was somewhat lighter and more pop-oriented than its predecessors, Numan later conceding that he had chart success in mind: “This was the first time I had written a song with the intention of ‘maybe it could be a hit single’; I was writing this before ‘Are “Friends” Electric?’ happened.” He has since described “Cars” as “a pretty average song”.

In the UK charts, it reached number 1 in 1979, and in 1980 hit number 1 in Canada two weeks running on the RPM national singles chart  ^{(29 weeks in the top 100). It was his only single to}chart there. It rose to #4 on the US Cash Box Top 100 and #9 on the US Billboard Hot 100. Though Numan had a string of hits in the UK, “Cars” was his only song in the American Pop charts.

information from Wiki.

Here in my car
I feel safest of all
I can lock all my doors
It’s the only way to live in carsHere in my car
I can only receive
I can listen to you
It keeps me stable for days in carsHere in my car
Where the image breaks down
Will you visit me please
If I open my door in carsHere in my car
I know I’ve started to think
About leaving tonight
Although nothing seems right in carsSource: Musixmatch.

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Jalopy was a harder until in the back of my mind I remembered this Connie Frances song Hollywood. I was very young but I had older brothers and sisters and music was always playing in our house.

Concetta Rosa Maria Franconero (born December 12, 1937), known professionally as Connie Francis, is an American pop singer, former actress, and top-charting female vocalist of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Although her chart success waned in the second half of the 1960s, Francis remained a top concert draw. Information from Wikipedia

Whose jalopy is covered with junk
But don’t have any money for lunch?
It’s Hollywood, it’s HollywoodWho’s the local star
With the big, fine car?
It’s HollywoodWho wears the shady glasses after dark?
Who tries to talk the little girlie’s into parking?
It’s Hollywood, HollywoodWho’s the local yokel with
The horn rimmed bifocals?
It’s Hollywood
Go, go, goWho else would hold a cigarette like that?
Who else would wear a little Frenchy’s hat?
No one but Hollywood, HollywoodWho thinks he’s been around
But ain’t never been out of town?
It’s HollywoodI’ll give you just one little guess
At who old Hollywood’s trying to impress
You’re right, it’s Hollywood, HollywoodWho’s that farmer
Who think he’s a charmer?
It’s HollywoodYeah, it’s Hollywood all right
Here Hollywood, here’s a quarter
Go buy yourself some, ah, continental pants
Ascot, cigarette holder etc, etcSource: MusixmatchSongwriters: John D. Loudermilk.

*****

In the same year as the Gary Newman Track I heard Automobile by John Prime. It really could not of been any more different. The album Pink Cadillac blew my mind ..

John Edward Prine (October 10, 1946 – April 7, 2020) was an American country folk singer-songwriter. He was active as a composer, recording artist, live performer, and occasional actor from the early 1970s until his death, and was known for an often humorous style of original music that has elements of protest and social commentary.

Born and raised in Maywood, Illinois, Prine learned to play the guitar at the age of 14. He attended classes at Chicago’s Old Town School of Folk Music. After serving in West Germany with the U.S. Army, he returned to Chicago in the late 1960s, where he worked as a mailman, writing and singing songs first as a hobby, and then becoming a club performer.

A member of Chicago’s folk revival, Prine credited film critic Roger Ebert and singer-songwriter Kris Kristofferson with discovering him, resulting in the production of Prine’s eponymous debut album with Atlantic Records in 1971. The acclaim earned by this LP led Prine to focus on his musical career, and he recorded three more albums for Atlantic. He then signed with Asylum Records, where he recorded an additional three albums. In 1981, he co-founded Oh Boy Records, an independent record label with which he would release most of his subsequent albums.

Widely cited as one of the most influential songwriters of his generation, Prine was known for humorous lyrics about love, life, and current events, as well as serious songs with social commentary and songs that recollect melancholy tales from his life. In 2020, he received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Information from Wikipedia

