Music – Page 58 – PowerPop… An Eclectic Collection of Pop Culture

Chuck Berry – Run Rudolph Run

Nice little Christmas song by Chuck Berry… the father of Rock and Roll. The song has a “Carol” vibe to it and that is never a bad thing. It was one of the first rock and roll Christmas songs and it was released in 1958.

Berry based this song on “Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer,” giving Rudolph a bit of an attitude as he delivers the toys. The song is credited to Johnny Marks and Marvin Brodie. Johnny Marks wrote Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer. Chuck puts his stamp on this song.

The song is sometimes known as “Run Run Rudolph,” which is how it appears on some other covers. Other artists to record the song include Sheryl Crow, Bryan Adams, The Grateful Dead, Jimmy Buffett, Dwight Yoakam, Bon Jovi, and Keith Richards.

The song peaked at #69 in the Billboard 100 in 1958 and has re-charted many times through the years…it peaked at #36 in the Billboard 100 in January of 2020…and I’m sure it is charting now.

The song appeared in a lot of films including Home Alone, Diner, The Santa Clause 2, Cast Away, and Jingle All the Way.

Run Rudolph Run

Out of all the reindeers you know you’re the mastermind
Run, run Rudolph, Randalph ain’t too far behind
Run, run Rudolph, Santa’s got to make it to town
Santa make him hurry, tell him he can take the freeway down
Run, run Rudolph ’cause I’m reelin’ like a merry-go-round

Said Santa to a boy child what have you been longing for?
All I want for Christmas is a rock and roll electric guitar
And then away went Rudolph a whizzing like a shooting star
Run, run Rudolph, Santa’s got to make it to town
Santa make him hurry, tell him he can take the freeway down
Run, run Rudolph, reeling like a merry-go-round

Run, run Rudolph, Santa’s got to make it to town
Santa make him hurry, tell him he can take the freeway down
Run, run Rudolph, reeling like a merry-go-round

Said Santa to a girl child what would please you most to get?
A little baby doll that can cry, sleep, drink and wet
And then away went Rudolph a whizzing like a Saber jet
Run, run Rudolph, Santa’s got to make it to town
Santa make him hurry, tell him he can take the freeway down
Run, run Rudolph ’cause I’m reelin’ like a merry-go-round

Max Picks …songs from 1979

1979

I hate that it’s the last year of the seventies. A great decade for music and a lot of cool things. Now the eighties are coming…

A masterpiece. I was 12 when this was released and it sounded timeless even then. It was a great song in 1979 and will be great in 2079. Not only are the words inventive but this was most people’s introduction to Mark Knopfler. I wasn’t a guitar player when I was 12 but I knew he was something special.

I’ve heard this one at what seems like a thousand times but I’ll always turn it up when it comes on the radio.

Blondie members Debbie Harry and Chris Stein wrote the first version of this song in early 1974, shortly after they first met. They didn’t have a proper title for the song, and would refer to it as “The Disco Song.”

Evidently finding words to rhyme to “glass” that fit in a song were… a pain in the ass. American radio at that time frowned on that rhyme. To ensure airplay stations were sent an edited version with the offending line replaced with “soon turned out I had a heart of glass.”

This was the first song I ever knew by the Clash when I heard it on the radio in 1980. The song is credited to Mick Jones and Joe Strummer like most Clash songs. Mick Jones takes the lead vocals in this one.

They started off as a punk band but The Clash, unlike some other Punk bands, could really play and sing well…, especially Mick Jones. He is was probably the best pure musician in the band.

This song was released in 1979 was one of many signs a change was coming in music. Gary Numan on the inspiration of the song. “A couple of blokes started peering in the window and for whatever reason took a dislike to me, so I had to take evasive action. I swerved up the pavement, scattering pedestrians everywhere. After that, I began to see the car as the tank of modern society.”

Numan has stated that he has Asperger syndrome, which is a mild form of autism, but until he was diagnosed, he had a lot of trouble relating to other people.

I was never a huge disco fan but this song always meant a lot to me. I’m a huge baseball fan and my Dodgers really sucked in 1979. The Pirates on the other hand had a 39-year-old Willie Stargell leading them to a World Series championship and this is the song that will be forever linked to that year, team, and World Series. Here’s to Pops…Willie Stargell.

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Vince Guaraldi Trio – Linus and Lucy

It’s hard to resist this song. It automatically makes me happy when I hear it. I see the Peanuts gang doing their thing.

This song I can hear anytime of the year and be happy. It’s associated with Christmas also…whichever… I never get tired of it.

Here is another post of the song in Hanspostcard’s song draft a few years ago when run-sew-read’s pick was this song.

Ironically, just about everyone would call this “the Charlie Brown song” even though it’s actually titled after Linus and Lucy Van Pelt, brother and sister in Charles Schulz’s Peanuts comic strip universe.

The song is most famous for its use in the yearly favorite A Charlie Brown Christmas, which first aired in 1965, but it was written two years earlier for a documentary about Schulz and the Peanuts gang called A Boy Named Charlie Brown, which never aired.

