Oran "Juice" Jones - "The Rain"

Here in my area, the last few days have been very rainy. The rain has inspired me to write an entry about the 1986 song "The Rain" by Oran "Juice” Jones.

When I listen to music, the aspect of a song that I focus on the most is the sound of the music itself. The song’s lyrical content is secondary to me. I would say it's always been that way. That's probably why, as a child in the 80s, I was drawn to (and greatly enjoyed) the futuristic "electronic" sounds of synthpop music. And then later, in the mid 1990s, I forayed into Rave scene, being attracted to the lyric-less sounds of the electronic music of that subculture.

I think what it all boils down to, regarding the fact that I focus more on the sound of music than on lyrics, is that I have a very good sense of hearing. I even sometimes jokingly tell people that I have “supersonic hearing.” Seriously though, I feel that my sense of hearing is the best of my five senses. And therefore, that’s something that enables to really enjoy the sounds of a song whenever I'm listening to music.

But anyway, needless to say, what I love about this particular song is the way it sounds. And, I’ve always wondered if there’s an instrumental version to this song, as I think it would sound awesome with just the music and no lyrics. The lyrics deal with a man who discovers that his girlfriend is cheating on him with another man. After the halfway point of the song, the singer switches from singing to just spoken words. I’ve always thought that the delivery of the words in that part of the song -- where the man confronts his girlfriend about her cheating -- is pretty silly. It's the only part of the song that I actually dislike. But otherwise, I love the song.

On a side note, the singer, Oran "Juice" Jones, looks like a cross between Eddie Murphy and the actor named Eric Lasalle. :)

Here's the song's video.

My first computer: A Commodore 64

Image by mwichary licensed under CC BY 2.0

It's funny how now in the 21st century, with all of the modern conveniences that exist, we pretty much take for granted today’s technology. Over the last 15 or so years, the internet has become so ubiquitous and so ingrained in our society that we can’t really picture our lives without it. In fact, internet usage is now a part of many people’s everyday routine. I myself have become reliant on daily internet usage, particularly because of the "at your fingertips" abundance of information that the internet contains -- any topic that you want to look up is just a mouse click away.

Nevertheless, there's just something about the rawness of 80s technology that I happen to miss. The first computer that I ever owned was a Commodore 64. My father bought it for me. The year was 1986. Back then, a Commodore 64 computer was considered state of the art. I remember that the computer had the Basic programming language, and that it required large floppy disks as storage devices. To think of the way technology has changed during the last quarter of a century!

And here's an interesting tidbit about the Commodore 64: it had close to 17 million total unit sales, thus it became the "best-selling single personal computer model of all time" (source: Wikipedia).

Image by regorius licensed under CC BY 2.0