Category: 1970s

Neil Young – Cinnamon Girl

Love the nasty sound Neil has on his guitar. It’s a raw, fuzzed-out letter to the cosmos, sealed with a one-note guitar solo and dropped in the mailbox of your brain forever. It never leaves. This is a song I grew up on, but not this version. Somehow, I had The Gentrys version in my small record collection given to me by someone. It’s close, but no cigar. 

That riff, oh that riff. It’s a heavy, descending chunk of molten iron, equal parts garage and pre-grunge blueprint. It’s played in double drop D tuning, which is basically the rock ’n’ roll equivalent of letting the air out of your tires before racing. Everything sounds lower, meaner, sludgier. The minute it hits, it’s clear: Neil doesn’t want perfection. He wants feel. We played this song so many times that I know it by heart. 

Neil recruited guitarist Danny Whitten, bassist Billy Talbot, and drummer Ralph Molina from a local psychedelic group called The Rockets and renamed them Crazy Horse. The song was on the album Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere. The album peaked at #34 on the Billboard 200 album chart and #32 in Canada.

In the liner notes of his Decade compilation, Neil said, “Wrote this for a city girl on peeling pavement coming at me through Phil Ochs’ eyes playing finger cymbals. It was hard to explain to my wife.” Although Neil Young never said who it was about, the bit about finger cymbals could be a reference to ’60s folk singer Jean Ray, who performed with then-husband Jim Glover under the name Jim and Jean. 

Brian Ray, who is currently Paul McCartney’s guitarist and Jean’s younger brother, has said the song is indeed about his sister. Jean also said that she inspired another Neil Young track from Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere: Cowgirl in the Sand.

The song peaked at #55 in the Billboard 100 and #25 in Canada in 1970.

Cinnamon Girl

I want to live with a Cinnamon Girl
I could be happy the rest of my life 
with a Cinnamon Girl

A dreamer of pictures, I run in the night
you see us together chasin’ the moonlight
my Cinnamon Girl

Ten silver saxes, a bass with a bow
the drummer relaxes and waits between shows
for his Cinnamon Girl

A dreamer of pictures, I run in the night
you see us together chasin’ the moonlight
my Cinnamon Girl

Pa, send me money now
I’m gonna make it somehow
I need another chance
You see, your baby loves to dance
yeah, yeah, yeah

Flamin’ Groovies – Shake Some Action

This is a great power pop record. This band had different phases, blues rock, and then power pop after co-founder Roy Loney left. Over the decades, Shake Some Action has aged better than nearly anything else from its era. It doesn’t belong to 1976, not really, it belongs to the die-hard power pop fans that followed.

The Flamin’ Groovies first recorded this song in 1972, but the song was not released until their 1976 album of the same name, which was produced by Dave Edmunds, who sped up the tempo of the track and pushed the vocals. According to lead guitarist Cyril Jordan, the descending phrase he played on lead guitar was overdubbed about six times. Edmunds would also put remote microphones around the studio to fatten up certain passages.

The band started in 1965 with Roy Loney and Cyril Jordan. By the end of the sixties, they clashed over where to go. Loney was more Stones, and Jordon leaned toward the Beatles. Loney left in 1971, and they got an 18-year-old lead singer named Chris Wilson. They moved to London and started to work with Dave Edmunds. With Chris, they did more power pop, and that is when Shake Some Action came about, with Wilson and Jordon writing it.

They would go on to be a great power pop band and also be known as an early proto-punk band…they pretty much covered the gamut. This anti-drug song was written by Jordon and Loney before he left…Chris Wilson is singing it.

Wilson left in the early eighties, but the band continued until around 1994. They regrouped in 2012, including Chris Wilson. The Flamin’ Groovies have released 9 studio albums and one as late as 2017.

Shake Some Action

I will find a way
To get to you some day.
Oh, but I, babe, I’m so afraid I’ll fall, yeah.
Now can’t you hear me call?

Shake some action’s what I need
To let me bust out at full speed.
I’m sure that’s all you need
To make it all right.

It’s taken me so long
To get where I belong
Oh, but, oh, please don’t send me back that way, yeah.
For I will make you pay.

Shake some action’s what I need
To let me bust out at full speed.
I’m sure that’s all you need
To make it all right.

If you don’t dig what I say
Then I will go away.
And I won’t come back this again. No.
‘Cause I don’t need a friend.

Shake some action’s what I need
To let me bust out at full speed.
I’m sure that’s all you need
To make it all right.

What is the First Song You Remember?

I thought I would do something different with this post. In the comments I’ve read a lot about what you think of songs. I also had a post asking Who helped Form Your Musical Tastes way back 5 years ago. This one is a little different. 

