February 2021 – Page 3 – PowerPop… An Eclectic Collection of Pop Culture

Lynyrd Skynyrd – Whiskey Rock-A-Roller

I thought of this song because a vendor I deal with asked me if I wanted to be in a whisky tasting event. I told him I rarely if ever drink but he convinced me! I was sent two bottles of whiskey and I have to log on and tell them what I think of the two different brands.

The song was written by Billy Powell, Edward King, and Ronnie Van Zant, this song is about Lynyrd Skynyrd’s touring life which was interesting. Ronnie Van Zant ran into a writer who asked him “what are you man?” Ronnie Van Zant responded to the writer, saying he is a “Whiskey Rock a Roller.”

The song was on their 3rd album Nuthin’ Fancy. This is a great bar song. It was their last album produced by Al Kooper. The sound just wasn’t coming together and it was a mutual understanding that Kooper would leave after the album was finished.

Guitar player Ed King would quit and leave in May while on tour in Pittsburgh for this album. It would be the last album he would play on by the original band. It’s also Artimus Pyle’s first album on drums with the band. Bob Burns the original drummer had left shortly before after seeing the Exorcist and thinking he was possessed by the devil.

The album peaked at #9 in the Billboard Album Chart in 1975.

From Songfacts

This song was released on the Nuthin’ Fancy album on March 24, 1975. There are also two other recordings of this song that are on Skynyrd’s live album One More From the Road. In one if these recordings, Ronnie Van Zant forgets the song, and has to ask the back up singers (the Honketts) what the song is. On the other live version. Ronnie changes the opening lyrics to “I’m traveling down a highway, got a blue sky on my head, movin’ down this highway 500 miles away.”

Whiskey Rock-A-Roller

I’m headed down a highway got a suitcase by my side
Blue skies hangin’ over my head I got five hundred miles to ride
I’m goin’ down to Memphis town to play a late night show
I hope the people are ready there ’cause the boys are all ready to go

[Chorus]
Well, I’m a whiskey rock-a-roller
That’s what I am
Women, whiskey and miles of travelin’
Is all I understand

I was born a travelin’ man and my feets do burn the ground
I don’t care for fancy music if your shoes can’t shuffle around
I got a hundred women or more and there’s no place I call home
The only time I’m satisfied is when I’m on the road

[Chorus]
Sometimes I wonder where will we go

Lord don’t take my whiskey, rock and roll
Take me down to Memphis town, bus driver get me there
I got me a queenie she got long brown curly hair
She likes to drink old grandad and her shoes do shuffle around
And every time I see that gal
Lord she wants to take me down

[Chorus]

Sometimes I wonder where will we go
Lord don’t take my whiskey, rock and roll

Supertramp – Take The Long Way Home

Sixth grade…in sixth grade this album and the songs on it was huge.

Co-credited to bandleaders Roger Hodgson and Rick Davies, but written solely by Hodgson. They had a Lennon/McCartney song writing relationship that would credit both no matter if one person wrote it.

The song peaked at #10 in the Billboard 100 and #4 in Canada in 1979. Breakfast in America peaked at #1 in the Billboard Album Charts, Canada, New Zealand, and #3 in New Zealand.

It was written shortly before Supertramp went in the studio to record the Breakfast In America album, Roger Hodgson said the song was a last minute addition.

According to Producer Peter Henderson the album took 9 months to record. The reason for this is because there was no There were no click tracks and or splicing of the backing tracks. They all played the backing tracks live in the studio. The result was a fresh sounding album that was a massive hit.

The band refused a $5 million offer from the Greyhound company to use this song in bus commercials.

Roger Hobson: I’m talking about not wanting to go home to the wife, take the long way home to the wife because she treats you like part of the furniture, but there’s a deeper level to the song, too. I really believe we all want to find our home, find that place in us where we feel at home, and to me, home is in the heart and that is really, when we are in touch with our heart and we’re living our life from our heart, then we do feel like we found our home.

From Songfacts

At the press meeting when Breakfast In America was presented, Roger Hodgson explained that this song is about a guy who thinks he’s really cool (“So you think you’re a romeo, playing a part in a picture show”), but it seems that he’s the only one who thinks that. This implies that our hero avoids getting home because when he’s on the road he has a few more moments of being alone with his dreams, and in his dreams he’s a superstar.

It was another angle on the question that ran deep inside me, which is, ‘Where’s my home? Where’s peace?’ It felt like I was taking a long way to find it.”

More lyric analysis:

“But there are times that he feels he’s part of the scenery, all the greenery is comin’ down” – It seems that in real life he’s “the joke of the neighborhood” (“why should you care if you’re feeling good” is him trying to rationalize) and his wife “seems to this that he’s a part of the furniture.” In real life he “never sees what he wants to see.”

