Category: 1990s

Ride – Twisterella —-Powerpop Friday

This is a fantastic sounding song by a band named Ride.

Ride were formed in 1988 in Oxford by school friends Andy Bell and Mark Gardener, before recruiting drummer Loz Colbert at the Oxfordshire School of Art & Design and local bassist Steve Queralt.

They broke up in 1996 because of differences between Andy Bell and Mark Gardener. Gardener wanted to go forward in a more dance style of music…Bell didn’t but both wanted to go more contemporary style. Bassist Steve Queralt said: The band had two future directions open to them, and they chose the wrong option.

They reunited in 2014 and released their first album in 21 years in 2017.

Twisterella peaked at #12 in 1992 in the Billboard Alternative Charts and #36 in the UK. The song was on the Really Going Back album and it peaked at #5 in the UK in 1992.

The band had 1 top ten song, 6 top 40, and 10 top 75 songs in the UK charts.

Twisterella

Any minute you will feel the chemistry
Vibrations in the brain can’t ever be explained
Slip away and out of sight, feel the magnet of a night
The circus that you see is where you have to be

If I’ve seen it all before why’s this bus taking me back again?
If I don’t need anymore why’s this bus taking me back again?

Feel the weight letting go, feel more lightness than you’ve ever known
You can’t see when light’s so strong, you can’t see when light is gone

If I’ve seen it all before why’s this bus taking me back again?
If I don’t need anymore why’s this bus taking me back again?

“Look at Twisterella, she hasn’t got a fella”

Foo Fighters – Big Me

First time I heard this I liked it. It’s a sugary pop song and I was surprised at the time that Dave Grohl the drummer for Nirvana wrote and sang it.

The song peaked at #9 on the Alternative Charts and #19 in the UK in 1996.

David Grohl wrote this and many other songs on the album when he was still the drummer for Nirvana. Kurt Cobain knew he wanted to pursue projects outside of Nirvana, and had no problem with it.

The video is a takeoff on Mentos commercials. Mentos are mint candies that come in tubes. They are made in Europe, and the commercials had a campy feel. Unfortunately for The Foo Fighters, Mentos make great projectiles and for years fans would throw the candy at them when they played this.

They stopped playing the song because of the Mentos flying at them and didn’t start playing it again until Weezer, who was touring with them started to play the song.

It won the 1996 MTV Video Music Award for Best Group Video.

 

From Songfacts

This song is about being dumped. Lead Foo Dave Grohl broke it down: “Girl meets boy, boy falls in love, girl tells him to f–k off!”

The Mentos commercials became a big part of pop culture in the US. In each spot, someone gets a moment of inspiration after eating a mint and is then able to overcome some obstacle. In one spot, a woman’s car is boxed in, so she gets some burly construction workers to pick it up and move it for her. In another, a kid acts like a roadie to get backstage at a concert.

The video shows the band in similar situations, solving problems with the aid of their own special candy called Foo-tos. 

This song was often covered by Weezer when the Foo Fighters and Weezer toured together in 2005. 

The Foo Fighters released an acoustic version with Petra Haden singing with Dave Grohl for their 2006 live CD Skin and Bones.

In the video for the Foo Fighters song “Monkey Wrench,” which Grohl directed, a soothing version of “Big Me” plays as elevator music. Grohl commissioned the electronic act The Moog Cookbook, which had covered “Smells Like Teen Spirit” to his liking, to create this rendition for the video. The full electro version of “Big Me” can be heard on the Moog Cookbook compilation album Bartell.

Big Me

When I talk about it
It carries on
Reasons only knew
When I talk about it
Aries or treasons
All renew

Big me to talk about it
I could stand to prove
If we can get around it
I know that it’s true

When I talked about it
Carried on
Reasons only knew

But it’s you I fell into

When I talk about it
It carries on
Reasons only knew
When I talk about it
Aries or treasons
All renew

Big me to talk about it
I could stand to prove
If we can get around it
I know that it’s true

Well I talked about it
Put it on
Never was it true
But it’s you I fell into

Well I talked about it
Put it on
Never was it true
But it’s you I fell into

I fell into
I fell into

Traveling Wilburys – She’s My Baby

This was the lead single off of Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3 released in 1990..The song was written by the four members  George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Bob Dylan, and Tom Petty…Roy Orbison had passed away by this time.  The song peaked at #2 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Songs Charts in 1990.

The Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3 peaked at #11 in 1990. The Vol 3 album was really their 2nd album and it was good but not great like the first one. Roy being gone left a big hole because you cannot just replace Roy’s voice.

 

She’s My Baby

She’s got her pudding in the oven
And it’s gonna be good
She better not leave me
And go out to Hollywood
She got the best pudding in the neighborhood
She’s my baby

She can drive a truck
She can drive a train (My baby, m-my my baby)
She can even drive an aeroplane
She’s so good to look at in the rain
She’s my baby

She’s comin’ down the sidewalk
She’s stumblin’ through the door
She’s coming home from places
She’s never been before
She sits down on the sofa
She pours herself a drink
Says, honey, honey, honey, ain’t no time to think

My baby
My baby

My baby

She’s got a body for business
Got a head for sin
She knocks me over like a bowling pin
She came home last night and said
Honey, honey, honey, it’s hard to get ahead

My baby
My baby

She can build a boat
She can make it float (My baby, m-my my baby)
She can play my guitar
Note for note
She likes to stick her tongue right down my throat
She’s my baby
My baby
My baby
My baby

Yogi Bear

Yogi Bear –  “I’m smarter than the average bear”,

I always liked Yogi Bear and would watch it when I got a chance…if only for the way he said pic-a-nic baskets.

Yogi first started out as a sidekick in a Hanna-Barbera show called The Huckleberry Hound Show in 1958. He was the first Hanna-Barbera character to break out.

In 1961 he was given his own show called The Yogi Bear Show. His show included other segments like Yakky Doodle and Snagglepuss.  The show also featured episodes with Yogi Bear breaking away from the unadventurous life of other bears in Yellowstone Park.

The plot was basically Yogi raiding picnic baskets, dodging hibernation, being chased by Ranger Smith,  and making money together with his more honest sidekick Boo-Boo Bear. The show also featured episodes of Ranger Smith trying to tame Yogi and Boo-Boo Bear.

Around this time the great baseball player Yogi Berra sued Hanna-Barbera for defamation. But Hanna-Barbera claimed that the similarity of the names was just purely coincidental. Eventually, Yogi Berra withdrew his suit. When Yogi Berra died the AP’s wire service mistakenly announced the death of Yogi Bear instead…that is sad.