Producer Lee Mendelson was in charge of the documentary and asked Vince Guaraldi to compose music for it

Guaraldi was huge in the jazz world and won the 1962 Grammy for Best Original Jazz Composition for “Cast Your Fate To The Wind” for his group, the Vince Guaraldi Trio. Mendelson was searching for what kind of music to play for the documentary when he took a taxi cab and “Cast Your Fate To The Wind” was playing as he crossed the Golden Gate bridge. He loved it and his decision was made.

Guaraldi wrote a series of songs for the project, including “Linus and Lucy,” which he recorded with his group, the Vince Guaraldi Trio. Even though A Boy Named Charlie Brown was shelved, the soundtrack was released in 1964, which is where “Linus and Lucy” first appeared.

In 1965, Mendelson put together the first Peanuts TV special, A Charlie Brown Christmas, using many of the same people who worked on the documentary. “Linus and Lucy” formed the score, and a song he wrote with Guaraldi called “Christmas Time Is Here” was included in a key scene.

When A Charlie Brown Christmas debuted in 1965, it quickly turned the Peanuts franchise into a television institution. That first special also shot Guaraldi to greater fame, and he became connected to all subsequent Peanuts shows.

Guaraldi would continue to work on Peanuts films until his death in 1976.

No words…just enjoy

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Hollies – On a Carousel

A good pop song by the Hollies. They were known mostly for their harmonies but they were a good band…they had a great guitar player and drummer. Tony Hicks is never mentioned much with the guitar players with the other British Invasion bands but he could hold his own with the others. Bobby Elliot was/is a drummer’s drummer.

The Hollies had great harmonies and also a secret weapon in Tony Hicks as a guitar player. He was and still is outstanding but was never as well known as his later neighbor George Harrison and his other peers.

Tony’s son Paul Hicks was in Dhani Harrison’s band and has worked with Giles Martin on Beatle remastering projects. I have a soft spot for the Hollies. They started in the early sixties and continued through the seventies without Graham Nash who quit the Hollies for what he thought was a hipper band…Crosby, Stills, and Nash. Soon to include the elusive Neil Young.

The song peaked at #11 on the Billboard 100, #7 in Canada, and #4 in the UK in 1967. I included a short video of The Hollies recording the song. While they were recording this The Beatles were in the next studio recording as they both recorded at EMI Studios.

Just a little trivia… The earliest known record of a carousel is a Byzantine etching from 500 AD which shows riders swinging in baskets tied to a central pole.

Graham Nash: We really hit the mark when it came to our next record. Tony, Allan, and I wanted desperately to write a monster A-side. So far, our biggest hits were Graham Gouldman songs, and, hey, you take ’em where you can get ’em. But we thought we were good enough writers to land the big fish. We knew the combination, how to come up with a universal theme, the right type of hook. So we went through a shitload of ideas until inspiration struck. I’m not sure which of the three of us came up with fun fairs. We had all been to them as kids: pulling ducks out of the water, a ring around a bottleneck, winning goldfish. We thought a love affair was pretty much like going round and round and round on a carousel. And before we knew it, the song just took shape. It was all there—the words, the tune, there was no stopping it. And Tony and Bobby wrapped it in an exceptional arrangement.

You ask me, “On a Carousel” was one of the Hollies’ best songs. It’s a pop song with an infectious chorus but flirts with gorgeous shifts in rhythmic texture. The transition to “Horses chasing ’cause they’re racing / So near yet so far-r-r-r-r” features a hook that keeps the melody from becoming predictable. Tony’s barb-like accents that echo the phrase “on a carousel” demonstrate his subtle virtuosity. And the lyric captures the essence of young love without the usual moon-and-June clichés. We knew it was a hit from the get-go.

On A Carousel

Riding along on a carousel, trying to catch up to you
Riding along on a carousel, will I catch up to you?

Horses chasing ’cause they’re racing
So they ain’t so far

On a carousel
On a carousel

Nearer and nearer by changing horses,
Still so far away
People fighting for their places just get in my way
Soon you’ll leave and then I’ll lose you
Still we’re going ’round

On a carousel
On a carousel
‘Round and round and round and round
round and round and round and round with you
Up, down, up, down, up, down, too

As she leaves, she drops the presents that she won before
Pulling ducks out of the water, got the highest score
Now’s my chance and I must take it, a case of do-or-die

On a carousel
On a carousel
‘Round and ’round and ’round and ’round
‘Round and ’round and ’round and ’round with you
Up, down, up, down, up, down, too

Riding along on a carousel, trying to catch up to you
Riding along on a carousel, will I catch up to you?

Now we take our ride together
No more chasing her

On a carousel
On a carousel
On a carousel
On a carousel
On a carousel

Outlaws – Ghost Riders in the Sky

I could have picked many artists who have covered this song but this is the one I heard first. The song is a standard and it was originally written and recorded in 1948 by Stan Jones. Jones based the melody on Johnny Comes Marching Home.

Jones said the song came from a story he heard when he was young. The story was told to him by an old Indian man from Arizona. When someone dies, their spirit leaves the body and goes to the sky. They stay up in the sky and become ghost riders. Jones was a kid when he first heard the story, he never forgot it.

This was written and originally recorded by Stan Jones in 1948. Jones was a forest ranger who wrote songs on the side. After recording his version of the song, artists like Burl Ives, Bing Crosby, Lorne Greene, Gene Autry, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, and too many more to list covered it. all recorded it.

