I am Blessed to have developed lasting friendships throughout my life. I can place myself within distinctive periods of time and images of my closest friends come to mind. My heart is immediately filled with fondness for the places and events associated with my friends. At 9 years old, my "first" best friend lived one block from my home. My "first" best friend and his older brother were aspiring musicians. I loved listening to them discover music. I was devastated when they moved away. We remained best friends for a while, but distance between children is always a difficult circumstance to bridge. My "second" best friend migrated from Florida. When we first met, in the 6th grade, he thought that I was a girl. That’s actually a funny story and I’ll save that for another time. After that “misunderstanding” blew over, we became best friends, almost immediately. He was also an aspiring musician and he was the person who introduced me to the world of Heavy Metal, Hard Rock, and Glam Rock. During high school, he became the front man for a local Heavy Metal band. He sang and was Absolutely AWEsome on his electric guitar. We’d both performed at our high school. While he sang Heavy Metal, I sang R&B. The soundtrack from the animated motion picture “Heavy Metal” is a good representation for the music that I still hold close to my heart. Because of my best friend, my love for Heavy Metal will always remain strong. I can’t sing music from those genres because my efforts would destroy the voice that I’ve developed. Instead, I happily enjoy Heavy Metal, Glam Metal, Black Metal, Psychedelic Rock, etc. … as a pure listener; thrashing my head up and down when the mood strikes.
I’d like to continue sharing fond memories about my friends, but that wouldn’t be realistic for these small windows into my life; at least for one video. I used a few succinct sentences to briefly pass through 9 years and only referred to two of my best friends. Y’all would fall asleep if I kept going. Maybe, from time to time, I’ll bring one specific friend to the forefront and give them the spotlight for the week. I’ll just have to find the right songs to inspire each dedication! =) Instead, I want to dedicate this week’s video to the crew at RDA. We shared the daily grind for 9 years. Whenever I think of RDA, I automatically think of U2 and Pearl Jam. I actually called into a local radio station and won a “bootleg disc” from a Pearl Jam concert. I believe that j will remember that! How can we forget? Am I right, j? I hope you still have THAT disc! In spite of that wonderful memory, I chose to cover a huge hit from U2. Hopefully, you guys at RDA will appreciate my cover of “With or Without You”. This one’s for you guys! From Wikipedia: "With or Without You" is a song by rock band U2. It’s the third track on their 1987 album, The Joshua Tree, and was released as the album's first single on March 21, 1987. The song was the group's most successful single at the time, becoming their first number-one hit in both the United States and Canada by topping the Billboard Hot 100 for three weeks and the RPM national singles chart for one week. "With or Without You" features sustained guitar parts played by guitarist The Edge with a prototype of the Infinite Guitar, along with vocals by lead singer Bono and a bassline by bassist Adam Clayton. The song originated from a demo recorded in late 1985 that the group continued to work on throughout The Joshua Tree sessions. Ostensibly a troubled love song, the track's lyrics were inspired by Bono's conflicting feelings about the lives he led as a musician and domestic man. Critics praised the song upon its release. It is frequently performed on the band's tours, and it has appeared on a number of their compilation albums and concert films. "With or Without You" is U2's second most frequently covered song. In 2010, Rolling Stone magazine placed the song at number 132 on their list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time".
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