Glenn's Playlist

This list of songs that I compiled is more of a story of my life rather than all my favorite songs. I have too many favorite songs. This playlist was created and stored on YouTube and all songs are the property of YouTube. The playlist and story would make more sense if you already read the narrative of my life on the "About Our Founder" page before you pressed the button to get here. If you came from the Blog button in the Toolbar, then you skipped the narrative. Anyway, this playlist simply summarizes my life with the songs listed below. To follow the story just click on the first song by the Animals and let the playlist play. You can scroll down to follow the narrative as the music plays. Otherwise you can start and stop each song as they appear or simply do not start the songs that you don't want to hear. Otherwise, the playlist will take on a life of its own. Good luck and enjoy my story.

From the beginning, as a geeky kid, I felt I was always misunderstood.

The Animals "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" on The Ed Sullivan Show.

I always felt that misunderstanding was due to communication breakdown:

Led Zeppelin - Communication Breakdown (Official Audio)2nd title I was always a frustrated romantic who thought it was not cool to be a romantic:

RUBY & THE ROMANTICS - Our Day Will Come

Many of my friends, family and teachers thought they understood me and tried to remake my in their image of me.

Dionne Warwick - Don't Make Me Over - Live 1963

I tried to be a wannabe surfer. I did catch waves but they weren't a big waves like at Maverick's. Maverick's wasn't discovered yet. And I was still a frustrated romantic.

The Beach Boys - Catch A Wave (Stereo/Remastered 2001)

The Beach Boys - Surfer Girl

And I still felt isolated from my friends:

Simon & Garfunkel - I Am A Rock (Audio)

I just couldn't get any satisfaction from my social life:

The Rolling Stones - (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction (Official Lyric Video)

In 1966, my mom remarried and we moved from Daly City to Alameda and I had a chance to make a fresh start in a new school in the 11th grade. But I was still a secret and frustrated romantic:

The Association - Cherish (1966)(Stereo)

I started hearing about a new hippie scene in San Francisco, but I didn't go to any concerts there until spring of 1967:

San Francisco - Scott McKenzie (1967) 4K

Get Together by The Youngbloods (with lyrics)

Finally, that summer, while hitch hiking back from Santa Cruz, I found myself in the Haight Ashbury and was pretty impressed, as a 16 year old, with the art, music and entire street scene.

The Jefferson Airplane were the biggest and most popular band. They sang about frustrating forced love and psychedelic experiences:

Somebody to Love - Jefferson Airplane

White Rabbit - Jefferson Airplane

Country Joe and the Fish, from Berkeley, were the psychedelic band with political and social themes:

Country Joe & The Fish "Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine"

Country Joe and the Fish - Super Bird

Country Joe & The Fish "Flying High"

Quicksilver Messenger Service provided a spiritual warning to materialistic pride.

Quicksilver Messenger Service - Pride Of Man

And Janis Joplin gave us a piece of her heart:

Big Brother and the Holding Company - Piece of My Heart (Official Audio)

But, then, heavier drugs appeared on the street, along with drug dealers and the cops, bringing violence and replacing the peace and love of the psychedelic period. The scene grew darker and, by the end of the Summer of Love, it was all over, but we just didn't know it yet.

Steppenwolf - The Pusher

So I went back to school as a senior and the new hippie scene allowed me to be popular in the new hippie clique. My new friends and I spent every weekend going to the Fillmore Auditorium or Avalon Ballrooms. Later the Fillmore would expand to Winter Land, a larger venue. After graduating from high school, I spent that summer looking in vain for the next Summer of Love only to end up in a Jesus Freak commune in Portland Oregon living like a monk. I converted to Christ and took to reading and understanding the Bible very seriously. More serious than others, as I would find out.

