The Giant Panther

I have the overwhelming urge to post on my birthday so here it is. While I'm on the year 1985 I thought I would table yet another lost forgotten classic rock song. This one is called Looking For Lewis & Clark by The Long Ryders. Everyone has their "why wasn't this song HUGE?" list of songs in their library and this one is definitely on mine. I remember seeing them perform this song live at Bayside Expo Center in South Boston at WBCN's Rock & Roll Expo. I was working the show for the radio station and these guys were the special guests if memory serves. The Long Ryders were an alternative country rock band with at least two stellar tracks. The other one was called Gunslinger Man from their 1987 followup CD called Two Fisted Tales. I love these two songs. I can't think of one person in my 1000 friend/fellow music lovers orbit that loves these two songs as much as I do, but I never cared about that kind of thing. I'm grooving when one of these songs comes up on my iPod like device at the gym with the volume at 11. That usually inspires me to pick up the pace...

I'm not going to take up a lot of your time today explaining the context of my life when this song was popular, but suffice to say I was in love at the time. Somehow that enhances just about every song in your stratosphere during that snapshot in time doesn't it? I was 25 years old, indestructible and going places (in my mind). Yeah right he said. One of the reasons music resonates with me so very much is that it marks time like nothing else ever could for me. Even as my memory fades and as the "the older I get the better I was" mentality begins to take hold, I can think of a song like Looking For Lewis & Clark and remember the boundless optimism, even as a card carrying pessimist, I had once upon a time. Happy Birthday to Funk Superstar Sly Stone and Desperate Housewife Eva Longoria (and yes I'm saying it like Homer Simpson with the corresponding drool) as well as former President Andrew Jackson. Did you know that record album charts made their debut on March 15, 1945 in the U.S.? At least something is older than I am. Let's all rock along with The Long Ryders now. Put this is in your iPods! You can thank me later...