Instead of telling you just my memories, I would like to hear your memories. What is the first song you remember hearing that stuck with you? For me, the answer is one song I heard in 1971. Leaving on a Jet Plane, which ironically I heard in an airport picking up a family member. I can still see the airport with those Tel-A-Chairs around…do you remember those? I can also remember the smell of the airport… no, not a bad one. 

 Anyway…what is the first song you remember?

Tel-A-Chairs were coin-operated televisions that you would put a dime or a quarter into to watch a few minutes of a show. They were at airports, bus stations, and train stations. I would LOVE to have one of those.

John Mellencamp – I Need A Lover

My sister, who shared such classics as Down By the Lazy River by the Osmonds with me, also shared some good stuff. She liked Mellencamp before he was known as Mellencamp; she had the album Nothin’ Matters and What If It Did before the hits like “Jack and Diane” shot John to stardom. 

This song was not on that album, but she had this single back in the late seventies. Let’s rewind. In 1979, Mellencamp was still going by John Cougar, a name thrown to him by his manager in a transparent attempt to give him some glam-rock marketability. He hated it, but he played the game. The song first surfaced on A Biography, his second album, which only saw release in Australia in 1978.

When it finally hit U.S. ears via the album John Cougar a year later, it sounded like something beamed in from a Midwestern garage. The album peaked at #64 on the Billboard 100 and #77 in Canada in 1979. 

On the album version, the intro alone is a beast. Nearly three minutes of instrumental buildup, a swirling, stomping jam that sounds like an E Street Band warm-up exercise. Mellencamp makes you wait. When he finally spits out that opening line, I need a lover who won’t drive me crazy, you welcome it. 

Mellencamp would later refine his sound, focusing on heartland anthems and a few ballads. But this song is a declaration of frustration, lust, and escape. The song peaked at #28 on the Billboard 100 in 1979 after being rereleased. 

I Need A Lover

I need a lover that won’t drive me crazy(I need a lover that won’t drive me crazy)I need a lover that won’t drive me crazySome girl that knows the meaning of, “Hey, hit the highway”

Well, I’ve been walkin’ the streets up and downRacing through the human jungles at nightI’m so confused, my mind is indifferentHey, I’m so weak, won’t somebody shut off that light? Aw

Electricity runs through the videoAnd I watch it from this hole I call homeAnd all the stonies go dancin’ to the radioAnd I got the world callin’ me up hereTonight on the phone

I need a lover that won’t drive me crazySome girl to thrill me and then go awayI need a lover that won’t drive me crazySome girl that knows the meaning of, uh“Hey, hit the highway”

Well, I’m not wiped out by this poolroom life I’m livingI’m gonna quit this job, and go to school, or head back homeAnd I’m not askin’ to be loved or be forgivenHey, I just can’t face shakin’ in this bedroomOne more night alone

I need a lover that won’t drive me crazyI need a lover that won’t drive me crazyI need a lover that won’t drive me crazySome girl that knows the meaning of, uh“Hey, hit the highway”

I need a lover that won’t drive me crazySome girl to thrill me and then go awayI need a lover that won’t drive me crazySome girl that knows the meaning of, uh“Hey, hit the highway”You betcha

…

Who – Who Are You

This song is for Song Lyric Sunday for Jim Adams’s blog. This week, the theme is to find a song that is based on reality. A prompt inspired by Badfinger (Max) of PowerPop. Whoever that crazy guy is. 

Great song by The Who and one of the first Who songs I knew. Keith Moon was not in the best shape by this time, but his drumming on this is still fantastic. The song helped define classic radio along with its siblings Baba O’Riley and Won’t Get Fooled Again. Unlike some 80s synth sounds, these synths of those three songs still sound fresh today.

Pete Townshend wrote it in the aftermath of a meeting with some industry suits, wandered into a Soho pub, ran into some of the Sex Pistols, and came out very drunk with a bruised ego and the chorus to one of The Who’s most iconic late-period tracks. Rock bottom, meet the charts. This song, released in August 1978, was the title track to what would turn out to be Keith Moon’s final album. He died three weeks after its release, and that ghost haunts the band to this day. 

This isn’t the mod, youthful energy of My Generation anymore, it’s the sound of grown men staring into the abyss of their own legend. The Who had spent a decade writing operas, smashing instruments, and becoming arena rock icons. And suddenly they were competing with punk bands they helped inspire.

Townshend once said, Who Are You was a cry of frustration, about the music industry, about the punk movement, about himself. Many of Townsend’s songs are about real-life events.  The song peaked at #14 in the Billboard 100 and #18 in the UK in 1978. The album Who Are You peaked at #2 on the Billboard Album Charts, #2 in Canada, and #6 in the UK. 

Pete Townshend: “I’d like to think that where the song came from wasn’t the feet that I was drunk when I did the demo, but the fact that I was f–king angry with  Allen Klein, and that the song was an outlet for that anger.”

