Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.
This song I first heard and viewed on MTV. I didn’t hear it on radio a lot but I liked it. It was in a heavy rotation on MTV and the song was undeniably catchy.
Donnie Iris (Dominic Ierace) was a member of The Jaggerz, who had a hit in 1970 with “The Rapper.” He later became a member of Wild Cherry, where he met keyboard player Mark Avsec, and the two formed a musical partnership.
Donnie Iris and Mark Avsec wrote this song. It peaked at #29 in the Billboard 100 and #6 in Canada in 1981.
One way Iris got his sound was vocal stacking. The backups was overdubbed close to 60 times. They spent days in the studio just working on the backup vocals.
Iris and Avsec released their last studio album in 2010.
Donny Iris:“Mark and I wrote that together in my basement, around the piano, and originally Mark had the idea of an anti-war song. It started out just as a chant – it’s not a chick’s name, it’s not a certain person or individual, in particular. We wanted to have a hook, or a chorus, to the tune, that sounded almost like a Gregorian chant, and somehow Mark came up with the ‘Ah, Leah’ just like a chant. I said, ‘You know what, Mark, that’s a chick’s name,’ so that’s how we named it ‘Ah, Leah.’ It just so happens that there was a girl by the name of Leah who had dated one of the guys in The Jaggerz years ago, and I always loved that name. She was a very pretty girl, and I always loved her name. So instead of a war tune, which we messed around with and messed around with and didn’t have anything in there that we liked to make it an anti-war song, it just turned out as being a love song. It was a total change in direction, and that happened with several of our songs. We were coming up with stuff and, you know, sometimes you just do something and in the end you hate it. That’s what happened. We hated that… the way it was coming out as an anti-war song, and when we finally figured it was a nice way to do a love song, then we were happy with it.”
From Songfacts
Iris: “It sounds kind of passionate, when you talk about not being able to be with a chick, and every time you see this girl, you just go nuts, but it ain’t right, you know, something’s wrong with it. We thought that it was a passionate kind of tune.”
Iris credits the songwriting of Mark Avsec as key to their success. He explains how they come up with their songs: “We’ll go into the studio and put down rhythm tracks, and sometimes we’ll get together for 3 or 4 days and put down 15-20 different tracks of musical pieces. Then the group goes home, and Mark will take the songs home, write the lyrics, and we’ll check it out. If we like it, we’ll keep it if we think it’s good. If not, we’ll maybe go for another lyric, or a different track, but he’s unbelievable that way – just a brilliant songwriter, it’s like he does it in his sleep. And he brings them into the studio, and I’ll sit down, I’ll go over it with him, and together we’ll work out the melodies and stuff.” (Thanks to Donnie Iris for speaking with us about this song. In 2006, he released Ellwood City, which is available on donnieiris.com. Check out our interview with Donnie Iris.)
Ah! Leah!
Leah It’s been a long, long time You’re such a sight You’re looking better than a body has a right to Don’t you know we’re playing with the fire But we can stop this burning desire Leah
Ah! Leah! Here we go again Ah! Leah! Is it ever gonna end? Ah! Leah! Here we go again Ah! Leah!
I see your lips And I wonder who’s been kissing them I never knew how badly I was missing them We both know we’re never going to make it But when we touch We never have to fake it Leah
Ah! Leah! Here we go again Ah! Leah! Is it ever gonna end? Ah! Leah! Here we go again Ah! Leah! We ain’t learned our lesson yet
Baby, it’s no good We’re just asking for trouble I can touch you But I don’t know how to love you
It ain’t no use We’re headed for disaster Our minds said no But our hearts were talking faster Leah
Ah! Leah! Here we go again Ah! Leah! Here we go again Ah! Leah! Leah, Leah, Leah Ah! Leah! Here we go again
Ah! Leah! Leah We’re never, ever, ever gonna make it, yeah Ah! Leah! Here we go again Ah! Leah! We’re never gonna make it Ah! Leah!
I believe I could listen to Levon sing anything. He makes a song feel like that old shirt with holes that fits perfectly that your wife wants to hide or throw away. You keep going back to it to wear it triumphally.
This was inspired by the Shakespeare play Hamlet.
The most famous Ophelia is a character in Shakespeare’s play Hamlet. She is caught between her love for Hamlet and the wishes of her father, Polonius, who uses her to spy on Hamlet. She feels she has no control of her life and descends into madness, eventually drowning after falling out of a tree into a brook.
It was on the album Northern Lights – Southern Cross released in 1975. It peaked at #26 in the Billboard Album Charts and #27 in Canada in 1976.
It wasn’t a huge hit but the song peaked at #62 in the Billboard 100 in 1976…
Robbie Robertson:There was another tune I was anxious to spring on Levon because I thought it had his name written all over it. The song dealt with the mysterious disappearance of Ophelia, and I had an old-timey-type chord progression to go with a whole new spin on the story. I liked having a modern-day Shakespearean character that Hamlet couldn’t get, and neither could I. Ophelia—they don’t have names like that anymore, or maybe they do in Denmark. I loved the way the track felt after we cut it. The combination of horns and keyboards Garth overdubbed on this song was one of the very best things I’d ever heard him do. It was definitely the cherry on the cake, and completed this musical odyssey. “Ophelia” became my favorite track on the album, even if it didn’t have the depth of some of my other songs. The pure, jubilant pleasure of that tune swayed me.
Band biographer Barney Hoskyns claims the song isn’t named for Shakespeare’s heroine, but for Hee Haw comedienne Minnie Pearl, whose real name was Sarah Ophelia Colley. I don’t know why Robbie just wouldn’t say that to begin with…he doesn’t seem to be a person that puts on airs.
From Songfacts
In this song The Band drummer Levon Helm sings about a woman named Ophelia who has skipped town. We know she left in a hurry and he would love to have her come back (“The old neighborhood just ain’t the same”), but we really have no idea who she is what her relationship is with the singer.
The song was written by the group’s guitarist Robbie Robertson, and the ambiguity was intentional. “I was always fascinated by that girl’s name,” he told Melody Maker in 1976. “I always like the mystery factor. I may be writing a song and the music may imply a certain lyric, or vice versa. It’s not that deliberate, or an intellectual exercise. It just comes out naturally.”
The character in this song could certainly be an analog to Shakespeare’s Ophelia, possibly driven mad by a lover.
A modest hit for The Band, this is a number they played at many of their shows, including their famous final show in 1976 that provided footage for the concert film The Last Waltz. In the film, we see Levon Helm belting it out from behind his drum kit.
This Ophelia has three syllables: “Oh-Feel-Ya,” giving it a rootsy sound. The more mannered pronunciation is “Oh-Feel-Ee-Ah,” which is how Tori Amos sings it in her Ophelia. In 2016, The Lumineers had a hit with a five-syllable Ophelia: “Oh-Oh-Feel-Ee-Ah.”
Artists to cover this song include Animal Liberation Orchestra, Jim Byrnes and My Morning Jacket. The Dead Ships played the song at a benefit concert in 2012 after Levon Helm passed away, and the following year released it as a free download on the one-year anniversary of Helm’s death.
In our interview with their frontman Devlin McCluskey, he talked about recording the song. “It was right after I came back from the funeral. We had a show in Pomona and we played this song. It’s got this big high note in it, and I can just remember pushing that so hard and being hit with this thing of, no matter how hard I go at it, no matter how hard I push for it, absolutely nothing is going to change. Nothing is going to bring him back.”
Ophelia
Boards on the window Mail by the door What would anybody leave so quickly for? Ophelia Where have you gone?
The old neighborhood just ain’t the same Nobody knows just what became of Ophelia Tell me, what went wrong
Was it something that somebody said? Mama, I know we broke the rules Was somebody up against the law? Honey, you know I’d die for you
Ashes of laughter The ghost is clear Why do the best things always disappear Like Ophelia Please darken my door
Was it something that somebody said? Mama, I know we broke the rules Was somebody up against the law? Honey, you know I’d die for you
They got your number Scared and running But I’m still waiting for the second coming Of Ophelia Come back home
This song is for Song Lyric Sunday for Jim Adams’s blog. This week’s prompt is Apple/Banana/Cherry/Olive/Orange/Strawberry… I hope all of you have a wonderful Sunday!
I really liked REM when this came out but with this album I became a huge fan. The song was off of their album Green. Orange Crush peaked at #1 in the Billboard Alternative Charts and Mainstream Rock Hits, #28 in the UK, and #5 in New Zealand in 1989. (sorry I could not find Canada)
Orange Crush was my favorite soda growing up but this one is not about that. They got this name from Agent Orange…an awful chemical used in the Vietnam war.
Agent Orange was used to devastating effect during the Vietnam war. A toxic mix of herbicides and defoliants, nearly 20 million gallons of the it was sprayed over forested areas by the US military over a nine-year period up to 1971.
The idea was to root out guerrillas from rural communities and force people into American-controlled urban cities. It’s estimated that 400,000 were killed or maimed and it caused 500,000 children to be born with severe defects. Veterans on both sides of the conflict, meanwhile, have shown increased rates of cancer and nerve disorders. Returning US soldiers were also subject to accelerated instances of their wives having miscarriages or infants born with abnormalities.