Yogi starred in a feature film, Hey There, It’s Yogi Bear, in 1964.

Yogi’s personality was based on Art Carney’s character from The Honeymooners.

The Yogi Bear Show lasted only 2 season but other shows featuring Yogi continued on. Yogi Bear and Friends, Yogi’s Gang, Yogi’s Space Race, Galaxy Goof-Ups, Yogi’s Treasure Hunt, The New Yogi Bear Show, and Yo Yogi! Yogi was on the air from 1958 to the 1990s.

Daws Butler originated the voice of Yogi and did it from 1958 to 1988 when he passed away. He was replaced by Greg Burson who was personally taught by Butler on how to do Yogi’s voice and other characters.

Nirvana – The Man Who Sold The World

I rarely post covers but this is a good one. No one will ever top Bowie’s version to me but this one has a charm about it I like. Cobain did a good job on this.

David Bowie liked this cover saying, “I was simply blown away when I found that Kurt Cobain liked my work, and have always wanted to talk to him about his reasons for covering ‘The Man Who Sold the World’.”

What he didn’t like were the kids that come up after his show and say, ‘It’s cool you’re doing a Nirvana song.’ And I think, ‘F**k you, you little tosser!”

Nirvana performed it on the MTV Unplugged episode a few months before Kurt died.

The song peaked at #5 in the US Alternative Top 50, #22 in Canada, and #1 in Poland in 1995.

From Songfacts

This song is about a man who no longer recognizes himself and feels awful about it. For years, Bowie struggled with his identity and expressed himself through his songs, often creating characters to perform them. On the album cover, Bowie is wearing a dress.

Some of the lyrics are based on a poem by Hugh Mearns called The Psychoed:

As I was going up the stair
I met a man who was not there
He wasn’t there again today
I wish that man would go away

Some lyrical analysis: “We passed upon the stair” is a figurative representation of a crossroads in Bowie’s life, where Ziggy Stardust catches a glimpse of his former self, (being David Bowie) which he thought had died a long time ago. Then he (the old David Bowie) says: “Oh no, not me. I never lost control.” This indicates that Bowie never really lost sight of who he was, but he Sold The World (made them believe) that he had become Ziggy, and he thought it was funny (I laughed and shook his hand). He goes on to state, “For years and years I roamed,” which could refer to touring. “Gaze a gazely stare at all the millions here” are the fans at concerts. >>

The album is one of Bowie’s least known, but over the years many fans have come to appreciate it and a lot of bands have covered songs from it.

Critics weren’t always sure what to make of it either, but John Mendelssohn had a good handle on it when he wrote of the album in Rolling Stone magazine, 1971: “Bowie’s music offers an experience that is as intriguing as it is chilling, but only to the listener sufficiently together to withstand the schizophrenia.”

The British singer Lulu (“To Sir With Love”) recorded this in 1974. Bowie produced her version and played saxophone on the track. It went to #4 in the UK. Lulu spoke to Uncut magazine June 2008 about her recording: “I first met Bowie on tour in the early ’70s when he invited me to his concert. And back at the hotel, he said to me, in very heated language, ‘I want to make an MF of a record with you. You’re a great singer.’ I didn’t think it would happen, but he followed up two days later. He was uber cool at the time and I just wanted to be led by him. I didn’t think ‘The Man Who Sold The World’ was the greatest song for my voice, but it was such a strong song in itself. In the studio, Bowie kept telling me to smoke more cigarettes, to give my voice a certain quality. We were like the odd couple. Were we ever an item? I’d rather not answer that one, thanks!
For the video, people thought he came up with the androgynous look, but that was all mine. It was very Berlin cabaret. We did other songs, too, like ‘Watch That Man,’ ‘Can You Hear Me?’ and ‘Dodo.’ ‘The Man Who Sold The World’ saved me from a certain niche in my career. If we’d have carried on, it would have been very interesting.”

Nirvana recorded this for their 1993 MTV Unplugged performance. It was Chad Channing, who was Nirvana’s drummer from 1988-1990, who introduced Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic to Bowie’s music. Chad told us: “We were in Boston and stopped by this record store, and I found this copy of The Man Who Sold The World. It was a cool copy – it had the poster in it and everything. And those guys weren’t familiar with the record. And I inquired about, ‘What David Bowie do you like? Do you like David Bowie?’ And they’re like, ‘Well, the only David Bowie we’re familiar with is ‘Let’s Dance.’ I was surprised. I was like, ‘Really? Wow.’ I was like, ‘You’ve got to hear some early David Bowie, for sure.’

So when I got the opportunity, I made a tape of the record at somebody’s house, and then while we were touring around I just went ahead and popped the tape in and let it roll. After a bit, Kurt turned around and said to me, ‘Who is this?’ kind of like knowingly, just something familiar with the voice and stuff. I said, ‘Well, this is David Bowie. This is The Man Who Sold the World record.’ He’s like, ‘Yeah, this is really cool.’ I said, ‘You should check out Hunky Dory and stuff.’ And so eventually, I’m sure he did. But he totally dug it.”

Months after the MTV show, Kurt Cobain was found dead. The acoustic set was released as an album in late 1994.

Bauhaus lead singer Peter Murphy called this “the first true goth record.”

Beck performed this song with Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic and Pat Smear at the annual Clive Davis Grammy pre-party on February 14, 2016 in tribute to Bowie, who passed away a month earlier. “He’s always been kind of guidepost or gravitational force for me,” Beck said of Bowie.

On March 29, 2016, Michael Stipe performed this song on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, accompanied only by a piano. Two days later, Stipe sang “Ashes To Ashes” with Karen Elston at a Bowie tribute concert held at Carnegie Hall.

 

The video of The Man Who Sold The World has been giving me troubles…if it is not below…here is the link.

The Man Who Sold The World

We passed upon the stair
We spoke of was and when
Although I wasn’t there
He said I was his friend
Which came as a surprise
I spoke into his eyes
I thought you died alone
A long long time ago

Oh no, not me
We never lost control
You’re face to face
With the man who sold the world

I laughed and shook his hand
And made my way back home
I searched for form and land
For years and years I roamed
I gazed a gazeless stare
We marked a million hills
I must have died alone
A long, long time ago

Who knows?
Not me
I never lost control
You’re face to face
With the man who sold the world

Who knows?
Not me
We never lost control
You’re face to face
With the man who sold the world

U2 – One

This is one of my top U2 songs… it was on the album Achtung Baby released in 1991. the song peaked at #10 on the Billboard 100 in 1992. Johnny Cash covered it on 2000’s American III: Solitary Man,..the video is at the bottom of the post.

