I’ve heard it said that you’re either a Beatles fan or a Rolling Stones fan… I don’t know if thats true because there are a few Rolling Stones songs I like but I definitely know that if I had to pick its got to be The Beatles.

This song in particular was one of their earliest singles and exemplifies some of the amazing facts about The Beatles (as well as the differences in how music was made and distributed back then as compared to now):

• It would’ve gone straight to number one on the UK charts but another Beatles song was already there! This happened to the Beatles more than any other artist ever and they have a number of amazing songs that actually peaked at number 2 losing out to other Beatles songs!
• I believe they never included the songs they released as singles on their studio album releases - I heard or read an interview once where they pointed out that including them on the Album just didn’t seem right if their fans had already purchased the single when they bought an album they should get new music can you imagine an artist today doing that?!

I’m sure I’ll cover more Beatles songs its a deep catalog of amazing songs and again they’re easily my favorite artist.

I don’t expect to be able to compare to John Paul Ringo and George but it was a blast to sing and I hope you enjoyed it.

Until next time.

Johnny Cash has always been a musical hero of mine, for better (and for worse) he spent his entire career being authentically who he was. All told that career spanned six decades and included multiple “comebacks”. In 1971, the year of this song’s release, the Vietnam war had been going on for somewhere between 10 to 15 years depending on how you measure its start, drug abuse had been declared “Public Enemy Number 1” by the President, the Energy crises of the 1970s were beginning to brew, and politics was becoming more polarized than ever - leading to what at the end of the decade President Carter described as a “crisis in confidence”.

It’s hard not to think about the challenges faced back then and not see parallels to the issues we face as a society and culture today. It may not be a popular opinion, but for me it reinforces that people fundamentally don’t change - something that I think the course of recorded history supports. Thats not to say that as Johnny noted in this song there aren’t aspects of life that aren’t obviously better, and as polarized as our culture is right now, and as many people are struggling in as many ways as they are, overall we live in one of the richest times in all of history.

But if people don’t and haven’t fundamentally changed, then what’s the point? For an answer to that I’d point you like Johnny did in the song, to the words of Jesus. A random cover video on YouTube may not be the best forum for a dialog, but if you’ve never considered what Jesus said, not just what people might have yelled at you from a soapbox, or accused in a social media post, but his words as recorded in the Bible, I would challenge you to take a look. Specifically starting with whats known as the Sermon on the Mount - Matthew Chapters 5, 6, and 7.

I hope you enjoyed the song and I hope you’ll watch again next week.

I’ve been told that some folks think I look like Ed, but I’m pretty sure its just because neither of us is particularly tall, and I have a red beard… as celebrity look-a-likes go though, I’ve gotta say I’m not too bothered by the comparison. Ed Sheeran is incredibly talented - the fact that he can command massive arena audiences with nothing but his voice, guitar, and a looper pedal is a testament to his skills as both a songwriter and a performer!

One of the first few singles off his debut album, this song is obviously now one of his older hits, but it’s a great song with evocative imagery and an engaging melody. I tried to get as close to Ed’s recorded performance as I could, but there’s only one Ed Sheeran…

At this point, I wrote this song so long ago that I’m not sure I could figure out the exact date, but it has to have been at least 10 or 12 years.

I was inspired to write it by the surge in social media, and the idea that even now, as I’m sitting here talking to you through this screen, you don’t really KNOW me, you just know a version of me. A projection of me, of who I think I am, who I might be right now, maybe even an aspirational version of myself that looks like who I WANT to be.

Sadly in the decade or so since I first wrote this, I think the challenge of growing up and of just “living” in this modern era of digital versions of ourselves has only grown harder.

Hopefully you can relate to the idea, that no matter what we may look like in photos or videos posted online, that isn’t really who we are. So maybe its weird advice to get from someone via a screen over the internet, with a small channel that is hoping to break 100 subscribers here soon, but maybe you should put down your phone, close your computer, and engage with someone in the real world. Build a relationship with someone that can get to know who you really are, not just the projection on the screen.

I’m often reminded of random songs by something my kids or my wife will say. When it happens they all recognize the look in my eyes and no what is going to come next. I call out to “the lady in the tube” and ask for the song to start playing. It’s usually met by my kids yelling out “No!” but it’s always too late, the song has begun.

This song came up when my wife introduced a nightly “clean up” process, meant to help keep the house from getting quite so out of control. there are 5 areas, one for each of us, and the rule is we set a 10 minute timer, and we just get as much done as we can. For the kids this has proven to be really effective at taking almost all of the “sting” out of cleaning up, since there’s an end in sight no matter how much there is to do. She found the idea online, but it reminded her of a restaurant closing up each night, so she named it “Closing Time” - I played the song on repeat the very first time we did it, and my kids now hate the song!

But I still enjoy it and I hope you enjoyed my version, if you did please feel free to like the video and subscribe. We’re getting close to 100 subscribers which feels like a big milestone (even though it doesn’t change anything), and as always please let me know in the comments if you have a favorite song you think I should cover.

Until next time.