Sound Of The 70's - A Romantic Truth

Sound Of The 70's - A Romantic Truth

Sound Of The 70's YouTube Playlist

I've been picking away at it, some gravitational pull from deep in my soul, like a miner tunneling alone through a mountain. (Someone did, check out Burro Schmidt.)

Like Burro, it might take me thirty years, and maybe more. It could be I might die with it half-dug, or find it out of date by the time I see the sunrise at the other end. It doesn't matter.

I have my own musical theory, and it made song after song, though not by my hands or voice. In fact, it did far, far more than that, but we'll get there by the end of this tunnel you're walking through with me. 

For thousands and thousands of years, humanity has poured soul into sound. It's a much deeper means of communication for us than words. Music lets our hearts talk like our brains do with words. In the end, the magic is strongest when both work together, but I digress. The point is that all the music we know rests on the drum bones of our ancestors going back to the first of us to raise a voice or bang two rocks together with rhythm.

We would live in a silent void of a 🌎 🌍 without people who have poured their hearts into sculpting air to please our ears and ease our hearts.

This happened all over the world, with shamanic drumming, rattling, chanting, bell-ringing, and dancing. Since forever, every kind of people everywhere have tried to call back to the hearts of their ghosts, of their loves and lost loves, of their children's future selves, and of their dreams and hopes and wishes for life, and their sorrows.

It happened in the wilds of Australia, the savannah of Africa, the highlands of the British isles, the mountains and jungles of Asia, on islands in the seas, South and North America, and the frozen Arctic and the tundra.

Everywhere there have been hearts and birds, there is song.

Until the past one hundred years, those songs were lost with the singer when their last breath became their ghost rattle. Someone else might sing them, but no one would ever hear that song that way ever, ever again, except in the memories of those who actually heard them.

All they could pass to us was words, technique, and style, but never their voice, no matter how beautiful or skilled.

Now, now we can still hear the dead. Now, we can still feel what they felt. Now, we live in the most musically-rich period there has ever been in human history.

Even more, this wave of music washes around the world, surrounds us, and bathes the background of our lives in universal soul magic. We are the luckiest people to have ever lived in this one regard. There is not even a breath of debate.

Even more, as this wall of soul sounds has washed over the world like a sea of hearts, it has mixed and blended and fused and come out transformed and transmuted. It is the closest of anything I can think of out of all the areas of life to being a unifying bridge for humanity. It makes it obvious at the heart level that we're all the same.

Not only that, it makes it clear that we're better when we work together.

Rock wouldn't exist without the blending of African chants and drumming with European strings and ballads and folk songs. From the Highlands and heathers to the grasses and forests, music eventually came together and blessed us all.

It made the people of different nations feel like they were all a part of one world, in ways nothing else could. If you can share anything at all, share music. 

Look how wonderful it was when rock and reggae hugged our ears together.

And then there are Disco, Funk, and House, and much of the 1980's.

I have a couple of mottos in life:

* Life is better on a low-drama diet.

* Keep moving. (As in exercise.)

I want my music to be dramatic far more than my life. It's just better that way. Drama happens enough without seeking it our, and I greatly prefer it being relegated to stage or song.

Exercise, now THAT is one place where music can help us all. One of the best exercises ever invented was dancing. Music can move you, and move you well in that part of life. If you can make time for dancing, a little bit every day if you can, you're going to enjoy moving for a lot longer in this life. Keep dancing, even if it's the arm-chair boogie. 

I wouldn't give up any genre of music. They are the color palette 🎨 of soul sounds.

Since I grew up musically in the 1970's and 1980's, I know and love those rich colors the best. I'm painting my best map of those parts of the sea of souls on the walls of the tunnel of time, so that people in the future will be able to wash their hearts with them as they travel by.

Think of it as my valley of petroglyphs, my Rongo Rongo, my Ogham, my Hieroglyphs of the soul.

Think of it as my proof that we're better together than any of us could be alone, regardless of the color and cut of the rags we wear over the many tones of our skin. 

Click to visit playlist

In some of the words that speak to me through music, we are family.