The Outlaws released this song in 1980. It was on the album Ghost Riders. The album peaked at #25 on the Billboard Album Charts and the song peaked at #31 on the Billboard 100.

The band was formed in Tampa Florida in 1967. In 1974 The Outlaws were the first act signed to Arista Records under Clive Davis. They were helped out by Ronnie Van Zant. In Columbus Georgia, The Outlaws were opening up for Lynyrd Skynyrd with Clive Davis in the audience which wasn’t a secret to the bands. Van Zant said from the stage to Clive Davis…“If you don’t sign Outlaws, you’re the dumbest music person I’ve ever met—and I know you’re not.” They were signed.

Ghost Riders in the Sky

An old cowboy went ridin’ out one dark and windy day
Upon a ridge he rested as he went along his way
When all at once a mighty herd of red eyed steers he saw
A ploughin’ through the ragged skies and up a cloudy draw

Their brands were still on fire and their hooves were made of steel
Their horns were black and shiny and their hot breath he could feel
A bolt of fear went through him as they thundered through the sky
He saw the riders coming hard… and he heard their mournful cry

Yippie i ay Yippie i oh
Ghost riders in
Ghost riders in the sky

Yippie i ay (Yippie i ay) Yippie i oh (Yippie i oh)
Ghost riders in the sky

Their faces gaunt, their eyes were blurred, their shirts all soaked with sweat
They’re ridin’ hard to catch that herd but they ain’t caught ’em yet
‘Cause they’ve got to ride forever in the range up in the sky
On horses snorting fire as they ride hard, hear them cry

Yippie i ay Yippie i oh
Ghost riders in
Ghost riders in the sky

Ghost riders in the sky

Kris Kristofferson – Why Me

Good morning to everyone on this fine Sunday morning! This was a song that I heard on my mom’s country stations along with the AM pop stations that my sister listened to. It crossed genres and was a massive hit.

It peaked at #1 on the Billboard Country Charts and Canada’s Country Charts, #16 on the Billboard 100, and #19 on Canada’s RPM Charts in 1973.

Kristofferson is an incredible songwriter but he gave up a lot to be one. He is very intelligent and he was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University.

Kristofferson came from a military family. Both of his grandfathers were military men, his dad was a general in the Air Force, and his brother was in the Navy. Kris himself had made a name for himself in the armed forces, achieving the rank of captain and being offered a teaching position at West Point.

Instead, he moved to Nashville and ended up working odd jobs to support his disabled son while trying to break into the music business. When his mother found out about the music business she wrote a letter to him that he was an embarrassment to the family and he was disowned. Someone showed the letter to Johnny Cash, who believed in Kristofferson, and Cash told him ‘Always nice to get a letter from home, isn’t it, Kris?’

I feel lazy doing this but Kristofferson tells the story of the song better than I can. He went to church with country music artist Connie Smith and this happened.

Kris Kristofferson: “The night before we’d been down in Cookeville with a bunch of people, doing a benefit for Dottie West’s High School band or something and then Connie took me over to church the next day to Jimmie Snow’s church. And I had a profound religious experience during the session, something that never had happened to me before. And ‘Why Me’ came out of it.

Everybody was kneeling down and Jimmie said something like if anybody’s lost, please raise their hand. And I was kneeling there. I don’t go to church a lot and the notion of raising my hand was out of the question and I thought, ‘I can’t imagine who’s doing this.’ And all of a sudden I felt my hand going up and I was hoping nobody else was looking because everybody had their head bent over praying.

And then he said, ‘If anybody is ready to accept Jesus, come down to the front of the church.’ I thought that would never happen and I found myself getting up and walking down with all these people and going down there. And I don’t really know what he said to me. He said something to me like, ‘Are you ready to accept Jesus Christ in your life?’ And I said: ‘I don’t know.’ I didn’t know what I was doing there. And he put me down, said, ‘Kneel down here.’ I can’t even remember what he was saying but, whatever it was, was such a release for me that I found myself weeping in public and I felt this forgiveness that I didn’t know I even needed.”

Why Me

Why me Lord, what have I ever done
To deserve even one
Of the pleasures I’ve known
Tell me Lord, what did I ever do
That was worth loving You
Or the kindness You’ve shown

Lord help me Jesus, I’ve wasted it
So help me Jesus, I know what I am
Now that I know that I’ve needed you
So Help me Jesus, my soul’s in Your hand

Tell me Lord, if you think there’s a way
I can try to repay
All I’ve taken from You
Maybe Lord, I can show someone else
What I’ve been through myself
On my way back to You

Lord, help me Jesus, I’ve wasted it
So Help me Jesus, I know what I am
Now that I know that I’ve needed you
So help me Jesus, my soul’s in Your hand

Jesus, my soul’s in Your hand

Neil Young – Wonderin’

I heard this song in the 80s and really liked the video. When I first saw the 80s time lapsed video…I thought Young looked a little like Stephen King around this time…looking at it again…I still do. I want to thank Dave for the post that jarred my memory about After The Gold Rush.

It’s a song that was left off of After The Gold Rush back in 1970. He played it live with Crazy Horse but it would be 1983 when it finally appeared on the album Everybody’s Rockin’. It was re-cut into a 1950s style to fit the rest of the album. He made the album as Neil Young and the Shocking Pinks. There is a story in that as well.

