A Song, Once Again, Proves We Are Connected to a Universal Intelligence
We are all antennas. Are you paying attention?
I occasionally spin into the vortex of writing and share some of my pieces on Medium.com. A reader had read my post, Van Halen and Universal Intelligence, and suggested I submit it to Song Stories, a publication about music, of course.
Coincidentally, the blog’s title is similar to the name of my son’s podcast. Donovan’s Rockin’ Song Stories.
But here is the even weirder synchronism.
I needed stories for a new website I am developing, Rockin Naturals, so I reached out to the gang on SongStories and asked for help.
The first person to contact me was Terry Barr. He graciously offered an article that you can read in a minute, but first a little back story.
When I opened his email and saw the title of the story he submitted, I almost choked.
Dancing Queen!
How could this be?
Out of the billions of songs recorded in the world, it had to be the one I hated the most?
But I knew I had to use it. I knew there were many others who didn’t agree with me, otherwise, it would not be so wildly popular.
I was honest with Terry and told him how ironic it was to send me an article about a song I had such a strong disdain for, but that I was thankful for his input and would happily post it.
I also told him maybe I would give it another listen and see if I could change my mind about the song. I mean, there must have been something I was missing, as I couldn’t understand why anyone would like it.
A couple of nights later, from my bedroom, I could hear America’s Got Talent on the TV. I decided to take a break from my laptop and go watch. I avoid the boob tube as much as possible, but I love to check out new artists- well, new to me!
Simon Cowell was having a humorous chat with the brave young lady who came out to perform. I was enjoying the conversation. Simon was being his typical brat self, but it was funny.
Then the charming Debbi Dawson began to sing!
Her voice was stunning.
The song — Dancing Queen.
Only a few short hours ago, my son and I were joking about the irony of Terry’s story, and now here I was listening to Dancing Queen and wishing it didn’t end.
What a profound moment. It is a sweet reminder that we are all connected in some crazy way. We are here to appreciate the beauty of the cosmic compositions and if we forget, then someone will come along to show us.
Thank you, Terri and Debbii for my new appreciation of a beautiful song.
Enjoy this version of Dancing Queen by Debbii Dawson and enjoy the article by Terry Barr.
ABBA’s ‘Dancing Queen’ And the comfort of an AM radio
by Terry Barr
For six months, I lived in a roach-infested studio apartment on Capitol Hill in DC. The roaches preceded me, though I hardly gave them a definitive reason for abandoning me. Not that I didn’t clean up after myself, nor leave food lying around.
I washed my dishes eventually, but never felt like cleaning and scouring as my Mom tried to teach me.
I could go on about the roaches, but then you’d either quit reading or keep reading for all the wrong reasons.
Old buildings, man. I wonder if Capitol Hill Lodge still sits at that corner of Massachusetts Avenue? In the basement was a cool seafood place. I ate there once, but when you think about fried shrimp, you have to wonder what went into that breading.
This was 1977, and I was pushing 21 years old. I worked in the US House Post Office, which sounded glorious to me when first proposed. It got me out of an economics course in college in which I was already falling behind after two weeks. Truthfully, I had missed one week due to the flu, but what did I know or care about the Galbraith-Friedman dispute?
I got offered this position because my congressional representative wanted to bestow some patronage on a college kid from his district. Maybe that there were no other takers should have clued me in about the nature of my work — making four daily rounds of offices picking up clear and “franked” mail.
But I didn’t really care, since I got to live in the big city and work in the seat of government. I had voted in my first presidential election the previous November, and was one for one as far as victories. I had also been devouring all the Watergate books and was thinking of a career in investigative reporting, feeling like my social work major was losing its glamor with every passing course. My sympathies were/are with those social workers, but I felt like I wanted something else or more right then.
All this to say: when I arrived at my job, they made me shave my beard, told me I couldn’t wear jeans, and other than one pair of brown corduroys, all I had were jeans. I got weekly paychecks and could have bought more “slacks,” but I was too busy buying cases of Blatz beer for $4 or something.