There are so many good songs between 1969-1979 that just covering that decade, even with the help of AI, is as much as I can humanly do. Between marriage, work, chores, online classes, and volunteer efforts, this is one of the little artistic gems I intend to polish while I'm breathing.

I would love to do every decade, to be some cosmic curator, but I'm just one human, ephemeral. If someone else feels like taking on the 20's, 30's, 40's and on, or even another run at the 70's, in the best words of my era, rock on. I applaud you.

Meanwhile, I need to keep building the best concert I can. 

I love that word, "concert." As in a musically concerted effort. If only we could do that in all areas if life, what a wonderful world this would be.

Excuse me while I try to make it a little prettier.

AquarianM

© 04/18/2026

By: Daniel A. Stafford

(Donated to public domain by author)

Regards,

Dan Stafford

Click to visit this slowly-growing playlist

The sun might be setting on this particular reflection, but the melody doesn’t have to end here. We’ve tucked away a few more musical treasures in the linked playlist that capture that wistful, golden-hour glow perfectly. Hit play, lean back, and perhaps leave a note about a song that makes you feel like you’re chasing the 1970s all over again. Your version of the truth is always welcome in the comments.

I just completed my Google AI Essentials certificate. (04-11-2026)

 

Verify at: https://www.coursera.org/account/accomplishments/specialization/B7I1UNY5UUTA

#AI #training

This was a fun course! Took me about 3 days at 4 hours each day. A lot of good basic theory on AI use, and very well thought out. This would help a lot of people wrap their heads around things everyone needs to know as AI comes racing down the track. The more people that have these basic understandings, the better off all of us will be.

Google AI Essentials certification I just completed: https://coursera.org/verify/specialization/B7I1UNY5UUTA

Link to the course: https://www.coursera.org/google-certificates/ai-essentials-google

Thank you for reading.

Dan

I Wish All My Dead Friends Had Been Poets...

I Wish All My Dead Friends Had Been Poets...

I finally did what I should have years ago,

Bought Caroline's chapbooks,

Reading them a poem an evening.

Getting to know the person beyond the venue,

More than just the readings and the museums.

It's funny how we all just see facets,

One shiny face on the surface of the complexity,

With textures even Einstein couldn't wrap in an equation.

For Janine,

Who spun off this timeline over a decade ago,

Well,

I rescued her poetry,

Have most of it packed away,

Hoping I can put it on her memorial,

Maybe it will still matter.

Hell,

I couldn't even save all of mine from the site that died,

But I digress.

Scott never wrote more than an email,

Well,

There are Facebook posts,

But those don't open into your soul,

Not like poems do.

Russell was the quietest,

Just there in my personal legends,

The fixture of an old friend,

Until he wasn't.

Time just said fork it here,

And now I have a headstone maybe to visit,

That and his son,

Who is gracious.

Rob is the one who hid,

Always a wonderful gabber,

All grace and sunshine on the outside,

Not glitter or glam,

So much as forties film in living color,

Until the black hole inside climbed up a rope.

Poetry might not have saved them,

But it could've saved the best shards.

Glittering shards,

Priceless bits of understanding,

If you ken the wyrd of a soul.

I wish all my dead friends had been poets,

At least I could sit with them quietly and read.

The list is longer,

But how many of us actually write anymore?

Never enough.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

© 04/09/2026

Regards,

Dan Stafford

Trapped In The Land Of Republican Barbers...

Trapped In The Land Of Republican Barbers... 

Is it just me, or does the fabric of reality feel like it's being held together by the slightest tug of gravity, ready to fly apart at any moment?

Just being in this time feels weird, non-ordinary, and soul-bending. 

I don't even look like myself in the mirror.

Buzzy-spiky hair, like my head is infested with static.

See what twenty two dollars gets you, but it's with a smile.

No evil, just the best that's left, and a worldview that I can't fathom.

If it were up to me, no one would ever have to suffer.

But I 'm no god, not even a dimestore deity.

I'm just trapped in the land of Republican barbers, hoping my hair doesn't catch fire.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford 

© 04/07/2026

Catching Up With Caroline...

Catching Up With Caroline...