In the early eighties, David Geffen signed Neil Young to a huge contract with Geffen Records. Neil Young who will do his own thing no matter what or when…released an album called “Trans” which was his foray into electronic music. Geffen wanted another “Harvest” with another Heart of Gold or Old Man…instead, he got “Computer Age” and “We R in Control” with Neil singing through a Vocoder.

After that album Neil was asked to do more rock and roll by a Geffen record company executive…the record company was thinking more along the lines of the harder rock Rust Never Sleeps…so Neil gave them rock and roll all right… “Everybody’s Rockin” is an album full of early fifties Doo-wop and rockabilly-sounding songs in the middle of the 80s (thank you, Neil!). The record company was not amused…he then released an album full of country music… In his contract, Neil had full artistic freedom.

Geffen had claimed the new albums were “unrepresentative” of Neil’s music. He sued Neil for 3.3 million dollars but the case was settled and Geffen lost and had to apologize to Neil. That shows you…sometimes life is fair.

If you look at Neil’s career…it was all about change and evolving so I don’t know what Geffen expected. Neil rarely repeats himself. Geffen was expecting early seventies Neil and that wasn’t happening. Young is not an artist that you mess with.

After hearing the original version…I like both.. and I do enjoy the early rock and roll feel of it in the 80s version. The album peaked at #46 on the Billboard Album Charts, #22 in Canada, #21 in New Zealand, and #50 in the UK.

Wonderin’

I’ve been walking all night long
My footsteps made me crazy
Baby, you’ve been gone so long
I’m wonderin’ if you’ll come home
I’m hopin’ that you’ll be my baby
I’m wonderin’ if I’ll be alone
Knowin’ that I need you to save me.

I’ve been talking all day long
To keep my heart from sadness
Baby, you’ve been gone so long
I’m wonderin’ if you’ll come home
I’m hopin’ that you’ll be my baby
I’m wonderin’ if I’ll be alone
Knowin’ that I need you to save me.

I’m wonderin’, I’m wonderin’,
I’m wonderin’, I’m wonderin’,
I’m wonderin’, I’m wonderin’,
I’m wonderin’, I’m wonderin’.

Well, I’m knowin’
that I need you to save me
Knowin’ that I need you to save me.
Knowin’ that I need you to save me.
Knowin’ that I need you to save me.
I’m wonderin’, I’m wonderin’.

Waylon Jennings – Only Daddy That’ll Walk the Line

When I hear this song…I think it’s one of the coolest songs I’ve ever heard. The song is classified as country but there is some early rock in this also. I could hear Buddy Holly singing this one with no problem. Jennings to me, could have easily been a rock and roll singer and his songs often crossed genres. Waylon was in the “Outlaws” which included Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Kris Kristofferson, and David Allan Coe. It wasn’t a band but a group of musicians who had freedom with their music and didn’t follow Nashville’s so called guidelines.

Speaking of Buddy Holly. Jennings played with Buddy Holly in the 50s. Holly saw Jennings, a radio DJ since his pre-teen years, as a promising talent. The first fruits of the two late 50s partnership came when Jennings recorded the songs “Jole Blon” and “When Sin Stops (Love Begins)” with Holly and guitarist Tommy Allsup.

Jennings went on the road as part of Holly’s post-Crickets backing band for the Winter Dance Party Tour along with co-headliners Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper (JP Richardson). They had unheated buses and the drummer Carl Bunch got frost bite on the bus. Holly charted a flight and bandmate Allsup allegedly lost a seat in a coin toss to Ritchie Valens, and Jennings offered his spot to a sick Richardson.

Holly and Jennings were very close. They joked with each other on the night of the crash as Holly was leaving. Holly jokingly told Jennings, “Well, I hope your ol’ bus freezes up!” Jennings jokingly replied, “Well, I hope your ol’ plane crashes!” That haunted Jennings for years after that. Jennings has said that Buddy influenced him a lot in his career. He said he learned not to compromise your music.

Jim Alley, an American country singer, first recorded this song in 1967. However, his version didn’t become that popular during his time. Jimmy Bryant wrote this song and was a fiddle player who played on some country records along with The Monkees song Sweet Young Thing.

Waylon recorded the song at RCA Victor Studios in Nashville and no other than Chet Atkins produced it. The song was released a few months later. The song was a hit, it peaked at #1 on the Canadian Country Charts and #2 on the Billboard Country Charts in 1968. The Kentucky Headhunters and Linda Ronstadt covered the song later on.

Jennings had one of the best marriages in music. He married Jessi Colter in 1969. Jennings experienced three failed marriages before he finally found the one. Jessi remained his wife until Jennings’s death in 2002.