A friend drove me to DC in his Mercury Bobcat — a kind gesture, though his interest was seeing DC as much as in helping me. What this also meant, since a Bobcat was really just a glorified Pinto, was that I had limited space to pack meaningful belongings. Which meant I had to choose between a 12-inch color TV that often jumped out of focus, and my stereo system with three-foot speakers. I assume you know which piece won, though up until the last moment, I kept trying to wedge those speakers in.
In any case, when you’re all alone and lonely, maybe the talking heads on TV would offer consolation, or at least live politics.
I made friends easily enough at my job. Other than one woman working as assistant to the postmaster’s assistant, this was an all-male world. I remember their names: Joe Gibbons, Al Mattern, David Durham, Peter Hackes (his father was famous), and Billy “Nitro” Freeman, who claimed the Nitro came from how fast he ran, but which his brother told me was bestowed on him due to the quality and potency of his farts.
Our foreman was a guy named Frank from, as he pronounced it, “Balt-Tee-More.” Frank was often sweet to his “boys,” but when we got swamped or someone called in sick, Frank lost his cool easily and profoundly. Not that I always understood what he was saying because, A) that Baltimore accent was mighty thick, and B) he usually spoke with his pipe still in his mouth.
Despite everything, I loved them all, even old Elmo, the assistant postmaster. [And don’t tell anyone, but shockingly enough, someone was dealing cocaine in the House basement!!!!]
I didn’t have a car, of course, and when I hung out after work with Billy or Al, I’d have to walk home alone. Nothing ever happened to me except once, when three guys much larger than me demanded a quarter for passing their street corner.
Does that sound like innocent, bygone times?
There were plenty of bars on Capitol Hill, like the Tune-In and The Hawk and Dove, but unless I got invited to go with the guys, I never went to them alone. I’m just not a solitary bar guy/fly, even though someone, I think a new guy named Reg, told me about a cool place near my apartment — The Gandy Dancer.
But I never went, because he wasn’t inviting me, and I kind of figured Reg was gay. I went to gay bars back in Alabama (how weird does that sound?), but always with friends, because gay bars played the best dance music, and friends are friends.
So often, I’d be standing in my apartment alone, wondering what I was doing here, wishing I felt more like exploring on my own, but also rehearing all the warning voices about safety and big cities. While my apartment did have two windows, they were high-placed and so offered views only of the sky and the roof of the building next door.
Of course, these days also preceded cable TV, so not only were the four stations limiting, they mostly signed off around midnight or 1. And in the end, TV isn’t so cool or must-see. But, and sometimes it’s funny what really can save your soul and sanity, I had also brought to DC the old AM radio set — complete with tubes in the back! — that used to sit on my Dad’s night table.
When I felt desperate, I’d tune in. Baltimore had a cool station down near the left end of the dial that once played Neil Young’s “Cinnamon Girl,” but in my apartment, the reception stunk.
So the best I could find music-wise was WWDC-1260. I don’t remember all the hits from back then, though I’m sure “Dreams” got airplay and maybe “(Don’t Fear) the Reaper.” One night as I stood there in my midnight hour, DC was in the middle of its nightly “Power Hour,” an interesting concept where all-hit stations amped up the power hits and I’m not sure what it all means or meant, but as I stood there longing to be moved by some sound song or story about the nighttime, all of a sudden, it happened, and it went like this:
It wasn’t cool to love ABBA, but I did, and I always have.
I wish I could explain what it felt like, hearing, “The night is young and the music’s high…”
Even if I was the only one in DC on a Friday night listening to this AM station belt out the power of Eurodisco, I thought I could hear the sounds echoing all over the city, and when I looked out my window into the cold March night, man, all those stars. And somewhere, a club, and one day, I might decide to enter.
You can read more from Terry Barr on Medium by clicking here.
