"This House Runs On Sunshine"
First off, Happy Half Price Chocolate Bunny Day to all.
You don't have to Christian or even Pagan to appreciate the joy and symbolism of a chocolate bunny. In fact, you don't have to believe in anything at all.
But for me, HPCBD is one of the things that forms my personal matrix of evidence that there is a Divine Spark and that He/She loves us and wants us to be happy.
Come, children, let us chant our prayer of gratitude:
Nommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
And now, on to my real topic:
Once upon a time, as I was a very young person, I realised that even then, I was a junior "hippie". I believed in Peace and Love and all that good stuff. And I was also a young scientist, and way into all of the wonderful things that Science and Technology were doing for us. Yes, I was also a little naive, and sometimes overlooked that Science was a two edged sword and that Evil people could do Evil things if they had advanced knowledge. But that wasn't Science's fault if some people were mean. MY Faith was such that I was inclined to thinking that the Good Guys would win in the end. So naturally, as such things were starting to blossom in the 70's I was a HUGE fan of the then budding solar cell technology. It had such promise:
You could run your house on SUNSHINE. No more pollution. No more electric bills. What a wonderful world we were making.
At the time, I was living in the heart of Appalachia, and heard far too much country music on the radio for even my unformed tastes. I heard plenty of Tanya Tucker and she was likeable enough, but didn't really rev me up. But she totally won my heart when I heard her sing these words:
"...This house runs on sunshine
This house runs on peace and love
This house runs on laughter
With the help from up above
If you need some friendship, well,
That's what we've plenty of-
This house runs on sunshine, peace and love."
So cut to the present day:
So when the lady who booked me for one of my upcoming assisted living facility gigs remarked that I'd be playing on "Earth Day" and did I have some good songs for that, I assured her that I did, but made a note to myself that I needed to track down that sweet old Tanya Tucker song I used to like so much when I was a tween. It would be a total win. It's a catchy little tune, and filled with images of love and family and happiness, and making do despite things not being perfect and what could be more appropriate for Earth Day than running your house on Sunshine? And it's possible some of the audience will remember the song too, as it was all over the radio for a while (at least in Hendersonville NC, it was).
So off I went to track it down. My oh my my search spoke volumes about modern attitudes in the audience for country music. Nearly every hit by Tanya Tucker that she ever sang on Hee Haw or Mike Douglas is right there on YouTube, but not this song. Nearly every lyric of every country song that's ever been written is on the lyric sites, and there are even specialty country music lyric sites. And all the old classics of my youth are there (*dozens* of songs done by Tanya Tucker even), but not the lyrics to this song. It's really sad.
Alot of the current positive embracing of "Green" issues and "Ecology" reflects our new current administration. Not even Clinton was this gung ho about alternative energy. And it makes me sad, because it feels to me like the enthusiasm for this stuff that I remember in 1974 was just sort of shut down once Reagan came to power and that we've gone almost nowhere on it since then.
And even a sweet sappy song like this one has to be sort of filed away where no one can see it lest we remember that even country singers were embracing sunshine as a "family value" back in the early 70's. Could it *really* be that associating even an oblique reference to solar energy, peace and love in a country song is a no-no in our current market for country music? Sigh.
Perhaps,
But it's time to bring it back. It's time to remember that there's more to family values than opposing gay marriage. It's time to re-assert that pulling together and loving each other and embracing "The Light" in a metaphysical AND in a literal sense is what's going to make us a happy and healthy people, EVEN IF some things are falling apart and don't work so well.
Well despite the best efforts to hide this little gem, my story ends well-
I FOUND the song. It's still there and it's still as sweet and poignant as I remember.
Turns out that it was first done by The Shadows (who I believe came from New Zealand) and that it won UK's Eurovision song contest in 1974. It was subsequently covered by Tanya Tucker and then by another country ingenue named La Costa.
A couple of versions ARE on You Tube:
The Shadows
La Costa
I really wish that the Tanya Tucker version was there, but if my memory is even close, it sounds to me like La Costa's was an almost note for note duplication of it.
So I've found the song, learned it and will be playing it at the Earth Day Gig.
I'll debut it for everyone else probably at the Constellation Books gig on the 25th and I'll DEFINITELY be playing it at Spoutwood Farm Fairie Festival, where the words of that lovely chorus have never rung more true for me.