“When he’s up on the stage, it’s so unbelievable, unforgettable, how they adore him. And then his wife seems to think he’s losing his sanity… Does it feel that you life’s become a catastrophe? Oh, it has to be for you to grow, boy.” – This is the phase of our lives when we accept the fact that we’ll never be what we wanted and become ordinary, we take it very hard, but we grow into it.

“He looks through the years and see what he could have been, what might have been, if he’d had more time.” – Time is always to blame when we want to do something, but don’t. This guy always wanted to be someone, but he got stuck taking the long way home so now it’s even difficult for him being ordinary: “So, when the day comes to settle down, Who’s to blame if you’re not around? You took the long way home.”

Roger Hodgson’s debut solo DVD was titled Take the Long Way Home, Live in Montreal. It was released in Canada in 2006, where it went to #1 and sold over a million copies. The DVD was released worldwide in 2007 and is Gold in France.

“Take The Long Way Home” has endured as a favorite: it was chosen as the #5 favorite song in Mojo magazine’s readers’ poll in 2006.

Take The Long Way Home

So you think you’re a Romeo
Playing a part in a picture-show
Take the long way home
Take the long way home

‘Cause you’re the joke of the neighborhood
Why should you care if you’re feeling good
Take the long way home
Take the long way home

But there are times that you feel you’re part of the scenery
All the greenery is comin’ down, boy
And then your wife seems to think you’re part of the furniture
Oh, it’s peculiar, she used to be so nice

When lonely days turn to lonely nights
You take a trip to the city lights
And take the long way home
Take the long way home

You never see what you want to see
Forever playing to the gallery
You take the long way home
Take the long way home

And when you’re up on the stage, it’s so unbelievable,
Oh unforgettable, how they adore you,
But then your wife seems to think you’re losing your sanity,
Oh, calamity, is there no way out, oh yeah
Ooh, take it, take it out
Take it, take it out
Oh yeah

Does it feel that your life’s become a catastrophe?
Oh, it has to be for you to grow, boy
When you look through the years and see what you could have been
Oh, what you might have been,
If you’d had more time

So, when the day comes to settle down,
Who’s to blame if you’re not around?
You took the long way home
You took the long way home
Took the long way home
You took the long way home
You took the long way home, so long
You took the long way home
You took the long way home, uh yeah
You took the long way home

Long way home
Long way home
Long way home
Long way home
Long way home
Long way home

Queen – Fat Bottom Girls

I first heard this song in the seventies and then owned it when I got Queen’s greatest hits and I wore the grooves out in the vinyl. The guitar tone and Freddie’s voice are perfect.

This was released as a double A-side single with “Bicycle Race.” The songs ran together on the album, and were often played that way by radio stations. The year before, Queen released “We Will Rock You” and “We Are The Champions” as a double A-side. They are still usually played together by radio stations.

For the song Bicycle Race they had an all nude female bicycle race…ahhh the 70s

The cover of the single featured a nude woman riding a bicycle, and was altered after many stores refused to stock it. The new version was the same image with panties drawn over the woman…kill joys.

The song peaked at #24 in the Billboard 100, #17 in Canada, #20 in New Zealand, and #11 in the UK in 1978.

The song was on their 1978 album Jazz.

From Songfacts

Queen guitarist Brian May wrote this song, which is about a young man who comes to appreciate women of substantial girth. May told Mojo magazine October 2008: “I wrote it with Fred in mind, as you do especially if you’ve got a great singer who likes fat bottomed girls… or boys.”

Each song has a reference to the other in the lyrics: in “Bicycle Race,” a lyric runs: “Fat bottomed girls, they’ll be riding today, so look out for those beauties, oh yeah.” In “Fat Bottomed Girls” the closing call shouts “get on your bikes and ride!,” linking the two songs together.

This song was covered by Antigone Rising for the 2005 Queen tribute album Killer Queen.

The song was used as the opening theme for Morgan Spurlock’s 2004 documentary Super Size Me.

This was used in episodes of the US TV shows Nip/Tuck and My Name is Earl, and also in the UK show Father Ted.

A funny incident involving this song occurred on the Daily Politics show on UK TV in January 2014, when respectable political editor Nick Robinson’s iPad suddenly started to play the song midway through a panel discussion between several politicians. Robinson hastily turned the device off before – in his words – “the really embarrassing lyrics start.”

This is one of a very small number of Queen songs composed and performed in an alternative tuning to standard. Brian May used a Dropped D tuning for this song.

Surprisingly for such a popular song, it only features on one Queen live compilation from the original lineup: On Fire Live at the Bowl, from Milton Keynes 1982. On the Queen + tours, it has been a regular staple, with both Paul Rogers and Adam Lambert handling the lyrics with gusto. Versions featuring Paul Rogers on vocals appear on Return of the Champions (2005), Super Live in Japan (2006) and Live in Ukraine (2008).