Roger Daltrey: “We were getting incredible accolades from some of the new Punk bands. They were saying how much they loved The Who, that we were the only band they’d leave alive after they’d taken out the rest of the establishment! But I felt very threatened by the Punk thing at first. To me it was like, ‘Well, they think they’re f—ing tough, but we’re f—ing tougher.’ It unsettled me in my vocals. When I listen back to ‘Who Are You?’ I can hear that it made me incredibly aggressive. But that’s what that song was about. Being pissed and aggressive and a c—!”

Who Are You

Who are you?
Who, who, who, who?
Who are you?
Who, who, who, who?
Who are you?
Who, who, who, who?
Who are you?
Who, who, who, who?

I woke up in a Soho doorway
A policeman knew my name
He said “You can go sleep at home tonight
If you can get up and walk away”

I staggered back to the underground
And the breeze blew back my hair
I remember throwin’ punches around
And preachin’ from my chair

Well, who are you? (Who are you? Who, who, who, who?)
I really want to know (Who are you? Who, who, who, who?)
Tell me, who are you? (Who are you? Who, who, who, who?)
‘Cause I really want to know (Who are you? Who, who, who, who?)

I took the tube back out of town
Back to the Rollin’ Pin
I felt a little like a dying clown
With a streak of Rin Tin Tin

I stretched back and I hiccupped
And looked back on my busy day
Eleven hours in the Tin Pan
God, there’s got to be another way

Who are you?
Ooh wa ooh wa ooh wa ooh wa

Who are you?
Who, who, who, who?
Who are you?
Who, who, who, who?
Who are you?
Who, who, who, who?
Who are you?
Who, who, who, who?

Well, who are you? (Who are you? Who, who, who, who?)
I really want to know (Who are you? Who, who, who, who?)
Tell me, who are you? (Who are you? Who, who, who, who?)
‘Cause I really want to know (Who are you? Who, who, who, who?)

I know there’s a place you walked
Where love falls from the trees
My heart is like a broken cup
I only feel right on my knees

I spit out like a sewer hole
Yet still receive your kiss
How can I measure up to anyone now
After such a love as this?

Well, who are you? (Who are you? Who, who, who, who?)
I really want to know (Who are you? Who, who, who, who?)
Tell me, who are you? (Who are you? Who, who, who, who?)
‘Cause I really want to know (Who are you? Who, who, who, who?)

John Prine – Paradise

I want to thank halffastcyclingclub for bringing this song up when reading the Levon Helm post called The Mountain I posted last week. I’d never heard it and fell for it immediately. I listened to it over and over again. Such a cool vibe of looking back in this song. 

The song is not just a song, it’s a family photograph yellowing at the edges, the kind you keep tucked in a drawer and only pull out when you’re feeling brave enough to remember. Written for his parents, and about a real place in Kentucky that no longer exists the way it used to. We can all relate to this. I grew up in a small city in Tennessee, and it’s completely different now than it was when I grew up. Sometimes progress is good and sometimes not. 

I don’t usually dissect songs, but this one hit me. Prine was only in his mid-twenties when he wrote it, but he already sounded like someone who’d lived a dozen lives. It’s not just a memory, it’s a eulogy with a banjo. “And daddy won’t you take me back to Muhlenberg County / Down by the Green River where Paradise lay…”
And the punchline comes just a beat later:
“…Well I’m sorry my son, but you’re too late in askin’ / Mr. Peabody’s coal train has hauled it away.”

That’s it right there. Prine gives you a warm hug and slips a dagger in your back before the first verse is out. It’s a protest song in overalls, gentle, but furious. Not angry, but quietly heartbroken. He’s not shouting down injustice; he’s telling you what it feels like when the land your family once lived on gets strip-mined out of existence.

This song was the fifth track on his 1971 debut album, which is ridiculous when you think about it. As young as he was, and writing a song like this. Plenty of artists have covered Paradise. Dwight Yoakam, John Denver, John Fogerty, even the Everly Brothers, but none of them touch the original. Because it wasn’t just a song to Prine. It was a love letter to something that couldn’t love him back anymore.

Lynn Anderson released it in 1975, and it was the most commercially successful release. It peaked at #26 on the Billboard Country Charts and #16 on the Canadian Country Charts. 