The Edge talks about when they came up with it: Suddenly something very powerful happening in the room. Everyone recognized it was a special piece. It was like we’d caught a glimpse of what the song could be. It was a pivotal song in the recording of the album, the first breakthrough in what was an extremely difficult set of sessions.

The band wrote this song in Berlin after being there for months trying to record Achtung Baby. The Berlin Wall had just fallen, so the band was hoping to find inspiration from the struggle and change. Instead, they found themselves at odds with each other and unable to do much productive work.

Most of the song was written in about 30 minutes and it rejuvenated the band creatively. When they left Berlin, they had little to show for it except for this song, but they were able to complete the album back home in Ireland with this song as the centerpiece of the album.

Achtung Baby peaked at #1 on the Billboard Album Charts in 1991. 

 

This was voted best single in the 1992 Rolling Stone reader’s poll. U2 also won for best album, band, and comeback of the year. In 2003, it was voted the best song ever by Q magazine.

 

From Songfacts

This song can be interpreted in many ways. Bono, who wrote the lyrics, has always been a bit vague, saying it is “about relationships.” Here are some interpretations:

1) The song could relate to the reunification of Germany, where the band recorded it.

2) It could be about the dissolution of The Edge’s marriage to Aislinn O’Sullivan. The couple was having problems in their relationship and split soon after the sessions. Bono was the best man at their wedding.

3) It could be about the band putting their differences aside and coming together to make the album.

4) Bono may have been writing about his good friend, the Irish painter Guggi, who was having girl trouble.

5) The song could represent a conversation between an AIDS victim and his father.

Proceeds from the single were donated to AIDS research, which was stated on the liner notes of the single. Also printed on the notes was this statement: “The image on the cover is a photograph by the American artist David Wojnarowicz, depicting how Indians hunted buffalo by causing them to run off cliffs. Wojnarowicz identifies himself and ourselves with the buffalo, pushed into the unknown by forces we cannot control or even understand. Wojnarowicz is an activist artist and writer whose work has created controversy recently through its uncompromising depiction of the artist’s homosexuality, his infection by the H.I.V. virus and the political crisis surrounding AIDS.”

The Edge came up with the guitar track while working on “Mysterious Ways.” Once he came up with this guitar part, they quickly started writing “One.”

Three different videos were made, each interpreting the song differently. The first, directed by Mark Pellington, shows a buffalo running in a field. The second, which was mostly seen in Europe, featured U2 in drag. The third, shown mostly in the US, is built around Bono reflecting over a cigarette.

Director and photographer Anton Corbijn was at the helm for the video that featured the band in drag. He told The Guardian September 24, 2005: “I had been working with U2 as a photographer for 10 years at this stage and we’d had our ups and downs. I’d done one video for them in 1984 for ‘Pride.’ It was a disaster and no one ever saw it. It took them eight years to give me another chance. I really wanted to put a lot of effort into it to prove myself to them as a director. I even hand-painted the cars that appear in the video myself. I themed the whole thing around the notion of ‘one’ although I don’t think that’s what Bono was actually singing about. That’s why I filmed it in Berlin because the wall had just come down. And I filmed the band performing in a circle like a single unit. I showed Bono’s dad at one end of a seesaw to suggest that on your own you are not always balanced. I liked Bono’s father very much but they had a very complex relationship.

I think it meant a lot for them to appear together. These were all my own ideas but U2 are very much a band who like to meet up and talk about things. There are always a lot of meetings with them! But they cleared all the ideas, including the one about them appearing in drag. Later though, they decided that some of the proceeds from the single would go to Aids charities. They became nervous that the drag element in the video might link Aids to the homosexual community in a negative way. So they dropped the video and got someone else to film something.

It was so painful for me at the time. They replaced it with a video of Bono in a bar surrounded by models, which I particularly didn’t like. But once the song had died in the charts a few months later they got MTV to start running my video instead. That’s why I like working with U2: they have stayed very loyal to me, which is rare in music.”

According to The Guardian, Bono’s father, Robert Hewson, appeared in the song’s video. He later complained to his son that he hadn’t been paid.

In 2005, Bono got involved in the “One” campaign, which tried to convince the US government to give an additional 1% of its budget to help poor regions in Africa. On the Vertigo tour, fans who signed up had their names displayed on video screens when U2 played this.

Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen performed this at the “MTV Rock n Roll Inaugural Ball” for Bill Clinton in 1993 with Michael Stipe and Mike Mills from R.E.M. The impromptu group became known as “Automatic Baby,” a combination of album titles Automatic For The People and Achtung Baby.

The “buffalo” video directed by Mark Pellington was comprised of projections he made for the Zoo TV tour. In a Songfacts interview with Pellington, he explained: “They had made a video for the song already – that Anton Corbijn had done – of them in drag, and they weren’t really crazy about it. So, they released mine, and it was out there for a while. It was a very ‘anti-video’: no band, a slow art piece. And they made a third version of the video with Bono singing in a bar.

It always was interesting to me to have more than one video for a song. I don’t know why bands don’t do that more.”

Pellington later worked on the 2007 film U2 3D.

On the Popmart tour in Mexico City, while the Edge played the intro Bono said, “This one goes out to a mate of ours, a great mate, a great singer, we’re sorry, we’re sorry, for Michael Hutchence.” 

On their 2001-2002 tour, a list of victims of the September 11 attacks was projected on a screen while they performed this.

In 2006, after Bank of America merged with MBNA, BoA held a corporate conference where Ethan Chandler, who managed a New York branch, performed a new version of this song celebrating the merger. Sample lyric: “And we’ve got Bank One on the run. What’s in your wallet? It’s not Capital One.” Thankfully, someone leaked the video and it ended up on YouTube, where you can see it in all its glory. Watch for the standing ovation at the end.

Mary J. Blige sang this with Bono in 2006 for a benefit for victims of hurricane Katrina. Blige then recorded it with Bono and U2 for her album Reminisce.

In a March 2007 poll carried out by The Tony Fenton Show on the Irish radio station Today FM, this was voted the Best Irish Single Ever.

Bono explained the meaning of this song to Rolling Stone in 2005: “It’s a father-and-son story. I tried to write about someone I knew who was coming out and was afraid to tell his father. It’s a religious father and son… I have a lot of gay friends, and I’ve seen them screwed up from unloving family situations, which just are completely anti-Christian. If we know anything about God, it’s that God is love. That’s part of the song. And then it’s also about people struggling to be together, and how difficult it is to stay together in this world, whether you’re in a band or a relationship.” >>

The line “One life, with each other, sisters, brothers” was voted the UK’s favorite song lyric in a 2006 poll by music channel VH1.

