Old Music and New Car

After a random discovery of a CD I had been thinking about for awhile, this morning’s commute was tempered by the 10 tracks from “Super-nova” from the Mexican synth-pop group, La Siguiente Pagina.  I don’t know much about the group, but I always loved the space-themed electronic euro-dance songs on this disc from 1997.  (If I had been looking hard, I would have found the entire album online; check it out.).  

As I drove in to work, listening to track after track, I wasn’t really taken back 18 years, because for the most part, the songs have stayed surprisingly fresh, though after listening to a lot that’s being played on the SiriusXM dance channels, there were definitely a lot more BPMs going on in dance music back about 20 years. It’s too bad they only came out with this one album and a remix disc from one of songs, “Outer-space.”  That disc is tucked away, just waiting to be found, somewhere around the house or maybe out in the garage.

Speaking of the garage: parked inside is the new ride–a white CR-V Touring.  I had been thinking “new car” for quite some time, since Christmas really, when there was absolutely no more room in the Fiesta hatchback after loading it with presents, goodies, belongs, and dog.  It was a bit more than four years old and almost 65,000 miles.  I had had virtually no problems with it, and it squeezed great miles out of every gallon, but besides the lack of space for trips, I often felt vulnerable out on the road.  Larger vehicles gave no respect.

And respect the CR-V gets.  Maybe because it’s bigger; maybe because I drive it differently because it has more power.  I didn’t choose it for either the respect or the power.  Besides the added space, I liked the safety features that come with the    new-this=year Touring, that the other levels of the CR-V don’t have, like the LaneWatch, and the Collision Mitigation.  Also, I thought the Fiesta had really good side vision, but the mirrors on the CR-V just seem to give a wider angle of vision; the one on the driver’s side has a sort of split mirrors, so all-in-all the blind spots are really minimized.  Along with just sitting up higher, the better visibility makes my entering and exiting so much less chancy.

The car has a lot of other features that come in handy, like the automatic tailgate, but what I notice most is the space.  My Saturday groceries, which about filled up the hatchback of the Fiesta, now seem kinda dinky in the back of the CR-V.  It’s a different drive too, more solid, and I can’t just scoot into parking spaces.  However, considering the size of the vehicle, the gas mileage isn’t bad.  Each week, I’m putting in about two more gallons into the tank for my 50 mile-a-day commute plus whatever chore and fun miles are put on.  That doesn’t seem bad for the difference in the vehicles.

So I guess now I’ll have to dig around and see what other CDs I can scrounge up.  If I find enough good ones, it might be time for a road trip.

All spic-n-span after being freshly washed; yep, and still waiting for the real license plates.

The back of the 2015 CR-V looks pretty similar to other years, but I hate to say it, but what makes it look different might seem to be a longhorn.

Sure Seems Like I’ve Heard It Before: New Song by Brit Singer Adele Sounds a Heckuva Lot Like “Kaw-Liga”

Spending almost 2 hours a day commuting these days, I hear a lot of music on a variety of stations.  I don’t know all the new artists, but my ear tells me there’s a lot of lifting from older music.  I can appreciate Lady Gaga’s stands on gay issues, but despite her over-the-top outfits, she’s hardly an original; nor is her music.  A lot of her songs sound a lot like pieces of Madonna’s and other dance groups’ hits.  Lady Gaga’s “Alejandro” sure sounded to me like I was hearing the old Swedish group, Ace of Base’s “Don’t Turn Around” at the beginning, then segueing in to what seemed very near to Madonna’s “Isla Bonita.”

There was a song with a male singer a month or so ago that was playing that I would have sworn was Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA.”  However, I have yet to catch the title or singer of that song.

I’ve been listening to a lot of Sirius radio lately, especially to BPM (the dance music station) and BBC Radio 1.  On both, I’ve recently been hearing this song with a female singer, and I was sure I had heard it before, but just couldn’t place it.  The song is “Rolling in the Deep” by a new British singer-songwriter, named Adele.

I’m thinking that Adele might have been listening to a lot of Hank Williams Sr., the popular singer-songwriter, who died in the early 1950s.  The melody that comes from “Rolling in the Deep” sounds very similar to that of Williams’ “Kaw-Liga,” which I remember hearing a lot when I was a very little kid, because everyone in my family loved that song.  When I listen to the Adele song, I can’t help hearing “Kaw-Liga was a wooden Indian . . . .”

Adele’s version, of course, is a bit more up-tempo and ventures away from the main tune at times,  but it even has a similar drumbeat in the background.

Take a listen to both versions; play the beginnings of both songs, switching back and forth a few times, and you’ll definitely hear how similar the melodies are.  Despite not being able to get “Kaw-Liga” out of my head, I still like the Adele song quite a bit.

Here’s the Adele song:

Now here’s Hank Williams’ “Kaw-Liga”: