Category: Music

In an elementary school class we discussed this song.

The teacher encouraged questions about its possible meaning. Was it about growing up and leaving childhood behind? Much later, kids speculated that Puff was a reference to being high on marijuana.

The question I didn’t ask, for fear of sounding stupid was, what is ceiling wax? The question soon came to mind again, with this record.

This confused me for a long time, until eventually I saw something on TV that made me realize it was sealing, not ceiling, wax.

The Beatles famously spent time with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Pete Townshend was influenced by Meher Baba. Chick Corea gave credit to L. Ron Hubbard. John McLaughlin’s guiding light for a time was Sri Chinmoy. I’ve been listening to my old Mahavishnu Orchestra albums. Jazz Fusion meets Progressive Rock.

Everyone talks about Beethoven composing music after going deaf, but so did Smetana. Here’s an example, played without benefit of sheet music by the Smetana Quartet, no longer in existence.

One of the musical acts I became interested in, from listening to Boston’s WBCN in high school, was Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks. This selection sounds something like Sérgio Mendes and Brazil ’66.