Anyone thinking of using this at their wedding might want to reconsider. “‘One’ is not about oneness, it’s about difference,” Bono points out in the book U2 by U2. “It is not the old hippie idea of ‘Let’s all live together.’ It is a much more punk rock concept. It’s anti-romantic: ‘We are one, but we’re not the same. We get to carry each other.’ It’s a reminder that we have no choice. I’m still disappointed when people hear the chorus line as ‘we’ve got to’ rather than ‘we get to carry each other.’ Because it is resigned, really. It’s not: ‘Come on everybody, let’s vault over the wall.’ Like it or not, the only way out of here is if I give you a leg up the wall and you pull me after you. There’s something very unromantic about that. The song is a bit twisted, which is why I could never figure out why people want it at their weddings. I have certainly met a hundred people who’ve had it at their weddings. I tell them, ‘Are you mad? It’s about splitting up!'”

The Edge offers his take: “The lyric was the first in a new, more intimate style. It’s two ideas, essentially. On one level it’s a bitter, twisted, vitriolic conversation between two people who’ve been through some nasty, heavy stuff: ‘We hurt each other, then we do it again.’ But on another level there’s the idea that ‘we get to carry each other.’ ‘Get to’ is the key. ‘Got to’ would be too obvious and platitudinous. ‘Get to’ suggests it is our privilege to carry one another. It puts everything in perspective and introduces the idea of grace. Still, I wouldn’t have played it at any wedding of mine.”

This was featured in the trailer for the 2000 Nicolas Cage movie The Family Man. It was not used in the movie itself.

One

Is it getting better
Or do you feel the same?
Will it make it easier on you now?
You got someone to blame

You say one love, one life (One life)
It’s one need in the night
One love (one love), get to share it
Leaves you darling, if you don’t care for it

Did I disappoint you?
Or leave a bad taste in your mouth?
You act like you never had love
And you want me to go without

Well it’s too late, tonight
To drag the past out into the light
We’re one, but we’re not the same
We get to carry each other
Carry each other

One, one
One, one
One, one
One, one

Have you come here for forgiveness?
Have you come to raise the dead?
Have you come here to play Jesus?
To the lepers in your head
Well, did I ask too much, more than a lot?
You gave me nothing, now it’s all I got
We’re one, but we’re not the same
See we hurt each other, then we do it again
You say love is a temple, love is a higher law
Love is a temple, love is a higher law
You ask me of me to enter, but then you make me crawl
And I can’t keep holding on to what you got, ’cause all you got is hurt

One love
One blood
One life
You got to do what you should
One life
With each other
Sisters and my brothers
One life
But we’re not the same
We get to carry each other, carry each other

One, one
One, one

One
One love, one life

Traveling Wilburys – If You Belonged To Me

Next, to other Dylan songs, this one is lighter but maybe that is the reason I like it…Bob seems loose on this song and it’s nice to hear him sound so relaxed.

I still know every word to this song. I had the Wilburys Vol 3 cassette and I wore it out in my car. Was it as good as the first album? No, but I still liked it a bunch. This song is pure Dylan but Dylan sounding vulnerable. Of all the members of this supergroup…Bob seemed to enjoy being part of a band and not being the focus for a change. He sounds like he is having fun.

Roy was gone by this album and he is sorely missed. He was like having the equivalent of a vocal ace up your sleeve that no one could match. This song was on the Traveling Wilburys Vol 3 and the album peaked at #11 in 1990.

If You Belonged To Me

Waltzing around the room tonight
In someone else’s clothes
You’re always coming out of things
Smelling like a rose

You hang your head and your heart is filled
With so much misery
You’d be happy as you could be
If you belonged to me

You say, “Let’s go to the rodeo
And see some cowboy fall”
Sometimes it seems to me you’ve
Got no sympathy at all

You keep on going on and on
About how you’re so free
You’d be happy as you could be
If you belonged to me

It ain’t easy to get to you
But there must be some kind of a way
If only two could look to you
For only one moment of each day

You’re saying that you’re all washed up
Got nothing else to give
Seems like you never figured out
How long you have to live

You could feel like a baby again
Sitting on your daddy’s knee
Oh, how happy you would be
If you belonged to me

The guy you’re with is a ruthless pimp
Everybody knows
Every cent he takes from you
Goes straight up his nose

You look so sad, you’re going so mad
Any fool can see
You’d be happy as you could be
If you belong to me
You’d be happy as you could be
If you belong to me

Traveling Wilburys – Nobody’s Child

This song was not on an official Wilburys album. It was on a benefit album Nobody’s Child: Romanian Angel Appeal (a charity album released in 1990 to benefit Romanian orphans) released in 1990.  It was written by Cy Coben and Mel Foree. Hank Snow did this song in the 50s and it didn’t chart for him. In the UK Lonnie Donegan covered this song also.

George was very familiar with the song. This was a song that the Beatles backed Tony Sheridan with as the Beat Brothers before they became known. The song is a sad song and what caught my attention in the Wilburys version is Jeff Lynne’s high vocal through the second chorus…beautiful song.

All the Wilburys vocals are wonderful in this song.

Nobody’s Child

As I was slowly passing, an orphans home today
I stopped for just a little while to watch the children play
A lone boy standin’, and when I asked him why
He turned with eyes that could not see, and he began to cry

I’m nobody’s child, I’m nobody’s child
Just like a flower I’m growin’ wild
No mama’s arms to hold me no daddy’s smile
Nobody wants me, I’m nobody’s child

In every town and village
There are places just like this
With rows and rows of children
And babies in their cribs

They’ve long since stopped their cryin’
As no-one ever hears
And no-one there to notice them or take away their fears

Nobody’s child, they’re nobody’s child
Just like a flower they’re growin wild
No mama’s arms to hold them, no daddy’s smile
Nobody wants them they’re nobody’s child

Nobody’s child, they’re nobody’s child
Just like a flower they’re growin wild
No mama’s arms to hold them, no daddy’s smile
Nobody wants them they’re nobody’s child
Nobody wants them they’re nobody’s child

Matthew Sweet – Sick Of Myself —Powerpop Friday

Sick of Myself peaked at #52 on the Billboard 100 in 1995. I first heard of Matthew Sweet with his 1992 song Girlfriend. Sweet specializes in catchy melodic hooks and this song is no exception.