Kevin Fowler did his rendition of the classic Queen song on his 2002 album High on the Hog. Fowler’s version is a lighthearted take and encourages the crowd to partake in the fun.

Fat Bottomed Girls

Okay, okay!
This is called, uh
Fat Bottomed Girls!

(One, two, three, four!)
Are you gonna take me home tonight?
Oh, down beside your red firelight
Are you gonna let it all hang out?
Fat bottomed girls
You make the rockin’ world go ’round

Hey!
I was just a skinny lad
Never knew no good from bad
But I knew life before I left my nursery, huh
Left alone with big fat Fanny
She was such a naughty nanny
Big woman, you made a bad boy out of me

Hey! H-h-h-hey! Ah, yeah
C’mon, yeah alright
Fat bottomed girls
Do-do-do-do, hey
Yeah

I’ve been singing with my band
Across the wire, across the land
I seen every blue eyed floozy on the way, hey
But their beauty and their style
Went kind of smooth after a while
Take me to them dirty ladies every time

C’mon!
Are you gonna take me home tonight? Hey!
Oh, down beside your red firelight
Oh, when you give it all you got
Fat bottomed girls, you make the rockin’ world go ’round
Fat bottomed girls, you make the rockin’ world go ’round

Now I got mortgages and homes
I got stiffness in my bones
Ain’t no beauty queens in this locality, I tell you
Oh, but I still get my pleasure
Still got my greatest treasure
Big woman, you done made a big man of me

Now, hear this!
Oh, (I know) you gonna take me home tonight? Hey!
Oh, down beside your red firelight
Are you gonna let it all hang out?
Fat bottomed girls, you make the rockin’ world go ’round, yeah
Fat bottomed girls, you make the rockin’ world go ’round

Get on your bikes and ride!
Like a cowboy, oh, come on, hey, go, aw yeah
That’s the way I like it, yeah
Yes, yes! Them fat bottomed girls
You ride ’em, you ride ’em, hey hey! Alright
Ooh! Ooh yeah, ooh yeah
Alright

Oh yes, fat bottomed girls
One more time girls, yeah, yeah
Alright, yeah
More, more

…

CSN – Just A Song Before I Go

.This is a laid back 70s pop song. I like their music in the early seventies the best but I won’t turn this off if it comes on the radio.

The song peaked at #7 in the Billboard 100 and #10 in Canada in 1977. Their first album was named Crosby, Stills, and Nash but this one was called CSN which is confusing. The album did well helped by this hit. It peaked at #2 in the Billboard Album Charts, #10 in Canada, and #23 in the UK in 1977.

After touring in 1977 and 1978, further work as a group was complicated by Crosby’s increasing dependence on cocaine. Nash’s 1980 Earth & Sky was supposed to be another Crosby-Nash album, but Crosby was not in shape to participate

It surprised me but this was the highest charting song by CSN or CSN&Y. As Nash tells it in his memoir Wild Life, the guy taking him to the airport was his drug dealer, who said, “I’ll bet you can’t write a song before you go.” Nash then thought, “Hmm… just a song before I go,” and composed it on the spot. I have the exact quote below.

Graham Nash: I’d been on vacation in Hawaii. Leslie Morris was with me, and in an effort to score some grass we met up with a dealer named Spider at his house near the beach. This was around one in the afternoon, and I had a four o’clock flight back to Los Angeles. Spider was a cheeky little bastard. He said, “You’re supposed to be some big-shot songwriter. I bet you can’t write a song before you go.”

“Oh, really,” I said. “How much?”

“A hundred bucks.”

I finished “Just a Song Before I Go” in a little under forty minutes. Turned out to be the biggest hit Crosby, Stills & Nash ever had, on the charts for twenty weeks. The original lyric I’d scribbled on school composition-book paper is currently in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

From Songfacts

Graham Nash wrote this song on a bet. David Crosby explained in the liner notes to their 1991 boxed set: “Graham was a home in Hawaii, about to go off on tour. The guy who was going to take him to the airport said, ‘We’ve got 15 minutes, I’ll bet you can’t write a song in that amount of time.’ Well you don’t smart off to Nash like that, he’ll do it. This is the result.”

Going to the airport and his day of travel were on Nash’s mind, so that’s what he wrote about: “driving me to the airport and to the friendly skies.” The “song before I go” was for his friend who made him the bet.

This was the first single released from the re-formed Crosby, Stills & Nash, and in the US it was the highest-charting song of any iteration of the group. The group’s first album came in 1969, and they won the Best New Artist Grammy Award for that year. In 1970, they added Neil Young and released two albums before taking some time off – they didn’t see the Top 40 from 1971-1976. In this period, the members recorded solo, with Graham Nash and David Crosby teaming up for a 1972 album, and Stephen Stills forming the band Manassas. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young got back together for touring in 1974 and released the 1976 album Wind On The Water. The next year, minus Young, they were Crosby, Stills & Nash again for the first time since 1969, and the CSN album was the result. Following more solo efforts from Stills and Nash, they hit the studio again in 1982 for the Daylight Again album, and reunited with Young for the 1988 effort American Dream. They continued to go back and forth with and without Young in the ’90s. Their law firm-style name made for an unwieldy discography, but we always knew who was in the group.