I think you just missed her,

Caroline was having lunch at Harry's Hot Dogs.

She had a notebook with her,

Probably writing a poem about Harry Caray, 

He was there with her,

Having a polish.

It was just last Thanksgiving week,

She was having a brandy alexander,

Writing a poem at the Walnut Room,

Sitting with Robert Frost.

I'm pretty sure she was at the Russian Tea Room with BB King,

Writing a new blues song for his next Christmas album.

I think it was the day after New Years,

She was in the Marquette diner,

Ground floor of 300 West Washington,

Taking notes over corned beef hash,

Collaborating with Maya Angelou.

She's too fast to catch up with,

Caroline is.

I don't know who carries who,

Her,

Or that beautiful and amazing notebook.

She's a literary angel,

You know.

Her words have wings,

Let them go to your ear,

Wherever you go,

She'll whisper on the Chicago wind,

"Keep writing." 

AquarianM 

By: Daniel A. Stafford

© 04/05/2026

For Caroline Johnson.

For The Greater Glory Of Iron And Smoke...

Thursday, June 27, 2013

For The Greater Glory Of Iron And Smoke...

For The Greater Glory Of Iron And Smoke...



A bright moon floats over the lamps of the city,
Waning at two-thirds.

In silence I listen to the sounds of Summer in Chicago,
A cigar-puffing spectre on the wall in shadow.

Hip-hop plays to vacant tables on a deck washed in the soft glow of orange party lights,
A black hole of festive potential.

Angry voices fighting at One AM down the street,
A midnight-chasing chopper rumbles by mounted by a white tee shirt and shades with a mass of back-flowing hair,
Taxis hiss their hunting tires down empty streets searching for lonely vampire stragglers.

I sip coffee and puff prayers to heaven,
Dreaming of freedom,
To me embodied in whirling pedals glinting in sunshine,
Half a day away.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C) 06/27/2013

First Breath Of Chicago Winter...

Thursday, November 13, 2014

First Breath Of Chicago Winter...

I saw flurries last night,
Walked the charcoal- dark crush of silent Chicago night,
It wasn't the city lights that dazzled in those quiet hours;
The vast emptiness of glass and steel,
It breathes and exhales people,
Near to numerous as air molecules,
Yet in the night there's only my now-visible breath,
Cabs prowl the streets in search of migrating oxygen;
Somehow,
Capital thrives on the back of this magnificent strange.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
© 11/13/2014

Techin'...

 Techin'...

The Heartbeat of technology

Da-boom boom,

Da-BOOM boom,

DA-boom BOOM,

Da-boom BOOM BOOM.

The drumbeat never ends,

Sometimes droning,

Sometimes staccato,

Sometimes rarely that patter of dew on morning leaves,

Yet mostly staccato or droning.

Da-boom boom,

Da-BOOM boom,

DA-boom BOOM,

Da-boom BOOM BOOM.

"My fiber is cut."

"My password doesn't work."

"The power failed and the server won't boot."

Alarms and tickets and outages and installs and emails and frothing-at-the-mouth freaked out pleas for help,

And,

Da-boom boom,

Da-BOOM boom,

DA-boom BOOM,

Da-boom BOOM BOOM.

It never ends,

Rarely comes in less than threes,

At the worst time interruptions,

Nights,

Weekends,

Holidays,

Forty-eight hour marathons of punch-drunk sleeplessness,

Da-boom boom,

Da-BOOM boom,

DA-boom BOOM,

Da-boom BOOM BOOM.

Murphy dances with your servers,

Stepping on toes,

On vacations and funerals,

But...

Da-boom boom,

Da-BOOM boom,

DA-boom BOOM,

Da-boom BOOM BOOM.

We go on,

Bleary-eyed,

Beyond being excitable,

Faded-eye watery focus,

We magicians,

Chained to the weary spell.

Da-boom boom,

Da-BOOM boom,

DA-boom BOOM,

Da-boom BOOM BOOM.

The whole universe fades and time whips by outside like you're in a black hole's grip,

Decades and layoffs blur into endless wired stories of hardware heroes,

Where logic is your armor,

Too tired to feel,

Thirty years plus,

Ground into PIXIE dust,

We're saving the internet,

Just techin'.

