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Star Trek – Miri

★★★★★ October 27, 1966 Season 1 Episode 8

If you want to see where we are…and you missed a few…HERE is a list of the episodes in my index located at the top of my blog.

***Dave at A Sound Day has given me the honor to host his site today…check it out if you can***

This show was written by Adrian Spies and Gene Roddenberry

This is a wonderful episode of Star Trek. Miri is a name of a girl played by Kim Darby and she is brilliant in that role. I’m reminded of Lord of the Flies with a dash of a dark Peter Pan while watching this episode. A planet that is a replica of earth that has a disease that affects kids as soon as they start puberty. They start the symptoms with sores and then go berserk and die shortly thereafter.

The problem started with the earlier people on the planet experimenting with trying to prolong life. They ended up creating a serious virus (hmmm been there done that). The catch is the kids do have prolonged lives and are hundreds of years old before they reach puberty but they still have the maturity of children. The crew get there and because of their age start contracting the disease.

Bones and Spock are trying to come up with the vaccine while the children steal the communicators of the crew. Miri is a young woman about to hit puberty and is showing signs of the disease. She is not trusting of the Enterprise crew at first but then warms up to Captain Kirk and develops a crush on him. She is also jealous of Yeoman Janis Rand because of her close relationship with Kirk. She wants to help the captain and crew, to find a cure but she is scared and jealous. Can Kirk find the rest of the kids to get their help along with Miri?

This is one of my favorite episodes

From IMDB

Leonard Nimoy was asked to allow his children to appear as extras but Nimoy refused to let his children be involved in show business. His son, Adam Nimoy, did grow up to become a television director, including a few episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987).

The first of several “parallel Earth” plots in the series, contrived to save money by avoiding the necessity for “alien” sets, costumes, and makeup.

The outdoor scenes of this episode were filmed on the same back lot streets that also were used to create Mayberry on The Andy Griffith Show (1960), except that the streets were piled with debris and dirt to create the appearance that the town was in ruins. Several building exteriors familiar from Mayberry can be seen in those exterior shots, including the courthouse, Walker’s Drugstore, the Grand movie theater, Floyd’s barber shop, and the Mayberry Hotel.

John Decker and Scott Dweck are Grace Lee Whitney’s sons. As an adult, Scott would return in a feature film appearance as a Vulcan members of the Enterprise crew in Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979).

Leonard Nimoy and Grace Lee Whitney both named this as one of their favorite episodes of the show. William Shatner was more critical, however, feeling that the story dragged and that the initial hook of “another Earth” was interesting, but didn’t amount to anything.

This episode has a number of connections to The Andy Griffith Show (1960). The outdoor scenes are shot on the streets of the set that stood in for the town of Mayberry. Visible are the old courthouse, barber shop, feed and grain store, Walker’s Drugs, bank, grocery store, the Grand movie theater; and the building with the small porch into which the crew runs is the old Hotel Mayberry. Michael J. Pollard, who plays Jahn, the leader of the Onlies, played Barney Fife’s bumbling cousin in The Andy Griffith Show: Cousin Virgil (1962). And, when Kirk asks Spock to estimate in what time period the town seems to be, Spock responds with “1960,” the year that series debuted.

Summary

The Enterprise receives an old-style SOS signal and finds on arrival a planet that is virtually identical to Earth. Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Yeoman Rand beam down to the planet only to find that it is inhabited solely by children. Kirk befriends one of the older children, Miri, but they soon learn that experiments to prolong life killed all of the adults and that the children will also die when they reach puberty. They also learn that the children are in fact, very old. Soon, the landing party contracts the virus and has seven days to find a cure.

CAST

William Shatner … Captain James Tiberius ‘Jim’ Kirk
Leonard Nimoy … Mister Spock
Kim Darby … Miri
Michael J. Pollard … Jahn
DeForest Kelley … Doctor Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy
Grace Lee Whitney … Yeoman Janice Rand
Keith Taylor … Jahn’s Friend
Ed McCready … Boy Creature
Kellie Flanagan … Blonde Girl
Stephen McEveety … Redheaded Boy (as Steven McEveety)
David L. Ross … Security Guard #1 (as David Ross)
Jim Goodwin … Farrell
John Megna … Little Boy
Tom Anfinsen … Crewman (uncredited)
John Arndt … Ingenieur Fields (uncredited)
Iona Morris … Little African American Girl (uncredited)
Phil Morris … Boy – Army Helmet (uncredited)
Eddie Paskey … Lieutenant Leslie (uncredited)
Darleen Anita Roddenberry … Flowered Dress Girl (uncredited)
Dawn Roddenberry … Little Blonde Girl (uncredited)
Irene Sale … Louise (uncredited)
Leslie Carol Shatner … Brunette Girl (uncredited)
Elisabeth Shatner … Girl in Red-Striped Dress (uncredited)
Scott Whitney … Small Boy (uncredited)

Jimmy Buffet – Come Monday

Buffet has always lived on the pop/country side of music…and soon after this, it was pop/country/tropical music. I bought his greatest hits in the 80s and I became a fan. I saw him live twice and if you ever want a concert that is more like a giant party or a Hawaiian Lūʻau…go see Buffet live. Also If you like tailgating before the concert… this is the man to see. His truly devoted fans are called “parrotheads.”

This song was written by Buffet and released in 1973 and peaked at #30 on the Billboard 100, #23 in Canada, and #58 on the Country Charts. The song was off of Living & Dying in ¾ Time and the album was Buffet’s first album to reach the top 200 at #176. Come Monday was his first top-40 hit. He would have some minor hits after this like Pencil Thin Mustache, A Pirate Looks at Forty, and others but it was Margaritaville in 1977 that broke it open for him.

The single version of the song replaces the third line, “I’ve got my Hush Puppies on,” with “I’ve got my hiking shoes on.” Some broadcast outlets, including the BBC, would not play songs with brand names in the lyrics, something that forced an edit on the Kinks song “Lola.”

Jimmy Buffet was quite the partier in the 70s. I’ve talked to a music producer who knew him back then and it’s a wonder he survived. He did have a run-in with a famous Tennessee sheriff…6’6″ Bufford Pusser. If you have a few minutes…it’s worth the story!

He wrote this song for his girlfriend, who he was missing and she ended up in the video. When he sings the first line, “Headed out to San Francisco for the Labor Day weekend show,” he’s talking about a specific concert in 1973.

Buffet explains quickly how the video was made and then the video.

Come Monday

Headin’ up to San Francisco
For the Labor Day weekend show,
I’ve got my hush-puppies on,
I guess I never was meant for
Glitter rock and roll.
And honey I didn’t know
That I’d be missin’ you so.

Come Monday It’ll be all right,
Come Monday I’ll be holding you tight.
I spent four lonely days in a brown L.A. haze
And I just want you back by my side.

