Week 33 – Think Bensonium

Day 231: Hard Rock Café, Carol King

Roderick Benson — Fri, 06 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This song makes me feel a little melancholy. One of my earliest trips to the UK was 1976 when my cousin Michael took me as a child to the Hard Rock café in London. My cousin was a full sixteen years older than me and an incredibly nice guy who had a real way with children. He really was one of my heros. However, tragically in 1988 he was killed in a car accident at the age of 38. This song always remind me of him.

Day 230: Boys of Summer, Don Henley

Roderick Benson — Thu, 05 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Oh the pain. Today the UK re-enters lockdown although this was announced last Saturday as obviously the last thing you need to do when a contagion is in exponential growth phase is act quickly. I just hope one day I live to see better government in the UK and the USA. Anyway, in order to escape the spiteful British winter in the middle of a lockdown this great song came to mind. A very happy tune indeed.

Day 229: Crime of the Century, Supertramp

Roderick Benson — Wed, 04 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Time for another Supertramp song. A song with a moral twist in its tail

Now they’re planning the crime of the century, well what will it be ..
Who are these men of lust greed and glory, rip of the mask and let’s see,
but that’s not right look there’s you and there’s me.

The other really clever thing about this song is the way Supertramp manage to create the musical illusion of a constant descending musical scale that continue ad infinitum.

Day 228: In the end nobody wins, Elton John

Roderick Benson — Tue, 03 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This song always reminds me of my parents marriage which was far from happy. Yet somehow despite all the fights breakups and tears they somehow stayed together until the end of their lives.

Day 227: If you want to sing out, Cat Stevens

Roderick Benson — Mon, 02 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

OK this is an interesting song by Cat Stevens because his music was used in one of the most bizarre dark comedy movies called Harold and Maud. If you haven’t seen this movie, I can highly recommend it. The video of the song below is taken from the movie which is about a young man falling in love with a much older woman.

Day 226: Dr No Theme Song, John Barry Orchestra

Roderick Benson — Sun, 01 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I put this song in because yesterday the original actor who played James Bond, Sean Connery, passed away at the ripe old age of 90. Because I do these a week’s posts each Saturday, I am typing this on the day Sean passed away. RIP Sean!

Day 225: Free Fallin’, Tom Petty

Roderick Benson — Sat, 31 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

While I don’t have any Tom Petty albums, except for when he was part of the Travelling Wilbury’s I really like this song. Was also sad to hear when he passed away from in 2017. I thought he died of a heart attack but after checking Wiki it turned out to be a drug overdose:

had died accidentally from mixed drug toxicity, a combination of fentanyl, oxycodone, acetylfentanyl and despropionyl fentanyl (all opioids); temazepam and alprazolam (both sedatives); and citalopram (an antidepressant). In a statement on his official website, Petty’s wife and daughter said he had multiple medical problems, including emphysema, knee difficulties and most significantly a fractured hip. He was prescribed pain medication for these problems and informed on the day of his death that his hip injury had worsened. The statement read, ‘[it] is our feeling that the pain was simply unbearable and was the cause for his overuse of medication…. We feel confident that this was, as the coroner found, an unfortunate accident.’