Da-boom boom,

Da-BOOM boom,

DA-boom BOOM,

Da-boom BOOM BOOM.

Da-boom boom,

Da-BOOM boom,

DA-boom BOOM,

Da-boom BOOM BOOM.

AquarianM

By: Oh, not another ticket now ?!? Daniel A. Stafford

(C) 04/05/2026

Red alert,

3am dispatch,

Start the coffee...

Da- BOOM BOOM!

Progression Of Techin'.

A Soft Novel Too Long, And Other Stories Of The Poetry Sister...

 

Christmas At The Green Mill Slam, 2014

I first met Bill and Caroline Johnson at the most appropriate place possible. It was a poetry reading series I had started at the local Barnes and Noble bookstore, back when they had such things in the cafe, and had event coordinators.

I would place this around 2005 or 2006. I was hosting this series in Plainfield, Illinois, and the series was called "Plainfield Live Poetry." (The website is long gone.)

Caroline and Bill attended regularly. Caroline would read her poems, and occasionally Bill would play for us. The reading grew to nearly 30 in regular attendance, but more often fifteen or twenty.

As such things go, just when it was getting going quite well, Barnes & Noble made the corporate decision to cancel all live events in their stores, and lay off their event coordinators chain-wide. Corporations and poetry, how could they be "forever" companions? One is capitalistic, and they other is mystical. It's like the soft foam of briefly well-mixed oil and water, but I digress.

Caroline and her husband Bill were steadfast in their attendance, which was greatly appreciated by this fledgling host.

We tried again at a place in historic downtown Plainfield on Lockport Street called Gourmet Junction, but it was never the same, and poets don't buy enough. They're too busy being wrapped up in the Wordfield.

Later there was Greenleaf Tea further West, but by then it was a fading dream.

Later, I went to several "Write Chicago" events hosted by Caroline, and more my favorite, her "Poets And Patrons" group. 

Poets And Patrons was brilliant. We would all go to an interesting venue, such as a museum, cultural center, the Art Institute, or one of the other myriad wonders that Chicago held then. At the end, we would gather for a meal, and write poetry inspired by the experience, and share them with each other. It was the most fun poetry concept I can remember, except for the Green Mill Poetry Slam in Uptown hosted by Slampapi, Marc Kelley Smith. That comes a little later in the story, however.

Poets And Patrons was so much fun that I created a custom logo for it, though I don't know if they ever used it. Go to their page and look through the photos, and you will see Poetry Sister Caroline (I'm the only one that refers to her as Poetry Sister, and that just in my head and heart.) She's tabling in a couple with her acclaimed poetry book, "Caregiver."

Caroline did a million things to support the vibrant poetry scene that was flourishing around Chicago. The amazing number of poetry readings and events around Chicago is something I will always miss dearly, though California is now my home of eleven years. 

There were other poetry readings where I read with and saw Caroline and Bill. One series that I recall was (and maybe still is?) hosted by Wilda Morris. I forget the title, but it was something with "brew" in it. I think it was a coffee reference, because it was held in a coffee shop, which smells good just thinking about it.  (Update: The poetry readings Wilda often supports are called Brewed Awakening.) {Wilda Morris is also extremely active in the poetry scene around the West Chicago suburbs, working with the Illinois State Poetry Society (As did Caroline) and other local poetry organizations.}

I'm pretty sure Saren and I had dinner with Bill and Caroline at least once, but Saren remembers it better than I do on that point.

In 2014, Saren and I decided to move to California. We had grandchildren who were four and five years old out here. They don't get younger and shorter. In January of 2015, we made the move, but Caroline and I did one really fun thing the last Christmas we were in Oak Brook for. We read a poem together at the Green Mill Poetry Slam.

The Green Mill was the first live public poetry reading in my life. I had a Crown Royal and 7Up to steady my nerves before I got on that stage, but I loved it. I ended up reading at the Green Mill several more times. It was always risky at a slam, because if people start snapping their fingers, you're starting to bomb. If they start stomping, you'd best run off the stage.