Yes it’s been quite a summer,
Rent-a-cars and west bound trains.
And now you’re off on vacation,
Somethin’ you tried to explain.
And darlin’ I love you so that’s
The reason I just let you go.

Come Monday It’ll be all right,
Come Monday I’ll be holding you tight.
I spent four lonely days in a brown L.A. haze
And I just want you back by my side.

I can’t help it honey,
You’re that much a part of me now.
Remember the night in Montana when
We said there’d be no room for doubt.

I hope you’re enjoyin’ the scenery,
I know that it’s pretty up there.
We can go hikin on Tuesday,
With you I’d walk anywhere.
California has worn me quite thin,
I just can’t wait to see you again.

Come Monday It’ll be all right,
Come Monday I’ll be holding you tight.
I spent four lonely days in a brown L.A. haze
And I just want you back by my side.

Star Trek – What Are Little Girls Made Of?

★★★★1/2 October 20, 1966 Season 1 Episode 7

If you want to see where we are…and you missed a few…HERE is a list of the episodes in my index located at the top of my blog.

This episode was written by Robert Bloch and Gene Roddenberry

This episode highlights Majel Barrett as Nurse Christine Chapel. Nurse Chapel and Kirk beam down to a planet to meet with Chapel’s old fiancee Dr. Roger Korby. What they find is extraordinary. Making copies of humans into Androids who gain their consciousness and live practically forever.

This episode has Ted Cassidy as Ruk. If that name doesn’t ring a bell, he was Lurch in the Addams family as well as the voice or growl of The Incredible Hulk over a decade later. He plays a survivor still running the machinery of the old civilization that died out long ago. He’s also quite protective of that and those that are on the planet.

Another guest star in this episode is Sherry Jackson who plays Andrea… who is an android. She was in many television shows from the 50s through the 90s. In this episode, she has an interesting relationship with Kirk.

Dr. Korby was so overcome with his obsession with eliminating the bad aspects of human nature, he didn’t consider the consequences of the good. He was trying to build the perfect human but stripping away everything that makes us humans. This is an excellent episode.

From IMDB

Sherry Jackson’s revealing costume never failed to get an enthusiastically appreciative response, whether it be stunning a noisy commissary into silence, when the actress showed it off there, or when it was displayed at a SF convention and the model for it found herself being approached by a large number of men, including Harlan Ellison, trying to secure a date from her.

The only TOS episode to prominently feature Nurse Christine Chapel, who was played by Majel Barrett. Also featured is Ted Cassidy, best known for playing Lurch on The Addams Family (1964) TV series. Barrett would later play Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987)’s gag character Lwaxana Troi, whose valet Mr. Homm was played by Carel Struycken, who played Lurch in The Addams Family (1991) and Addams Family Values (1993).

To test the effectiveness of Ted Cassidy’s Ruk costume and makeup, the producers arranged for Cassidy to receive a visiting clothes dealer while costumed as Ruk. Sure enough, the salesman, who thought he was calling on Gene Roddenberry, was so frightened at Cassidy’s intimidating character, he was barely coherent even as he attempted to do his pitch. However, the salesman eventually recovered, and Roddenberry ended up purchasing some pants from him.

William Shatner kisses Sherry Jackson so hard that when they pull apart you can see that her lips are swollen a little, and that most of her lipstick is gone and all over his lips. Also, when he holds her in his arms and pulls her in close to kiss her, he squeezes her arms so tight when kissing, that he leaves his fingerprints there. In 1998, the Sci-Fi Channel aired all the original episodes in their complete, non-syndicated format, with added interviews from some of the series stars, guest stars and production people. It was called “Star Trek Insights”. Jackson said in her interview, “I must say when he kissed me on screen, he really kissed me!”

Ruk is Ted Cassidy’s only appearing role in Star Trek. He provided voice overs in Star Trek: The Corbomite Maneuver (1966) and Star Trek: Arena (1967). Ironically, in a few scenes of this one, his own voice is dubbed over by other actors to show Ruk’s mimicking abilities.

Summary

The crew of the Enterprise arrives at the planet EXO-III with some trepidation and great anticipation. They are there to see if they can locate the renowned scientist Dr. Roger Korby. The man hasn’t been heard from for 5 years and the general belief is that he is dead. For Nurse Christine Chapel, however, a reunion with Corby will be a reunion with her fiancé. They find Korby alive but when Kirk and Chapel beam down to the planet, they find a man obsessed who is using alien technology to reproduce the humans around him in the form of androids.

CAST

William Shatner … Captain James Tiberius ‘Jim’ Kirk
Leonard Nimoy … Mister Spock
Michael Strong … Dr. Roger Korby
Sherry Jackson … Andrea
Ted Cassidy … Ruk
Majel Barrett … Nurse Christine Chapel
Nichelle Nichols … Lieutenant Nyota Uhura
Harry Basch … Brown
Vince Deadrick Sr. … Mathews (as Vince Deadrick)
Budd Albright … Rayburn
Eddie Paskey … Lieutenant Leslie (uncredited)

Bessie Smith – Down Hearted Blues

Let’s go back…way back. Music did exist before the 50s and sometimes I like to explore it. These are the talented artists who inspired later generations that we listen to. We cannot forget the pioneers of any genre. Artists like Mahalia Jackson, Janis Joplin, and Norah Jones have all given Bessie Smith credit as their inspiration.

Whenever I hear Bessie Smith I hear pain and greatness all at once. I’ve written about her song No One Loves You When You’re Down And Out and I’ve been revisiting her lately. This song was her debut single in 1923.

I got into Bessie Smith from listening to Janis Joplin and reading about her. Bessie’s voice sends chills up my spine…that is my litmus test. This particular song grabs me because of Smith’s voice and the recording vibe. She sings it, means it, and she damn well lived it. The sound of the record and her voice is just unbeatable. Yes, we have digital now but digital could not give you this sound.

She was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on April 15, 1894. She lost her dad while she was an infant and her mom when she was 7-8 years old. She was raised by her tough older sister. To help support her orphaned siblings, Bessie began her career as a Chattanooga street musician, singing in a duo with her brother Andrew to earn money to support their poor family.

She is credited with recording more than 160 songs between 1923 and 1933. Smith performed on stage throughout the southern United States and recorded with such jazz greats as Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong, and Coleman Hawkins.

Before the Great Depression, Bessie was the highest-paid black entertainer in the world, collecting as much as two thousand dollars a week to perform. She was accompanied by great musicians such as Louis Armstrong, Lonnie Johnson, and Benny Goodman.

This song was written by Alberta Hunter and Lovie Austin. The song is about a mistreated woman and had been recorded by fellow blues singer Alberta Hunter in 1922. A year later Bessie Smith sang it with pain, passion, and power as if it was her own song. The record sold more copies than any blues or jazz record had before…780,000 in the first six months after the release, #1 in the Billboard charts for 4 weeks, it helped to save Columbia from imminent bankruptcy and made Bessie a star.

