Operation 365... Blog 260

Operation 365 - Jefferson Jay - Archives - 266 Jefferson Jay "Killing's Wrong" 7-6-2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_w8RFo498oM


These videos all seem to have an added meaning, now that I am into the last 100 days of the 365. My pal, Paul Ruiz was over, and I asked him to pick a date, any date. He said July 4th, which happens to be his birthday. I looked up a show from as close a date to that as I could find and I arrived here at my first Gallagher's Open Mic on July 6, 2010. "Killing's Wrong" was from the end of my set, near the beginning of the show. I was still feeling out the details on recording, so we have a odd profile perspective on the action and shoddy sound.

I am joined by Paul Ruiz on trumpet, The Soul Man on guiro, Blowski (unseen) on keys, Richard Romero on bass and a guest of the Open Mic, Peggy Sue, on drums. I met Peggy Sue, out and about a week earlier at a blues Open Mic I was checking out. I invited and she caem, so she sat in with us and did a nice job. She can be seen at the end of the clip. Nice audience participation ont he "That's Right," back up vocals.

"Killing's Wrong" is one of my main tunes ever. I make up different lyrics each time for the verses. It appears on my "Blue; A Kid's Album" CD and I've posted a few different versions of it already in the Archives. I like the way this video looks. It's different than most of the other ones. I just realized this one of two protest songs, I am posting today.

Operation 365 - Jefferson Jay - Covers - 266 "99 Red Balloons" by Nena
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DSMvgVNwWU


In honor of 99 days left in the Operation 365, I chose "99 Red Balloons" by Nena. Only after I learned it, did I realize what a cool tune it really is. So here's the story.

wikipedia: "99 Luftballons" (99 air balloons) is a protest song by the German pop-rock band Nena. Originally sung in German, it was later re-recorded in English as "99 Red Balloons".

While at a June 1982 concert by the Rolling Stones in West Berlin, Nena's guitarist Carlo Karges noticed that balloons were being released. As he watched them move toward the horizon, he noticed them shifting and changing shapes, where they looked nothing like a mass of balloons but some strange spacecraft (referred to in the German lyrics as a "UFO"). He thought about what might happen if they floated over the Berlin Wall to the Soviet sector.[1]

Both the English and German versions tell how 99 balloons are flying in the sky, where they are spotted by the military who don't recognize them as balloons but instead think they are some kind of incoming weapon. They immediately put their troops on red alert and call out jet fighters to intercept which ultimately triggers a nuclear war between the two Cold War adversaries. In the apocalyptic aftermath, the song's narrator stands in the rubble of the city and finds a single remaining balloon. Thinking of someone, he or she then lets the balloon go. The music was composed by Uwe Fahrenkrog-Petersen, the keyboardist of Nena's band, while Karges wrote the original German lyrics.

I was going to paraphrase that whole story and make it my own, but at the moment of truth, that seemed easier. That's where I learned it anyway. Pretty cool, huh. And this check out.

wikipedia: VH1 Classic, an American cable television station, ran a charity event for Hurricane Katrina relief in 2006. Viewers who made donations were allowed to choose which music videos the station would play. One viewer donated $35,000 for the right to program an entire hour and requested continuous play of Nena's "99 Luftballons" and "99 Red Balloons" videos. The station broadcast the videos as requested from 2:00 to 3:00 p.m. EST on 26 March 2006.[3]

Cool. Gotta love it when people make a point. It shows they really care. Especially when the point is good, ya gotta love it. So I dug doing "99 Red Balloons." It was an educational experience and it's a righteous tune.

Operation 365 - Jefferson Jay - Originals - 266 "What To Do"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3IpeZCMV-U


Last night, it hit me. "What To Do." Yes, the answers to everything for everyone dawned upon me at about 12:15AM this morning. Instructions for life, if you will. So I wrote it down, and her it goes. Did I know when I started to write this song that everybody should go become a mime? Of course not, but now I do, and I'm going for it. In honor of this revelation, I'll be doing the rest of this blog as a mime.