The song, “Safety Dance,” comes to mind whenever I see this photo I took many moons ago. Two things… First, I know the group that wrote the song is called Men “Without” Hats, but I still associate these two things together for whatever reason, and I think it will always be that way in my mind. Once someone makes a certain association, regardless of how silly, inappropriate, or completely unrelated it may seem, that’s it. It’s done. The association has been made, period.
And my association was 100% incorrect. I thought the band’s name WAS Men With Hats. But hey, the association still brought me back to them in a roundabout sort of way. A little googling and, there ya go… Yes, I still “GOOGLE.” Of course, there’s almost no such thing as straight “Googling” anymore because you eventually wind up with the AI snippet. Folks, you should really verify those snippets. It’s just summarizing what others have put out on the web, and those “others” might not be correct. But the snippet always reads so “matter-of-factly.” That’s all I’m saying…
Second thing… These smokestacks look like weird people to me just nonchalantly standing around doing nothing, or perhaps looking back at me wondering why I’m so focused on taking a picture of them; I don’t know…
Maybe the taller one on the right is the man with his shorter wife, and kid, in the center. Then there’s some nearby onlooker, trying to figure out what’s going on. Or, maybe… I caught them right before they dialed in, “Safety Dance,” and broke out into some weird smokestack dance…
Or, maybe they’re just rusty old smokestacks…
Now, I don’t dance, but I absolutely LOVE the song to this day. It (almost) makes me want to dance. I love it when the harmonies kick in on each of the verses. The whole song is basically a monotonish / baritonish chant of a sort; however, these are classically trained guys. I would have never thought that. I had to pull it up on YouTube to watch the YT/VEVO video again. Then, perhaps one more time. Clicking the picture will open up the YT/VEVO video:
‘Till Next Time,
Featured Image: Some random smokestacks at (what used to be) Arrow Automotive Industries in Spartanburg, South Carolina, where my Dad worked for many years until the place was shut down. He continued on elsewhere (he was ALWAYS employed). NO AI cleaning up on these. Just basic Photoshop editing of the contrast a bit.