The song was credited to all members of REM as were their other songs. The drill sergeant heard in the background during the middle is an imitation by Stipe.
Michael Stipe:“The song is a composite and fictional narrative in the first person, drawn from different stories I heard growing up around Army bases. This song is about the Vietnam War and the impact on soldiers returning to a country that wrongly blamed them for the war.”
Guitar Player Peter Buck:“I must have played this song onstage over three hundred times, and I still don’t know what the f*** it’s about. The funny thing is, every time I play it, it means something different to me, and I find myself moved emotionally. [Playwright/composer] Noel Coward made some remark about the potency of cheap music, and while I wouldn’t describe the song as cheap in any way, sometimes great songwriting isn’t the point. A couple of chords, a good melody and some words can mean more than a seven-hundred-page novel, mind you. Not a good seven-hundred-page novel mind you, but more say, a long Jacqueline Susann novel. Well alright, I really liked Valley of the Dolls.”
From Songfacts
Orange Crush was an orange flavored soft drink. In this case, though, it was meant to refer to Agent Orange, a chemical used by the US to defoliate the Vietnamese jungle during the Vietnam War. US military personnel exposed to it developed cancer years later and some of their children had birth defects. The extreme lyrical dissonance in the song meant that most people completely misinterpreted the song, including Top Of The Pops host Simon Parkin, who remarked on camera after R.E.M. performed the song on the British TV show, “Mmm, great on a summer’s day. That’s Orange Crush.”
Stipe’s father served in Vietnam in the helicopter corps.
Stipe sometimes introduced this in concert by singing the US Army jingle, “Be all that you can be, in the Army.”
This was not the first R.E.M. song to deal with the Vietnam War. That distinction goes to “Body Count,” an early unreleased song that they played live many times.
This was used in the 2007 drama Towelhead, starring Maria Bello, Chris Messina and Summer Bishil.
The song’s meaning keeps changing for Peter Buck. He wrote in the In Time liner notes:
Orange Crush
(Follow me, don’t follow me) I’ve got my spine, I’ve got my orange crush (Collar me, don’t collar me) I’ve got my spine, I’ve got my orange crush (We are agents of the free) I’ve had my fun and now it’s time To serve your conscience overseas (over me, not over me) Coming in fast, over me
(Follow me, don’t follow me) I’ve got my spine, I’ve got my orange crush (Collar me, don’t collar me) I’ve got my spine, I’ve got my orange crush (We are agents of the free) I’ve had my fun and now it’s time To serve your conscience overseas (over me, not over me) Coming in fast, over me
(Follow me, don’t follow me) I’ve got my spine, I’ve got my orange crush (Collar me, don’t collar me) I’ve got my spine, I’ve got my orange crush (We are agents of the free) I’ve had my fun and now it’s time To serve your conscience overseas (over me, not over me) Coming in fast, over me
Now we continue our quest of famous guitars and the artists cherish them… Here was Part 1 and Part 2.
Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young’s guitars
Bruce Springsteen’s Guitar
Bruce has stuck with this guitar from the first album until now. You see this guitar on his Born to Run album. When I saw him in 2000 he was playing it. Bruce bought this in 1972 in Phil Petillo’s Neptune New Jersey guitar shop for $185. Now the guitar is said to be worth between $1 million and $5 million…pretty good investment Bruce!
The guitar is a composite assembled from parts from at least two other Fender guitars. The bolt-on neck dates from a 1950s Fender Esquire guitar. The Esquire decal on the headstock indicates that the neck came from the single-pickup variant of Fender’s more-popular two-pickup Telecaster. The body is a 1950’s Telecaster
The guitar had been originally owned by a record company and was part of the payola scams of the 1960s. It was rigged with four pickups wired into extra jacks that would each plug into a separate channel on the recording console.
Petillo removed the extra pickups and returned the guitar to original Telecaster shape before he sold it Springsteen, but a huge side effect of the routing was that the Tele was now really light, giving it a sound a feel unlike any other.
Bruce had Peillo modify it over the years. He added his triangular Precision Frets, a six saddle titanium bridge, and custom hot-wound waterproofed pickups and electronics so they could better survive a sweat-soaked 4 hour show.
Bruce has now retired the Esquire from road duty, so these days Springsteen plays clones on stage, but still records with the original.
Neil Young’s “Old Black”
Neil Young is known mostly as a singer songwriter but he is a hell of a guitar player. He is one of my favorite rock guitarists. He doesn’t play lightning quick and that is a good thing…it’s playing with feel that many guitar players forget about.
Neil Young acquired Old Black in 1968 through a trade with Buffalo Springfield member Jim Messina, who traded Old Black for one of Young’s orange Gretsch guitars (Gretsch 6120 Chet Atkins).
The guitar made a humming sound so he dropped it off at a guitar shop in LA. When he came back, the shop had closed for good and lost one of the pickups. To replace the lost pickup, Neil added a Gretsh pickup that didn’t quite sound the way he wanted, but it stayed that way until Larry Cragg found an old Firebird pickup and installed it. Then Old Black was restored to its former glory and that Firebird pickup is still installed on the guitar today. It was roughly resprayed to jet black, and received a new Tune-o-matic bridge (not available when the guitar was produced) and a B-7 model Bigsby vibrato tailpiece.
The neck pickup has always been the original P-90 pickup, but it is covered by a metal P-90 cover. Neil is still playing Old Black to this day and he said he will until he dies.
John Lennon was primarily a rhythm guitar player but George Harrison briefly left the Beatles during the recording of Let It Be. John took the lead guitar part on this song and made a memorable solo. John was a very aggressive guitar player and on this one he was on the mark.
McCartney got the idea for the title “Get Back” from the line “Get back to where you should be” from a song George Harrison wrote called “Sour Milk Sea,” which was eventually recorded by Jackie Lomax. McCartney changed the line to, “Get back to where you once belonged”.
Early versions include the line “I dig no Pakistanis.” The song began as a commentary about immigration, telling people to “get back” to their own countries. It was meant to mock Britain’s anti-immigrant proponents. Paul McCartney, who wrote the song and sang lead, thought better of it and made the lyrics more palatable.
At the end of this album version, we hear cheering, followed by McCartney saying, “Thanks Mo” in response to Ringo’s wife, Maureen, who was clapping. Lennon then says, “I’d like to say thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves, and I hope we’ve passed the audition.” This part came from the live rooftop performance.
This song went number 1 everywhere. #1 in the Billboard 100, Canada, UK, New Zealand, The UK, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Ireland…and so on. The B side was Don’t Let Me Down…which personally I like more.
From Songfacts
“Get Back” was going to be the title of the album and the documentary film about making it. The Beatles stopped touring in 1966 and were worn thin by 1968, but they rekindled their passion for performance after shooting the “Hey Jude” promotional film in September that year before a live audience. Energized by the effort, they agreed to the documentary; the concept was The Beatles “getting back” to their roots and playing new songs for a live audience without any studio tricks.
The song “Get Back” came closest to capturing that spirit. Produced by George Martin, it was released as the follow-up single to “Hey Jude” in April 1969 (a month later in America) and was another blockbuster for the group, going to #1 in most territories.
The album became something completely different from the live set they planned. Glyn Johns, who engineered the sessions, was asked to put it together from what were really rehearsal tapes. After he assembled the album, it sat around while the Let It Be documentary was being edited from the film footage of The Beatles rehearsing in the studio and playing on the rooftop. During this time, The Beatles made the Abbey Road album, released it, and broke up.
Phil Spector, who had worked on John Lennon’s solo song “Instant Karma” (which George Harrison played on), was brought in to produce the Get Back album, which was re-titled Let It Be. Spector took the tapes and added orchestrations using his “Wall Of Sound” technique, and the album that was supposed to be the raw sound of The Beatles returning to their roots was released as a highly produced swan song on May 8, 1970, after they had broken up.
The Beatles famously performed this song from the rooftop of Apple Records on January 30, 1969, footage of which serves as the climax to their Let It Be documentary film. Knowing it would get shut down pretty quickly, the group kept mum about the performance, which was designed to promote the single and provide an ending for their film. They got in three takes of “Get Back” before police pulled the plug. The plan worked: Not only did they get their film ending, but the audio (including their banter) was used on various edits of “Get Back” to give it a live feel and add some character.
In their early days, The Beatles were musical warriors, playing in clubs for hours most nights. The “Get Back” single harkened to those days and was advertised as “The Beatles as nature intended.”
The single version runs 3:11 and contains a false ending at 2:34, after which McCartney comes back with a spoken verse:
“Get back Loretta, your mummy’s waiting for you, wearing her high-heeled shoes and her low-neck sweater, get back home, Loretta.”
The album version is a little shorter (3:09) and omits this section. It begins with a behind-the-scenes bit from the band tuning up during a session for the song on January 27, 1969. We hear John Lennon poke fun at the first line (“Jojo was a man who thought he was a loner, but he knew it couldn’t last”) by saying:
“Sweet Loretta fat she thought she was a cleaner, but she was a frying pan.”