February morning my car won’t start today
I turned the key at 8: 03
And the battery passed away
Inside a’ my automobileI want my automobile
I want my automobile
I want to drive it
All around this worldBride’s gettin’ married in the springtime
Widow’s gettin’ married in the fall
I got married in high school
Or I wouldn’t of got married at allI’d be drivin’ my automobile
Be drivin’ my automobile
Be drivin’ my automobile
I wanna drive it all around this worldEverybody said to the new groom
Groom, what ya gonna be
I said, I’m gonna be a symphony
Just as soon as I find a keyTo my automobile
I want my automobile
I want my automobile
All around this worldLet’s take a rideColumbus sailed the ocean
Moses parted the sea
Dolores left me yesterday
Well, I think she took the keyTo my automobile
I want my automobile
I want my automobile
Wanna drive it all around this worldNow, I held a little bitty baby
I held a woman all night
Whenever I get the hiccups
I hold my breath ’til my head gets lightThen, I drive my automobile
Yeah, I drive my automobile
I drive my automobile
I’m want to drive it all around this worldFebruary morning, my car won’t start today
Yeah, I turned the key at 8: 03
And the battery passed away
Inside a’ my automobileI’m drivin’ my automobile
Wanna my automobile
Wanna drive it all around this world
Go onIt is a beautiful day for a ride
Hey, get your head down I can’t see anything
Someone give me a cigarette
I don’t want to take my hands off the wheelWe ought to take the air filter off this sucker
So we can see what it will really do
Uh oh, it looks to me like a hospital zone
Everybody get quiet, shhDon’t wake the dead up
We’re almost out, hang on, uh, oh here we go
Well, you can just hold it until we get to the next townSource: Musixmatch.

Finally as I go here is Tracy Chapman with Fast Car for no other reason than I love it soooo much.

Tracy Chapman (born March 30, 1964) is an American singer-songwriter, known for her hits “Fast Car” and “Give Me One Reason“, along with other singles “Talkin’ ’bout a Revolution“, “Baby Can I Hold You“, and “Crossroads“. She is a multi-platinum and four-time Grammy Award–winning artist.

Chapman was signed to Elektra Records by Bob Krasnow in 1987. The following year she released her debut album, Tracy Chapman, which became a worldwide success. The album earned Chapman six Grammy Award nominations, including Album of the Year, three of which she won: Best New Artist, Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for her single “Fast Car”, and Best Contemporary Folk Album. Chapman released her second album, Crossroads, the following year, which garnered her an additional Grammy nomination.

Since then, Chapman has experienced further success with six more studio albums, which include her multi-platinum fourth album, New Beginning, for which she won a fourth Grammy Award, for Best Rock Song, for its lead single “Give Me One Reason”. Chapman’s most recent album is Our Bright Future, released in 2008.

According to Metro Weekly critic Chris Gerard, “Fast Car” tells a grittily realistic story of a working poor woman trying to escape the cycle of poverty, set to folk rock music.The song’s arrangement was described by Orlando Sentinel writer Thom Duffy as “subtle folk-rock”,while Billboard magazine’s Gary Trust deemed the record a “folk/pop” song.Dave Marsh said it was perhaps an “optimistic folk-rock narrative”, whose characters are in a homeless shelter. Information from Wikipedia

Happy Sunday EVERYONE.💜💜💜

Wordless Wednesday Going Nowhere!

© willowdot21

Ronovan Writes #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge 348 FOOL and Head.

Ronovanwrite’s.

Image from Pixabay.

A mist fills my head
With with the madness of a fool.
Eyes closed hope is dead.

This is part of Ronovanwrite’s Weekly Haiku Challenge

Sue Vincent’s #writephoto. Christmas Lights

Christmas Lights

Fingers almost blue, toes numb like her soul.
Fear has her in it’s grip , she was no longer whole.
The lights twinkle on the water and the snow
Eyes closed she stands silently rocking to and throw .
Warmth and home seemed a million miles away.
Under this bridge damp and bitter her only place to stay.
Tears cannot fall when frozen but they hurt as much.
She longed for a gentle word or loving touch.
Watching the lights on the water dance.
Like little fairies they leap and prance.
Music floats across the water to her ears
Laughter and an happy voices, she hears.
Tired, so tired she slumps down on the frozen ground
Watches the lights from the house praying never to be found.
Maybe she could of spoken out but she had not dared.
Who would believe her who would of cared
Slowly life slips away from her grasp.
Suddenly she is held in a warm, kind clasp.
A soft voice takes her to a happier place
She opens her eyes and sees God’s face.

Anywhere Evening News. Years Eve 2016 :another drug addict found dead under the the bridge opposite the Ferryman’s Inn.

Bah! Humbug.

This evening Martin at A Gap in the Cloud suggest I try an Acrostic Poem entitled Bah Humbug. Well what’s a girl to do?

Bah! Humbug a Christmas Acrostic Poem.

Image from Pixabay

Blast I don’t like Christmas tide
All the clamour makes me want to hide.
Hope and charity have lost their stride.

Hauling home the endless shopping
Uncaring of the homeless, it is shocking
Must get, must have it’s all hype
Blaring adverts brash and trite
Unkind, selfish, too much spent on Christmas fare.
God’s gift forgotten, most don’t give a care.