Just a Song Before I Go

Just a song before I go,
To whom it may concern
Traveling twice the speed of sound
It’s easy to get burned

When the shows were over
We had to get back home,
And when we opened up the door
I had to be alone

She helped me with my suitcase,
She stands before my eyes
Driving me to the airport,
And to the friendly skies

Going through security
I held her for so long
She finally looked at me in love,
And she was gone

Just a song before I go,
A lesson to be learned
Traveling twice the speed of sound
It’s easy to get burned

Tom Petty – Don’t Do Me Like That

This song was on the great Damn the Torpedos album that was Petty’s breakthrough album. Petty wrote this after his first group Mudcrutch moved from Florida to Los Angeles in 1974.

Tom Petty was going to give the song to The J. Geils Band because he thought it had their sound. (Petty and the Heartbreakers had opened for the J. Geils Band on tour). However, J. Geils turned him down as they were already deep in the mixing process for their album and producer Jimmy Iovine persuaded Petty and his bandmates to record it themselves.

They were glad as it became the group’s first Top 10 hit.

The song peaked at #10 in Billboard 100, #3 in Canada, and #17 in New Zealand in 1977.

The album had 4 known radio songs on the album. Damn the Torpedos peaked at #2 in the Billboard 100, #2 in Canada, and #57 in the UK in 1980.

Peter Wolf of the J Geils Band: It was in the midst of stuff. Maybe we thought we had the songs for our album: “We can do it for the next one.” I called up Jimmy and, I think, Tom and said, “Love the song. I’m not sure we’re gonna get to it. But I do like the song.” Tom wasn’t sure of it for himself for some reason. It was almost like, “As soon as I finished writing it, I thought of sending it to you.”

I always heard it as having a Lennon-esque quality, especially in the bridge – just the way Tom puts the edge on his voice. There is also a Dylan-esque quality [in the lyrics]: “Well, you’re gonna get yours. In the public eye, you’re gonna humiliate me? Baby, your time is gonna come.” That was a theme in Lennon’s work too – [the Beatles’] “No Reply.” But the way Tom recorded it, it just became so Tom. I always felt, “Man, I wish we’d jumped on it sooner.”

It’s funny – it came up in our last conversation. Tom and I were together in his dressing room in Philadelphia last July. I said, “Tom, I gotta tell you, ‘Don’t Do Me Like That’ …” And he goes, “Oh, yeah! Whatever happened?” I explained the whole thing – we were in the mix process or something. And he said, “I gotta thank you for that. When you didn’t end up doing it, everybody talked me into putting it on the record. And it became one of my big, big hits.”

From Songfacts

The song finds him warning (or at least asking) a girl not to dump him, as he has a friend who recently had his heart broken. Not one of the group’s more meaningful songs, Creem magazine called it a “throwaway romp.”

Many listeners enjoyed this romp, making it one of Petty’s most popular songs.

When Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers made their first appearance as musical guests on Saturday Night Live November 10, 1979, they played “Refugee” and “Don’t Do Me Like That.”

Don’t Do Me Like That

I was talking with a friend of mine
Said a woman had hurt his pride
Told him that she loved him so
And turned around and let him go
Then he said, you better watch your step
Or your gonna get hurt yourself
Someone’s gonna tell you lies
Cut you down to size

Don’t do me like that
Don’t do me like that
What if I love you baby?
Don’t do me like that

Don’t do me like that
Don’t do me like that
Someday I might need you baby
Don’t do me like that

Listen honey, can you see?
Baby, you would bury me
If you were in the public eye
Givin’ someone else a try
And you know you better watch your step
Or you’re gonna get hurt yourself
Someone’s gonna tell you lies
Cut you down to size

Don ‘t do me like that
Don’t do me like that
What if I love you baby?
Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t

Don’t do me like that
Don’t do me like that
What if I need you baby?
Don’t do me like that

‘Cause somewhere deep down inside
Someone is saying, Love doesn’t last that long
I got this feelin’ inside night and day
And now I can’t take it no more

Don’t do me like that
Don’t do me like that
What if I love you baby?
Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t

Don’t do me like that
Don’t do me like that
I just might need you honey
Don’t do me like that

Wait
Don’t do me like that
Don’t do me like that
Baby, baby, baby
Don’t, don’t, don’t

No
Don’t do me like that
Don’t do me like that
Baby, baby, baby

Oh, oh, oh, oh