Billy Preston played piano on this track and became the only guest artist to get a credit a Beatles single when it was credited to “The Beatles with Billy Preston.”
Preston was a salve and a spark for the group. On January 10, 1969, George Harrison quit and almost left for good. He came back to work on January 21, but the tension lingered. Preston showed up the next day and galvanized the group; he played on “Get Back” and “Don’t Let Me Down,” and participated in sessions for several other tracks.
The Beatles met Preston in 1962 when they were both playing in Germany, but they hadn’t seen each other since. It was Harrison’s idea to bring him in; after George left the Let It Be sessions, he saw Preston in concert with Ray Charles and arranged for him to join The Beatles. Having him in the studio eased the tension and made it easier for the group to put personal conflicts aside and record the album.
The press release to promote the single contains this quote from McCartney: “We were sitting in the studio and we made it up out of thin air… we started to write words there and then… when we finished it, we recorded it at Apple Studios and made it into a song to roller coast by.”
Lennon claimed this was basically a rewrite of their 1968 song “Lady Madonna.”
Beatles fans found lots of hidden meaning in their lyrics, and sometimes the band did too. In his 1980 Playboy interview, John Lennon claimed that Paul looked at Yoko in the studio when he sang the line “get back to where you once belong.” John was sure he was disrespecting her.
There was speculation that the character “JoJo” was based on Joseph Melville See Jr., Linda McCartney’s first husband, who was from Tucson, Arizona. McCartney denied this, explaining in his 1988 autobiography Many Years From Now that he and Linda were on good terms with See, who used the first name Melville, and that “JoJo” was “an imaginary character, half-man and half-woman.”
Linda attended the University of Arizona in Tucson, and in 1979 she and Paul bought a ranch there. As for Joseph Melville See, he never remarried, and in 2000 he killed himself in Tucson.
Billy Preston’s piano solo was spontaneous. he told New Jersey’s Asbury Park Press in 2000: “I was playing a Fender Rhodes on ‘Get Back.’ They just told me, ‘Take a solo!’ I wasn’t expecting to do a solo. When we were rehearsing, I wasn’t playing a solo.”
The last version of the song The Beatles played on the Apple rooftop can be heard in the widely bootlegged “rooftop sessions,” which finds McCartney mocking the police as they shut them down. You can hear him ad-lib the lines “You been out too long, Loretta! You’ve been playing on the roofs again! That’s no good! You know your mommy doesn’t like that! Oh, she’s getting angry… she’ll have you arrested! Get back!”
An edited version of the rooftop performances was released on the Anthology 3 collection in 1996.
Some of the artists to cover this song include: The Bee Gees, The Crusaders, Dizzy Gillespie, Al Green, Elton John, The London Symphony Orchestra, The Main Ingredient, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Billy Preston, Kenny Rogers, The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, The Shadows, Status Quo, Rod Stewart, Ike and Tina Turner, and Sarah Vaughan.
In 2003, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr gave permission to Apple Records to rework the album and remove Phil Spector’s production. The result is the stripped-down version called Let It Be… Naked, which McCartney claims is what the group intended.
McCartney played this at halftime of the 2005 Super Bowl. This was the year after Janet Jackson’s breast was exposed during the halftime show, so the NFL insisted on an act that wouldn’t incite controversy or push the envelope. McCartney fit the bill.
Get Back
Jojo was a man who thought he was a loner But he knew it wouldn’t last Jojo left his home in Tucson, Arizona For some California grass
Get back, get back Get back to where you once belonged Get back, get back Get back to where you once belonged Get back Jojo, go home
Get back, get back Back to where you once belonged Get back, get back Back to where you once belonged Get back Jo
Sweet Loretta Martin thought she was a woman But she was another man All the girls around her say she’s got it coming But she gets it while she can
Get back, get back Get back to where you once belonged Get back, get back Get back to where you once belonged Get back Loretta, go home
Get back, get back Get back to where you once belonged Get back, get back Get back to where you once belonged
Get back, get back Get back to where you once belonged Get back, get back, get back
For my posts I have no system…no master plan…I just post randomly every day. I do have the occasional series but for the most part I keep it spontaneous. That sometimes leads to late nights frantically searching for songs but it keeps it exciting…and me sleepy during the day.
I ran across this video from a seventies Australia TV show called “Bandstand” with Bon Scott fronting ACDC with bagpipes…I’m on board!!! I just had to post it. Bon was a good musician who could play drums, recorder, and a bit of bagpipes.
Angus and Malcolm’s older brother George suggested using bagpipes in this song. Bon Scott agreed despite having never played them before…Bon did play them on the recording and live until they were destroyed by fans.
This was an autobiographical song for AC/DC describing their struggles as they toured relentlessly trying to make it. At the time, they were just getting started and playing some seedy venues with even worse business associates. The band was sometimes labeled as a punk band…a label they hated. I have never thought of ACDC as a punk band…if you look on the single cover you will see “Original Punk Music.”
The song peaked at #9 in Australia in 1975. The song was written by Bon Scott with Angus and Malcolm Young.
Brian Johnson said he will not sing this out of respect for Bon Scott. Bon Scott’s band was opening for future lead singer Johnson’s band Geordie in the early 1970s. Bon Scott was impressed by Johnson’s performance and told his band about him.
Brian Johnson: “Bon Scott was up on stage singing, and we met and had a couple of beers. He watched us play, and God bless his cotton socks again, when he did join AC/DC he was talking to the boys and he did say something to the effect that the only rock singer that he’d seen that was worth a damn was me, which was really nice of him, and the boys never forgot that.”
Brian Johnson:“I think he embodied everything that was fun, everything that was like ‘never say die, live life to the full.’ And he had a terrible thing happen to him when he passed on. He wasn’t a wild, wild, wild man he was just as wild as the other boys were. He was just unlucky. We’ve all done stupid, dumb things where we’re young, but we got away with it. He didn’t. It was just one of them stupid things that shouldn’t have happened, and it was accidental and it was stupid. And I just won’t have a bad word said against him. We still talk about him like he’s a member of the band in the dressing room.”
From Songfacts
“It’s A Long Way To The Top” really summed us up as a band,” Angus Young told Rolling Stone. It was the audience that really allowed us to even get near a studio.
A study in contrast is the Boston song “Rock And Roll Band,” released in 1976. That song tells the story of a similar struggle, but it was completely made up: Boston was a studio act first and foremost and had immediate success with their first album.
According to Bon Scott’s biographer Clinton Walker, this tongue-in-cheek song “has become an anthem.” Heavy metal tracks are usually dominated by ego-tripping guitar solos; this song is unusual because instead of a lengthy guitar solo it features interplay between Angus Young on lead and Bon Scott on the bagpipes. Ronald Belford (Bonnie Scotland) Scott was born in Scotland – as were the Young brothers. The somewhat older Scott arrived in Australia with his family some 11 years before the Youngs emigrated; he learned recorder and drums, and was a proficient bagpipe player.
The song runs to 5 minutes 15 seconds, which is quite long for a single.
The band made a video to promote the single and the album. This was filmed on February 23, 1976 when they rode through the center of Melbourne on an open topped truck accompanied by three members of the Rats of Tobruk Pipe Band. The most noticeable feature of the video is that the vocalist was really enjoying himself, but, Walker adds, “it’s as if Bon acknowledges he’s living on borrowed time, and luckily at that.” It would not be such a long way to the top for AC/DC, but four years later almost to the day, it would all be over for Bon. On February 19, 1980 he was found dead on the back seat of a car in London, having literally drunk himself to death.
In 2004, one of the streets in Melbourne near where this video was filmed was renamed “ACDC Lane” in honor of the band. The street was formerly known as Corporation Lane.
Jack Black and the School of Rock band play a version of this at the end of the movie School of Rock. The interplay is between the singer and all the members of the band.
It’s A Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock ‘N’ Roll)
Ridin’ down the highway Goin’ to a show Stop in all the byways Playin’ rock ‘n’ roll Gettin’ robbed Gettin’ stoned Gettin’ beat up Broken boned Gettin’ had Gettin’ took I tell you folks
It’s harder than it looks It’s a long way to the top If you wanna rock ‘n’ roll It’s a long way to the top If you wanna rock ‘n’ roll If you think it’s easy doin’ one-night stands Try playin’ in a rock roll band It’s a long way to the top If you wanna rock ‘n’ roll
Hotel Motel Make you wanna cry Ladies do the hard sell Know the reason why Gettin’ old Gettin’ gray Gettin’ ripped off Underpaid Gettin’ sold Second-hand That’s how it goes Playin’ in a band
It’s a long way to the top If you wanna rock ‘n’ roll It’s a long way to the top If you wanna rock ‘n’ roll If you wanna be a star of stage and screen Look out it’s rough and mean It’s a long way to the top If you wanna rock ‘n’ roll It’s a long way to the top If you wanna rock ‘n’ roll It’s a long way to the top If you wanna rock ‘n’ roll It’s a long way to the top If you wanna rock ‘n’ roll
It’s a long way It’s a long way It’s a long way It’s a long way
If there ever was ever a year I was looking forward to Christmas…this is the one…This Christmas song that doesn’t get played a bunch here. I’ve always liked it since is was released. It was written by Billy Squier and was the B side to the single “My Kinda Lover.”