Paradise

When I was a child my family would travel
Down to Western Kentucky where my parents were born
And there’s a backwards old town that’s often remembered
So many times that my memories are worn

And Daddy, won’t you take me back to Muhlenberg County?
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
Well, I’m sorry, my son, but you’re too late in asking
Mister Peabody’s coal train has hauled it away

Well, sometimes we’d travel right down the Green River
To the abandoned old prison down by Airdrie Hill
Where the air smelled like snakes we’d shoot with our pistols
But empty pop bottles was all we would kill

And Daddy, won’t you take me back to Muhlenberg County?
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
Well, I’m sorry my son, but you’re too late in asking
Mister Peabody’s coal train has hauled it away

Then the coal company came with the world’s largest shovel
And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land
Well, they dug for their coal till the land was forsaken
Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man

And Daddy, won’t you take me back to Muhlenberg County?
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
Well, I’m sorry my son, but you’re too late in asking
Mister Peabody’s coal train has hauled it away

When I die, let my ashes float down the Green River
Let my soul roll on up to the Rochester Dam
I’ll be halfway to Heaven with Paradise waitin’
Just five miles away from wherever I am

And Daddy, won’t you take me back to Muhlenberg County?
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
Well, I’m sorry my son, but you’re too late in asking
Mister Peabody’s coal train has hauled it away

…

Little Feat – Rock and Roll Doctor

I love Little Feat. A musician’s band that sounds great. This song is filled with funk and southern-fried sophistication. It’s really tight at 2 minutes and 57 seconds; this track from Little Feat’s Feats Don’t Fail Me Now album is equal parts swagger, groove, and swampy gospel-tinged funk. It captures everything that made the Lowell George-led era of the band so distinct: tight arrangements, terrific guitar, and soulful vocals. 

Only Little Feat could’ve made this record. The band was already deep into their groove by 1974, but this album is where the voodoo met the vinyl with that sound. Lowell George, rock and roll’s most underrated guitarist and a man who sounded like he’d lived three lifetimes by 29, delivers a great vocal as well. “Two degrees in be-bop, a PhD in swing / He’s the master of rhythm, he’s a rock and roll king!” It’s a tongue-in-cheek tribute to the healing power of boogie, but also a serious testament to Little Feat’s freakish musical chemistry and ability. 

The whole track hangs on that in-the-pocket rhythm section.  The band is in lockstep throughout, Richie Hayward’s drumming is crisp and funky, Paul Barrere and Lowell George’s guitars weave effortlessly, and Bill Payne’s piano rides just behind the beat, and it could have carried the song alone. There’s even some gospel call-and-response in the backing vocals.  It’s a shuffle, but it’s never lazy. It’s slick, but not slick-slick.

George’s slide solo? It says something and punctuates the song. Feats Don’t Fail Me Now peaked at #36 on the Billboard Album Charts and #40 in Canada in 1974. The song peaked at #34 on the Billboard 100 later in 1981. 

Rock and Roll Doctor

There was a woman in Georgia didn’t feel just rightShe had fever all day and chills at nightNow things got worse, yes a serious bindAt times like this it takes a man with such style I cannot often findA doctor of the heart and a doctor of mind

If you like country with a boogie beat he’s the man to meetIf you like the sound of shufflin’ feet he can’t be beatIf you wanna feel real nice, just ask the Rock and Roll doctor’s advice

It’s just a country town but patients comeFrom Mobile to Moline from miles aroundNagodoches to New OrleansIn beat-up old cars or in limousinesTo meet the doctor of soul, he’s got his very own thing

Two degrees in be-bop, a PHD in swingHe’s the master of rhythm he’s a rock and roll king

If you like country with a boogie beat he’s the man to meet (he’s the man to meet)If you like the sound of shufflin’ feet he can’t be beat(I say he can’t be beat)If you…If you wannaIf you wanna feel real nice, just ask the Rock and Roll doctor’s advice

…

T-Rex – 20th Century Boy

I first heard this song on a car commercial. It was nice to hear something from T. Rex other than Bang a Gong. T Rex was never huge in America, but for a few years was very popular in the UK. They were one of the biggest UK Glam Rock bands.

It was released in 1973 as a non-album single. 20th Century Boy opens with a riff that could crack the sidewalk. It doesn’t crawl out of the speakers so much as leap from them. It’s all swagger, glam, and distortion turned up to 11.

The song sounds so modern with Tony Visconti’s production. It never cracked the Top 10 in the U.S., but in the UK it was a smash. The song found new life in commercials and soundtracks. It’s Bolan doing what he did best, selling you not just a song, but an attitude. He wasn’t offering truth or authenticity; he was offering escape. 

Their popularity soared in 1971-72, and a mania that was called “T. Rexstasy”. In 1972, Ringo Starr produced and directed a concert film called Born to Boogie about T Rex. This song peaked at #3 in the UK Charts in 1973 and #11 in 1991.

The band only charted 3 songs in the Billboard 100 with one top ten hit…Bang a Gong. In the UK, they scored 4 number ones and 21 top forty songs.