They called Bessie Smith the “Empress of the Blues,” and for good reason.

Down Hearted Blues

Gee, but it’s hard to love someone
when that someone don’t love you!
I’m so disgusted, heart-broken, too;
I’ve got those down-hearted blues.

Once I was crazy ‘bout a man;
he mistreated me all the time,
The next man I get has got to promise me
to be mine, all mine!

Trouble, trouble, I’ve had it all my days,
Trouble, trouble, I’ve had it all my days,
It seems like trouble
going to follow me to my grave.

I ain’t never loved but three men in my life,
I ain’t never loved but three men in my life,
My father, my brother,
the man that wrecked my life.

It may be a week, it may be a month or two,
It may be a week, it may be a month or two,
But the day you quit me, honey,
it’s comin’ home to you.

I got the world in a jug, the stopper’s in my hand,
I got the world in a jug, the stopper’s in my hand,
I’m gonna hold it until
you meet some of my demands.

Star Trek – Mudd’s Women

★★★1/2 October 13, 1966 Season 1 Episode 6

If you want to see where we are…and you missed a few…HERE is a list of the episodes in my index located at the top of my blog.

This show was written by Stephen Kandel and Gene Roddenberry

Harry Mudd in today’s time would be a crooked car salesman and a good old con man. This is the first appearance of Harry Mudd, a con artist whose cargo is three lovely ladies. He would reappear on another episode called I, Mudd. Roger Carmel played this role over the top and it worked for this character. Harry Mudd attempted to evade the Enterprise, driving his inferior ship into a dangerous asteroid belt, narrowly escaping death thanks to Kirk’s persistence in transporting him on board instead of the alternative, sacrificing his own ship’s Lithium crystals which keep the power operative at effective levels.

Now the Enterprise needs more crystals to go on and they will go down to the last minute trying to get them or the Enterprise will crash out of orbit. The three ladies are looking for husbands and have the males in the Enterprise all in a flutter. There is something different about them that attracts the attention of the crew…more than just a beautiful female would do. There is a humorous conversation between Kirk and Bones about why they are so attracted to them with an amused Spock listening to them.

It is revealed why later on in the episode. It’s a good episode but not one of the great ones to me. There is a message from one of the ladies named Eve in the end. Asking a would-be husband if he just basically wanted a trophy wife or someone who would work with him. If you like Harry Mudd…no worries…he will return in another episode.

Good episode

From IMDB

The velour uniforms used in this episode had shrunk since they were first used in Star Trek: The Corbomite Maneuver (1966). According to Robert H. Justman and Herbert F. Solow’s book “Inside Star Trek: The Real Story”, the velour uniforms shrank every time they were cleaned. The actors’ union requirements specified that the costumes had to be cleaned daily.

NBC program manager Jerry Stanley recalled that “One of the problems we had was in trying to talk Gene Roddenberry out of some of his sexual fantasies that would come to life in the scripts. Some of the scenes he would describe were totally unacceptable”. William Shatner noted “that NBC allowed ‘Mudd’s Women’ to be produced at all is still a minor miracle”.

During the very early pre-production days of “Star Trek – The Next Generation” (1987-1994), Gene Roddenberry proposed to have Roger C. Carmel return and make a guest appearance, possibly as Harry Mudd, in order to provide an extra link with the original series. However, nothing came of this as Carmel died unexpectedly at the relatively young age of 54, several months before the pilot show was filmed.

Production went a day over schedule due to the intricate camera setups used by director Harvey Hart, which had good results but were too time-consuming. Hart also made things difficult for the editors by “camera cutting” the show, leaving few choices of shot available. Due to these factors, Hart was not invited back to the show.

One of the more memorable bloopers in the series occurred while filming the scene where the women take the “Venus drug.” As Maggie Thrett’s (Ruth) reaction shot was being filmed, her right breast popped out of her scanty green costume. A shot of her stuffing it back in with an embarrassed smile appeared in the first season’s blooper reel.

Summary

After stopping a vessel in space, Kirk and the crew find a very odd captain with a very strange cargo. The captain of the vessel is Harcourt Fenton Mudd – known as Harry to his friends – and the cargo are three lovely women he is transporting as brides for lonely men on distant planets. Kirk has a major problem: while trying to rescue Mudd and his women from his disintegrating ship, the Enterprise’s lithium crystals used to power the engines were destroyed. They travel to a nearby mining colony where Mudd sets about to arrange marriages for the women, interfering with Kirk’s plan to buy the crystals. All the time, the ship’s orbit is deteriorating and risks burning up in the atmosphere.

CAST

William Shatner … Captain James Tiberius ‘Jim’ Kirk
Leonard Nimoy … Mister Spock
Roger C. Carmel … Harry Mudd
Karen Steele … Eve McHuron
DeForest Kelley … Doctor Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy
Maggie Thrett … Ruth
Susan Denberg … Magda
James Doohan … Lieutenant Commander Montgomery ‘Scotty’ Scott
George Takei … Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu
Jim Goodwin … Farrell
Nichelle Nichols … Lieutenant Nyota Uhura
Gene Dynarski … Ben
Jon Kowal … Herm
Seamon Glass … Benton
Jerry Foxworth … Guard
Majel Barrett … Enterprise Computer (voice) (uncredited)
Frank da Vinci … Vinci (uncredited)
Eddie Paskey … Connors (uncredited)
Ron Veto … Starfleet Officer (uncredited)

Star Trek – The Enemy Within

★★★★ October 6, 1966 Season 1 Episode 5

If you want to see where we are…and you missed a few… HERE is a list of the episodes in my index located at the top of my blog.

This episode was written by Richard Matheson and Gene Roddenberry

A problem with the transporters causes Captain Kirk to re-energize as two versions of himself.

Kirk is split in half. He is the Jekyll/Hyde character, except he becomes two actual people. One exhibited animalistic behavior and the other a compassionate indecisive person. The problem is that the two look exactly alike. It allows William Shatner to go over the top…he is good at that but in this case, it really fits. He sneers as the evil side while he wonders indecisively as the other half.

The evil Kirk attacked Yeoman Rand and it’s brutally realistic. Shatner and Whitney do an excellent job in this scene. The episode examines the good and bad in everyone. It makes us who we are…both the ugly and compassionate sides make the whole.

Compassionate Kirk is too easily swayed by arguments and is paralyzed by the weight of decisions on his shoulders. Animal Kirk is too blinded by his desires to make decisions and is terrorized by fear.

Spock had to tell Kirk that he won’t be able to continue to be Captain if he kept losing his decision-making abilities. While this was going on, Sulu and crew are stuck on a very cold planet and cannot come up until the transporter is repaired. Dividing Kirk into two emotional halves to examine man’s duality is ingenious because it reveals not only Kirk but a broader look into our own human nature.