Sick of Myself was on his album 100% Fun that peaked on the Billboard album charts at #65 in 1995.

From Songfacts

In this nihilistic song, Matthew Sweet is so out-of-sorts over a girl, he’s made himself sick. The world may be ugly and a lie, but she’s beautiful and true, and it’s driving him mad.

Sweet has admitted that many of his songs are personal, but they’re not necessarily a plea for help.

This was Matthew Sweet’s biggest hit, earning airplay on rock radio alongside the likes of Soundgarden and Collective Soul. He was 31 and well into his career when the song reached its chart peak in 1995. After making a name for himself in the Athens, Georgia music scene, he got a deal with Columbia Records and release his first album in 1986. His follow-up came in 1989, but neither charted and the label dropped him. Zoo Records issued his breakthrough, Girlfriend, in 1991 after a tumultuous time when he went through a divorce and lost his record collection to flood damage.

Richard Lloyd, founder of the exalted New York City band Television, played guitar on this track. Sweet and Lloyd crossed paths in the ’80s when they played together in a band called the Golden Palominos. Lloyd played on three songs from Sweet’s 1989 album Earth, and contributed to his subsequent albums up to and including 100% Fun.

In a Songfacts interview with Richard Lloyd, he said: “Matthew used to fly me in and he would send me demos like a week before. I’d listen to them through and then I would get there and they would have new songs or different songs. Some songs he would just throw at me, and depending upon the emotion in the song itself, that would lend itself to a certain kind of playing, and ‘Sick Of Myself’ had that kind of angst in it, so I tried to portray that.”

The video was directed by Roman Coppola, son Francis Ford Coppola of Godfather fame.

We don’t know this for sure, but this is likely the second-highest-charting song on the Hot 100 by a solo artist who was born and raised in Nebraska [Sweet is from Lincoln, Nebraska]. The only one we found to top it is “Never Been In Love” by Randy Meisner, which went to #28 in 1982. Nebraskan Buddy Miles charted a few times, but never higher than #62 with “Them Changes” in 1971.

The album title comes from a line in Kurt Cobain’s suicide note: “The worst crime I can think of would be to rip people off by faking it and pretending as if I’m having 100% fun.”

Sick Of Myself

You don’t know how you move me
deconstruct me and consume me.
I’m all used up, I’m out of luck I am star struck
By something in your eyes
that is keeping my hope alive.

But I’m sick of myself when I look at you 
something is beautiful and true.
World that’s ugly and a lie
it’s hard to even want to try.
I’m beginning to think
maybe you don’t know.

I’ll take a leave, the room to breathe 
The choice to leave it
I’ll throw away a chance at greatness just to make this
dream come into play
I don’t know if I’ll find a way

‘Cause I’m sick of myself when I look at you 
something is beautiful and true.
World that’s ugly and a lie
it’s hard to even want to try.
I’m beginning to think
maybe you don’t know.

I’m beginning to think
maybe you don’t know.

Something in your eyes
that is keeping my hope alive.

But I’m sick of myself when I look at you 
something is beautiful and true.
World that’s ugly and a lie
it’s hard to even want to try.
I’m beginning to think
maybe you don’t know.

I’m beginning to think
maybe you don’t know.

Movie Quotes Part 4

Jaws – You’re are going to need a bigger boat.

Easy Rider – We Blew It

The Godfather – Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.

The Big Lebowski – Smokey This is not ‘Nam. This is bowling. There are rules.

At 1:10…but it’s only 2:16 long…it’s worth a complete listen

Animal House – What? Over? Did you say ‘over’? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!

Caddyshack – You buy a hat like this, I bet you get a free bowl of soup.

What About Bob? – Roses are red, violets are blue, I’m schizophrenic, and so am I

Scarface – I always tell the truth. Even when I lie.

Duck Soup – I got a good mind to join a club and beat you over the head with it.

It’s A Wonderful Life – Well, you look about the kind of angel I’d get. Sort of a fallen angel, aren’t you? What happened to your wings?

At 3:13 – 3:20

 

 

 

Nicky Hopkins

I’ve never been a keyboard player…but when I think of keyboardists this man comes to mind. He was one of the busiest session men in the business.

Nicky Hopkins started with Screaming Lord Sutch’s Savages, which also included Jimmy Page… He played with the Cyril Davies All-Stars, one of the first British rhythm & blues bands. Because of illnesses, he started to play on studio sessions. In the studio, he played with the Beatles, Who, Kinks, Rolling Stones and just about everyone else of that era.

He later joined the Jeff Beck Group and was a full member of the Quicksilver Messenger Service.

I’ve read about Nicky from other artists books when I was younger but didn’t know until the internet how many great recordings he played on…Also that he sometimes toured with bands like the Stones on perhaps their greatest tour…the 1972 tour. The first I heard of him was reading he played piano on Revolution by the Beatles.

Here are some other artists talking about Nicky.

Ray Davies: Nicky, unlike lesser musicians, didn’t try to show off; he would only play when necessary. But he had the ability to turn an ordinary track into a gem – slotting in the right chord at the right time or dropping a set of triplets around the back beat, just enough to make you want to dance. On a ballad, he could sense which notes to wrap around the song without being obtrusive. He managed to give “Days,” for instance, a mysterious religious quality without being sentimental or pious.

Pete Townshend: “Nicky was a great talent…He is gone but his wonderful playing will live on and I’m proud that so much of his work will be heard as part of my own. Nicky is a big part of my work and I think of him often.”

Joe Walsh: “We just said, “Hey, we’re not going to tell you what to play! You can play anything you want, dude and it’ll be just fine with us.” Nicky was at his absolute best. He was just playing fantastic and coming up with these parts that just were so special.”

Keith Richards: “What I liked about Nicky is you’d give him a song and he’d develop it, with a couple of passes, into something, almost immediately. He was so easy to work with and he could hang; we’d do sessions for fifteen hours, sometimes two days
and he’d still be there, you know.”

Nicky died in Nashville Tn in 1994 from complications of surgery from Crohn’s Disease.

Below I copied a highlight of his discography.