20th Century Boy

Friends say it’s fine
Friends say it’s good
Everybody says it’s just like Rock ‘n Roll
I move like a cat
Charge like a ram
Sting like a bee
Babe I wanna be your man

Well it’s plain to see you were meant for me
Yeah, I’m your boy, your 20th Century toy

Friends say it’s fine
Friends say it’s good
Everybody says it’s just like Rock ‘n Roll
Fly like a plane
Drive like a car
Hold out your hand
Babe I’m gonna be your man

And it’s plain to see you were meant for me
Yeah, I’m your toy, your 20th Century boy

20th Century toy, I wanna be your boy [4x]

Friends say it’s fine
Friends say it’s good
Everybody says it’s just like Rock ‘n Roll
Move like a cat
Charge like a ram
Sting like a bee
Babe I’m gonna be your man

And it’s plain to see
You were meant for me
Yeah I’m your toy
Your 20th Century boy

20th Century toy, I wanna be your boy [4x]

Flo & Eddie – Keep It Warm

When I heard this song, I had to find out who it was. I was watching Late Night with the Devil, and this song played. I finally looked at the Soundtrack and to my surprise, it was Flo and Eddie. Flo (Phlorescent Leech) is Mark Volman, and Eddie is Howard Kaylan. Mark and Howard were the two founding members of the 1960s band The Turtles. The Turtles had a large vocal sound. Kaylan is a very good singer, and when combined with Volman, it made a unique sound for the Turtles. 

After the Turtles broke up, Howard and Mark Volman went by the name “Flo and Eddie” for legal reasons (old Turtles contract). They made a career of unusual rock-comedy albums and developed a following. They immediately began playing with Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention and were there when Frank was pushed off the stage at the Rainbow. They were also in the Zappa movie, 200 Motels.

Flo & Eddie were what happened when two of the strangest, funniest, and most musically savvy minds to ever pass through the Top 40 were given free rein. This song was never a hit. It didn’t even scrape the charts. But like most of the best Flo & Eddie material, it was an inside joke with enough melody to trick you into thinking it WAS a hit. It’s a song about being past your prime, sung with the kind of confidence that says you never bought into the hype in the first place. If this came on the radio between Pablo Cruise and Seals & Crofts, you might not notice anything was different until you realized it was mocking both of them while sounding just as good.

The song opens with a clean piano, all smooth and clean guitars, but the lyrics are just… off. The chorus says “keep it warm,” but what is it, exactly? A bed? A place in your heart? An old seat at the Hollywood Squares? Richard Dawson’s seat on Match Game?  Kaylan delivers it with such sincere charm that it takes a few listens before you realize it’s about disillusionment, being outdated, all the while dressed up in a Beach Boys falsetto.

The production was immaculate. Jim Pons (also ex-Turtle, ex-Zappa) lays down a bass line that fits the song perfectly. The arrangements swirl like mid-70s L.A. excess seen through a cracked, warped rearview mirror.

The song was on their 1976 album Moving Targets. 

 

Keep It Warm

Write another song for the moneySomething they can sing, not so funnyMoney in the bank to keep us warm

Stick another grape in the juicerOr fill your guts with grease and get looserYou are what you eat, so eat it warm

Roll another joint for the GipperGet the Gipper high, he gets hipperStick it in his mouth and keep him warm

Elect another jerk to the White HouseGracie Slick is losing her DormouseTake her off the streets and keep her warm (oh-oh)

Fight another war if they make youSqueal on a friend or they’ll take youThe future’s in your lap, so keep it warm

Warm, here in your arms (ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh)Safe from all harm, where I belong (ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh)Warm, cozy and calm (ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh)Another dawn, together warm (ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh)

My Woody’s broken down by the beach nowAnd TM’s gotten far out of reach nowTell the Mahareesh to keep it warm(We’re picking up good vibrations)

And George is suing Paul, suing RingoAnd immigration wants John and YokoAll they need is love to keep them warm

Kill another whale with your powerShoot a bunch of kids from a towerSnipe them in their cars, blood keeps them warm

Or make a better world from the old oneMake yourself a baby and hold oneHold her in your arms and keep her warm

Keep her warm, keep her warmKeep her warm, keep her warmKeep her warm, keep her warmKeep her warm, keep her warmKeep her warm…

…

Rufus featuring Chaka Khan – Tell Me Something Good

Great song, great music, great voice. You want funk? You want soul? You want a dirty-sounding clavinet? Step right up, Rufus has got you covered. There’s something raw and unpolished here that gives the song its character. It’s not trying to be slick. It’s lean and mean, clocking in under four minutes, and still manages to say everything it needs to say. It’s still one of my favorite AM singles of the 1970s. It would fit in today as well. 

Chaka… She’s the axis this record spins on. Her voice doesn’t so much sing the lyrics; she dominates them. Stevie Wonder brought a few songs to the studio, and she stunned her bandmates by saying she didn’t like them. She was 19 and pregnant and not in the best of moods. Stevie asked her for her astrological sign, and she said Aries. He then delivered this song, which she loved. 