Only Daddy That’ll Walk the Line

Everybody knows you’ve been steppin’ on my toes
And I’m gettin’ pretty tired of it
You keep a steppin’ out of line
You’re messin’ with my mind
If you had any sense you’d quit

‘Cause ever since you were a little bitty teeny girl
You said I was the only man in this whole world
Now you better do some thinkin’ then you’ll find
You got the only daddy that’ll walk the line

I keep a workin’ every day all you want to is play
I’m tired of stayin’ out all night
I’m comin’ unglued
From your funny little moods
Now Honey baby that ain’t right

You keep a packin’ up my clothes nearly everybody knows
That you’re still just a puttin’ me on
But when I start a walkin’
Gonna hear you start a squawkin’
And beggin’ me to come back home

You got the only daddy that’ll walk the line

Pogues – The Sunny Side Of The Street

I’ve posted only one Pogues song before. CB brought them up and I started to listen and song after song was quality. I remember them but more for the name than the music. What a catalog they have and I’ve been listening to them almost non-stop this week. This song is so positive that it rubs off.

This song just gives off a great vibe. The Sunny Side of the Street was inspired by the band’s experiences growing up in working-class neighborhoods. They witnessed firsthand the struggles and triumphs of the people around them. They wanted to shine the light on the resilience and ability to find joy in even the most challenging circumstances.

The Pogues were formed in Ireland in 1982 by Shane MacGowan. The band reached international prominence in the 1980s and early 1990s. MacGowan left because of drinking problems and was replaced by Joe Strummer and then with Spider Stacy on vocals before breaking up in 1996. They reformed in 2001 and toured until 2014.

The song was written by Shane MacGowan and Jeremy Fier. I was released in 1990 and was on the album Hell’s Ditch. The song peaked at #23 on the Billboard Alternative Charts in 1991. The album was produced by former Clash member Joe Strummer.

On November 30…Shane MacGowan passed away. Yesterday, his coffin was being taken down the streets of Dublin pulled by a horse-drawn carriage. He was 65 years old.

The Sunny Side of the Street

Seen the carnival at Rome
Had the women, I had the booze
All that I can remember now
Is little kids without no shoes

So, I saw that train and I got on it
With a heartful of hate and a lust for vomit
Now I’m walking on the sunnyside of the street

Stepped over bodies in Bombay
Tried to make it to the U.S.A.
Ended up in Nepal
Up on the roof with nothing at all
And I knew that day
I was going to stay right where I am
On the sunnyside of the street

Been in a palace, been in a jail
I just don’t want to be reborn a snail
Just want to spend eternity right where I am
On the sunnyside of the street

As my mother wept it was then I swore
To take my life as I would a whore
I know I’m better than before
I will not be reconstructed

Just want to stay right here
The sunnyside of the street
The sunnyside of the street
The sunnyside of the street
The sunnyside of the street

…

John Lennon – Instant Karma

This track is so alive. Lennon’s voice as always cuts through as always and Lennon’s sense of rhythm is different as always. He wrote and recorded this song in one day. John enlisted George Harrison, Klaus Voormann, Alan White, and Billy Preston to help him record the song. He also got Mal Evans, a Beatles road manager, to do the chimes, handclaps, and backing vocals. He is playing tambourine in the video below. The song was recorded on January 27, 1970, and released to the public on February 6, 1970.

I always tell people that I prefer John’s early albums to his later ones and to Pauls early ones. John had an edge to him that Paul didn’t have until Band on the Run… to me anyway.

The chorus was made up of Mal Evans, Yoko, and a small group of strangers Lennon rounded up from a West End pub called Hatchetts.

The song peaked at #3 in the Billboard 100, #2 in Canada, #4 in New Zealand, and #5 in the UK in 1970. Phil Spector produced this track with great results. John kept it simple and Spector produced an exciting record and didn’t overproduce it because John reigned him in. The drums are really in your face in this recording.

Stephen King has said the novel The Shining got its inspiration from this song with the chorus of “We all shine on.”. Before Lennon would let Spector touch the Let It Be tapes…he tried him out on this song to see if he could not overproduce something this sparse and have a hit.

Yoko caught a lot of heat in 1993 when she let Nike use this song in a commercial. I will give her credit on this one… she took the $800,000 that Nike gave her, and gave it to the United Negro College Fund. Nowadays no one says anything about it as much because it’s much more commonplace now.

John Lennon: “I wrote it in the morning on the piano. I went to the office and sang it many times. So I said ‘Hell, let’s do it,’ and we booked the studio, and Phil came in, and said, ‘How do you want it?’ I said, ‘You know, 1950’s.’ He said, ‘right,’ and boom, I did it in about three goes or something like that. I went in and he played it back and there it was. The only argument was that I said a bit more bass, that’s all, and off we went.”

Yoko Ono: “It’s like, ‘Let’s all be together and anybody who’s out there who’s not in this game, why don’t you join us?,'” she told Uncut in 1998. “And to say that ‘We all shine on,’ it’s a beautiful, beautiful thing, instead of saying some people are shining and some people are not. It’s a really uplifting song.”