In 1981 MTV made it’s debut and Billy Squier’s career was going strong with the 1981 release of the Don’t Say No album. MTV at the beginning had a more family atmosphere. The crowd in this sing-a-long included technicians, the secretaries, the executives, the production assistants.
The video was filmed at the Teletronics MTV studio.
VJ Nina Blackwood:“It was taped at our original Teletronics Studio on West 33rd Street and featured our original studio crew, who we all loved and were very close to, along with all the people from the MTV offices,” “Everybody traipsed down to the studio from 44th Street & 6th Ave for the taping. Billy Squier’s career was on fire at this time, and since he lived in NYC, he was a frequent guest at the studio, so it was appropriate that he was chosen for the video.”
“Pretty much what you see on camera is an accurate representation of the celebratory and fun feeling that was happening,” Blackwood said. “It was like one big happy family, which sums up the entire vibe of the early days of MTV. One of a kind experience. When I watch all of these early MTV Christmas videos, the overwhelming sensation I come away with is that of joyous love.”
Christmas Is The Time To Say I Love You
Christmas is the time to say “I love you” Share the joys of laughter and good cheer Christmas is the time to say “I love you” And a feeling that will last all through the year
On the corner carolers are singing There’s a touch of magic in the air From grownup to minor no one could be finer Times are hard but no one seems to care Christmas Eve and all the world is watching Santa guides his reindeer through the dark From rooftop to chimney, from Harlem to Bimini They will find a way into your heart
Christmas is the time to say “I love you” Share the joys of laughter and good cheer Christmas is the time to say “I love you” And a feeling that will last all through the year
Just outside the window snow is falling But here beside the fire we share the glow Of moonlight and brandy, sweet talk and candy Sentiments that everyone should know Memories of the year that lays behind us Wishes for the year that’s yet to come And it stands to reason that good friends in season Make you feel that life has just begun
Christmas is the time to say “I love you” Share the joys of laughter and good cheer Christmas is the time to say “I love you” And a feeling that will last all through the year
So when spirits grow lighter And hopes are shinin’ brighter Then you know that Christmas time is here
Anyone who grew up in the eighties is going to know this one. This was a big MTV and radio song in 1982. It was on the American Fool album which was his breakthrough. This song helped Mellencamp forge his identity, which was a struggle for him. John was still going by stage name John Cougar at this time. He would use Mellencamp for the follow up album Uh-Huh in 1983.
Mellencamp was inspired by the drum break in Phil Collins In The Air Tonight and asked his drummer Kenny Aronoff to come up with a drum break for this song.
The American Fool album produced two top 5 hits. It peaked at #1 in the Billboard Album Charts and Canada…and #35 in the UK. The song peaked at #1 in the Billboard 100, #1 in Canada, and #25 in the UK.
Mick Ronson played guitar, provided backup vocals, and helped arrange this song.
John Mellencamp:“The image that was given to me by the record company was so far off base of who I was and what I wanted to do,” he said in his Plain Spoken DVD. “I had no idea what I wanted to do, but I knew what I didn’t want to do. I did not want to be Johnny Cougar, I did not want to sing love songs, I did not want to be the next Neil Diamond, which is what they wanted.”
“I had to figure out what my image was, and I had a girl say to me, ‘John, just be a pair of blue jeans. That’s what you are.’ And the great thing about blue jeans is, you can dress them up, or you can dress them down.”
From Songfacts
A song about a high school couple falling in love, Mellencamp wrote “Jack & Diane” as a tribute to life in the rural working class. The inspiration was his hometown of Seymour, Indiana, which had a population of about 13,000 when it was released. The song has a very nostalgic feel, but paints a picture of a couple whose best years will soon be behind them. In a 1982 interview with The LA Herald Examiner, Mellencamp explained: “Most people don’t ever reach their goals, but that’s cool, too. Failure’s a part of what you’re all about anyway. Coming to terms with failed expectations is what counts. I try to write about the most insignificant things, really. I mean, someone who picks up a copy of Newsweek, then sits down and writes a song about the troubles in South America – who cares? What’s that song telling us that we don’t already know? Write about something that matters to people, man.”
In Campbell Devine’s authorized biography of Ian Hunter and Mott The Hoople it is revealed that this song was heavily influenced by Mick Ronson. The multi-talented Ronson (1946-1993), who was best known as a guitarist, recorded as a solo artist as well as playing lead guitar for both David Bowie and Ian Hunter (as Hunter-Ronson). In the book, Mellencamp says he’d thrown the song on the junk heap, adding: “I owe Mick Ronson the song… Mick was very instrumental in helping me arrange that.”
Some of Mellencamp’s high school photos and home movies were used to make the video, which was pretty much an afterthought. His record company hired Jon Roseman Productions to make videos for the songs “Hurts So Good” and “Hand To Hold On To.”
Paul Flattery, who worked for that production company, explained in the book I Want My MTV that Mellencamp made a special request after those videos were completed: “He said, ‘Look, there’s a song on the album the label doesn’t believe in. But I do. Can you do me a favor and save one roll of film, shoot me singing the song, I’ll give you some old photos and stuff and then you cobble it together for me?
The song was ‘Jack & Diane.’ So we stole some editing time in LA. We projected slides on the edit room wall, and we had the tape-op wear white gloves to do the clapping. We didn’t charge John a cent.”
Mellencamp spent a long time crafting this song in an effort to make it a hit. This was part of his plan to become so successful he could ignore critics and tell his record company to stick it. But first, he had to make some concessions, like changing his name.
His manager named him “Johnny Cougar,” and he went along with it, scoring an Australian hit with “I Need A Lover” in 1978. A year later, he altered his moniker to “John Cougar,” which is how he was billed on the American Fool album. The first single, “Hurts So Good” became a huge hit and got him on MTV, and when “Jack & Diane” followed, it accomplished his mission of autonomy through hits.
When he released Uh-Huh in 1983, it was as John Cougar Mellencamp, with songs that were less crafted and more inspired, especially “Pink Houses.” He lived up to his reputation of being difficult, but it didn’t matter because he could call the shots.
Jack and Diane were a interracial couple in the first version of this song, inspired by the blended couples Mellencamp saw during his live performances (Jack was black, Diane was white). He took the race part out of it and made Jack a football star after an executive from his record company heard what he was working on and asked him to do so in an effort to make the song more relatable and therefore boost its hit potential. With race removed from the equation, a broader swath of Mellencamp’s audience identified with the song, especially in the Midwest. He says that lots of folks have told him that the characters are just like them.
Following Phil Collins’ template from the 1981 hit “In The Air Tonight,” Mellencamp ordered a drum break in the middle of this song. His drummer, Kenny Aronoff, had to come up with it on the spot, proving his mettle when he did so. In a Songfacts interview with Aronoff, he told the story:
“I walk into the studio and the co-producer has a Linn LM-1 drum machine. I’d never seen a drum machine before. I’m being told that they’re using this on the song ‘Jack & Diane’ that we were having trouble coming up with an arrangement for. I’m devastated that I’m going to be replaced by a drum machine. I grab the drum machine, I get the manual, and I program the drum part. I’m in the lounge, really bummed out and wondering, ‘What’s the future of the drummer?’ This is 1981. I’m wondering, ‘Will that machine replace us?’
Two hours later, I’m summoned into the control room, where John tells me, ‘I need you to come up with a drum solo or something after the second chorus.’ At that moment, I was absolutely terrified and excited. Excited because I’m now going to be playing on the record. Terrified because I knew that I had to save the song in order to save my career. Because if I didn’t come up with it, they’d replace me. Two people had already been fired in the band and when I joined two years prior, I was fired from playing on the record. So, this was a scary moment for me.
The long and short of it is, I come up with this part on the spot and it becomes a #1 hit – John’s biggest hit ever. That and ‘In The Air Tonight’ by Phil Collins are probably the two most air-drummed solos on pop radio, ever [even Mellencamp air drums it in the video]. It’s not technically hard, but I was forced to create that on the spot.”
Up until the big drum break, a drum machine was used on this song, but drummer Kenny Aronoff gave it a human touch not just for the break, but also the section that immediately follows. “When I got into the groove after the drum solo, the drummer that influenced me to hit the floor tom on beat four was Steve Gadd from a recording he did on a Chick Corea album, and the song was called ‘Lenore,'” Aronoff told Songfacts. “Steve Gadd would always hit the beat on beat four. I thought that was cool, so even though I don’t sound anything like Steve Gadd and nothing like he was playing on the Chick Corea record, that track influenced me to hit the floor tom, which made my hi-hats open.”