Tony Maiden’s talkbox guitar gives it that extra wobble, while Kevin Murphy’s clavinet lays down a foundation so nasty you could mop the floor with it. This song came off the 1974 album Rags to Rufus.  Stevie Wonder recorded it himself in 1973 but never released it. The song peaked at #3 on the Billboard 100 and #21 in Canada in 1974. The Talk-Box, which Frampton later used, sounds great in this song.

Rufus evolved from a group called The American Breed, who had a hit with “Bend Me, Shape Me.” They took their name from a column in Popular Mechanics magazine called “Ask Rufus,” later shortened to Rufus when Chaka Khan joined the band in 1972.

Tell Me Something Good

You ain’t got no kind of feeling inside
I got something that will sure ‘nough set your stuff on fire
You refuse to put anything before your pride
What I got something will knock all your pride aside

Tell me something good 
Tell me that you love me, yeah
Tell me something good 
Tell me that you like it, yeah

Got no time is what you’re known to say
I’ll make you wish there was forty eight hours to each day
The problem is you ain’t been loved like you should
What I got to give will sure ‘nough do you good

Tell me something good 
Tell me that you love me, yeah
Tell me something good 
Tell me that you like it, yeah

You ain’t got no kind of feeling inside
I got something that will sure ‘nough set your stuff on fire
You refuse to put anything before your pride
What I got something will knock all your pride aside

Tell me something good (oh, yeah, yeah)
Tell me that you love me, yeah
Tell me something good 
Tell me that you like it, yeah

Tell me something good (tell me baby baby, tell me)
Tell me that you love me, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah
Tell me something good (oh, tell me, tell me, tell me)
Tell me that you like it, yeah, yeah, don’t you like it, baby?

Kinks – 20th Century Man

This is the twentieth centuryBut too much aggravationThis is the edge of insanityI’m a twentieth century man but I don’t want to be here

This song is for Song Lyric Sunday for Jim Adams’s blog. This week’s prompt is (drum roll please…) a song from a concept album. 

This song came from the album Muswell Hillbillies. A blogger friend of mine halffastcyclingclub, wrote up a post about it when I had the Kinks Weeks last year, it’s right here. Muswell Hillbillies is one of the many concept albums The Kinks did in the late sixties and early seventies. 20th Century Man kicks off the album. 

The song is an anthem of the over-civilized, over-documented, over-saturated age. Davies isn’t just annoyed by technology or bureaucracy; he’s exhausted by the entire machinery of progress. X-rays, radiation, political ideology, Big Brother watching from the corner of the room, Ray sees it all and wants out. Half a century later, 20th Century Man sounds eerily current. All those worries about surveillance, conformity, soulless routine? They didn’t go away, they just put on a fresh coat of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

Musically, it’s a leaner Kinks, with no horn section, no vaudeville flourishes, and no trimmings. Just guitars, grit, and a message that cuts you like a cold wind. Even the production feels lived-in, like it’s already been through the wringer. At the end of the song, it comes to life with a frustrated Ray Davies singing that he cannot keep up and doesn’t want to be there. 

I can really relate to what he is going through in this song. This was before the 24/7 news cycle and advertising chasing us everywhere we turn. It peaked at #106 on the Billboard 100. The album peaked at #100 on the Billboard Album Charts in 1971. Lola just came out the year before, but it would be in the mid to late seventies when they returned to more commercial success. These albums, though, were great. 

20th Century Man

This is the age of machineryA mechanical nightmareThe wonderful world of technologyNapalm hydrogen bombs biological warfare

This is the twentieth centuryBut too much aggravationIt’s the age of insanityWhat has become of the green pleasant fields of Jerusalem

Ain’t got no ambitionI’m just disillusionedI’m a twentieth century man but I don’t want, I don’t want to be here

My mama said she can’t understand meShe can’t see my motivationJust give me some securityI’m a paranoid schizoid product of the twentieth century

You keep all your smart modern writersGive me William ShakespeareYou keep all your smart modern paintersI’ll take Rembrandt, Titian, Da Vinci and Gainsborough

Girl we gotta get out of hereWe gotta find a solutionI’m a twentieth century man but I don’t want, I don’t want to die here

Girl, we gotta get out of hereWe gotta find a solutionI’m a twentieth century man but I don’t want, I don’t want to be here

I was born in a welfare stateRuled by bureaucracyControlled by civil servantsAnd people dressed in greyGot no privacy, got no liberty‘Cause the twentieth century peopleTook it all away from me

Don’t want to get myself shot downBy some trigger happy policemanGotta keep a hold on my sanityI’m a twentieth century man but I don’t want to die here

My mama says she can’t understand meShe can’t see my motivationAin’t got no securityI’m a twentieth century man but I don’t want to die here

I don’t want twentieth century, manI don’t want twentieth century, manI don’t want twentieth century, manI don’t want twentieth century, man

This is the twentieth centuryBut too much aggravationThis is the edge of insanityI’m a twentieth century man but I don’t want to be here

…

Willis Alan Ramsey – Satin Sheets

Hallelujah let me sock it to ya
Praise the Lord, and pass the mescaline

You could spend a weekend digging through Texas songwriters and never quite land on someone as mysterious or as mythically hyped as Willis Alan Ramsey. I want to thank a commentator M.Y. for telling me about this wonderful album and artist. 