Spock: If I seem insensitive to what you are going through Captain…understand…It’s the way I am.

From IMDB

The original script called for Spock to karate chop Kirk to subdue him. Leonard Nimoy felt that this would be an uncharacteristically violent act for a peace-loving species like the Vulcans so he came up with a pincer-like grasp on the neck that has since become known as the Vulcan Nerve Pinch and become one of the character’s most famous gimmicks…it was used in The Naked Time but although this was filmed first…The Naked Time was aired first.

This is one of the few times in Star Trek where it can be seen that the middle finger on actor James Doohan’s (Scotty’s) right hand is missing. Doohan lost the finger when it was struck by a bullet or shrapnel during the D-Day invasion in 1944. He took great pains to conceal its absence during the series, but his full right hand can be glimpsed briefly when he reaches into the box holding the snarling alien dog.

According to Grace Lee Whitney, while shooting the scene when a distraught, tearful Janice Rand accuses Captain Kirk of trying to rape her, William Shatner slapped her across the face to get her to register the proper emotion. As they shot the attempted rape scene days earlier, Whitney couldn’t get into the same emotion successfully, and it was Shatner’s “solution” to the problem.

The only Star Trek program written by Richard Matheson, a fantasy-horror legend who wrote two previous William Shatner vehicles: The Twilight Zone: Nick of Time (1960) and The Twilight Zone: Nightmare at 20,000 Feet (1963).

Summary

While beaming back aboard the Enterprise, a transporter malfunction results in two vastly different Captain Kirks being beamed aboard. His personality has in effect been split into two. One Captain Kirk is weak and indecisive, fearful of making any kind of decision; the other is a mean-spirited and violent man who likes to swill brandy and force himself on female crew members. Meanwhile, as Scotty struggles to repair the transporter, the landing party is stuck on the planet below with temperatures falling rapidly.

CAST

William Shatner … Captain James Tiberius ‘Jim’ Kirk
Leonard Nimoy … Mister Spock
DeForest Kelley … Doctor Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy
Grace Lee Whitney … Yeoman Janice Rand
George Takei … Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu
James Doohan … Lieutenant Commander Montgomery ‘Scotty’ Scott
Ed Madden … Fisher (as Edward Madden)
Garland Thompson … Wilson
Jim Goodwin … Farrell
Nichelle Nichols … Lieutenant Nyota Uhura (voice) (uncredited)
Eddie Paskey … Connors (uncredited)

Star Trek – The Naked Time

★★★★ September 29, 1966 Season 1 Episode 4

If you want to see where we are…and you missed a few…HERE is a list of the episodes in my index located at the top of my blog.

This show was written by John D.F. Black and Gene Roddenberry

This episode is probably best known as the one with Sulu, stripped to the waist, running around the ship’s corridors with a sword. But, it’s this episode where we learn a lot of interesting things about the main characters. After visiting the surface of a planet where many people had died in odd ways, one by one the Enterprise Crew starts acting with no inhibitions. You learn some of the inner secrets of the crewman as they get sick which is much like them getting drunk.

Majel Barrett as Nurse Christine Chapel makes her first appearance in Star Trek since the pilot when she played Number One. She starts professing her love for Spock who is shaken because the disease is affecting him as well and he is losing control of his emotions. We also learn in this episode that Spock is half-human… his mom is human and his dad is Vulcan.

Bruce Hyde who plays Riley is the comic relief in this one. He catches the disease and locks himself up and shuts the engines down while drunkenly serenading the Enterprise for a good part of the episode. They are in orbit and are about to crash unless they find a way to start the engines long before the 30 minutes required to do so.

This is also the first episode Spock did the famous Vulcan Nerve Pinch. The main reason for the 4 stars is because of the way we get to know these characters.

From IMDB

After the scene where Spock is weeping, Leonard Nimoy’s fan mail increased exponentially. Viewers were enthralled with the idea that Spock was secretly a reservoir of love and passion instead of an empty emotional void. This reaction inspired further scripts which explored Spock’s inner makeup.

The budget-strapped show often made good use of the creativity of its prop staff in coming up with low-cost solutions to otherwise pricey items. Here, the “thermal suits” worn by Spock and Tormolen on the planet’s surface were fashioned from 1960s art deco-style shower curtains.

This is the only TOS episode in which the three primary female crew members – Uhura, Chapel, and Rand – appeared together. The characters did not appear together again until Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979).

While under the influence of the virus, Nurse Chapel attempts to seduce Spock. This would be the first depiction of what many fans perceived as underlying romantic tensions between the characters, or at least Chapel’s unrequited romantic attraction to Spock.

Summary

When Lieutenant Junior Grade Tormolen brings aboard an infection that killed the science team on Psi 2000, the crew of the Enterprise soon find themselves unable to control their most predominant emotions. Soon the entire starship is in shambles and plummeting toward the self-destructing planet.

CAST

William Shatner … Captain James Tiberius ‘Jim’ Kirk
Leonard Nimoy … Mister Spock
Stewart Moss … Tormolen
Majel Barrett … Nurse Christine Chapel
Bruce Hyde … Riley
DeForest Kelley … Doctor Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy
Grace Lee Whitney … Yeoman Janice Rand
George Takei … Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu
James Doohan … Lieutenant Commander Montgomery ‘Scotty’ Scott
Nichelle Nichols … Lieutenant Nyota Uhura
William Frederick Knight … Amorous Crewman (as William Knight)
John Bellah … Laughing Crewman
Tom Anfinsen … Crewman (uncredited)
Bill Blackburn … Lieutenant Hadley (uncredited)
Frank da Vinci … Lt. Brent (uncredited)
Andrea Dromm … Yeoman Smith (uncredited)
Eddie Paskey … Lieutenant Ryan (uncredited)
Woody Talbert … Crewman #2 (uncredited)
Ron Veto Ron Veto … Crewman (uncredited)

Star Trek – Where No Man Has Gone Before

★★★★ September 22, 1966 Season 1 Episode 3

If you want to see where we are…and you missed a few…HERE is a list of the episodes in my index located at the top of my blog.

This episode was written by Samuel A. Peeples and Gene Roddenberry

Absolute power corrupts. In an energy field Kirk’s friend Gary Mitchell is endowed with astonishing powers of ESP and telekinesis, Kirk and Spock grow alarmed as he starts to test his ability to take over the Enterprise. Spock urges Kirk to maroon Mitchell on Delta Vega, an uninhabited planet, or kill him. At first, Kirk is outraged at even the suggestion, but eventually accepts the cold logic of this solution as Spock warns him, “we’ll never reach another earth base with him on board.”

This episode probably should have been the debut of Star Trek…it was the second pilot filmed but this one was aired 3rd. It truly is bizarre that this story wasn’t used for the first broadcast episode on September 8, 1966, instead of The Man Trap. It worked out in the end but this would have been a stronger episode.