The only musical couple song that can rival this one for popularity is the standard “Frankie And Johnny. Most other hit songs of this nature were cribbed from literature or film, like “Romeo And Juliet” and Bonnie And Clyde. In 1978, Raydio had a hit with “Jack And Jill.”
Weird Al Yankovic planned to parody this song on his 1983 debut album as “Chuck And Diane,” making fun of the royal couple Prince Charles and Lady Diana. Yankovic couldn’t get Mellencamp’s permission to do the parody (which he asks as a courtesy, as anyone can parody a song as long as proper royalties are paid), so he used the lyrical content for an original song called “Buckingham Blues” instead. Yankovic did parody the song on the 2003 Simpsons episode “Three Gays Of The Condo,” where he sang it in animated form as “Homer And Marge.”
This is the only #1 Hot 100 hit in Mellencamp’s career, and based on streams and downloads, his most popular song.
The Sun October 10, 2008 asked Mellencamp if it bothered him being best known for this little ditty. He replied: “That song is 30 or so years old and it gets played more today in the United States than it did when it came out. As much as I am a little weary of those two, I don’t know any other two people in rock and roll who are more popular than Jack and Diane. Some people probably think there’s a place in hell for me because of those two people! But it gave me the keys to do what I want. I’m 57 today. I’ve lived the way I wanted to live, sometimes recklessly and stupidly, but still been able to do that. I’ve been able to live on my whims, that’s what Jack and Diane gave me, so I can’t hate them too much.”
In 2012, a film was released called Jack & Diane, but Mellencamp had nothing to do with it, and the song is not used in the movie. In the film, Jack (played by Riley Keough) is a girl, and she and Diane have a lesbian relationship. Mellencamp said in a statement: “You don’t hear my song in the film, and I played no part in suggesting or offering this title. It’s most apparent that the lead characters were named with the hope that the familiar title might resonate in some people’s minds. I guess that’s OK to do, strictly from a legal perspective, but riding on someone else’s coattails and having a moral compass is left up to each individual.”
Mellencamp mentioned the title characters again in his 1998 song “Eden Is Burning.” The first line is, “Diane and Jack went to the movies.”
Jack and Diane
A little ditty ’bout Jack & Diane Two American kids growing up in the heart land Jack he’s gonna be a football star Diane debutante in the back seat of Jacky’s car Suckin’ on chilli dog outside the Tastee Freez Diane sitting on Jacky’s lap Got his hands between her knees Jack he says: “Hey, Diane, let’s run off behind a shady tree Dribble off those Bobby Brooks Let me do what I please” Saying oh yeah Life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone Sayin’ oh yeah Life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone Now walk on Jack he sits back, collects his thoughts for a moment Scratches his head, and does his best James Dean Well, now then, there, Diane, we ought to run off to the city Diane says: “Baby, you ain’t missing nothing” But Jack he says: “Oh yeah, life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone” Oh yeah He says: “life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone” Oh, let it rock, let it roll Let the bible belt come and save my soul Holdin’ on to sixteen as long as you can Change is coming ’round real soon Make us woman and man Oh yeah, life goes on A little ditty ’bout Jack and Diane Two American kids doin’ the best they can
England Rocks was released in 1977 as the A Side of a single put out on the CBS label by Ian Hunter’s album Overnight Angels backed by the B side Wild N’ Free.
The same song with amended words was released in 1979 as Cleveland Rocks, and became a well known song for Hunter.
Ian Hunter had a great band behind him on this song. Mick Ronson on guitar, and the E Street Band’s Gary Tallent on bass, Roy Bittan on keyboards and Max Weinberg on drums.
The song was off of the brilliantly named album You’re Never Alone with a Schizophrenic and it peaked at #35 in the Billboard 100 and #49 in the UK in 1979.
The song was extremely popular in Cleveland, and on June 19, 1979, Hunter was given the Key to the City by the Mayor.
Hunter’s original recording of Cleveland Rocks begins with a sample of Alan Freed introducing his show. The song was covered in 1997 by The Presidents of the United States of America as the opening theme of the television program The Drew Carey Show
Ian Hunter:“I was watching TV one night when this comedian starts making fun of Cleveland… Cleveland had the coolest rock fans in the country — I wrote ‘Cleveland Rocks’ for them, because they were always so great to me.
Cleveland was the first city in America to embrace Mott the Hoople… The East and West coasts had their heads up their [expletive], but Cleveland was hip to us and Roxy Music and David Bowie right away.”
Ian Hunter:‘I originally wrote “Cleveland Rocks” for Cleveland. I changed it later to “England Rocks” because I thought it should be a single somewhere and Columbia wouldn’t release it as a single in the US (too regional). “Cleveland Rocks” is Cleveland’s song and that’s the truth.’
From Songfacts
From 1995 to 2004, American comedian Drew Carey starred in The Drew Carey Show, a situation comedy based in Cleveland, Ohio. Instead of an original theme song, Carey used “Cleveland Rocks,” an anthem to the City which was written in the 1970s. By an Englishman.
In a June 2007 interview on The Late Late Show, host Craig Ferguson asked that Englishman, Ian Hunter, if he’d ever lived in Cleveland. Hunter didn’t answer the question directly, but it is common knowledge that after splitting with Mott The Hoople he moved to New York, basing his second solo album around that move.
Alluding to his touring with Mott, Hunter said “They didn’t really like us on the coast much”; by us he meant not just Mott The Hoople but the whole glam rock scene referring in particular to David Bowie and Roxy Music. But “When we went to Cleveland, that was the first time we sold a club out.” He added “Cleveland was kind of like the Poland of America” but he and the rest of the glam rock crowd thought they were cool, and as Cleveland thought they were too, he in turn thought Cleveland was the coolest place.
Hunter’s original version runs to 3 minutes 48 seconds and appears on the album You’re Never Alone With A Schizophrenic; it was produced by him and Mick Ronson. The album was released on Chrysalis, March 27, 1979.
What Hunter didn’t mention on The Late Late Show is that the song was released originally – with slightly different words – as “England Rocks.”
As Hunter toured the States with Mott in the early ’70s, his claim has the ring of truth. Indeed, he has never made any secret of looking back to what he sees as the golden age of rock ‘n’ roll, and rock ‘n’ roll can in some sense be said to have originated in Cleveland. The disk jockey Alan Freed (1921-65) was born in at Johnstown, Pennsylvania less than two hundred miles from Cleveland, and moved to the City in 1949 where in 1951 he began playing rhythm and blues records on his WJW radio show The Moondog House. Freed became known as the father of rock and roll, because although he did not invent the phrase, he appears to have been the first person to use it on public radio.
In April 1983, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation was founded in New York City, and in 1995, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum opened its doors in downtown Cleveland. After his death, Alan Freed was cremated, and his ashes were interred at the Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York, but in March 2002 they were moved to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
The later Drew Carey version was recorded by the Presidents Of The United States Of America.
Cleveland Rocks
All this energy callin’ me Back where it comes from It’s such a crude attitude It’s back where it belongs
All the little kids goin’ up on the skits go Cleveland rocks! Cleveland rocks! Jumpin’ Jane Jean, and moonin’ James Dean go Cleveland rocks! Cleveland rocks! Cleveland rocks! Cleveland rocks! Cleveland rocks! Cleveland rocks! Cleveland rocks! Cleveland rocks!
Momma knows, but she don’t care,she’s got her worries too Seven kids, and a phony affair, and the rent is due
All the little chicks with the crimson lips go Cleveland rocks! Cleveland rocks! Livin’ in sin with a safety pin goin’ Cleveland rocks! Cleveland rocks! Cleveland rocks! Cleveland rocks! Cleveland rocks! Cleveland rocks! Cleveland rocks! Cleveland rocks!
I got some records from World War II I play ’em just like me grand dad do
He was a rocker, and I am too Now Cleveland rocks, Now Cleveland rocks Cleveland rocks! Cleveland rocks! Cleveland rocks! Cleveland rocks! Cleveland rocks! Cleveland rocks! Cleveland rocks! Cleveland rocks! Cleveland rocks! Cleveland rocks! Cleveland rocks! Cleveland rocks! Cleveland rocks! Cleveland rocks! Cleveland rocks! Cleveland rocks! Cleveland rocks! Cleveland rocks! Cleveland rocks! OHIO
December 8, 1980 remains a day I still don’t fully understand and I guess I never will. A couple of years ago I posted this on what I was doing on that day and the day after. Ever since he was murdered the mournful intro to this song connects me to that day again.
This song has been dissected to pieces and I wouldn’t even attempt to do it. It’s never been my favorite John Lennon song but it is his most important solo song…and a song that he is remembered by.
This may be the most popular song by an ex-Beatle. The song was released in 1971 and it peaked at #3 in the Billboard 100 and #1 in Canada. In 1981 the song peaked at #1 in the UK after Lennon’s death.