Ramsey was born in Alabama in 1951, but it was Texas where he planted his flag and his musical roots. The Lone Star State was churning out outlaw country and cosmic cowboys in the early ‘70s, and Ramsey’s 1972 self-titled debut landed right in the middle of it. The album was released on Leon Russell’s Shelter Records (home to J.J. Cale and Dwight Twilley), Willis Alan Ramsey was a swampy, soulful, blend of folk, country, and blues. 

This album, released in 1972, was his only album. It has been lauded by critics, and I can understand why. He had a contract dispute with Shelter Records and left at the end of the contract. His fans have been waiting half a century for a new album. When asked, he said, “What’s wrong with the first one?” He did start a new album in 1997 and is trying to finish it with financial help from friends and fans alike. It is still in the works. 

He did have one song that is widely known. There is a song on this album called Muskrat Candlelight. Do the math, and you know who covered it. Change Candlelight to Love, and yes, you have Captain and Tennille. I’ve listened to this album many times, and the guy can write some interesting lyrics. The ones I have at the top got my attention right away with this song. 

Give a listen to this album if you have time. 

Satin Sheets

I wish I was a millionaire
Play rock music and grow long hair
Tell your boys
‘Bout a new Rolls-Royce

Pretty women callin’ me
Give ‘em all the third degree
Give ‘em satin sheets
To keep ‘em off the streets

Hallelujah let me sock it to ya
Praise the Lord, and pass the mescaline
Trade your whole world
You’ll come over
As soon as you see me boogie-woogie ‘cross the silver screen

Hang ‘em high, hang ‘em low
Put ‘em in the ceilings wherever I go
And they’d swing all night
In the rafter light

Hallelujah, what’s it to ya?
Got your coffee, me, I got my Spanish tea
Trade your whole world
You’ll come over
As soon as you hear me playing my calliope

I wish I was a millionaire
Play rock music and grow long hair
Tell your boys
‘Bout a new Rolls-Royce

….

AC/DC – Riff Raff

No big surprise here. No concept album, no reaching for the acoustic, or any subtleties…just Rock and Roll at high volume. It took me years to like this band, and I like both versions, but I favor the Bon Scott era a little more for some reason. 

There’s a certain thrill when you drop the needle on Powerage and let Riff Raff come flying out of the speakers, like being tackled by a denim-clad Marshall Amp! It wasn’t about the hits with this band, it was about raw power. Bombastic and proud of it. They were Chuck Berry on steroids. Angus is on fire in this one, and yet somehow, despite the chaos, it’s never messy. 

There’s something weirdly noble about AC/DC’s refusal to pander. While everyone else in 1978 was busy adding synths or softening the edges for FM radio, these guys doubled down on bar-fight boogie music. And this song is the kind of track that drives the point home for everyone. 

Powerage was released in 1978, and it peaked at #133 on the Billboard Album Charts and #23 in the UK. This was a year before their breakthrough album, Highway To Hell. I have to hand it to them because they never changed, and I can say honestly, never will. Their fans would not expect anything different. 

Riff Raff

See it on television, every dayYa hear it on the radioIt ain’t humid, but it sure is hotDown in MexicoA barmaid’s tryin’ to tell me (ha-ha)“Beginning of the end”Sayin’ it’ll bend meToo late, my friend

Riff raffOh, it’s good for a laughHa-ha-haRiff raffGo on and laugh yourself in halfSmile a while

Now, I’m the kinda guy that keep his big mouth shutIt don’t bother meSomebody kickin’ me when I’m upLeave me in miseryI never shot nobodyDon’t even carry a gunI ain’t done nothin’ wrongI’m just having fun

Riff raffOh, it’s good for a laughHa-ha-haRiff raffGo on and laugh yourself in halfSmile a while

Do it again

…

Chris Spedding – Motor Bikin’

Moving on the queen’s highway lookin’ like a streak of lightnin’

It was hard to just pick one song out of his catalog because he had so many good songs, and I love his guitar riffs. 

You could call Chris Spedding a session guy, but that’d be underselling him. He’s the kind of musician who can jump into just about any scene and make it better, without ever stealing the spotlight. A chameleon with a Gretsch. While he never quite became a household name, Spedding is one of those players whose fingerprints are all over the jukebox of the ‘70s and beyond if you know where to listen.

