Summer and Lightning

Last night we had an amazing lightning storm. It started out as a beautiful evening with some gorgeous clouds...




...and then this stuff started happening.





The storm went on for two to three hours. During the heaviest part of the storm, for about an hour, there was probably an average of one flash every second. It was amazing.

I Hear Her Playing Music

Yumiko and some of her Japanese friends put together a group called "Piano Lovers!". They like to go to recitals and concerts and talk about classical music, and mostly get together and eat and talk. They even designed and made T-shirts for the group. Yumiko came up with the concept, and Daniel made the design for the shirt company.



A couple of weeks ago they held their first recital. Yumiko played three pieces.



Here's the group that performed.



They held the recital at one of the group's house on her very nice Yamaha grand piano.



She and the rest of the kids also played in another recital last week.



It's kind of hard to get Daniel to look serious for photos. Especially when he's relieved that the recital is over. :)

Wait for an Answer

Some time back I posed the question of who sang the songs in the blog post titles. Being basically lazy, I never provided answers. Since I've now used about fifty song titles over the last 14 months or so, it seemed like a good time to finally get around to providing the answers (to the question nobody really is asking...). I'm sure nobody cares but me, but I'm having fun, so that's good enough for me. :)

So, without further ado, here are the titles and artists.


Sakura saku - Hayashibara Megumi

The title means “Sakura blooms.” Anime fans will recognize this as the theme song to the Love Hina TV series.


Don’t know much about history

This is actually not a song title, but the rather famous opening to the song (What a) Wonderful World, first recorded by Sam Cooke (and written by Cooke, Herb Alpert, and Lou Adler). The version I have is a cover by Art Garfunkel, with help from James Taylor and Paul Simon.

Dancing Queen – ABBA

Their only #1 hit in the U.S. -- and oddly enough, perhaps my least favorite ABBA song.


Grand Designs – Rush

From Power Windows.


Good-bye Season - Moritaka Chisato

One of her early songs.


Congratulations - Traveling Wilburys

Lead vocals by Bob Dylan on this one.


Graduation - U-ka Saegusa in db

A kind of weird band name, pronounced “Yuka Saegusa in decibel.” High school graduation is a Big Deal in Japan, and there are a lot of popular songs about it. I can’t think of any by Western artists.


You can make history (young again) - Elton John


Natural Science – Rush

This time from Permanent Waves.


Jet Airliner - Steve Miller Band

This song dates itself by mentioning getting on a 707.


Going History - Hayashibara Megumi


Black Wall - Dennis deYoung

This song gets a special mention for being one of the few that is actually about what the blog post is about – Dennis wrote the song about the Vietnam War, with specific reference to the Memorial.

This war keeps hanging on as if it were today
‘Cause many a good man died on the road from Tet to Hue
They won every battle they fought but the one that raged at home
And now the only words that count are the names carved out in stone

A very cool song that kept going through my head as we looked at those names carved out in stone.

Jefferson – Roxette


I Love To See The Temple – Primary song

Digital Rhapsody – Hirose Kohmi

Out In The Country – Three Dog Night

Drive My Car – The Beatles

She’s Gone – Hall and Oates

Fifteen Minutes of Fame – Randy Bachman

Bachman was the founder and lead guitarist for The Guess Who and Bachman-Turner Overdrive. I accidentally used this title twice.

What’s Your Name – Boston

Lesser-known song from their Walk On album. Lynyrd Skynyrd did a much more famous song with the same name, which is kinda cool because that song specifically mentions Boise, Idaho. But that coolness can’t cancel out the fact that it’s a rather skanky song. So I choose the title to be from the Boston tune instead.

love the island – Suzuki Ami

Her first single, this song was an official campaign song to promote tourism in Guam. That makes this song about what the blog post was about, too.

Sweet and Innocent – Donny Osmond

Rock Islands – Sugiyama Kiyotaka

This song is also kind of about what the post was about -- Japanese tourists visiting a Pacific island.

Octopus’s Garden – The Beatles

Written, and with lead vocal, by Ringo. I think this is the first (and maybe only?) song Ringo wrote that made it onto a Beatles album.

Big in Japan – Alphaville

Sayonara – Off Course

As you might expect, there are scads of songs with this title, but the Off Course song is my favorite.

Spirits in the Material World – Police

Dance the Night Away – Van Halen

In My Life – The Beatles

Thankful – Kelly Clarkson

Roll The Bones – Rush

Snowball fallin’ on my head – Favorite Blue

Don’t Fence Me In – Bing Crosby and The Andrew Sisters

Written by Cole Porter, based on a poem by Bob Fletcher, it has been sung by a lot of famous folks over the years. For this version, Bing walked into the studio having never seen or heard the song before, and within 30 minutes learned it and recorded the final version. It was #1 on the charts for eight weeks and sold over a million copies. Not bad for a half-hour’s work.

A Little Christmas Music – The King’s Singers

Castle Walls – Styx

Ring of Fire – Johnny Cash

Total Eclipse of the Heart – Bonnie Tyler

Gift – Sakamoto Maaya

At Christmas – Hanson

Splish Splash – Bobby Darin

It's amazing how goofy songs like this used to be so popular...

Far East Café – Oda Kazumasa

Seventeen – Foreigner

White Room – Cream

I Love a Piano – Tony Bennett

An old standard written by Irving Berlin.

Pictures at an Exhibition

A classical piano piece written by Modest Mussorgsky. No, I didn't know that until I looked it up on Google to write this blurb.

Flowers Never Bend With the Rainfall – Simon and Garfunkel

Birthday – The Beatles

Fourth title from the Fab Four on this list, putting them in the lead (Rush is in second, with three).

Sakura no toki – aiko

Fly Like An Eagle – Steve Miller Band

Dear mother, all flowers remind me of you

Not a song title, but a line from the Mother’s Day Primary song I Often Go Walking.

Beautiful Music – Barry Manilow

And, to be self-referential, the title of this post:

Wait for an Answer – Heart

We now return you to your regularly scheduled family-related blog posts.