© willowdot21

Sue Vincent’s #writephoto. Clouded.

This week’s prompt ~ for Sue Vincent’s #writephoto. Clouded. Written Earlier this year.

For visually challenged writers, the image shows a landscape of green moorland and hills, with a pool of water near rocks in the foreground and a heavy bank of white cloud rolling in and masking the horizon.

The hills rolled on forever, dark foreboding. Clouds rolling in from the west carring rain or worse snow, she could smell it. The whole of the land was shrouded in fear. It had been days since she had seen another living being of her kind and she could not dismiss the feeling that she alone.

There was no way out she had tried. The hills became too steep, the river too fast and the boarder along the eastside too heavily guarded by humans. There was no escape while she was in this wounded condition. Eventually she would run out of places to hide and they would find her.

Slowly she turned and padded back to the cave, she would have her pups in a few weeks and by the time they were grown and strong enough she would be able to lead them out of this place . Her strength would have returned and her wounds healed.

For now this was her prison and her sanctuary , she was safe for now how ever clouded her future .

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This is part of #writephoto

Three things Challenge #368

Welcome to The Three Things Challenge.
For those of you unfamiliar with the challenge, every day Di at pensitivity101 lists three things that may, or may not, be related.
The challenge is to simply read the prompt and see where your creativity takes you, using one, two or all three words in your post. There are no restrictions regarding length, style, or genre apart from keeping it family friendly.
You can use the 3TC, #threethingschallenge or TTC as a tag and the logo if you wish.

Your three things today are:

MONEY
PRESSURE
TICKET
So with apologies to the Valentine brothers, Queen and David Bowie and the Beatles.

Money’s too tight to mention
People on the streets,under pressure.
I got a ticket to ride and I don’t care.

This is part of pensitivity101’s Daily Three Things Challenge

Sofia. The walk.

Through the years she walked finding solace where she could, changing with the world, yet knowing more than it would ever know.  Sofia spent years wondering alone with only animals and the stars to keep her company. She saw man as a race come into being and grow, she swam through the weeks of the great flood and watched the dove carry the the olive branch to the ark.

Sofia was lonely she never met one of her own, she saw Moss receive the ten commandments and wondered to herself if man could adhere to them.

Then one day she could smell one of her own  she ran she missed her wings but she could cover continents in hours .
Sofia revelled in the scent she knew it she loved it.

It was Gabriel and he was in the town of Nazareth visiting a young virgin to implant the seed of the one.

The warmth, the love she felt was amazing. Sofia waited in the alley below the young virgin’s window listening. Then when Gabriel left the young girl wondering what had happened to her, Sofia approached him.  Silently she leant out and touched him and when he turned to face her she was shocked by the look in his eyes.  It was strange there was  grief, pity and fear “Gabriel” she said in not much more than a whisper “Brother , brother touch me please” Gabriel spoke with no emotion “I cannot touch you you have fallen from grace you may not look upon my face.” Weeping now she reached out and touched his arm. To her horror and dismay he withdrew his arm like lightening and produced his flaming sword.

Shrinking back she could not believe her eyes the pain she was experiencing was raw and new to her, it was tearing  at her insides like a cancer. Glancing once more at Gabriel she turned and slipped away feeling dirty inside and out!

Gabriel watched her leave , beaten broken head bowed. He shook his beautiful head then as he turned to go he heard Sofia ask “What about forgiveness” hesitating he turned back once more to see her slinking off into the shadows….. something hurt his eyes it was a burning he moved his hand to rub his eyes to find that they were leaking water??

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Sofia was hurt deeply she found her grief all consuming,she hid in the shadows for days but she decided she was going to watch this young virgin in whom the One has entrusted such an important seed.

Gently she shadowed the young girl helped her take the sticks and stones and words that came her way, she even intervened with the man who was to be her husband. Sofia whispered in his ear that she was a good girl and that she had indeed been visited by a messenger of the the One, hard to believe as that was, it was true!

She followed them to Bethlehem  and ensured that they had somewhere to stay. Sofia had to smile at how easily she was now finding getting inside the human mind and suggesting her will to them. The air was full of angels at every turn she could smell and feel her beloved kindred, sadly though they all ignored or even worse denied her. Stubborn though she stayed with the young couple doing her best to help them.

Finally when the child was born Sofia sat outside the stable weeping the angels had refused her entry she could not defy them she had not the strength. The warmth she was being denied was too much pain, more than she could bear, as she rose to leave the young woman asked why Sofia could not see the child she thought he was to save all. There was no answer and so the woman rose and slowly walked out into the shadows towards Sofia.