It’s from the Nicky Hopkins website…It reads like a who’s who in music. These are just some of the albums and singles Nicky played on.

http://www.nickyhopkins.com/?page_id=6

NICKY HOPKINS DISCOGRAPHY HIGHLIGHTS

THE SIXTIES

THE WHO, My Generation, Brunswick/Decca USA
THE KINKS, The Kinks Kontroversy, Pye/Reprise
NICKY HOPKINS, The Revolutionary Piano Of…, CBS
THE KINKS, Face To Face, Pye / Reprise
ROLLING STONES, Between The Buttons, Decca/London
ROLLING STONES, Their Satanic Majesties Request, Decca/London
ROLLING STONES, Beggar’s Banquet, Decca/London
KINKS, Village Green Preservation Society, Pye/Reprise
JEFF BECK GROUP, Truth, Columbia/Epic
THE KINKS, Something Else By The Kinks, Pye/Reprise
DUSTY SPRINGFIELD, Dusty…Definitely, Philips
ROLLING STONES, Let It Bleed, Decca/London
JEFF BECK GROUP, Beck-Ola, Columbia / Epic
STEVE MILLER BAND, Brave New World, Capitol
STEVE MILLER BAND, Your Saving Grace, Capitol
JEFFERSON AIRPLANE, Volunteers, RCA
FAMILY, Entertainment, Reprise
ROY HARPER, Folkjokeopus, Liberty
ELLA FITZGERALD, Ella, Warner Brothers
THE MOVE, The Move, Cube
BILLY NICHOLLS, Would You Believe, Immediate

THE SEVENTIES

STEVE MILLER BAND, Number 5, Capitol
QUICKSILVER MESSENGER SERVICE, Shady Grove, Capitol
VARIOUS, Woodstock, Atlantic
ROLLING STONES, Sticky Fingers, Rolling Stones Records
THE WHO, Who’s Next, Track
NICKY HOPKINS, Jamming With Edward, Rolling Stones Records
JOHN LENNON, Imagine, Apple
ROLLING STONES, Exile On Main Street, Rolling Stones Records
HARRY NILSSON, Son Of Schmilsson, RCA Victor
CARLY SIMON, No Secrets, Elektra
NICKY HOPKINS, The Tin Man Was A Dreamer, CBS
GEORGE HARRISON, Living In The Material World, Apple
RINGO STARR, Ringo, Apple
ROLLING STONES, Goat’s Head Soup, Rolling Stones Records
ANDY WILLIAMS, Solitaire, CBS
JOHN LENNON, Walls & Bridges, Apple
ROLLING STONES, It’s Only Rock’n’Roll, Rolling Stones Records
JOE COCKER, I Can Stand A Little Rain, Fly
PETER FRAMPTON, Something’s Happening, A & M
RINGO STARR, Goodnight Vienna, Apple
MARTHA REEVES, Martha Reeves, MCA
NICKY HOPKINS, No More Changes, Mercury (US)
ART GARFUNKEL, Breakaway, CBS
ROLLING STONES, Black & Blue, Rolling Stones Records
JERRY GARCIA, Reflections, United Artists
ROD STEWART, Footloose And Fancy Free, Warner Brothers
JENNIFER WARNES, Jennifer Warnes, Arista
ROD STEWART, Blondes Have More Fun, Riva
LOWELL GEORGE, Thanks I’ll Eat It Here, Warner Brothers
POINTER SISTERS, Priority, Planet

THE EIGHTIES

ROLLING STONES, Emotional Rescue, Rolling Stones Records
TIM HARDIN, Unforgiven, Arc International
GRAHAM PARKER & THE RUMOUR, The Up Escalator, Stiff
ROLLING STONES, Tattoo You, Rolling Stones Records
NILS LOFGREN, Night Fades Away, MCA/Backstreets
MEATLOAF, Dead Ringer, Cleveland/Epic
GRAHAM PARKER & THE RUMOUR, Another Grey Area, RCA
DUSTY SPRINGFIELD, White Heat, Mercury/Casablanca
KING OF COMEDY, Soundtrack, Warner Brothers
CARL WILSON, Youngblood, Caribou
JULIO IGLESIAS, 1100 Bel Air Place, CBS
BELINDA CARLISLE, Belinda, IRS
ROD STEWART, Rod Stewart/Every Beat Of My Heart, Warner Brothers
PAUL MCCARTNEY, Flowers In The Dirt,Capitol
JACK BRUCE, A Question Of Time, Epic

THE NINETIES

ROGER CHAPMAN, Hybrid & Lowdown, Polydor
GARY MOORE, Still Got The Blues, Virgin
NICKY HOPKINS, The Fugitive (Soundtrack), Toshiba-EMI
NICKY HOPKINS, Patio (Soundtrack), Toshiba-EMI
JAYHAWKS, Hollywood Town Hall, Columbia
JOE SATRIANI, Extremist, Legacy Recordings
SPINAL TAP, Break Like The Wind, MCA
MATTHEW SWEET, Altered Beast, Zoo/BMG
JOE WALSH, Robocop Soundtrack, Rhino/Pyramid
GENE CLARK, Under The Silvery Moon, Delta De Luxe
FRANKIE MILLER, Long Way Home, Jerkin’ Crocus

THE SINGLES

SCREAMING LORD SUTCH, Jack The Ripper/Don’t You Just Know It, Decca
THE WHO, Anyway Anyhow Anywhere , Brunswick
THE KINKS, Till The End Of The Day, Pye/Reprise
CYRIL DAVIES R & B ALL STARS, Country Line Special/Chicago Calling, Pye International/Dot
CLIFF BENNETT & REBEL ROUSERS, My Old Standby (B-Side), Parlophone
RITCHIE BLACKMORE ORCHESTRA, Little Brown Jug/Getaway, Oriole
VASHTI, Some Things Just Stick In Your Mind ,Decca
DAVY JONES & THE LOWER THIRD, You’ve Got A Habit Of Leaving, Parlophone
PRETTY THINGS, Midnight To Six Man, Fontana
THE KINKS, Dedicated Follower Of Fashion, Pye/Reprise
THE KINKS, Sunny Afternoon, Pye/Reprise
DAVID BOWIE, Can’t Help Thinking About Myself, Pye
TWICE AS MUCH, Sittin’ On A Fence/Baby I Want You, Immediate
CAT STEVENS, Matthew And Son/Granny, Deram
ROLLING STONES, We Love You, Decca/London
ROLLING STONES, 2000 Light Years/She’s A Rainbow, Decca/London
NICKY HOPKINS, Mr. Pleasant, Polydor/Decca
THE KINKS, Autumn Almanac, Pye (UK)
DAVE DAVIES, Death Of A Clown, Pye/Reprise
JEFF BECK, Beck’s Bolero, Columbia/Epic
YARDBIRDS, Little Games, Columbia
MARC BOLAN, Jasper C. Debussy, Track
PP ARNOLD, The First Cut Is The Deepest, Immediate
BEATLES, Hey Jude/Revolution (B-side), Apple
ROLLING STONES, Jumpin’ Jack Flash, Decca/London
THE KINKS, Days, Pye/Reprise
DONOVAN, Goo Goo Barabajagal, Epic
SCAFFOLD, Lily The Pink, Parlophone
FATS DOMINO, Have You Seen My Baby, Reprise
JOHN LENNON/PLASTIC ONO BAND, Happy Christmas/War Is Over, Apple
THE WHO, Let’s See Action, Track
ROLLING STONES, Tumbling Dice, Rolling Stones
HARRY NILSSON, Remember Christmas, RCA
ROLLING STONES, Angie, Rolling Stones
GEORGE HARRISON, Give Me Love, Apple
RINGO STARR, Photograph, Apple
RINGO STARR, You’re Sixteen, Apple
JOE COCKER, You Are So Beautiful, A & M
ART GARFUNKEL, I Only Have Eyes For You, Columbia
JULIO IGLESIAS / WILLIE NELSON, To All The Girls I’ve Loved Before, CBS
JOE WALSH / STEVE EARLE, Honey Don’t (Beverley Hillbillies), Fox Records
JOE WALSH / FRANKIE MILLER, Guilty Of The Crime, Pyramid
PAUL MCCARTNEY, Beautiful Night/Same Love, Oobu-Joobu 6

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dixie Chicks – Wide Open Spaces

I’m not a big fan of newer country music…but this song sounded fresh when it was released. The song crossed over and peaked at #41 in the Billboard 100, #1 in the US Country Songs, and #1 Canda Country Tracks in 1998. The song was on the album Wide Open Spaces and it peaked at #4 on the Billboard Album Charts, #1 on the Country Album Charts, and #1 in the Canadian Country Album Charts in 1999.

Susan Gibson wrote the song years earlier. Gibson was the lead singer of the alt-country band The Groobees. They decided to include “Wide Open Spaces” on their album and their producer was Lloyd Maines… the father of Dixie Chicks lead singer, Natalie Maines. He thought the song would be perfect for the Dixie Chicks and they agreed. After testing it on a couple of audiences, they made it the title track for their major-label debut.

This album was the first album which Natalie Maines was the lead singer.

Their career was going great until all hell broke loose in 2003 after lead singer Natalie Maines criticized George Bush and the invasion of Iraq during a London concert. Country radio led the backlash against the Dixie Chicks. Stations banned their music and even told listeners to trash their CDs.

This defiant, nude cover on ‘Entertainment Weekly’ added fuel to the fire.

Image result for Natalie Maines nude

If this would have been a rock act that did the same thing…would this have happened? I would say no…

On June 26, 2019, The Dixie Chicks has confirmed that they are returning to music with a new studio album after a 13-year hiatus. They are expecting to record their first new studio album since 2006’s Taking the Long Way.

 

From Songfacts

This song was written by Susan Gibson, who was lead singer of a Texas-based band called The Groobees. She wrote the tune back in 1993 in a spirit of rebellion during her first return home from the University of Montana for Christmas break. “My mom probably said something like, ‘What time did you get home last night, honey?’ Whatever it was rubbed me the wrong way,” Gibson told The Montanan. “I sat down at the kitchen table and wrote furiously for twelve minutes, and then I went and did something else. I forgot all about it.” 

The lyrics were so specific to Gibson’s own experience, including lines about her dad warning her to check the oil in her car, she was hesitant about giving away such a personal song. Then she heard the Dixie Chicks’ version: “It made me bawl my eyes out. It was so beautiful—it had this stunning musicianship and very professional production. I could still see my handwriting on the page, and here was this gorgeous recording of it.”

Lloyd Maines, father of Dixie Chicks lead singer Natalie Maines, worked with The Groobees, and brought the song to the Chicks. The Groobees recorded their version in 1999. 

Thom Oliphant helmed the music video, which intercuts touring footage with the girls singing in open fields of wildflowers as well as performing at Winter Park, Colorado’s annual West Fest. In a Songfacts interview, Oliphant recalled: “That song probably moved them from big clubs to arenas over the course of that year, so we were just out documenting.

A lot of that stuff was shot without a clock ticking. You’re on a bus and we would shoot some stuff, and then it all was woven together with a couple of big days of shooting out around Denver. It made it look like it was all about the same time, but it wasn’t.”

The video was named the Country Music Association’s Video of the Year in 1999.

The Groobees broke up a couple of years after this became a hit, partly because they couldn’t agree on how to handle the success. Susan Gibson, who collected the bulk of the royalties as the tune’s sole writer, explained in Lone Star Music Magazine: “We were once a unified band with nothing to lose and all struggling in the same direction. Some band members thought that the success of that song meant that we could afford to take those crappy-paying, but good-exposure gigs. Others thought it meant we didn’t have to. That discrepancy resulted in each of us taking our own piece of the pie and going forward in our different directions.”

Gibson has since carved a career for herself as a solo artist, but still delights in hearing fans talk about the song: “Because the Dixie Chicks made that song so huge, I have enjoyed the look on people’s faces when they hear that I wrote that song. About 80 percent of the time, somebody has a cool story attached to it about leaving home, getting married, getting divorced, and breaking down in Moab, Utah. 19 percent of the time it’s like, ‘Oh! My mom loooooves that song!’ And there’s 1 percent out there that are like, ‘I don’t really listen to music.’ That’s OK. It’s the stories that I hear back from people that put a face to the huge numbers associated with that song.”

This spent four weeks at #1 on the country chart.

Wide Open Spaces

Who doesn’t know what I’m talking about
Who’s never left home, who’s never struck out
To find a dream and a life of their own
A place in the clouds, a foundation of stone

Many precede and many will follow
A young girl’s dreams no longer hollow
It takes the shape of a place out west
But what it holds for her, she hasn’t yet guessed

She needs wide open spaces
Room to make her big mistakes
She needs new faces
She knows the high stakes

She traveled this road as a child
Wide eyed and grinning, she never tired
But now she won’t be coming back with the rest
If these are life’s lessons, she’ll take this test

She needs wide open spaces
Room to make her big mistakes
She needs new faces
She knows the high stakes

She knows the high stakes

As her folks drive away, her dad yells, “Check the oil!”
Mom stares out the window and says, “I’m leaving my girl”
She said, “It didn’t seem like that long ago”
When she stood there and let her own folks know

She needed wide open spaces
Room to make her big mistakes
She needs new faces
She knows the high stakes

She knows the high stakes
She knows the highest stakes
She knows the highest stakes
She knows the highest stakes

Adam Schmitt – Garden of Love —Powerpop Friday

Thanks for the suggestions on new artists to cover…I’ve started to listen to more powerpop artists that I knew existed. In the next few weeks, I’ll feature more.

This one is by Adam Schmitt released in 1991. He is a singer/songwriter from Urbana, Illinois. There is not much on this guy except that his debut album was hailed as brilliant by the critics. There are no lyrics anywhere for his songs.

I started to listen to his debut album World So Bright and the songs are indeed very good powerpop. I’m also posting the album’s title track World So Bright.

This bio is by Heather Phares from Allmusic

Singer/songwriter Adam Schmitt first won acclaim in the early ’90s when his 1991 debut album, World So Bright, and 1993 follow-up, Illiterature, had critics hailing him as a young pop genius. However, when his label Reprise didn’t want to release a third album from him, Schmitt decided to record other artists instead, engineering, producing and mastering music for Tommy Keene, Hum, Beezus, Robynn Ragland, and others in his home studio. By 1998, Schmitt was ready to concentrate on his own music again, but his perfectionism and production work delayed the release of his third effort until the middle of 2001. That album, Demolition, was issued by Parasol; Schmitt started out as a producer by working with many of the label’s artists.

 

 

Jellyfish – Baby’s Coming Back —Powerpop Friday

This song was released in 1990 off of their debut album Bellybutton. It peaked at #62 in the Billboard 100 and #51 in the UK in 1991. I remember seeing this band open up for someone in the early 90s…I want to say it was Bob Dylan but I could be wrong.

Jellyfish only released two full albums Bellybutton and Spilt Milk. Both albums have tracks that evoke many artists such as The Beatles, Badfinger, Cheap Trick, The Beach Boys, with their vocal harmonies.

Jellyfish was formed in 1989 in San Francisco, California. The band had several members over the years but the foundation of the band was Andy Sturmer and Roger Joseph Manning, Jr.  Andy was primarily the drummer and Roger played keyboards.

In 1994, Jellyfish contributed a cover of Harry Nilsson’s “Think About Your Troubles” to the tribute album For the Love of Harry: Everybody Sings Nilsson. Jellyfish’s contribution was a personal request from Nilsson, who was a fan of the group. He died a year prior to the album’s release. The band broke up soon afterward.

 

Baby’s Coming  Back

I knew that when I saw her 
That my life would soon move over from the fast lane
Gone would be the days of all by drinkin and my carrying on
But when I settled down
The party king uncrowned
This stubborn memory hadn’t faded
Too many dumb mistakes
And all the grief it makes
Left nothing else to be debated
And if you say that you understand then you’re lyin’
But if you figure that I’m alright now I can’t deny it
Baby’s coming back
Baby’s coming back 
And I’m on my best behavior
I can’t take it anymore 
I just woke up on the floor today
I’ve long run out of my last chances but she’s on her way
If I had a dollar for every single time I fought her 
I’d buy a handgun
But that couldn’t shoot away 
The bull’s eye that she made on my heart
And if I sound like a beaten man well I guess so
But on her way is the sweetest prize and I can’t let go
Baby’s coming back
Baby’s coming back 
And I’m on my best behavior
I can’t take it anymore 
I just woke up on the floor today
I’ve long run out of my last chances but she’s on her way
What I told her on the telephone was that I’d been so bad
I wouldn’t blame her if she mowed down these wild oats I’d sown
But when she said she’d give me one more chance
I said knock three times when you arrive
Baby’s coming back…

Gin Blossoms – Til I Hear It From You —Powerpop Friday

This song was released in 1996 and was part of a double A-side with Follow You Down. The song peaked at #9 in the Billboard 100, #1 in Canada, and #30 in the UK in 1996. Billboard lists the song as Follow You Down/Til I Hear It From You. 

One of my favorite pop songs of the 90s.

Gin Blossoms lead singer Robin Wilson wrote the lyrics to this song. The music was composed by the band’s guitarist Jesse Valenzuela with help from Marshall Crenshaw. Crenshaw said that he and Valenzuela didn’t know each other, but Jesse tracked him down to help finish the song. Crenshaw wrote the verse melody and worked on the ending.

From Songfacts (Til I Hear It From You)

The music industry trade magazine Billboard called this “The closest thing to a perfect pop song to hit radio in recent memory,” a sentiment appreciated by the band’s guitarist. 

“This song reminds me why I work. I can count on hearing it in grocery stores, and I like playing it. It’s really nice pop perfection, and just saccharin enough,” says Gin Blossom Jesse Valenzuela with a chuckle. “As an artist, you have to start realizing what you do carries some value, even monetarily. And this song is a pretty big one for me to help me realize that this is what I’ll do for a living from now on. And how lucky I am – because it’s all I really love doing, and I get to do it all the time.”

The first time Jesse heard this song over the public announcement system at a grocery store, he says he almost wanted to tell somebody, “Hey! That’s my song!” he laughs. But he resisted. He remembers being proud, but being very anonymous at the time. Then there was the trip to Lowe’s (home improvement department store). “One time my wife and I went there for lighting fixtures, and she wanted one. I said, ‘Let’s go for the cheaper one.’ And she wanted one that was just a little more expensive. And I was like hemming and hawing, and all of a sudden one of my songs came on the radio, and she said, ‘It’s not as if you can’t afford to get me the more expensive one.’ I was like, ‘All right.’ She did have a case.” (read the full interview with Jesse Valenzuela)

In early 1997, right as the band was splitting up, the Gin Blossoms accepted an award from ASCAP (American Society of Composers and Publishers) for this song (along with “Follow You Down”) in recognition of having the two most-played songs the previous year.

Til I Hear It From You

I didn’t ask, they shouldn’t have told me
At first I laughed but now
It’s sinking in fast, whatever they sold me
But baby

I don’t want to take advice from fools
I’ll just figure everything is cool
Til I hear it from you

It gets hard, when memory’s faded
And who gets what the say
It’s likely they’re, just jealous and jaded
Or maybe

I don’t want to take advice from fools
I’ll just figure everything is cool
Til I hear it from you

Til I hear it from you

I can’t let it get me off
Break up my train of thought
As far as I know nothing’s wrong
Until I hear it from you

Still thinking about not living without it
Outside looking in, till we’re talking about
Not stepping around it
Maybe

I don’t want to take advice from fools
I’ll just figure everything is cool
Til I hear it from you

Til I hear it from you