One time, I dressed in blue mirror shades, blue denim long-sleeve shirt, blue jeans, and a Fossil "Blue" watch, and read She Was Blue live. (Audio HERE) It was a real performance art style there.

Caroline had never been to the Green Mill Slam. So we decided that our last Poetry reading together would be on the Sunday before Christmas at the Green Mill Slam. Bill and Saren were there, I believe. We laid our plans, and got up on that Christmasy, 1920's art-deco-ish Green Mill stage, and proceeded to read "Nothin' Going But Corn Growin'." 

Nothin' Goin' But Corn Growin' - Sunday before Christmas, 2014.

If you read it, then you know. For a poem, it's a soft novel too long. It's not the pacing for a snappy, uptown Chicago poetry slam. And snappy they were! For the first time ever when I read at the Green Mill, and Caroline's first time reading there, the audience started snapping their fingers at us! We put on our hard hats, poured the concrete behind us, and Caroline and I were snapped off the stage!

Caroline was a good sport about it, and she thought it was great fun. I was always grateful for that. 

After that, we watched Slampapi read his annual Christmas poem on the bar, dressed in a red suit and Christmas lights, looking like Scrooge in elven Christmas chains.

Slampapi classic Christmas.

I heard that Caroline read there at least a few more times, and did quite well. It was only our duo that bombed on my last Chicago poetry reading. As Marc Smith said to me in passing that night, "Dan, you blew it." My answer to him was, "Marc, you haven't truly lived as a poet until you've been snapped off at the Green Mill!"

I always wished I could've attended more of Caroline's poetry events. She never stopped sending me invitations, just in case I was ever in town. So has Wilda Morris, for that matter. I can't tell you how much I would've loved to read in Chicago again. I also always wished that we had spent more time with Caroline and Bill as a couple. But that takes four-person chemistry, I guess. I don't know why we didn't. 

For all of 2025, I was off Facebook. I took a hiatus beginning at Christmas of 2024, and didn't get back on until sometime this past February, in 2026.

Caroline passed away on October 1st, 2025. (My Italian grandfather's birthday. He would've been 124 years old were he alive last October.) 

You can read Caroline's beautifully-written requiem here: https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/name/caroline-johnson-obituary?id=59654776 . Considering who she was, I am not at all surprised that the last words written for her, after she could no longer write for herself, were well-writ. I think her Muse did her that last kindness, and so did whomever penned it. She was after all, the Poetry Sister. Hers was a life where words not only mattered, but where words were a grace gifted by her to the world all around her.

Bill, if you read this, know I'm thinking of you. I can't imagine how you've gone through this time, which I only learned of two days ago, on Facebook. It was (I think) Caroline's sister, Brenda Ellis reading a beautiful poem for Caroline in a Facebook reel that clued me in. In the constant crush of technical work, I let way too long go by without being in touch. And so it is.

For all those who care to read Caroline's poetry, her book "Caregiver" is available on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Caregiver-Poems-Caroline-Johnson/dp/0998601039/ .

Caroline's personal website is here: https://www.caroline-johnson.com/

One thing Caroline said to me in email, on October 21st of 2019, when I was writing about missing the poets and poetry in Chicago in response to one of her invitations: 

"You’ll just have to start a poetry 

group in California! Hope all is 

going well, and that you are 

writing."

Some day, when I retire, if the world still works at all, I'll have to take her up on that.

Goodbye, my

Poetry Sister,

When more than words mattered,

You were there.

When words were a joy,

You were there.

You will always be remembered for a beautiful life of words and wonder,

At least here,

And probably everywhere.

I know,

Because you wrote.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

(C) 04/04/2026 - Free use is granted to Caroline's husband, family, and the poets of the Chicago area, and the Internet Archive.

Author's Note:

At a gut level, I feel it is important that we preserve as much of the history of our era of poetry, and the poets, venues, and websites that made it all happen. We live in an amazing era for poetry. It is a time when poetry as an outlet, a salve for the soul, an artform, and a wonderful and mystical community is flourishing in many ways. Many of those I mention here, and the stories of them, are wonderful pages in that history. - Dan Stafford