Most of my readers know that I enjoy heavy-metal. Not all of it, I try to avoid thrash-metal, and all of it's iterations like death, goth, black, and even speed - metal styles(exception for that rule could be Rammstein or Metallica both in rare instances). The preferred styles for me would be power,progressive, or classic metal represented by groups like DIO, Iron Maiden, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Ozzy, AC/DC or glam-metal with Van Halen, Def Leppard, and anything else that enforced mullet growing (thankfully I never developed mullet affection).
I remeber in my youth we used to argue to no end with my brothers and friends which group was heavy which and was hard. Which bring me to the main focus of this post. One of the first metal groups I have ever heard in my life was Scorpions, attained by my brother on tape from the sources unknown to me, I suspect it was our uncle.
As I was driving over to Wendy's to get some lunch in the rainy suburban Chicago weather, WLUP's kockey put on a usual Scorpions' fare The Zoo. Imagine my completele surprize and delight, when the next tune in the Two for Tuesday set was the song named Holiday. Let me tell you something about rock station's attitude towards Scorpions. They play Rock You Like a Hurricane, The Zoo, Still Loving You, and rarely anything else. I love Holiday, it might be one of my most favorite songs of all time. I forget about it for a year or two, but after acidentaly listening to it I get a mood set for days. The melody is haunting, beautiful and most importantly optimistic. I actually get a picture in my head of an island, clear blue waters, palm trees, and a general sense of PEACE! Strange that a style that developed as anything but peace bringing, could create such an emotion.
Most of the time Holiday is played on the radio only through the first four minutes of acoustic part, and end guitar soloes are dropped. I have found this clip on youtube that contains the full seven minutes of the song with the rocking end.
I don't like the live version of this song available online, nor do I like live versions of music in general, unless I am watching it in person and the live version means something to me through more than the sense of hearing.
I hope you enjoy it as much as I did for the last 20 years or so.
I remeber in my youth we used to argue to no end with my brothers and friends which group was heavy which and was hard. Which bring me to the main focus of this post. One of the first metal groups I have ever heard in my life was Scorpions, attained by my brother on tape from the sources unknown to me, I suspect it was our uncle.
As I was driving over to Wendy's to get some lunch in the rainy suburban Chicago weather, WLUP's kockey put on a usual Scorpions' fare The Zoo. Imagine my completele surprize and delight, when the next tune in the Two for Tuesday set was the song named Holiday. Let me tell you something about rock station's attitude towards Scorpions. They play Rock You Like a Hurricane, The Zoo, Still Loving You, and rarely anything else. I love Holiday, it might be one of my most favorite songs of all time. I forget about it for a year or two, but after acidentaly listening to it I get a mood set for days. The melody is haunting, beautiful and most importantly optimistic. I actually get a picture in my head of an island, clear blue waters, palm trees, and a general sense of PEACE! Strange that a style that developed as anything but peace bringing, could create such an emotion.
Most of the time Holiday is played on the radio only through the first four minutes of acoustic part, and end guitar soloes are dropped. I have found this clip on youtube that contains the full seven minutes of the song with the rocking end.
I don't like the live version of this song available online, nor do I like live versions of music in general, unless I am watching it in person and the live version means something to me through more than the sense of hearing.
I hope you enjoy it as much as I did for the last 20 years or so.
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