Instant Karma

Instant Karma’s gonna get you
Gonna knock you right on the head
You better get yourself together
Pretty soon you’re gonna be dead
What in the world you thinking of
Laughing in the face of love
What on earth you tryin’ to do
It’s up to you, yeah you

Instant Karma’s gonna get you
Gonna look you right in the face
Better get yourself together darlin’
Join the human race
How in the world you gonna see
Laughin’ at fools like me
Who in the hell d’you think you are
A super star
Well, right you are

Well we all shine on
Like the moon and the stars and the sun
Well we all shine on
Ev’ryone come on

Instant Karma’s gonna get you
Gonna knock you off your feet
Better recognize your brothers
Ev’ryone you meet
Why in the world are we here
Surely not to live in pain and fear
Why on earth are you there
When you’re ev’rywhere
Come and get your share

Well we all shine on
Like the moon and the stars and the sun
Yeah we all shine on
Come on and on and on on on
Yeah yeah, alright, uh huh, ah

Well we all shine on
Like the moon and the stars and the sun
Yeah we all shine on
On and on and on on and on

Well we all shine on
Like the moon and the stars and the sun
Well we all shine on
Like the moon and the stars and the sun
Well we all shine on
Like the moon and the stars and the sun
Yeah we all shine on
Like the moon and the stars and the sun

December 8, 1980…John Lennon

As I’ve told people before…I rarely do anniversaries. Skylab, Duane Allman, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and a few others but this one I will post as long as I blog.

I grew up in the seventies and became a teen in the 1980s. The Beatles were not popular where I lived to say the least. One concerned mother of a friend actually called my mom warning her that I was headed toward destruction because I was listening to the Beatles at around 11 years old. No, I’m not kidding. My mom, bless her heart, told the lady that “Max knows right from wrong. You worry about your child and I’ll worry about about mine.” Ok back to December of 1980.

Damn this date. Every Dec 8th I can’t help but think of where I was when I heard. This year’s release of Now and Then only heightened the anger, sadness, and confusion over what happened. I post this post every year on this date and will continue. I have updated it each year and I’ve almost rewritten it since I posted it first back in 2018…and if it’s too long now I apologize. I still feel what I felt on that date. Although to be accurate it was on December 9th that I found out…the next morning getting ready for school.

When I watched the news clips at the time I felt like an interloper because all of these fans who were sobbing grew up with Lennon in real time…I was this 13-year-old kid who was late to the party…a decade late.

It’s odd to think the Beatles had only been broken up for 10 years when this happened…to a 13-year-old at the time…that was a lifetime but in reality, it’s nothing. To put it in perspective… it’s now 2023 and 10 years ago was 2013…that doesn’t seem that long ago does it? I was only 3 years old when the Beatles broke up so I had no clue.

Since second grade (1975), I’ve been listening to the Beatles. While a lot of kids I knew listened and talked about modern music …I just couldn’t relate as much. By the time I was ten, I had read every book about The Beatles I could get my hands on. In a small middle TN town…it wasn’t too many. I was after their generation but I knew the importance of what they did…plus just great music. The more I got into them the more I learned about the Who, Stones, and the Kinks. I wanted to get my hands on every book about the music of the 1960s. Just listening to the music wasn’t enough…I wanted to know the history.

I spent that Monday night playing albums in my room. Monday night I didn’t turn the radio on…I’m glad I didn’t…The next morning I got up to go to school and the CBS morning news was on. The sound was turned down but the news was showing Beatle video clips. I was wondering why they were showing them but didn’t think much of it.

Curious, I turned the volume up and found out that John Lennon had been shot and killed. I was very angry and shocked. The bus ride to school was quiet… at school, it was quiet as well. Some teachers were affected because John was their generation. Some of my friends were shocked but some didn’t get the significance at the time and some didn’t care.

I went out and bought the White Album, Abbey Road, and Double Fantasy in late December of 1980…I can’t believe I didn’t have those two Beatles albums already…now whenever I hear any song from those albums they remind me of the winter of 80-81. I remember the call-in shows on the radio then…pre-internet… people calling to share their feelings for John or hatred for the killer.

The next few weeks I saw footage of the Beatles on specials that I had never seen before. Famous and non-famous people pouring their hearts out over the grief. Planned tributes from bands and everyone asking the same question…why?

My young mind could not process why a person would want to do this to a musician. A politician yea…I could see that…not that it’s right but this? A musician? Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy, and JFK were before my time. By the mid-1970s John had pretty much dropped out of sight…John and Yoko released Double Fantasy on November 17, 1980, and suddenly they were everywhere…Less than a month later John was murdered. The catchwords were Catcher in the Rye, Hawaii, handgun, and insane. The next day we were duly informed who killed John in the First, Middle, and Last name format they assign to murderers. I won’t mention his name.

I didn’t want to know his name, his career, his wife’s name, his childhood…I just wanted to know why… he says now…” attention”

I noticed a change happened after that Monday night. John Lennon was instantly turned into a saint, something he would have said was preposterous. Paul suddenly became the square and the uncool one and George and Ringo turned into just mere sidemen. Death has a way of elevating you in life. After the Anthology came out in the 90s that started to change back a little.

I called my dad a few days after it happened and he said that people were more concerned that The Beatles would never play again than the fact a man, father, and husband was shot and killed. He was right and I was among those people until he said that. Dad was never a fan…he was more Elvis, Little Richard, and country music… but he made his point. When my father passed in 2005 I thought about this conversation and knew he was teaching me again.

It was odd being into the Beatles at such a young age and after their time so to speak. While my peers were talking about all the contemporary artists at the time…all I talked about was John, Paul, George, and Ringo. I would end up comparing all the new music I heard to theirs…and that wasn’t fair at all to new music. I would think to myself…well this song (any new song at the time) wasn’t as good as Strawberry Fields and so on. I, fortunately, grew out of that but it took a while.

