State of Mind

3 hours ago

Typically, by the time Tuesday rolls around I have spent a lot of time on Monday trying to figure out what songs I am going to use for my #threetunetuesday post sponsored by @ablaze. As I have been working through the 50 states in the United States of America, there are a quite a few that have been a struggle to find three songs that fit the criteria. This week on the other hand is a totally different story.

Instead of struggling to find three songs, the problem this week is narrowing the field down to just three songs. There are so many great songs with New York in the title or lyrics that I honestly don't even know where to begin. Actually, the biggest problem I had this week was finding my old photos from New York in digital format to use in this post.

I know I have them somewhere, but I will be danged if I can't find them when I need them. I feel like they are hidden away in some older on my computer, but of course I didn't use any kind of reasonable naming convention for said folder.

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This one is a great big "duh" if you have been following me for any amount of time. I mentioned last week how I think Billy Joel is the one artist I have used the most in this series as we work our way through the United States. It only makes sense that this New York centric artist would be highlighted here today. Much less be the first song that I pick for the three I am going to share with you would be "New York State of Mind". I can't imagine how awesome it would have been to see Joel live in his prime.

We had tickets to see him a year or two ago, but unfortunately, a pretty significant injury caused the concert to be cancelled and I am not sure we will ever get the chance to see him again now. Which could be a good thing or a bad thing I guess. It's possible his voice might not ever be as good as it once was, and sometimes seeing someone sing badly isn't worth getting the chance to see them.

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I was going to use a different song for this second feature, but as I was driving into work this morning the song "Stuck With You" by Huey Lewis & The News came on, so I figured I would shift gears and go with "The Heart of Rock and Roll". I mean, it starts out immediately with the name of the state, so you can't really argue with whether or not it fits here. Yes, I am sure they were talking about the city more than the state, but I don't think that matters so much for this post.

Meanwhile, as I type this, my computer is still chugging along trying to find the photos that I know are here somewhere. I'm going to be pretty annoyed if I gets to be time to publish this and I still haven't found the photos I need.

This is still a banger of a song and I can't help but be taken back to my elementary school days every time I hear it. There is a line talking about "pretty pretty girls dressed so scantily". I recall my friend at the time thought they were saying "scatterly". Our grade school teacher was the one that pointed out our mistake, even though we didn't exactly know what "scantily" meant.

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Finally, I wanted to share the song "New York, New York" by Ryan Adams with you. Ryan Adams is one of those artists that kind of flies under the radar, but he is so phenomenal. If you have never dug into his catalog, you really need to do yourself a favor and check him out. This was probably the first song I ever heard of his and I think I was hooked from the moment I heard it. I could be wrong, but I think it comes from an album called "Gold". I remember it was one of the very first mp3s that I ever downloaded when that sort of thing was cool.

The first mp3 I ever downloaded was actually the song "Smooth" by Rob Thomas and Carlos Santana. Fun fact...

It was really hard not to share "New York" by Frank Sinatra or "Welcome To New York" by Taylor Swift this week, but I thought I would give you a break.

Well, wouldn't you know it, I am at the end of my post and I still haven't found the photos I am looking for. I guess I need to go back and grab some of my photos from Vermont where we were sitting on the shores of Lake Champlain and looking back across at the hills of New York. That's going to be the best I can do...

Sorry!