Spirit In The Sky - Norman Greenbaum (Official Lyric Video)

After leaving the Jesus Freak commune, I returned to live at home and I enrolled at Merritt College. The next summer I attempted to look for the Summer of Love again. So I hit the road one more time:

Steppenwolf - Born To Be Wild (Easy Rider) (1969)

Jackson Browne - Running on Empty

At the end of that summer I met my current wife of 52 years. That December we attended the Altamont Rock Concert east of LIverrmore, Ca, where the Rolling Stones played and the Hells Angels provided "security" of a sort. We saw heard Mick Jagger and the Stones perform that song: Sympathy for the Devil:

The Rolling Stones - Sympathy For The Devil (Official Lyric Video)

Don McLean would later record American Pie, documenting the Rock and Roll era from the plane crash of Buddy Holly, Big Bopper and Richie Valens in the 1950s to through Altamont Rock Concert in December 1969 referencing the many days that the music died according to McLean. He starts singing about our Altamont experience when he sings: "And there we were all in one place, a generation lost in space". The whole song is a rock and roll history in a way.

Don McLean - American Pie (Lyric Video)

We spent the first 2 years of the 1970s trying to find our future in Lake Tahoe working in the tourist industry only to get married in late 1971 and return to the Bay Area in 1972 and enroll in a computer programming training school. By the end of the year we had an apartment and a car and I was on my way to start a career. But we discovered the Doobie Brothers and, ironically, the neo Soul band of Tower of Power out of Oakland while adding the country sound of the Allman Brothers.

The Doobie Brothers | Listen to the Music (HQ)

Allman Brothers Midnight Rider

Tower of Power - Down To The Nightclub

Finally, after quitting our jobs in order to drive to Mexico City in search for adventure on the road, my wife was found with child. So we got serious about raising a family and within a year I got a job as a computer programmer and we bought our first home in Dublin Ca and settled down in suburbia to raise a family after spending all that time trying to avoid that life style. But it was finally our time to do it. We moved to "Pleasant Valley" as The Monkees called it:

The Monkees - "Pleasant Valley Sunday" - ORIGINAL VIDEO - HQ Later we bought our current home in Dublin and I spent the next 42 years supporting a family, sometimes taking care of my extended family, buying a house in Sonoma for my mom to retire in and prepare for my own retirement. We raised 2 children that we're proud of. I was a typical suburban dad, coaching soccer, hiking the local hills, raising kids and providing for my family. We lived the American Dream. It wasn't that hard. I felt in control of my career and family life. I ruled my own little world.

Pink Floyd - Money (Official Music Video)

Pink Floyd – Time (Official Audio)

Tears For Fears - Everybody Wants To Rule The World (Live) 2022

I continued reading about history and also watched documentaries. I began to slowly lose my religion. Most of the churches seemed superficial if not downright corrupt. When the Fundamentalists rejected Jimmy Carter, a real Christian, for Ronald Reagan, to gain political power, I rejected my religion and became a pagan and toured Greece because it was cool and fun. Yet something kept drawing me back to Christianity and it sure wasn't the churches. I always found churches BORING!!!

R.E.M. - Losing My Religion (Official HD Music Video)

So after going through all those spiritual questions and changes, I asked myself: What's going on?

4 Non Blondes - What's Up (Official Music Video)

So after going through all those mind games, real and imagined, as well as some additional self imposed mind games, I finally came full circle, only now I'm liberated and free (2 Corinthians 3:17) rather than frustrated and imprisoned like I was in the churches and back at the Jesus Freak commune:

MIND GAMES. (Ultimate Mix, 2020) - John Lennon and The Plastic U.F.Ono Band

I now now have a personal relationship with Jesus due to studying and knowing Him and God through The Word of Truth, and not filtered through some superficial and corrupt clergy. So I simply say a little prayer to get by:

Dionne Warwick I Say A Little Prayer 1967 Original Million Seller

And now I know that I can make it over the Rainbow just like IZ did:

OFFICIAL Somewhere over the Rainbow - Israel "IZ" Kamakawiwoʻole