'Daddy' Trump reacts to NATO love

So we have Bob Dylan to blame. There’s no denying that “Wagon Wheel” is one of the biggest country songs of all time. It’s one of only 13 country songs to be certified Diamond by the RIAA, after Darius Rucker’s version surpassed 10 million units back in 2022.  And the original version by Old Crow Medicine Show, which was released back in 2004, has since become the band’s signature song. It also happens to be the bane of my existence. Not because I hate it (or at least didn’t at first) but because living in Nashville I’ve heard it so much that it’s pretty much impossible to escape. The first article that I ever wrote for Whiskey Riff way back in 2018 was one hoping that 2019 would finally be the end of “Wagon Wheel,” and here we are nearly 7 years later with no end in sight. The song is so frequently requested in bars and music venues across the country that many places have actually banned it from being played. Here in Nashville, especially downtown on Broadway, many bands charge $100 to play “Wagon Wheel” because if they didn’t, they would never be able to play anything else. Drunk bachelorettes LOVE them some “Wagon Wheel.” But as much as the song haunts me, even I’ve got to admit that it’s got a pretty cool backstory. If you look at the songwriting credits for “Wagon Wheel” you’ll see two names: Ketch Secor, the lead singer of Old Crow Medicine Show, and the legendary Bob Dylan. But they didn’t exactly sit down and put pen to paper together in an attempt to write the most overplayed song on the planet. As it turns out, Secor actually got the chorus of “Wagon Wheel” from an unfinished demo of Dylan’s called “Rock Me, Mama” from 1973. The song was made during Dylan’s recordings for his “Billy The Kid Sessions,” and though it was never officially released (or even finished), bootleg versions made their rounds and eventually into the hands of Secor. During an appearance on Charlie Worsham’s Mississippi On The Map podcast, Secor recalled hearing the demo of Dylan’s song as a teenager: “About 1994, I’m 17 years old and I hear this Bob Dylan song in which he kinda mumbles out a chorus that’s kind of semi-intelligible. It’s like, oh that sounds like, ‘Rock me mama like a wagon wheel, rock me mama like a southbound train,’ that’s beautiful, I want to write the rest of that.” Well he eventually wrote the rest of the song, and somehow got Dylan to agree to let him release it – with Dylan getting half of the songwriting credit, of course. But as it turns out, even Dylan’s version wasn’t the original: “Then an email comes…saying, ‘Now, Bob says he agrees to publish it with you, but he wants you to know, he didn’t write that song. In fact, he learned it from Arthur Crudup.” Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup was a blues singer from Mississippi, who had several songs that were later recorded and made popular by Elvis Presley. And one of his songs was “Rock Me Mama,” a blues song that gave Dylan the inspiration for his unfinished tune with the same phrase. But then Secor found out that it actually went back even farther than that: Crudup got the song from Big Bill Broonzy, an African American blues singer who was born in Mississippi but moved with his family to Chicago in the 1920s as part of the Great Migration. Broonzy got his start playing country music to mostly African American audiences, and one of his biggest songs was “Rockin’ Chair Blues,” which would later become “Rock Me Mama” for Big Boy Crudup, which would become “Rock Me, Mama” for Bob Dylan, which would become “Wagon Wheel” for Old Crow Medicine Show nearly 90 years later. A pretty interesting history, for sure. If you want to hear the evolution of what would eventually become “Wagon Wheel,” here’s Big Bill Broonzy’s “Rockin’ Chair Blues.” And here’s Arthur Crudup’s “Rock Me, Mama.” Then came Dylan’s unfinished “Rock Me, Mama.” And finally, Ketch Secor put the final touches on what would become “Wagon Wheel” for Old Crow Medicine Show. The post Did You Know “Wagon Wheel” Was Originally An Unfinished Bob Dylan Song From The 1970s? first appeared on Whiskey Riff.

The following article, 14 Things Everyone Needs To Know About Zohran Mamdani, The Radical Muslim Socialist That Just Pulled Off A Shocking Election Victory In New York City, was first published on Conservative Firing Line. A far left Muslim socialist that has only been a citizen of the United States for seven years is the Democratic nominee to be the mayor of the biggest city in the United States.  Let that sink in for a moment.  Zohran Mamdani is a smooth talker, and he ran an excellent campaign.  But if … Continue reading 14 Things Everyone Needs To Know About Zohran Mamdani, The Radical Muslim Socialist That Just Pulled Off A Shocking Election Victory In New York City ...

Rep. Andy Ogles has called for the Department of Justice to look into denaturalizing New York City Democrat mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, who became a citizen in 2018, when he was 27 years old. He had been in the US since he was 7 years old.

Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) tried to trash First Lady Melania Trump’s “Einstein visa” — without realizing the New York Times disproved her argument seven years ago.

The location of some enriched uranium is still in question after the U.S. bombed three key nuclear facilities in Iran, according to the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency and experts on arms control and global security.

Yes, yes, we know that parenting looks a lot different than when we were kids. And yet, there’s always a new revelation that modern parents seem to discover once it’s them doing the child rearing. In a clip posted to his TikTok, comedian (and dad) Jack Skipper shared how very different parenting today looks when it comes to keeping kids entertained. "Nowadays you gotta do what your kids wanna do. You gotta keep them entertained,” Skipper noted. “But when I was growing up, you just did what your parents wanted to do. You just had to sort of follow them around... and make your own entertainment.”He then compared a typical modern day task of “going to an adventure playground” or a scavenger hunt on the weekend to his childhood, which basically consisted of him following his mom around while she shopped. @mrjackskipper Am I right? #relatable #parenting #90s ♬ original sound - Jack Skipper “Trying to help mom find a size 14 dress…that was the closest I came to scavenger hunt, “ Skipper quipped.Another example he used was going with his mom to get her hair done. Hopefully the hairdresser would have kids (it was the 90s, folks got their hair done in houses) so that he could find some toys to play with. Otherwise, he’d just have to deal with being bored. Clearly, Skipper wasn’t the only millennial to have a childhood that looked like this. And as one commenter noted, perhaps things don’t look that way anymore in part because “people are just trying to give their kids the childhood they wish they’d had,” which is pretty much the entire reason behind gentle parenting in the first place, right? “People are just trying to give their kids the childhood they wish they’d had.”Photo credit: CanvaHowever, while the intention to provide a nurturing, stimulating environment for our kiddos is certainly a good thing, there might have been something lost along the way. Good old fashioned, unstructured boredom isn’t fun, but it does help kids develop important skills like tolerating discomfort, problem solving, developing imagination, and critical thinking. According to many parents and educators, nearly all of these qualities have dwindled in younger generations, who can easily rid themselves of uncomfortable boredom at the swipe of an iPad. Plus, not succumbing to providing entertainment for kids every minute of every day gives parents a much needed sense of autonomy as well. This is something folks in other cultures haven’t forgotten. Spain, for instance, is well known for having parents simply bring their kids in strollers to whatever group they’re attending and letting them fall asleep there, rather than packing up everything to get their kids in bed by seven p.m. Still, there are plenty who would argue that even with its potential flaws, the new strategy far exceeds the old one. One person even recalled, “I got dragged around and learned that I was not important at all. I felt like a ghost for most of my childhood. There's a reason we’re all struggling with self love.” “I got dragged around and learned that I was not important at all."Photo credit: CanvaOkay, so maybe parents shouldn’t revert back to dragging our kids around to places where they might be miserable, but they don’t need to force themselves to constantly provide engaging activities. In fact, a little boredom might do kids some good.