In 2002, this came in #2 in a poll by Guinness World Records as Britain’s favorite single of all time, edged out by “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
John Lennon:The concept of positive prayer … If you can imagine a world at peace, with no denominations of religion not without religion but without this my God-is-bigger-than-your-God thing then it can be true … the World Church called me once and asked, “Can we use the lyrics to ‘Imagine’ and just change it to ‘Imagine one religion’?” That showed [me] they didn’t understand it at all. It would defeat the whole purpose of the song, the whole idea
From Songfacts
Lennon was asking us to imagine a place where the things that divide us, like religion and possessions, did not exist. He felt that would be a much better place.
This song is a strong political message sugarcoated in a beautiful melody. Lennon realized the softer approach would bring the song to a wider audience, who hopefully would listen to his message: If you want peace, first you have to imagine it.
The imagine concept came from Yoko Ono, who was very much into open-mindedness and using your imagination. In 1964, she published Grapefruit, a book of “instructions and drawings” that established the lyrical concept for the song. Here are some examples of her “instructions”:
Imagine the clouds dripping
Dig a hole in your garden to put them in
Imagine myself crying and using my tears to make myself stronger
Grapefruit was re-issued in 1971 before the song was released. That July, John joined Yoko on a series of book signings where he wholeheartedly endorsed it, often wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the book’s cover.
John Lennon wrote and recorded this song at his Tittenhurst Park estate in the English countryside where he and Yoko took up residence in the summer of 1969. When they moved to Tittenhurst, The Beatles hadn’t officially broken up, but they were on the outs and would never record together again (the last Beatles photo shoot took place there in August, 1969).
Lennon had released two avant-garde albums with Yoko: Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins and Unfinished Music No. 2: Life with the Lions. At the end of 1969, they released another: Wedding Album, which contained sounds gathered at their wedding and “bed-in” honeymoon. In 1970, after a round of primal scream therapy, Lennon released his first commercially viable non-Beatles album, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, with contributions from Ringo Starr and production by Phil Spector.
In early 1971, Lennon worked up songs for a new album – “Imagine” was one of them. In May, he summoned several of his musical cohorts to Tittenhurst to record it, including Spector, George Harrison, bass player Klaus Voormann, piano man Nicky Hopkins, and drummers Alan White and Jim Keltner. They recorded on-campus in the studio Lennon had recently built, which he called Ascot Sound Studios. It was a genial atmosphere; footage from the sessions shows Lennon and his cohorts enjoying each others’ company, but also getting down to business when it came time to work – Phil Spector kept the sessions on track, and Lennon was exacting in his musical detail. “Imagine” was one of the first songs they recorded. With a very simple arrangement designed to spotlight the lyric, it required just Lennon’s vocals and piano, Voormann’s bass, and White’s drums. Strings were overdubbed later.
Lennon took the sole songwriter credit on this track, but later said that his wife, Yoko Ono, should have been credited as well. On December 6, 1980, two days before he was murdered, Lennon did a radio interview with Andy Peebles for the BBC where he explained: “That should be credited as a Lennon/Ono song because a lot of the lyric and the concept came from Yoko. But those day, I was a bit more selfish, a bit more macho, and I sort of omitted to mention her contribution. But it was right out of Grapefruit, her book.”
On June 14, 2017, the National Music Publishers’ Association announced that Yoko would finally be added as a songwriter for “Imagine.” This took place at a ceremony where Yoko was given the Centennial (song of the century) award for her contribution, which was followed by a Patti Smith performance of the song.
Hundreds of hours of footage was shot to document the Imagine sessions and subsequent events, including John and Yoko’s move to New York City shortly before the album was released. Music videos (or as they were known at the time, “promotional films”) were rare in 1971, but The Beatles were on the vanguard, creating them for some of their songs and also making five movies. Yoko Ono was a visual artist, so having cameras around wasn’t a big deal to the couple.
Every song on the album got a video, and in 1972 they were compiled into a film called Imagine. The clip for the song “Imagine” shows John and Yoko walking to the entrance of their home at Tittenhurst, where Lennon then plays the song on a grand piano in a white room. Yoko eventually sits next to him on the piano bench, where they share an intimate moment.
Footage for the project was later used in these films:
1988: The documentary Imagine: John Lennon 2000: Gimme Some Truth – The Making of John Lennon’s Imagine 2019: John & Yoko: Above Us Only Sky
There are two famous Steinway pianos associated with this song: a brown Model Z upright in Lennon’s studio and a white baby grand in one of the rooms of his estate. Film footage shows Lennon first writing the song on the upright, then working it out on the grand. He tried recording it on the grand, but the room was too big, which caused excessive reverberation, so he recorded it in the studio on the upright.
The grand is more associated with the song because it’s the one he plays in the music video and the one used in promotional images – it’s a more striking visual than the upright.
In 2000, George Michael paid over $2 million for the upright, and then donated it to the Beatles museum in Liverpool. It has since been “on tour” around the world to promoting peace. The grand Lennon had shipped to his apartment in New York City, where Yoko still lives. It’s assumed she still owns it.
A sidewalk mosaic spells out the word “Imagine” in a section of Central Park dedicated to Lennon. The area is called Strawberry Fields, and is located across from Lennon’s apartment where he was shot.
Released as a single in America, “Imagine” climbed to #3 in November 1971. In the UK, John and Yoko decided not to release it as a single to put focus on their Christmas peace anthem “Happy Xmas (War Is Over).” In 1975, “Imagine” was issues as a UK single for the first time, reaching #6. Soon after Lennon’s death in 1980, it was re-released in the UK and hit #1 on January 10, 1981, where it stayed for four weeks. On February 7, it was replaced at #1 by Lennon’s “Woman,” marking the first time an artist replaced himself on top of the UK charts since The Beatles followed “She Loves You” with “I Want To Hold Your Hand.”
This is credited to The Plastic Ono Band, the name Lennon used for some of his recordings after leaving The Beatles.
Lennon didn’t think the song had any hit potential when he wrote it. After recording a rough version in his home studio at his Tittenhurst Park estate, he made a demo record with “Imagine” as the flip side of his political screed “Gimme Some Truth.” He wanted some perspective on the songs, so he invited a few journalists and other associates over to have a listen. Ray Connolly of the London Evening Standard recalls Lennon playing him the demo and asking, “Is it any good?” Connolly and the others who heard it had to convince Lennon he had a hit on his hands with “Imagine.”
Yoko Ono performed this live at a show in Budapest, Hungary in 1986 that was included on the 1997 reissue of her album Starpeace. She included a studio version on her 2018 album Warzone.
On September 21, 2001, Neil Young performed this on a benefit telethon for the victims of the terrorist attacks on America. Almost 60 million people watched the special in the US.
At a 2001 tribute special to Lennon, Yolanda Adams sang this with Billy Preston on organ. Preston played keyboards on some Beatles songs, including “Get Back.”
Oasis used the piano intro on their 1996 song “Don’t Look Back In Anger.”
This song returned to the Hot 100 three times in the late 2000s thanks to cover versions by Jack Johnson (#90, 2007, for the compilation Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur), David Archuleta (#36, 2008) and The Glee Cast (#67, 2009). Other artists to cover it include Joan Baez, Bruce Hornsby, Ray Charles, Eva Cassidy, Our Lady Peace and A Perfect Circle.
This song plays a role in the movie Forrest Gump. Gump (played by Tom Hanks) appears on a talk show with Lennon, talking about a place where there are “no possessions” and “no religion.” It’s implied that Gump gave Lennon the idea for the song.
Some speculate that this song contains backwards messages. With a keen ear and vast imagination, you can barely make out the words “people war beside me” when reversing the line “imagine all the people.”
On September 13, 1980 Elton John played a free concert in New York’s Central Park, ending it with “Imagine.” This performance was three months before Lennon’s untimely death; before playing the song Elton said, “This is for a dear friend of mine who doesn’t live too far from here, so let’s sing it loud enough for him to hear it” (Lennon lived only a few blocks from that part of Central Park). The flamboyant Elton performed the song wearing a Donald Duck outfit.
Julian Lennon shared his thoughts on the song in the 2019 documentary Above Us Only Sky: “He’s not shoving it down people’s throats. It’s not religious and it’s not political – it’s humanity and life. We all really want what he’s singing about, and I think that’s why even today the song is still so important. The sad thing is, the world is still in a bad way. Why is it impossible to move forward in these dreams and make them a reality?”
The jazz musician Herbie Hancock recorded this as the centerpiece to his Imagine Project. His version features Jeff Beck, P!nk, Seal, India.Arie, Konono N°1 and Oumou Sangaré.
According to Yoko Ono, who controls the rights to John Lennon’s music, the most frequent request she gets comes from musicians who want to record “Imagine” but change the “no religion, too” lyric, a request she has always denied.
So, does this mean you can record any song, but you need special permission to alter the lyrics? Essentially, yes. Alex Holz at the music licensing and royalty service provider Limelight tells us: “Artists can be afforded ‘some’ leeway in adapting a track to your band’s style (so long as you don’t alter the fundamental character of the work), though lyric changes/alterations typically require direct permission from the publisher as a derivative work. Every songwriter/publisher/song is unique and requirements vary.”