You don't have to Christian or even Pagan to appreciate the joy and symbolism of a chocolate bunny. In fact, you don't have to believe in anything at all.
But for me, HPCBD is one of the things that forms my personal matrix of evidence that there is a Divine Spark and that He/She loves us and wants us to be happy.
Come, children, let us chant our prayer of gratitude:
Nommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
And now, on to my real topic:
Once upon a time, as I was a very young person, I realised that even then, I was a junior "hippie". I believed in Peace and Love and all that good stuff. And I was also a young scientist, and way into all of the wonderful things that Science and Technology were doing for us. Yes, I was also a little naive, and sometimes overlooked that Science was a two edged sword and that Evil people could do Evil things if they had advanced knowledge. But that wasn't Science's fault if some people were mean. MY Faith was such that I was inclined to thinking that the Good Guys would win in the end. So naturally, as such things were starting to blossom in the 70's I was a HUGE fan of the then budding solar cell technology. It had such promise:
You could run your house on SUNSHINE. No more pollution. No more electric bills. What a wonderful world we were making.
At the time, I was living in the heart of Appalachia, and heard far too much country music on the radio for even my unformed tastes. I heard plenty of Tanya Tucker and she was likeable enough, but didn't really rev me up. But she totally won my heart when I heard her sing these words:
"...This house runs on sunshine
This house runs on peace and love
This house runs on laughter
With the help from up above
If you need some friendship, well,
That's what we've plenty of-
This house runs on sunshine, peace and love."
So cut to the present day:
So when the lady who booked me for one of my upcoming assisted living facility gigs remarked that I'd be playing on "Earth Day" and did I have some good songs for that, I assured her that I did, but made a note to myself that I needed to track down that sweet old Tanya Tucker song I used to like so much when I was a tween. It would be a total win. It's a catchy little tune, and filled with images of love and family and happiness, and making do despite things not being perfect and what could be more appropriate for Earth Day than running your house on Sunshine? And it's possible some of the audience will remember the song too, as it was all over the radio for a while (at least in Hendersonville NC, it was).
So off I went to track it down. My oh my my search spoke volumes about modern attitudes in the audience for country music. Nearly every hit by Tanya Tucker that she ever sang on Hee Haw or Mike Douglas is right there on YouTube, but not this song. Nearly every lyric of every country song that's ever been written is on the lyric sites, and there are even specialty country music lyric sites. And all the old classics of my youth are there (*dozens* of songs done by Tanya Tucker even), but not the lyrics to this song. It's really sad.
Alot of the current positive embracing of "Green" issues and "Ecology" reflects our new current administration. Not even Clinton was this gung ho about alternative energy. And it makes me sad, because it feels to me like the enthusiasm for this stuff that I remember in 1974 was just sort of shut down once Reagan came to power and that we've gone almost nowhere on it since then.
And even a sweet sappy song like this one has to be sort of filed away where no one can see it lest we remember that even country singers were embracing sunshine as a "family value" back in the early 70's. Could it *really* be that associating even an oblique reference to solar energy, peace and love in a country song is a no-no in our current market for country music? Sigh.
Perhaps,
But it's time to bring it back. It's time to remember that there's more to family values than opposing gay marriage. It's time to re-assert that pulling together and loving each other and embracing "The Light" in a metaphysical AND in a literal sense is what's going to make us a happy and healthy people, EVEN IF some things are falling apart and don't work so well.
Well despite the best efforts to hide this little gem, my story ends well-
I FOUND the song. It's still there and it's still as sweet and poignant as I remember.
Turns out that it was first done by The Shadows (who I believe came from New Zealand) and that it won UK's Eurovision song contest in 1974. It was subsequently covered by Tanya Tucker and then by another country ingenue named La Costa.
A couple of versions ARE on You Tube:
The Shadows
La Costa
I really wish that the Tanya Tucker version was there, but if my memory is even close, it sounds to me like La Costa's was an almost note for note duplication of it.
So I've found the song, learned it and will be playing it at the Earth Day Gig.
I'll debut it for everyone else probably at the Constellation Books gig on the 25th and I'll DEFINITELY be playing it at Spoutwood Farm Fairie Festival, where the words of that lovely chorus have never rung more true for me.