Below is a video of James Taylor telling how he met the killer a day before Lennon was murdered. Also, Howard Sterns broadcast the day after.

…

Bob Dylan – Neighborhood Bully

He’s not supposed to fight back, he’s supposed to have thick skin
He’s supposed to lay down and die when his door is kicked in

He’s the neighborhood bully.

Welcome to Bob the Punk in this song. He does away with traditional choruses…and just gets down to business. I’ve been wanting to post this for years and it’s been languishing in my draft folder. My friend Matt posted it a little while back.

I bought Infidels back in the 80s and it remains my favorite Dylan album of that decade. It had quite a few songs that made it to our radio stations in Nashville. Jokerman, Sweetheart Like You, and Union Sundown. This is the one is the one that I focused on. Ex Rolling Stone member Mick Taylor played guitar on this and the song is a rocker.

It also was the most controversial song on the album. It drew criticism from some people and others loved it. The song is clearly a pro Israel song and he sings the song with passion. It was banned from YouTube and other platforms in 2020 for “hate speech.” After articles came out in defense of the song…youtube reversed its decision. It was also recalled from the record company for a while. Hard to believe a 37-year-old song could cause so much trouble when it’s been out there since 1983.

People say Bob’s voice is this or that…but it’s made for songs like this. It fits this song perfectly. I’ve seen where some Dylan fans hate it but it’s been a favorite of mine. It’s not Masters of War or Like A Rolling Stone and it’s repetitive but I like it. The lyrics flow great in this one.

The album peaked at #20 in the Billboard Album Charts, #14 in Canada, #4 in New Zealand, and #9 in the UK in 1983.

Bob Dylan: “I’m not a political songwriter. “‘Neighborhood Bully,’ to me, is not a political song, because if it were, it would fall into a certain political party. If you’re talkin’ about it as an Israeli political song—in Israel alone, there’s maybe 20 political parties. I don’t know where that would fall, what party.”

Neighborhood Bully

Well, the neighborhood bully, he’s just one man
His enemies say he’s on their land
They got him outnumbered about a million to one
He got no place to escape to, no place to run
He’s the neighborhood bully.

The neighborhood bully he just lives to survive
He’s criticized and condemned for being alive
He’s not supposed to fight back, he’s supposed to have thick skin
He’s supposed to lay down and die when his door is kicked in
He’s the neighborhood bully.

The neighborhood bully been driven out of every land
He’s wandered the earth an exiled man
Seen his family scattered, his people hounded and torn
He’s always on trial for just being born
He’s the neighborhood bully.

Well, he knocked out a lynch mob, he was criticized
Old women condemned him, said he could apologize
Then he destroyed a bomb factory, nobody was glad
The bombs were meant for him. He was supposed to feel bad
He’s the neighborhood bully.

Well, the chances are against it, and the odds are slim
That he’ll live by the rules that the world makes for him
‘Cause there’s a noose at his neck and a gun at his back
And a licence to kill him is given out to every maniac
He’s the neighborhood bully.

Well, he got no allies to really speak of
What he gets he must pay for, he don’t get it out of love
He buys obsolete weapons and he won’t be denied
But no one sends flesh and blood to fight by his side
He’s the neighborhood bully.

Well, he’s surrounded by pacifists who all want peace
They pray for it nightly that the bloodshed must cease
Now, they wouldn’t hurt a fly. To hurt one they would weep
They lay and they wait for this bully to fall asleep
He’s the neighborhood bully.
Every empire that’s enslaved him is gone
Egypt and Rome, even the great Babylon
He’s made a garden of paradise in the desert sand
In bed with nobody, under no one’s command
He’s the neighborhood bully.

Now his holiest books have been trampled upon
No contract that he signed was worth that what it was written on
He took the crumbs of the world and he turned it into wealth
Took sickness and disease and he turned it into health
He’s the neighborhood bully.

What’s anybody indebted to him for?
Nothing, they say. He just likes to cause war
Pride and prejudice and superstition indeed
They wait for this bully like a dog waits to feed
He’s the neighborhood bully.

What has he done to wear so many scars?
Does he change the course of rivers? Does he pollute the moon and stars?
Neighborhood bully, standing on the hill
Running out the clock, time standing still
Neighborhood bully

Max Picks …songs from 1978

1978

I remember this year well. The Dodgers repeated a World Series trip but also repeated losing to the Yankees.

Great song by The Who on their last album with Keith Moon. Keith was not in the best shape by this time but his drumming on this is still fantastic. The song is about real events that happened to Pete Townshend down to being passed out drunk at night and asking a policeman that knew Pete’s name, Who the F**k are you? You can still hear Daltrey sing the expletive on classic radio stations.

This one was always a favorite of mine of the Rolling Stones. Keith Richards wrote this, but a lot of the lyrics were improvised in the studio. While the band played, Jagger came in with different lines to fit the music.

This song is a good example of the Rolling Stones tapestry of guitars. Keith and Ron Wood weave their guitars in and out until the two guitars are almost indistinguishable from each other.

Warren Zevon was a very clever songwriter. He went were other songwriters don’t often go. This track was produced by Jackson Browne. The songwriters were LeRoy Marinell, Waddy Wachtel, and Warren Zevon. John McVie and Mick Fleetwood played on this song.