This was the last song played on WABC before they switched from a Top 40 format to talk radio on May 10, 1982. Based in New York City, WABC was for decades the top AM radio station in the country. They debated long and hard to decide which song should be their farewell.
It’s a stretch, but some have wondered if Lennon included a message in the video for this song. Lennon wears a cowboy hat in the beginning, and Yoko wears jewelry that evokes Native American culture. This could be a kind of message about all cultures getting along. Or it could just be what they chose to wear. >>
A moving rendition of “Imagine” took place in Paris on November 14, 2015, at the Bataclan theater, where 89 people were killed by gunmen in terrorist attacks the previous night. The German pianist Davide Martello brought his grand piano to the theater and played the song while crowds mourned outside the venue.
Over the next few days, Martello brought the piano to every location in Paris where the attacks took place, performing the song in tribute.
When Nike used the Beatles song “Revolution” in 1987 TV commercials, Yoko Ono joined the surviving band members in suing the company. In the court proceedings, it was revealed that Yoko appeared in a Japanese TV commercial for a telephone company where “Imagine” plays. According to court documents, she authorized use of the song and was paid about $400,000. The “Revolution” case unified the Beatles in their opposition to having songs used in commercials, especially since they didn’t control those rights – Capitol Records and Michael Jackson did.
At the opening ceremony of the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, four singers from that country performed “Imagine,” with each taking a verse. The singers represented a range of genres, including K-pop, with Ahn Ji-young of the duo Bolbbalgan4 performing along with Ha Hyun-woo of the rock band Guckkasten, Jeon In-Kwon of the rock band Deulgukhwa, and the solo artist Lee Eun-mi.
The theme of the ceremony was “Peace in Motion,” with a message of unity as athletes from North and South Korea entered under one flag.
Ben & Jerry’s, makers of “Cherry Garcia” and “Phish Food,” named an ice cream flavor after Lennon’s hit song in 2007. Retired since 2013, “Imagine Whirled Peace” was a caramel ice cream mixed with toffee cookie pieces and chocolate peace signs.
Imagine
Imagine there’s no heaven It’s easy if you try No hell below us Above us only sky
Imagine all the people Living for today (ah ah ah)
Imagine there’s no countries It isn’t hard to do Nothing to kill or die for And no religion, too
Imagine all the people Living life in peace
You may say that I’m a dreamer But I’m not the only one I hope someday you’ll join us And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions I wonder if you can No need for greed or hunger A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people Sharing all the world
You may say that I’m a dreamer But I’m not the only one I hope someday you’ll join us And the world will live as one
Damn the Torpedos is one of Tom Petty’s best albums. It was a huge commercial breakthrough for him and the Heartbreakers.
Tom wrote this song and was inspired by an old crush from a night in 1969. He returned from college that year to go home and went to a party and dropped acid for the first time. He saw a girl named Cindy that he had a crush on in school but she never gave him much time before. At the party they hung out but she told him that it was only going to be that night…it wasn’t anything long term. Tom said he tried later to get with her later but was turned down. Tom said he was scarred by this unrequited love…that is where the basis of the song came from…
It was a busy night on Petty’s part.
Petty later said…‘ When I wrote ‘Even the Losers’ years later, that night came back. I obsessed over her so much. She’s probably in a lot of songs.”
It was also on that night when Petty had an epiphany and he realized he should be in a rock ‘n roll band.
The song for some reason was not released as a single. The album peaked at #2 in the Billboard Album Charts, #1 in New Zealand, #2 in Canada, and #57 in the UK in 1980.
Mike Campbell struggled to come up with a guitar solo. Petty asked, “Well, what would Chuck Berry do?” Within minutes, the solo was recorded.
Tom Petty on Cindy: “She let me know it was just for that night,” “And it scarred my brain all over again. In a matter of hours, I’d let myself believe another story, the one I’d wanted to believe for a long time. I only saw her a few times after that. But finally she took me into a room at someone’s place and said, ‘You keep trying, but you and me isn’t going to happen.’ When I wrote ‘Even the Losers’ years later, that night came back. I obsessed over her so much. She’s probably in a lot of songs.”
From Songfacts
In 1914, Thomas Hardy published a poem which was a bizarre conversation between a dead woman and her dog. The animal was digging at her grave, she thought to pay its respects, until it told her it was simply burying a bone, and had forgotten where she was buried. In life, people we once held dear, often forget us just as easily, and this song is in the same vein.
Tom Petty died October 2, 2017, which prompted Rolling Stone to publish Tom Petty’s 50 Greatest Songs wherein he put this one down to divine intervention. The uptempo, overtly commercial “Even The Losers” is the third track on the 1979 album Damn The Torpedoes wherein it runs to 3 minutes 59 seconds. Petty married his first wife, Jane Benyo, in 1974, so if “Even The Losers” had any basis in fact, his broken heart had clearly mended by then.
Petty, the sole writer on this track, framed the lyric around an interpersonal relationship, but drew inspiration from his legal battle with MCA Records, which nearly thwarted the album. After the band’s record company, Shelter, was sold to MCA, Petty refused to make the move, leading to a flurry of lawsuits that Petty suppressed by filing bankruptcy. A deal was reached, with Petty joining the MCA imprint Backstreet under new terms. The ordeal left some scars, but Petty got to keep a little bit of pride, and a lot more of his earnings.
Speaking about Damn The Torpedoes with the New Musical Express in 1980, Petty said: “I wanted to write anthems for underdogs, songs like ‘Even The Losers’ and ‘Refugee’… the theme of the album wasn’t self-conscious but when I put it together afterwards I could see it was about standing up for your rights, the ones that everyone has which can’t be f–ked with or taken away.”
Even The Losers
Well, it was nearly summer we sat on your roof Yeah, we smoked cigarettes and we stared at the moon And I’d show you stars you never could see Baby, it couldn’t have been that easy to forget about me
Baby, time meant nothing, anything seemed real Yeah, you could kiss like fire and you made me feel Like every word you said was meant to be No, it couldn’t have been that easy to forget about me
Baby, even the losers get lucky sometimes Even the losers keep a little bit of pride They get lucky sometimes
Two cars parked on the overpass Rocks hit the water like broken glass I should have known right then it was too good to last God, it’s such a drag when you’re livin’ in the past
Baby, even the losers get lucky sometimes Even the losers keep a little bit of pride They get lucky sometimes
Baby, even the losers get lucky sometimes Even the losers keep a little bit of pride Yeah, they get lucky sometimes
Baby, even the losers get lucky sometimes Even the losers get lucky sometimes
I found this article about The Max Planck Institute in Germany conducting a study on the perfect pop song… the winner was Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da
As everyone here knows I’m a huge Beatles fan…but this one? I couldn’t disagree more with their conclusion but it is interesting on how they made the choice… I posted a couple of links.
Being a bass player and a love for the bizarre this song has stuck with me. Les Claypool is a terrific bass player and this 1995 song added great bass playing with the odd song and I was onboard. It’s not a song I would pop in at any time…the video for me makes this song…and I hardly ever say that…but I do like the song.
I saw the video before I ever heard the song on radio…it just kept my attention all the way through over and over again. It was a Devo kind of attention getter…video wise that is.
At the time there were rumors that this song was about the actress Winona Ryder. Les Claypool denied this in interviews, pointing out that his Wynona is spelled differently and insisting the song has nothing to do with her. Ryder’s then-boyfriend, Soul Asylum singer Dave Pirner, didn’t buy it. He took offense and renamed one of his songs “Les Claypool’s A Big F–king Asshole” in concert. The song must have hit a nerve!
The song was written by Les Claypool, Larry LaLonde, and Tim Alexander. Primus has never had a Hot 100 hit, but this is one of their most popular songs, peaking at #12 Billboard Alternative Charts and #23 on the Mainstream Rock chart.
Now the video! You just have to watch it. I will say whoever made those suits did a great job.
Les Claypool: “I was fly fishing with a friend of mine up in Lassen County (California), and the sun was going down and we were heading back to the car,” he said. “He was off in one direction, and I went off in another direction. I come around this corner and I step into the creek. And just as I spied this thing, it spied me. It was this big, furry mass coming my way. It flipped and popped its tail and scared the s–t out of me, and I scared the s–t out of it. It was this giant beaver. I mean, it was huge.”
“It just happened that I had this bass part with all these triplets in it and it kind of fit real well with those lyrics,” “So when we did Punchbowl, we put the two together and that became the ‘Wynona’s Big Brown Beaver’ that everybody came to know.”
From Songfacts
Nice beaver. Thank you. I just had it stuffed.
This exchange is from the 1988 movie The Naked Gun, where Leslie Nielsen is admiring Priscilla Presley’s taxidermied beaver.
So it kind of got in my head. This big brown beaver, big brown beaver. Okay. Well, how can I make a song out of that? And then it became, ‘Wynona’s got herself a big brown beaver.’ And from there it just built into this little mythological character that obviously had a little double entendre to it.”
The band had much more modest ambitions for the song when they conceived it, at first considering it one of the filler pieces the band sometimes puts between their proper songs for comic relief.