The warmth and the love Sofia had not dared to think of was walking towards her. The hope she received from the child was more that she had ever imagined . She looked into the eyes of the young mother and said” thank you”.

images from Pixabay.

Sofia: How it all Began

Sofia

It was dark not the dark we know but deep pitch eye searingly black. It smelt too, it flew up her nostrils and made her eyes water and burned her throat.

All around there were flames and the sound was indescribable. Wailing from every direction, deafening wailing full of pain, grief, loss and hopelessness………… Sofia cringed in a ditch covered in mud, her wings in tatters blood running down her hair and across her face. Fear, she felt fear she did not know what it was yet though. Her stomach ached, again she put her hand between her legs and found blood, “what is this she asked” inside her head. “It is a curse” the voice said,” it is the cycle that women bear. Every month they make an egg if it is not fertilized they loose it.” Sofia’s heart leapt ..”then I can have a child” the voice laughed it was almost cruel “No you may not bear a child you forgo that right” A strange feeling came her.

Pain was what she felt it ripped at her guts and her womb , it throbbed at her bleeding fingertips and toes, her head hurt, her brain was spinning . Something else now a burning in her eyes and wetness on her cheeks, she had seen this before it was another human thing, tears. Tears OH! but there was pain in those and they fell freely burning her face.

Blinded by tears she ripped at her wings, she screamed in agony as she tore them from her back flesh, sinew rent reluctant to leave her back they caused  much damage in their passing . Wet with blood and tears, in shock and agony she screamed at the black emptiness around her “What now?” Thunder above her head and lightening hitting the ground just at her side.  Fear shook her whole body at once she felt water and mess running down her legs……..  She new what this was and she was appalled and a new feeling to her, embarrassment

Later, dirty, wet and shivering  she huddled in the ditch cradling her blooded wings she tried to understand what was happening. The pain of her body was over shadowed by the pain in her soul, “What now?” she screamed again.  This time the voice did answer. “You shall walk in the realm of mankind, you shall suffer and strive as mankind does, you shall feel all they feel but more . You shall not look on the One’s face until you have atoned for you sin. You have fallen from grace .” Then the voice was gone, for the first time she was alone no voice, no face just silence.

How long she stayed there is did not know it could of been hours it could of been aeons. Shivering and bleeding she stayed still until the agonised screams and smell of burning finally was stopped. When she emerged from her hiding place there was no evidence of the battle that had raged day and night. Where were her kindred , was she alone .

Sofia folded and buried her wings, she dug the hole with her bare hands. She walked until she found a stream she washed her hair and her body, how she wished she could wash her soul and her aching mind. This done she walked not knowing what was to happen to her, would she meet more of her kind or would she just have to toil for ever in the realm of men…

Images from Pixabay

Thursday photo prompt: Glisten #writephoto

This week’s prompt ~ Glisten. Part of Sue Vincent’s #writephoto.

For visually challenged writers, the image shows a twilit beach, the sea shimmering in the low light. There are rocky islets silhouetted against the water and what might be a figure, running towards…or away from the waves.

Sofia stood on the shore and looked longingly at the silver pathway that the moon was casting on the water. A distant memory touched her mind of when she would of been able to walk that path.

From where she stood she could see the storm gathering momentum , she thought of Peter and his friends who were out there on the water. She had wondered why the son had sent them on ahead with a storm coming in.

Sofia smiled to herself, testing, testing why did he always test.. As she watched the moon glisten off of the sea she knew the answer. There he was walking on the water towards the fishing boat arms outstretched, probably that smile on his face.

As ever all she could do was watch, she saw Peter leave the boat and walk towards the son, doing well at first. Then the fear of drowning in the storm over powered him and he began to sink. Failed, thought Sofia sadly. Then she saw the son reach out and steady Peter and lift him back into the boat. Then the son entered the boat and miraculously the storm ceased.

Sofia felt a pang of jealousy why could he forgive this sinner for losing faith, he hardly knew him. Yet he had known her eons and she was cast out.

As the boat came in to shore, she watched them all joyously celebrating the cessation of the storm and their safe return. As they passed her he looked into her eyes. Sofia felt the pain, the deep pain that consumed her.

The men walked on and she fell to ground and wept, her back hurting where her wings had been.

She felt Gabriel and Michael walk past her, not even s glance in her direction, and out to sea. She watched long after the glisten had faded into dawn. Alone again Sofia trudged on.