It was the first one filmed with Captain Kirk. Spock looks close to what he looked like on the pilot which no one saw at the time. In the other episodes, he looks like the Spock we have come to know. This episode has a different doctor (Paul Fix) than DeForrest Kelley.

It’s a strong episode with a very good storyline and acting. My favorite interaction was this between Kirk and Spock about what to do with Gary Mitchell. After telling Kirk his friend needs to be marooned on a planet before he destroys them all…this short snippet took place.

Kirk: Doctor Dehner feels he isn’t that dangerous. What makes you right and a trained psychiatrist wrong?
Spock: Because she feels. I don’t. All I know is logic. In my opinion, we’ll be lucky if we can repair this ship and get away in time.

That sums up Spock rather nicely.

Sally Kellerman was in this episode as Dr. Elizabeth Dehner. Kellerman would go on to star in M*A*S*H the movie. Also, Gary Lockwood who played Lt. Cmdr. Gary Mitchell would be in 2001: A Space Odyssey a few years later.

From IMDB

The change in Gary and Elizabeth’s eyes was accomplished by Gary Lockwood and Sally Kellerman wearing sparkly contact lenses. They consisted of tinfoil sandwiched between two lenses that covered the entire eye. Wearing the lenses was difficult for Lockwood. He could only see through the lenses by looking down while pointing his head up. Lockwood was able to use this look to convey Mitchell’s arrogant attitude.

The phaser rifle that Kirk uses appears for the first and only time in the series. However, it can be seen on many pre-season 1 promotional photos.

Leonard Nimoy is the only actor to appear in both this, the second pilot, and the original pilot episode Star Trek: The Cage (1966). That being so, and the fact that he is in all the rest of the episodes, makes him the only actor to appear in all 79 episodes of the series (80 for those who count “The Cage”).

The gap in time between filming this and the rest of the series explains some of the apparent inconsistencies, notably some changes in the Enterprise architecture, the fact that most of the female crew members wear trousers and Mr Spock’s distinctive yellowish skin tone.

The reason this episode wasn’t broadcast first, despite being a pilot, is that the network felt it was “too expository”, and would not have made a good premiere episode for the series.

This was filmed more than one year before it was aired on TV.

Summary

When the Enterprise attempts to penetrate a space barrier, it is damaged and creates a potentially worse problem. Two crew members, including Kirk’s best friend, gain psionic powers that are growing exponentially. This leaves Captain Kirk with the difficult choice; either maroon them or killing before they get so powerful they lose their humanity and become truly dangerous.

CAST

William Shatner … Captain James Tiberius ‘Jim’ Kirk
Leonard Nimoy … Mister Spock
Sally Kellerman … Dr. Elizabeth Dehner
Gary Lockwood … Lt. Cmdr. Gary Mitchell
George Takei … Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu
James Doohan … Lieutenant Commander Montgomery ‘Scotty’ Scott
Lloyd Haynes … Alden
Andrea Dromm … Yeoman Smith
Paul Carr Paul Carr … Lt. Lee Kelso
Paul Fix … Doctor Piper
Bill Blackburn … Lieutenant Hadley (uncredited)
Eddie Paskey … Lieutenant Leslie (uncredited)

Star Trek – Charlie X

★★★★ September 15, 1966 Season 1 Episode 2

If you want to see where we are…and you missed a few…HERE is a list of the episodes in my index located at the top of my blog.

***Sorry to interrupt Star Trek but I guest hosted UK #1’s Blog today…he has an incredible blog of all the number 1 hits in the UK from the beginning. Check his blog out today if you can!***

This show was written by D.C. Fontana(teleplay by) and Gene Roddenberry

There are parallels between Charlie X and the iconic Twilight Zone episode It’s a Good Life that aired 5 years before…when Billy Mumy’s character would wish people in the cornfield.

Charles Evans had very little contact with human life before coming on board the Enterprise and has to live amongst a community of 428 people. He is 17 years old, a time when teenagers have to find their way in the world and somehow fit into adult communities. This episode does a good job of portraying how awkward and difficult life can be in these situations. What complicates it further is the infatuation he develops for Yeoman Janice Rand, not to mention the uncontrolled psychic power he possesses.

Charlie is a 17-year-old with the emotional maturity of a 5-year-old…but with massive powers that no one knows about. You feel bad for Charlie as he has never had the opportunity to develop and learn around real people. He asked Kirk if Yeoman Janice Rand is a girl. Kirk tries to be a father figure to Charlie throughout the episode which included explaining why he shouldn’t slap Rand in the butt. Charlie comes off as obnoxious and whiny…so yes…a teenager but they find out quickly he is very dangerous.

The episode starts off humourous until Charlie is angered by the rejection of Rand and that is when the crew discovers his powers. Charlie is a character whom one could easily fear or hate, but in the end, one realizes that what he really needs is guidance. Imagine being 17 and having unlimited powers. Robert Walker Jr. who plays Charlie Evans did a great job of portraying Charlie.

From IMDB

True to his training as a Method actor, Robert Walker Jr. chose to remain in his dressing room and not interact with any members of the cast as this would help his characterization of a strange, aloof person.

In the original outline, Gene Roddenberry’s working titles were “The Day Charlie Became God” or “Charlie Is God”. These would almost certainly have been problematic to the network censors, so the title was changed to Charlie’s Law, then settled on Charlie X, as X denotes the unknown. However, the title “Charlie’s Law” was retained in the book-form tie-in, novelized by James Blish.

During the lounge scene, where Uhura sings a song about Charlie, Spock is seen smiling as he accompanies her on a harp-like instrument. This is one of the few times in the series that Spock smiles, while not under the influence of a substance or someone’s mind-control powers.

This episode was originally scheduled to air further into the season, as all action took place aboard the Enterprise and it was basically a teenage melodrama set in the space age, both of which NBC disliked. However, as it required no new outer space special effects shots (actually all Enterprise shots are recycled from the two pilots), its post-production took less time than other episodes, and it was chosen to be the second episode to air out of necessity, as other episodes were not ready for the deadline. The Antares was originally to be shown on screen, however, when the early airdate was commissioned, this was eliminated.

Summary

Charlie Evans was the sole survivor of a crash and he has been alone on a deserted planet for fourteen years. Making Charlie’s return to society more difficult is his mysterious godlike abilities. The space vessel Antares rescues Charlie from the forbidding surface of the planet Thasus, and then hurriedly hands him off to the Enterprise. Soon, mysterious happenings dog the boy, who cannot seem to learn certain vital lessons of adulthood. Finally, the humiliated teen reveals prodigious psionic powers that could even threaten the survival of the Federation. Who is Charlie, really, and where did he get these abilities?

CAST

William Shatner … Captain James Tiberius ‘Jim’ Kirk
Leonard Nimoy … Mister Spock
Robert Walker Jr. … Charlie Evans (as Robert Walker)
DeForest Kelley … Doctor Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy
Grace Lee Whitney … Yeoman Janice Rand
Nichelle Nichols … Lieutenant Nyota Uhura
Charles Stewart … Captain Ramart (as Charles J. Stewart)
Dallas Mitchell … Tom Nellis
Don Eitner … Navigator
Pat McNulty … Tina Lawton (as Patricia McNulty)
John Bellah … Crewman I
Garland Thompson … Crewman II
Abraham Sofaer … The Thasian
Bill Blackburn … Lieutenant Hadley (uncredited)
Frank da Vinci … Brent / Security Guard (uncredited)
Bob Herron … Sam (uncredited)
John Lindesmith … Helmsman (uncredited)
Eddie Paskey … Lieutenant Leslie (uncredited)
Gene Roddenberry … Enterprise Chef (voice) (uncredited)
George Takei … Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu (voice) (uncredited)
Ron Veto … Security Guard (uncredited)
Laura Wood … Prematurely Aged Woman (uncredited)

Beatles – Here, There, And Everywhere

I was looking for a Beatles song to post about and I came across Hobo Moon Cartoons a while back and this new video was featured. Check the site out when you can.

What a beautiful song this is..I think it’s one of Paul’s and The Beatle’s best ballads. Paul has said before that the song was inspired by the Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows” off of their album Pet Sounds.

The way that John and Paul heard Pet Sounds for the first time is interesting. Beach Boy Bruce Johnston was in England in 1966 and he met a huge Beach Boy fan Keith Moon. Moon dragged him to every hip spot in London. To Johnston’s surprise and amazement…he took him to a hotel and invited John and Paul to come over and meet Johnston and listen to the Beach Boy’s new album that was about to be released. Bruce had no idea how connected the Who’s drummer was at the time. He had come to England to sightsee and maybe hype the album a little but did not expect to have an audience of John and Paul.

Keith at the time acted like he liked the album but at heart, he wanted the same old surf songs…he wasn’t expecting an art-pop album from the Beach Boys. John and Paul were knocked out by Pet Sounds and after hearing God Only Knows Paul came up with this melody and he and John finished it off. Paul said this song was around 80-20 his song. It was a full circle because Brian Wilson was inspired by Rubber Soul when writing Pet Sounds.

Paul said that John praised his songwriting only once. He said “John says just as it finishes, ‘That’s a really good song, lad. I love that song.’ And I’m like, ‘Yes! He likes it!'”

The song was on arguably the Beatle’s best album Revolver. This song was somehow not released as a single. The album peaked at #1 in the Billboard Album Charts, in Canada, and in The UK in 1966. During the 1987 CD releases, it peaked at #3 on the US Billboard Top Compact Disks Charts…seriously? I never heard of the US Billboard Top Compact Disks but that is also a chart.

Paul McCartney: “I wrote that by John’s pool one day, I sat out by the pool on one of the sun chairs with my guitar and started strumming in E, and soon had a few chords, and I think by the time he’d woken up, I had pretty much written the song, so we took it indoors and finished it up…John might have helped with a few last words…But it’s very me, it’s one of my favorite songs that I’ve written…So I would credit me pretty much 80-20 on that one.”

John Lennon: “Here, There And Everywhere’ was Paul’s song completely, I believe – and one of my favorite songs of The Beatles.”

John Lennon: “There was a period when I thought I didn’t write melodies, that Paul wrote those and I just wrote straight, shouting rock’n’roll. But of course, when I think or some of my own songs – ‘In My Life,’ or some of the early stuff, ‘This Boy’ – I was writing melody with the best of them.”

The Beatles released an animated video for this song in 2022. It was directed by Rok Predin.

Here, There, And Everywhere

To lead a better life
I need my love to be here

Here, making each day of the year
Changing my life with a wave of her hand
Nobody can deny that there’s something there
There, running my hands through her hair
Both of us thinking how good it can be
Someone is speaking
But she doesn’t know he’s there

I want her everywhere
And if she’s beside me I know I need never care
But to love her is to need her everywhere

Knowing that love is to share
Each one believing that love never dies
Watching their eyes and hoping I’m always there

I want her everywhere
And if she’s beside me I know I need never care
But to love her is to need her everywhere

Knowing that love is to share
Each one believing that love never dies
Watching their eyes and hoping I’m always there

I will be there
And everywhere
Here, there and everywhere

Star Trek – The Man Trap

★★★1/2 September 8, 1966 Season 1 Episode 1

If you want to see where we are…and you missed a few…HERE is a list of the episodes in my index located at the top of my blog.

This show was written by George Clayton Johnson

This was the first episode aired although it was the 6th one filmed. NBC thought this one had more action than the other 5 that were ready to go. The world got its first look at the crew of the Enterprise…and they didn’t fail to deliver here. It’s not one of the top episodes by any means but it is a good solid episode.

In this episode, we get the first peek at an alien monster (Salt Vampire) and what a handsome man he is! He was a shapeshifting alien who is the only one left of his kind that needs salt to survive and loves the human variety of salt.

The show does serve as a good introduction to the main characters. William Shatner as Captain James Tiberius ‘Jim’ Kirk, Leonard Nimoy as Mister Spock, DeForest Kelley as Doctor Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy, Grace Lee Whitney as Yeoman Janice Rand, George Takei as Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu, and the beautiful Nichelle Nichols as Lieutenant Nyota Uhura. The main thing that is missing is the close friendship between Spock and Jim…of course since this was the 6th one made but the first to air…it hadn’t built up yet.

Dr. McCoy is the central character here for the most part, except when he’s being lectured by Captain Kirk for dropping the ball a few times. The characters are close to what they become but we will see growth from all of them coming up.

It’s interesting how they touch on real life with species that are on the brink of being extinct. Determining the creature’s right to continue existing, drawing parallels between the salt vampire and the now-extinct wild buffalo. Like the Twilight Zone…they manage to get a social comment across through science fiction. There will be more of that to come in the episodes.

As a debut, it is solid and good. I would say a little above average but they have better ones coming.

From IMDB Trivia

It was Gene Roddenberry’s idea to have the creature, in its illusory form, speak Swahili to Uhura. Kathy Fitzgibbon supplied him with the translation. In English, the illusory crewman says “How are you, friend. I think of you, beautiful lady. You should never know loneliness.”

Dr. McCoy’s handheld “medical scanners” were actually modified salt and pepper shakers purchased originally for use in “The Man Trap”, in which a character was seen using a salt shaker. They were of Scandinavian design, and on-screen was not recognizable as salt shakers; so a few generic salt shakers were borrowed from the studio commissary, and the “futuristic” looking shakers became McCoy’s medical instruments.

Summary

In the series premiere, the Enterprise visits planet M-113 where scientists Dr. Crater and his wife Nancy, an old girlfriend of Dr. McCoy, are studying the remains of an ancient civilization. When Enterprise crewmen begin turning up dead under mysterious circumstances, Kirk and Spock must unravel the clues to discover how, why, and who is responsible.

CAST

William Shatner … Captain James Tiberius ‘Jim’ Kirk
Leonard Nimoy … Mister Spock
Jeanne Bal … Nancy Crater
Alfred Ryder … Prof. Robert Crater
DeForest Kelley … Doctor Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy
Grace Lee Whitney … Yeoman Janice Rand
George Takei … Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu
Nichelle Nichols … Lieutenant Nyota Uhura
Bruce Watson … Green
Michael Zaslow … Darnell
Vince Howard … Crewman
Francine Pyne … Nancy III
Budd Albright … Barnhart (uncredited)
Tom Anfinsen … Crewman (uncredited)
John Arndt … Crewman Sturgeon (uncredited)
Bob Baker … … Beauregard (uncredited)
Bill Blackburn … Lieutenant Hadley (uncredited)
Frank da Vinci … Brent (uncredited)
James Doohan … Lieutenant Commander Montgomery ‘Scotty’ Scott
Sandra Lee Gimpel … M-113 Creature (uncredited)
Jeannie Malone … Yeoman (uncredited)
Eddie Paskey … Lieutenant Ryan (uncredited)
Anthony Larry Paul … Berkeley (uncredited)
Walter Soo Hoo … Crewman (uncredited)
Garrison True … Security Guard (uncredited)

Star Trek – The Cage

★★★★★ October 4, 1988 PILOT

If you want to see where we are…and you missed a few…HERE is a list of the episodes in my index located at the top of my blog.

This episode was written by Gene Roddenberry

*** Before I start this review I want to tell everyone that I try not to give the ending away in any of these although they are over 50 years old…some people have not seen them. If you disagree with my stars (5 being excellent, 4 being very good, 3 being a good average show, 2 means below average, and 1 means downright bad)…please say something…change my mind. I usually get my summary from IMDB and add or subtract from them…there is no sense in reinventing the wheel***

I’m presenting Star Trek in order of air dates except for this one. It was only screened to NBC executives in 1965 and they are the last people to see it until October 4, 1988, when it was finally broadcast on television almost 20 years after Star Trek went off the air.

I love this pilot episode of Star Trek. A different cast almost completely except for Spock. He looks and acts a little different (see the smile) but still is Spock. One more cast member was recast. Actress Majel Barrett who played Number One was recast as Nurse Chapel in the TV series. She would go on to marry the show’s creator Gene Roddenberry. They would reuse much of the footage of the pilot for an excellent two-part episode called The Menagerie later on in season one.

Jeffrey Hunter was really good as Captain Pike but he didn’t want to commit to the series because he wanted to concentrate on movies. William Shatner has said in his book that the producers canned Hunter after his wife repeatedly stormed onto the set insisting on more flattering camera angles for her husband.

The original Star Trek pilot was rejected by NBC for being “too cerebral”, “too intellectual”, “too slow”, and with “not enough action”, so they commissioned a new pilot, which later became Where No Man Has Gone Before, starring a completely different captain… the one and only Captain James T. Kirk played by William Shatner.

What we learn from Captain Pike in this one is that he is questioning his life of being Captain of the Enterprise. He is tired of making life-and-death decisions for all of his crew. Of course, when he loses himself because of the Talosians, he snaps back and realizes that a quiet life is not for him. The real star to me was Susan Oliver as Vina. She was obviously beautiful and she did a great job acting in this part. You felt so bad for her when you see her true state.

This is an excellent show…NBC was wrong in its assessment of the show. I’m happy it turned out the way it did though because we would have never had the great original cast.

Summary

This is the pilot to the series that would star William Shatner. Only in this version, there is a different Captain, Christopher Pike, and with the exception of Mr. Spock, an entirely different crew. Now it begins when the Enterprise receives what appears to be a distress message. But when they get to the planet where the message was sent from, they discover that the supposed survivors were nothing more than illusions created by the inhabitants of the planet, for the purpose of capturing a mate for the one genuine surviving human, and Captain Pike is the lucky winner. While Captain Pike tries to cope with the experiments and tests that the aliens are conducting on him, his crew tries to find a way to rescue him. But the aliens’ illusions are too powerful and deceptive (at first).

CAST

Jeffrey Hunter – Captain Christopher Pike
Leonard Nimoy – Mr. Spock
Majel Barrett – Number One
John Hoyt – Dr. Philip Boyce
Susan Oliver – Vina
Meg Wyllie – The Keeper
Peter Duryea – Lieutenant José Tyler
Laurel Goodwin – Yeoman J. M. Colt
Clegg Hoyt – Transporter Chief Pitcairn
Malachi Throne – The Keeper (voice)
Michael Dugan – The Kaylar
Georgia Schmidt – First Talosian
Robert C. Johnson – First Talosian (voice)
Serena Sande – Second Talosian
Jon Lormer – Dr. Theodore Haskins
Adam Roarke – C.P.O. Garrison
Leonard Mudie – Second Survivor
Anthony Jochim – Third Survivor
Ed Madden – Enterprise Geologist
Robert Phillips – Space Officer (Orion)
Joseph Mell – Earth Trader
Janos Prohaska – Anthropoid Ape / Humanoid Bird

Star Trek …coming soon

I’ve been a fan of Star Trek since I was 13 and I saw a 24-hour marathon of the original Star Trek. I did watch some of the Next Generation, the movies, and some of the newer ones but I’ve always liked the original the best. The cast was great and Spock has to be one of the best TV characters ever written.

I enjoyed covering The Twilight Zone so I want to do that again with a classic TV show. It’s hard to pick them out. It would be hard covering a sitcom episode by episode but The Twilight Zone and Star Trek are so different in every episode (especially TZ) that I thought I would give this one a shot.

The show was only on for 3 seasons… that is hard to believe since we know it so well. The show inspired many inventors at the time and after. Either Gene Roddenberry (the show’s creator) knew about inventions that were being developed or inventors took his cue to make things real…probably both. Here is a list of things that were made popular after Star Trek.

Tablet computers
Tractor beams
Tricorders (there’s also an X Prize for that)
Flip communicators (and wearable badge communicators)
Hyposprays
Replicators
Cloaking devices
Voice interface computers (hello Siri)
Transparent aluminum
Bluetooth headsets (Uhura had one first)
Google Glass
Portable memory (from floppy disks to USB sticks)
Focused ultrasound technology
Biometric data tracking for health and verifying identity
GPS
Automatic doors
Big screen displays
Real-time universal translators
Teleconferencing
VISOR bionic eyes for the blind
Diagnostic beds

Anyway, next week I hope to start posting Star Trek episodes. My target is Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays. 79 episodes in all which should take around 26-27 weeks if there are no interruptions. I hope Star Trek fans will visit…if not I will still be posting music on most days as well.

Thank you as always.

…

John Mellencamp – Hurts So Good

The first song I remember from “John Cougar” was Ain’t Even Done With The Night and then John kicked the door down with this song.

This was on American Fool and after that album he was known as John Cougar Mellencamp. The main thing is he was known all over after this album. He had four singles off of that album but two singles were huge. Hurt So Good and Jack and Diane. This song peaked at #2 on the Billboard 100, #3 in Canada, and #39 in New Zealand in 1982. MTV probably helped out a little but they were really good pop/rock songs. John kept his productions more timeless than some other artists. When you listen to many of them now…you don’t say…hey that’s so 80s. It could have been recorded in any era.

Mellencamp would start changing a little with his next album Uh Huh. He would become more of a “Heartland Rocker” and I started to think of him more like Springsteen and Petty. His peak to me came with the album Scarecrow. That is not saying he didn’t have more great albums because he did…but it’s hard to beat Scarecrow. His next six albums after that all went platinum.

Mellencamp’s friend was George Green, who received a composer credit on this song and went on to co-write many of Mellencamp’s hits, including Human Wheels, Crumblin’ Down, and Rain On The Scarecrow.

One thing I never knew…John Mellencamp at one time owned a tattoo parlor. This led to many family members getting tattoos that normally would not have them….like the “Hurts So Good” tattoo on his aunt.

Mellencamp won his first Grammy with this song: Best Male Rock Vocal Performance of 1982. In his acceptance speech he said, “I don’t know what to say, I’m just an idiot.”

John Mellencamp: “My friend George said, why didn’t I write a song with the title ‘Hurt So Good’? We thought of it as like a Shel Silverstein thing. I wrote it in three minutes, scrawled the first line in soap on the glass door in the shower. It was really just a joke. I think all good things probably started as jokes. Wasn’t God having a laugh when he made this whole place?”

John Mellencamp: “When I first started playing in rock bands, I didn’t realize how crude and mean other fellas could be. How crude they were with women and how crude women were. That led me to write a song called ‘Hurts So Good’ because I was playing in these bars and I just could not believe the lows people would go to with each other. The thing that surprised me is that it fit my personality perfectly. I fit right in with all that.”

Hurts So Good

When I was a young boy
Said put away those young boy ways
Now that I’m gettin’ older, so much older
I long for those young boy days
With a girl like you
With a girl like you
Lord knows there are things we can do, baby
Just me and you
Come on and make it a

Hurt so good
Come on baby, make it hurt so good
Sometimes love don’t feel like it should
You make it hurt so good

Don’t have to be so exciting
Just trying to give myself a little bit of fun, yeah
You always look so inviting
You ain’t as green as you are young
Hey baby, it’s you
Come on girl, now it’s you
Sink your teeth right through my bones, baby
Let’s see what we can do
Come on and make it a

Hurt so good
Come on baby, make it hurt so good
Sometimes love don’t feel like it should
You make it hurt so good

I ain’t talking no big deals
I ain’t made no plans myself
I ain’t talking no high heels
Maybe we could walk around, all day long
Walk around, all day long

Hurt so good
Come on baby, make it hurt so good
Sometimes love don’t feel like it should
You make it hurt so good
Hurt so good
Come on baby, now
Come on baby, make it hurt so good
Sometimes love don’t feel like it should
You make it hurt so good

Hey, hey

Chuck Berry – You Can’t Catch Me

I bought a brand-new air-mobile
It custom-made, ’twas a Flight De Ville
With a pow’ful motor and some hideaway wings
Push in on the button and you can hear her sing

…Chuck Berry

It’s hard to beat that first verse about a car. I can see the influence that Springsteen got from Chuck Berry with this 1955 song.

I found out about this song when Chuck’s publishing company (Morris Levy’s Big Seven) sued Lennon for Come Together saying that John Lennon ripped this song off. It centered around the Come Together line “Here come old flat top, He come grooving up slowly” to this song’s line “Here come a flat-top, he was movin’ up with me…and a guitar riff in there (although I can’t hear that). As part of the settlement, Lennon agreed to include a cover of You Can’t Catch Me on his 1975 solo album Rock ‘n’ Roll.

The case was settled out of court in 1973, with Levy’s lawyers agreeing that Lennon would compensate by recording three Big Seven songs for his next album. A brief version of “Ya Ya” with Lennon and his son Julian was released on the album Walls and Bridges in 1974. “You Can’t Catch Me” and another version of “Ya Ya” were released on Lennon’s 1975 album Rock ‘n’ Roll, but the third, “Angel Baby”, remained unreleased until after Lennon’s death.

Bruce Springsteen is famous for writing about cars in our teen years and the freedom they represent. Chuck was doing this in many songs such as this one and Maybelline.

Chuck Berry performed this song in the 1956 film Rock, Rock, Rock, where he can be seen doing his famous duckwalk. He refers to Maybellene, his earlier car hit. This song didn’t crack the charts at all which is a shame. This song seemed to be influenced by a Muddy Waters track called “Good Morning Little Schoolgirl,” which has a nearly identical guitar lick in the intro.

Chuck Berry: “This was a yearning which I had since I was aged seven to drive about in a car, it was my fascination for the roads, for driving, motoring, which prompted me to write those songs.”

You Can’t Catch Me

I bought a brand-new air-mobile
It custom-made, ’twas a Flight De Ville
With a pow’ful motor and some hideaway wings
Push in on the button and you can hear her sing

Now you can’t catch me, baby you can’t catch me
‘Cause if you get too close, you know I’m gone like a cool breeze

New Jersey Turnpike in the wee wee hours
I was rollin’ slowly ’cause of drizzlin’ showers
Here come a flat-top, he was movin’ up with me
Then come wavin’ by me in a little’ old souped-up jitney
I put my foot on my tank and I began to roll
Moanin’ siren, ’twas the state patrol
So I let out my wings and then I blew my horn
Bye bye New Jersey, I’ve become airborne

Now you can’t catch me, baby you can’t catch me
‘Cause if you get too close, you know I’m gone like a cool breeze

Flyin’ with my baby last Saturday night
Not a gray cloud floatin’ in sight
Big full moon shinin’ up above
Cuddle up honey, be my love
Sweetest little thing I’ve ever seen
I’m gonna name you Maybellene
Flyin’ on the beam, set on flight control
Radio tuned to rock ‘n’ roll
Two, three hours passed us by
Five to two dropped to 5:05
Fuel consumption way too fast
Let’s get on home before we run out of gas

Now you can’t catch me, no baby you can’t catch me
‘Cause if you get too close, you know I’m gone like a cool breeze