Chris was raised in Sheffield, England. He had classical training and great instincts. By the time the late 1960s, he was already slipping into studios and turning heads. You’ll find him in the credits of records by Jack Bruce, Bryan Ferry, John Cale, Paul McCartney, Bryan Ferry, Brian Eno, Tom Waits, Roger Daltrey, Robert Gordon, and Harry Nilsson, just to name a few.

In 1975, Spedding gave the spotlight a try himself with the single Motor Bikin’, peaking at #14 on the UK Charts, and it’s a gem. A three-minute, leather-jacket anthem with a riff that sounds like it could’ve rolled straight out of a jukebox in a biker bar run by T. Rex. He also produced demos for the Sex Pistols, and some thought he would join them, but he didn’t. 

His look? Always sharp, slicked-back hair, leather jacket, just the right amount of attitude in the mid-seventies. He looked like a cool rock ‘n’ roll guitar slinger in the best way possible. Cool without trying too hard.

As I’ve said, he has worked with everyone, including a stint with Robert Gordon. He also worked with Chrissie Hynde and the Pretenders in 1980. I’ll add a couple of more songs that give you a flavor of him. The guitar riff in Jump In My Car (studio version) is really cool. It was originally done by The Ted Mulry Gang. Him and Gordon did a super job of Summertime Blues. 

Motor Bikin’

Motor bikin’
Motor bikin’
Motor bikin’
Motor cyclin’

Moving on the queen’s highway lookin’ like a streak of lightnin’
If you gotta go, go, gotta go motor bike ridin’

Listen to me and I’ll tell you no lie
Too fast to live, too young to die
I bought a new machine today and say
It take your breath away

Motor bikin’
Motor bikin’
Motor bikin’
Motor cyclin’

Moving on the queen’s highway lookin’ like a streak of lightnin’

Baby, won’t you come with me?
I’ll take you where you want to be

Well, here I am again and I’m dressed in black
I got my baby, she’s right in the back
We’re doin’ ’bout 95
Whew, so good to be alive
See upcoming pop shows
Get tickets for your favorite artists

You might also like
Working for the Union
Chris Spedding
Jump in My Car
Chris Spedding
Video Life
Chris Spedding

Motor bikin’
Motor bikin’
Motor bikin’
Motor cyclin’

Moving on the queen’s highway lookin’ like a streak of lightnin’
If you gotta go, go, gotta go motor bike ridin’

Motor bikin’
We go motor bikin’
Motor bikin’
Whew, we’re motor cyclin’

Moving on the queen’s highway lookin’ like a streak of lightnin’
If you gotta go, go, gotta go motor bike ridin’

Motor bikin’
We go motor bikin’
Motor bikin’

…

Frankie Miller – I Can’t Change It

This is the kind of song and artist I like posting. I call it New Old music because not everyone has heard of Frankie Miller, unlike Neil Young and other artists. The song just sticks with me with its haunting and melancholy melody. The guy has a voice that is about as strong as you can get. There are certain voices that don’t just sing a song, they bleed it. Frankie Miller had one of those voices. You could park it next to Rod Stewart, Steve Marriott, and Joe Cocker, and no one would flinch. 

I was watching Life On Mars when this song came on in an emotional scene. I’d never heard of it before. I never heard of Frankie Miller, but what a singer. He wrote this song when he was just 12 years old. Ray Charles also ended up recording it. Charles did his usual fantastic job on it, but I like Frankie’s stark arrangement. I can’t say enough about his voice. In some of his other songs, he reminds me of Bob Seger with an even a little stronger voice if that is possible. He wrote Ain’t Got No Money which Seger covered.

The best way I can describe this song is that it doesn’t need a big chorus or a clever twist. It just tells the truth. And in doing so, it becomes one of those tracks you return to when the world’s too loud and you need something real. Much like why I keep returning to Ronnie Lane and others. This one doesn’t have a wasted note. No overplaying. Just a slow, steady build that wraps around you.

This was on his 1973 debut album Once In A Blue Moon. In 1994, while he was forming a band with Joe Walsh, he had a brain aneurysm. He has fought back but sadly had to retire. If you don’t know much about him, he is worth looking up.

I can’t find a live version but check out this show.

I Can’t Change It

My friends can’t find some things I say
Must be the way I say those things
My friends can’t find some things I do
Must be the way I do those things
I can’t change it
But I’m trying to do right

I used to steal I used to fall
Was I wrong I can’t recall
I stole in love but all in all
Was I wrong I don’t recall
I can’t change it
But I’m trying to do right

Is it bad to look inside yourself and decide to go
To someone who can show the way complete
Are you glad to lose the doubts you thought would never go
When them inside hallucinations had you beat

My own true love has gone away
What can I say she left that day
The moon still shines a different way
What can I say
She left that day
I can’t change it but I’m waiting patiently

…