cooper culture
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Old Man on Old School Friday

May 1st, 2009 by cooper

This weeks Old School Fri­day is “family pic­nic bar­be­cue or reunion”.

Dis­tinct parts — we call them sects — of my family are into dif­fe­rent things. At one end, the end for which Tee­to­ta­lism is not an option, someone would ine­vi­tably start, à la Beetle Juice, to sing the banana boat song. On another branch one might have to lis­ten to a cello pla­yer with little talent, the offs­pring of a family mem­ber who star­ted repro­du­cing young in order to ful­fill their life­long dream of con­duc­ting an orchestra.

Old Man works for me in a “this isn’t a party it’s a reflec­tion” way. This is a good per­for­mance of this song, and one I hadn’t come upon until tonight.

If someone star­ted with Neil Young we’d ine­vi­tably end up in Neil Young never land, lis­te­ning to hours of every song Neil Young ever wrote, inc­lu­ding Ohio and Mr Soul — I love that song. And my father would cer­tainly head over to the Stephen Stills column and sing Four and Twenty, it was, as I’ve told you all too many times for you to want to hear again, the only lullaby my father ever sang to me, and he sang it every time he roc­ked me to sleep.

OSF spon­so­red by Opi­nio­na­ted Black Woman and Mrs Gra­pe­vine

The pla­yers:

Elec­tro­nic Village | Kim | Kevin — A Slant Truth | Mar­cus LANGFORD | irie­gal | John | CC Groovy | Krea­tive Talk | Regina | Viv­rant Thing | AJ | Belei­ver 1964 | SJP | Bklyn­Queen 86 | Hey Shae | Mal­colm
| There Already

Peace

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16 Responses to “Old Man on Old School Friday”

  1. the amoebaNo Gravatar says:

    At the risk of saying something that’s been said a zillion times before — Four and Twenty is not a song I would have cho­sen for a lullaby. My part­ner caught me sin­ging that to a kid, she’d rock me to sleep. With a real rock.

    the amoeba’s last blog post..So This Is Why They Call It “The Dis­mal Science”

  2. DougNo Gravatar says:

    About time you dedi­ca­ted a post to me.

    Doug’s last blog post..The Refor­ma­tion of Wolfshausen

  3. gNo Gravatar says:

    I love that piece from Beetle Juice. There is a Sesame Street epi­sode with Bela­fonte sin­ging it with he Mup­pets, that’s fun too.

    Old Man is a great song. The only song I heard on oldies radio as a kid was Heart of Gold, it was easy to miss how good of a songw­ri­ter musi­cian he really is/was.

  4. VillagerNo Gravatar says:

    Happy OSF! You gave me a rea­son to think of my father. He pas­sed away 2 years ago. I ima­gine that I’ll be thin­king of him quite abit at the next family reu­nion or bar-b-que…

    I invite your blog rea­ders to get their mind right with the mellow sounds of Kool and the Gang. Only visit if you can handle sum­mer madness…

    peace, Villa­ger

  5. jakeNo Gravatar says:

    The Beetle Juice scene, that was funny, I’ve never seen it before.
    Nice per­for­mance of Old Man.

    jake’s last blog post..

  6. sauerkrautNo Gravatar says:

    For some rea­son, I pic­ture you as a Paul Simon “mother and child reu­nion” for the given topic.

    sauerkraut’s last blog post..The Shame of She­nan­doah, Schuyl­kill County

  7. kaitNo Gravatar says:

    My family reu­nions would be full ofSalsa and Meren­gue or Rock and roll depen­ding on the side.
    Neil Young types, maybe smar­ter are typi­cal for coop but then what is typical.

    kait’s last blog post..Sum­mer Party Dress

  8. sHaE-sHaENo Gravatar says:

    Nice post Coop, very reflec­tive. Happy OSF! :)

  9. I agree with others that this song is cau­sed me to reflect on time with my family and think about those who have cros­sed over. Wow, this was unex­pec­ted. Great pick.

    hagar’s daughter’s last blog post..About this blog…

  10. joegNo Gravatar says:

    Love this song.

  11. DianaNo Gravatar says:

    I’ve always ado­red Neil Young. I had never seen this video of Old Man until you pos­ted it. It just became my favo­rite, I think.

    Diana’s last blog post..Me Talk Pretty One Day