Another fishing trip means another round of Trip Tunes.

5. (Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty – K.C. & The Sunshine Band (1976)
There are some entertaining interviews with KC (Harry Wayne Casey) out there where he reveals his formula. He mentions working in a record store in his younger days where he would encounter customers who did not know the name of a song they were seeking. They would hum or provide a few words to provide a clue. KC stated, “When I started writing songs, I wanted to make sure that they knew the title when they came in to buy the record.” Mission accomplished and I’ll leave it to you to count the “shakes.”

4. Slit Skirts – Pete Townshend (1982)
I dig The Who and several of Pete Townshend’s solo tunes, but I find him a rather unlikeable guy from his interviews and sound bites over the years. And his whole destroy your guitar stunt never sat well with me. I’d never throw my fishing pole in the lake after a day of pursuing my passion. At any rate, his mid-life crisis cut, with its tempo changes, is a winner as it’s like getting multiple songs in one.

3. Houses of the Holy – Led Zeppelin (1975)
So, in 1973, Led Zeppelin released an album entitled Houses of the Holy that did not contain the song Houses of the Holy. Nope, that track was on Physical Graffiti from 1975. There’s so much to like in so many Led Zeppelin songs. For this one, I’ll chose my favorite lines of the tune, “Let me wander in your garden, And the seeds of love I’ll sow.”

2. Man on the Silver Mountain – Rainbow (1975)
Once upon a time, I trudged through a college class called “Freshman Preceptorial,” dissecting a diverse collection of literature of various forms. Most everyone was better at “interpreting” and their versions of a deeper meaning were lost on me. And that’s Ronne James Dio for me. There’s plenty stuff going on in his catalog with religious themes, ancient mysticism, good vs. evil, and so on. I just feel like shaking my head, flashing some “devil horns,” and doing my best Dio impression belting out, “Long Live Rock ‘n’ Roll.”

1. Evil Woman – Electric Light Orchestra (1975)
I’m a list guy as I steadily find myself making mental lists, frequently music related. In fact, that is what I am doing here with these Top 5 Trip Tunes. Were I to compile an official list of my favorite “Woman” songs of all-time, this one might top the list. And when considering a list of my favorite bands of all-time, ELO would rank high. They would also have another contender for my “Woman” list with Sweet Talkin’ Woman, which is kind of a more saccharine version of the Evil Woman character.

So far so good on keeping up with my Trip Tunes in 2025 and I must say that I am entertaining myself along the way. But back to the more direct fishing stuff with a Top 5 Update and another fishing report on the way. Talk to you later. Troy

Back by popular demand after being absent from the blog in 2024, I offer up another round of Trip Tunes. Okay, so not exactly “popular demand” but I did miss working a batch of tunes into an outdoor blog, so it is time to resume the feature. The odd thing is that I had all the tunes documented for my trips last year but got lazy and failed to put together the posts. At any rate, the concept is that I note the top tunes that I hear on the radio during my round trips to the fishing hole and then offer up my two cents. In the case of today’s post, it is a Top 5 list as the drive to and from The Canal is not exceedingly long in most cases.

5. My Girl (Gone, Gone, Gone) – Chilliwack (1981)
Don’t hear this one very often on the radio and I believe that I truly recall the last time I heard it. On a work trip to Tonawanda, NY in July of 2021, it played on the radio along with Bryan Adams and Rush. It dawned on me that all acts were Canadian and shortly I realized that my seek feature on the dial had landed on a Toronto station from just across Niagara Falls.

4. Hungry Heart – Bruce Springsteen (1980)
I’ve always liked the rhymes that “The Boss” composed in this tune. “Flowing” and “going” which he sings like “flo’n” and “go’n,” instead. Then there’s the pairs, “bar/apart” and “end/again.” But for me the best part of the tune is making a five-syllable word out of hungry, as in ‘Hu-u-un-ga-ry” heart.

3. We May Never Pass This Way (Again) – Seals & Crofts (1973)
This song is a perfect example of why I think the 1970s were the best musical decade. A fantastic four minutes starts as folk, moves to soft rock, gets jazzy, has some underlying funk, gives an R & B nod, briefly flashes a television theme show vibe, throws in a guitar solo, and features a satisfying mix of solo, harmony, and traded vocals. Don’t get much better than that.

2. Must of Got Lost – J. Geils Band (1974)
Many years before there were “Centerfold” and “Freeze Frame,” there was this entertaining tune that I always got wrong as “Must’ve Got Lost.” Which is technically correct, at least informally grammatically. Research shows that such a grammatical error (Must of instead of Must’ve) is called an “eggcorn.” The definition of which is “the alteration of a word or phrase through the mishearing or reinterpretation of one or more of its elements, creating a new phrase which is plausible when used in the same context” (also see mondegreen). Should you actually understand that, you just never know what you’ll learn on this “outdoor” blog.

1. Please Don’t Bury Me – John Prine (1973)
If you are not familiar with the late John Prine, this song would serve as a solid introduction to an interesting storyteller. His recently deceased character in this tune professes a desire that folks “pass me all around” instead of being entombed. An organ donor from top to bottom and many parts in between.
From
“Throw my brain in a hurricane
And the blind can have my eyes
And the deaf can take both of my ears
If they don’t mind the size.”
To
“Send my mouth way down south
And kiss my ass goodbye.”
A one-of-a-kind, wonderful wordsmith.

Talk to you later. Troy