Scribbled Lives Week 28—A Summer Song

This week’s prompt asked us to go back in time and choose a song that was a summer hit when we were teens.

I took a trip down memory lane to the summer of 1973 when Leroy Brown topped the charts for behavin’ badly. Steely Dan was reelin’ in the years while Delta Dawn wore a faded rose from days gone by. The Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy played “Reveille” for Company B. Back home, yellow ribbons were being tied ‘round old oak trees. Oh, how I wanted to sing like Karen Carpenter—sing a song and make it simple to last my whole life long—sigh…it would be yesterday once more…shoobidoo, wangdang…

Gouache (opaque watercolour) and graphite on Fabriano 140# CP. Gouache was applied straight out of the tube using a ragged scrap of binder’s board. For the built-up capitals, there was greater success on the cold press paper using a lead pencil—and sharpening often—than with a finer mechanical pencil.

While looking for graphic inspiration from that year, I stumbled on Kazuo Shiraga (1924-2008), a Japanese avant-garde artist. For a year, he lived as a Buddhist monk. In his paintings from that period, he used a scraping tool to make circular images. I was particularly inspired by his oil painting titled “Work”. My mother loved opera, and what I liked most about that genre were the red vinyl LPs!

What music moved you at age sixteen? Pop, rock, folk, classical, taizé, chants? Maybe it was opera?