The video was quite a production. Shot at a time when record companies were willing to shell out big bucks for videos (which MTV still played), this one featured the band in foam rubber suits dressed like cartoon cowboys. The film was shot 25% slower than normal (18 frames-per-second instead of 24) to create a sped-up, jerky look to match the cartoon theme when it was played back. This meant that the band had to mime to the song at a slower speed, so the song was played 25% slower so they could match their movements.
The band had some trouble convincing MTV to play it – Claypool says he met with a woman at the network who asked him some questions about the song. MTV ended up nightparting it.
Claypool says this song was “the bane of my existence for a while” because it made those who weren’t au fait with Primus assume they were a joke band. He eventually realized that those who didn’t get it never will, and decided to pay them no mind.
Les Claypool’s sideband Duo de Twang recorded this song on their 2014 debut album Four Foot Shack. This version was similar to the original vision of the song, which was more stripped-down.
Wynona’s Big Brown Beaver
Wynona’s got herself a big brown beaver and she shows it off to all her friends. One day, you know, that beaver tried to leave her, so she caged him up with cyclone fence. Along came Lou with the old baboon and said “I recognize that smell,Smells like seven layers,That beaver eatin’ Taco Bell!”.
“Now Rex he was a Texan out of New Orleans and he travelled with the carnival shows. He ran bumper cars, sucked cheap cigars and he candied up his nose. He got wind of the big brown beaver So he thought he’d take himself a peek,but the beaver was quick and he grabbed him by the kiwis, and he ain’t pissed for a week.(And a half!)
Wynona took her big brown beaver and she stuck him up in the air, said “I sure do love this big brown beaver and I wish I did have a pair. Now the beaver once slept for seven days And it gave us all an awful fright, So I tickled his chin and I gave him a pinch and the bastard tried to bite me. Wynona loved her big brown beaverAnd she stroked him all the time. She pricked her finger one day and it occurred to her she might have a porcupine.
This song is for Song Lyric Sunday for Jim Adams’s blog. This week’s prompt is (drum roll please…) Alligator/Crocodile/Lizard/Snake/Turtle…
Sometimes I like going back to the era where Rock and Roll began as we know it. Bill Haley was an unlikely looking rock star but he did have some hits in the 50s. Rock Around the Clock was his best known song but he did have some other hits like Shake, Rattle, and Roll, and Crazy Man Crazy. His popularity and legacy didn’t last as long as some of his peers. I was introduced to him by the television show Happy Days.
See You Later Alligator was written by songwriter Robert Charles Guidry, who recorded it himself in 1955 under his stage name of Bobby Charles. However it was the Bill Haley version that took off. Guidry also wrote hits for other performers, most notably “Walking To New Orleans” for Fats Domino.
After while crocodile was/is a popular way of saying goodbye and this song made it more popular. The use of the phrase “See you later alligator” when taking one’s leave stemmed from this song. However… according to Brewer’s Dictionary of Modern Phrase & Fable, ‘alligator’ was already a term in the 1950s for a jazz or a swing fan, as someone who ‘swallowed up’ everything on offer.
The song peaked at #6 in the Top 100, #7 in the R&B Charts, and #7 in the UK in 1955.
So….to stay in the spirit of the song…Don’t Be Square…We’d better stop before we drop. Thanks for dropping by, McFly…and see you later…alligator!
Have a wonderful Sunday and thanks for reading.
From Songfacts
They don’t make ’em like they used to! This classic hails from a time when rock-n-roll bands had flashy names like “Bill Haley & His Comets” and played 12-bar blues songs like they knew where they were coming from. Bill Haley & His Comets is regarded today as one of the first true rock-n-roll bands, innovators who were white musicians bringing rock to a white audience.
Haley and his producer Milt Gabler had some experience turning catchy R&B songs into mainstream hits – they had done it with “Shake, Rattle And Roll.” They heard the Bobby Charles version of “See You Later Alligator,” which was climbing the charts, and knew that they had to get a version recorded and released quickly before someone else did. In mid-December, knowing that operations would shut down when hey got near Christmas, the band recorded the song on a weekend, and Gabler had to break into his own office to retrieve the Charles version of the song and the lyrics he had written down. Said Gabler: “My office had a frosted glass panel so I got a hammer, smashed the pane and robbed my own office. When the staff came in on Monday morning, they thought there had been a robbery. My secretary had a long face. She said, ‘Mr. Gabler, someone’s broken into your office.’ I said, ‘Yes, I know. It was me.'”
The Rosemarie Ostler book Dewdroppers, Waldos, and Slackers – A Decade-by-Decade Guide to the Vanishing Vocabulary of the Twentieth Century calls this style “Voutian” and credits the jazz musician Slim Gaillard with its invention.
If you’re thinking “Get on the bus, gus!”, then you have a good clue, Blue! Another song to use this rhyming-jive style is “Fifty Ways To Leave Your Lover.” Also see TV series such as I Love Lucy and other shows from the ’50s or set in the ’50s. Oh, yes, and in the film Grease, the master of ceremonies at Rydell High’s National Bandstand Dance-Off Contest explains the rules in rhyming jive. You can probably think of more examples, but do not confuse this with Cockney rhyming slang, which is a completely different speech pattern altogether.
See You Later Alligator
(See you later, alligator)
Well, I saw my baby walkin’ with another man today Well, I saw my baby walkin’ with another man today When I asked her what’s the matter This is what I heard her say
See you later alligator, after ‘while crocodile See you later alligator, after ‘while crocodile Can’t you see you’re in my way now Don’t you know you cramp my style
When I though of what she told me, nearly made me lose my head When I though of what she told me, nearly made me lose my head But the next time that I saw her Reminded her of what she said
See you later alligator, after ‘while crocodile See you later alligator, after ‘while crocodile Can’t you see you’re in my way now Don’t you know you cramp my style
She said I’m sorry pretty daddy, you know my love is just for you She said I’m sorry pretty daddy, you know my love is just for you Won’t you say that you’ll forgive me And say your love for me is true
I said wait a minute ‘gator, I know you mean it just for play I said wait a minute ‘gator, I know you mean it just for play Don’t you know you really hurt me And this is what I have to say
See you later alligator, after ‘while crocodile See you later alligator, after ‘while crocodile Can’t you see you’re in my way now Don’t you know you cramp my style
See you later alligator, after ‘while crocodile See you later alligator, so long, that’s all, goodbye
Lets continue browsing through famous guitars. In Part 1 we had a guitars owned by Brian May and Willie Nelson.
George Harrison and Eddie Van Halen’s guitars
Today we will visit two more….George Harrison‘s Strat “Rocky” and Eddie Van Halen‘s “Frankenstrat”
Today we will start off with one of my favorite guitars for obvious reasons…and then Frankenstrat below Rocky.
“Rocky”
When The Beatles were in the studio recording “Help!“, John Lennon and George Harrison sent roadie Mal Evans out to go get a couple of Fender Stratocasters. Evans came back with matching 1962 Sonic Blue Strats. You can hear both of these guitars on Rubber Soul…especially both playing the solo on Nowhere Man in unison.
George Harrison: “During ’67, everybody started painting everything,” “and I decided to paint it. I got some Day-Glo paint, which was quite a new invention in them days, and just sat up late one night and did it.”
Harrison used some of his ex-wife Patti Boyd’s nail polish to paint the headstock. George played the guitar that year in the Beatles’ live performance of “All You Need Is Love” on the around the world satellite feed called Our World, the first global satellite TV program, and in the film Magical Mystery Tour, in the segment where the Beatles mime to “I Am the Walrus”
In 1969-1970 on the advice of the great slide guitar player Ry Cooder George set Rocky up for slide only.
The Harrison Estate still owns this guitar.
Following its announcement at NAMM 2020, Fender has now officially released its faithful recreation of George Harrison’s ‘Rocky’ Stratocaster…hmm I know exactly what I want for Christmas!
“Frankenstrat”
Eddie wanted to make a guitar that was a cross of a Gibson and Fender. To have the clean tone of a Fender and the ability to have the crunch of a Gibson.
In 1974 he visited Boogie Bodies guitars, whose parts were used on early Charvels, and bought himself a factory second unfinished body and neck, paying total of $130. The body he bought was the first one he saw laying around in the store, but he paid close attention to choosing the right neck – he looked for a wide neck with a really thin profile and big Gibson-style frets.
He painted the body black and wrapped masking tape around it and repainted the body white. He installed a Fender tremolo from a 1958 Stratocaster, Schaller tuners, and a Gibson PAF pickup from an old ES-335 which he dipped into paraffin wax in order to get rid of the feedback.
He played the guitar on Van Halen’s first album, and during the band’s first tour. Towards the end of the tour, the guitar was changed to feature a white pickguard and a rosewood neck.
He later changed out necks and hardware and painted it red with bicycle paint.
Frankenstrat was donated to the Hard Rock Cafe in 2004. In 2017 Frankenstrat had been stolen from the walls of the city’s Hard Rock Cafe but returned later.
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