YOU ARE HERE: zharth.net / Zharth's Music Log / Week 162 (Mind Over Matter)
(Originally finalized on October 13, 2025)
Preface: I'm digging through my dwindling list of ideas for themes, and trying to pick out the "meatier" ones, before things start to get desperate. What's this week's theme? Never mind. It doesn't matter. :-p
Monday: Johnny Winter - Mind Over Matter [John Dawson Winter III, 1974]
Comments: It's always nice when I find a song whose title perfectly encapsulates the subject of the week - like this one, from the last of albino blues guitarist Johnny Winter's mid-'70s trio of albums, which followed his late '60s debut, and marked the formation of Columbia subsidiary Blue Sky Records.
Tuesday: Boston - Peace of Mind [Boston, 1976]
Comments: I'm not one to miss a chance to share a track from Boston's phenomenal debut album (over half of which has now been shared on this music log)! Even though Black Sabbath, Bad Company, and even an early version of Scorpions have a song with the same title (or very similar), I'll still pick this one.
Wednesday: The Paul Butterfield Blues Band - I Got A Mind To Give Up Living [East-West, 1966]
Comments: Although Chicago-bred white boy blues outfit The Paul Butterfield Blues Band's second album is named for a rather progressive experiment in melding Eastern and Western influences (as was popular at the time), this is a fairly conventional slow blues number. That said, it's what the band knows best - and it's one of my favorites.
Thursday (AM): Buffalo Springfield - Out Of My Mind [Buffalo Springfield, 1966]
Comments: Despite this band not getting much in the way of mainstream recognition (with one very notable exception), I find their music to be strangely compelling. And even though this song was the brainchild of Neil Young, who we'll feature again later this week, I just couldn't bring myself to rule it a redundant selection.
Thursday (PM): The Amboy Dukes - Journey To The Center of the Mind [Journey To The Center of the Mind, 1968]
Comments: If Buffalo Springfield was the testing ground for Neil Young (among others), The Amboy Dukes was the band that launched Ted Nugent's career. And their crowning achievement was this hit song - a perfect distillation of the psychedelic movement (to the chagrin, one imagines, of the staunchly anti-drug Nugent).
Friday (AM): The Who - A Legal Matter [My Generation, 1965]
Comments: There are few enough "matter" songs to include this week, and although excluding them would help make room for the many "mind" songs I have to share, this early single from The Who's debut album has a certain quirky charm, thematically bridging the gap between two later songs that would appear on Who's Next - My Wife and Going Mobile.
Friday (PM): The Yardbirds - Rack My Mind [Roger The Engineer, 1966]
Comments: I might be a little greedy with my song choices this week, but we'll soon be drawing themes that barely stretch to fill out the week, so I'm just going to enjoy the horn of plenty while it's still brimming over. This is a great little rocker from what is perhaps The Yardbirds' most iconic album, featuring Jeff Beck on guitar.
Saturday: Uriah Heep - I Won't Mind [Wonderworld, 1974]
Comments: Even before I had fully embraced the awesomeness of heavy prog rockers Uriah Heep, this song had graced the periphery of my awareness, and I instantly fell in love with its absolutely off-the-wall lead guitar part. To this day, it's still one of my favorite songs by this band.
Sunday: Neil Young - Mellow My Mind [Tonight's The Night, 1975]
Comments: We'll close out the week with a suitably mellow track from Neil Young's funeral dirge of an album, Tonight's The Night. With consideration to what Neil was working through while recording this album (i.e., the drug-related deaths of two friends and associates), it's remarkable how good he can make "rough and raw" sound.
Honorable Mention: Metallica - Nothing Else Matters [The Black Album, 1991]
Comments: I've acquired an appreciation for Metallica's music more recently, but even some twenty years ago, when I still considered metal the enemy of rock, I had developed a liking for this song. And I can trace it back to an AMV (anime music video) [link] dedicated to one of my first "cartoon" crushes - a tall, thin elf girl with pale skin and long, blonde hair.