This song is one of the best pop singles of the 1970s. It was on the album City To City. This was Rafferty’s first release after the breakup of his former band Steeler’s Wheel. Gerry Rafferty had been unable to release any material due to disputes about the band’s remaining contractual recording obligations, and his friend’s Baker Street flat was a convenient place to stay as he tried to remove himself from his Stealers Wheel contracts. It was his second solo album, the first being Can I Have My Money Back? released in 1971.

The album and song were about life on the road in all its glory and squalor. To emphasize this notion even further, Jackson Browne literally recorded the album on the road, in hotel rooms, on buses, and, in the case of “Running On Empty,” on stage.

Rolling Stones Question

Dave posted this on November 16 in his Turntable Talk series. Dave wanted to know… So, talk about the Stones. Do they matter? Or what was their best song, or album? Or should they just disappear like 1960s cigarette ads featuring doctors?

I’ll answer Dave’s questions near the end.

If I ever meet an alien and he/she/it wanted to know what rock and roll looked and sounded like…I would give them a picture of Keith Richards in 1972 and a copy of “Brown Sugar”.

I found out about The Rolling Stones by reading about The Beatles. That is the same way I found out about The Who, Bob Dylan, The Kinks, and other British bands.

While growing up and playing in bands, I played with a drummer who was a huge Stones fan. He turned me onto their album cuts which I love. We had playful banter about the Beatles vs Stones, but it was all very good-natured. He liked The Beatles as well and I turned him on to their album cuts.

Are the Stones relevant today? Sure, they are… you can’t stay together since the early sixties selling out stadiums without being relevant. In today’s time though, no bands are relevant anymore in the way they were at one time, including the Stones. Musicians once influenced what was going on in the world. Now they are more of a disposable product – which I truly hate.

The Stones’ peak probably was 1968 – 1973 from Beggars Banquet to Goats Head Soup but there is another period I would like to talk about briefly.

To me, their most underrated period was 1965-1967. They had a string of singles starting with “Satisfaction”, “Get Off My Cloud”, “As Tears Go By”, “19^th Nervous Breakdown”, “Paint It Black”, “Ruby Tuesday”, etc.

Keith Richards and Mick Jagger would write these wonderful songs and Brian Jones would color the songs with sitar, harpsichord, flute, marimba, and even saxophone. He was the best musician of the band along with being its founder. When they lost Brian, they lost a key piece. Yes, they found the rock/blues groove which they still have but I liked that underappreciated era and what Brian gave them.

They started as a blues cover band and didn’t worry about writing their own songs. They realized they had to because other bands such as The Beatles, Kinks, and The Who were writing their own songs, and you couldn’t keep on covering blues artists or Chuck Berry and sustain that.

They contributed some great pop songs in the mid-sixties. These songs are sometimes overlooked (except “Satisfaction”) in favor of their late-sixties and early-seventies material. I like these songs because they give a variety of sounds. As much as I love the Mick Taylor period, they lost this part of them and never really went back and it’s a shame.

I wasn’t sure they would continue when I read that Charlie Watts died. Keith always says how important Watts was to the Rolling Stones. If they wouldn’t have had a tour planned who knows if they would have. Watts was indeed important to their sound, but they did continue and I’m glad they did, especially for the fans.

Now I want to answer Dave’s questions. Should they retire? No, why should they do that? Many people say that, but hell no (I also hear this about other artists). If they are happy doing what they are doing, then go ahead. I seriously doubt if they are doing it because of the money at this point. Just like everything else if people don’t want to see them…don’t go to the concerts. I don’t believe people should decide what is good for other people. If I don’t want to hear the Stones, I will turn them off, but I have no plans to do that. To answer Dave’s question… my favorite (to me the best) album is Beggars Banquet. My favorite song is “Memory Motel”.

If I had to describe the Stones, I would describe them as The World’s Greatest Bar Band. That is not a put down…that is a compliment. I think Mr. Richards would approve of that title because I’ve heard him use it. Both times I’ve seen them I heard bum notes and that made them more human to me and made me like them more. If you want your music perfect, they are not for you…but rock and roll wasn’t made to be perfect.

…

Blue Öyster Cult – Godzilla

I thought it was time to include some arena rock since I haven’t posted any for a long time. The band will always be connected to the Cowbell because of Saturday Night Live…but this is a fun song. It helps that I’m a huge fan of Godzilla.

This song was obviously inspired by a series of Japanese films from the 1950s featuring the one and only Godzilla. The song lyrics depict famous scenes from Godzilla films. The band didn’t understand why the 2014 movie didn’t use the song but…in Godzilla The King of The Monsters…it was used but it was a remake…not the original version…they should have used the BOC version.

The song appeared on the album Spectres. The album peaked at #43 on the Billboard Album Charts, #58 in Canada, and #60 in the UK in 1977. The song didn’t chart and wasn’t a hit but lives on and on….on classic radio.

The band’s guitarist, Buck Dharma, wrote this song and shared lead vocals on the track with Eric Bloom. Dharma loved monster movies, and when he came up with the guitar riff, it made him think of Godzilla, which gave him the concept of the song.

In concert at one time, a smoke-spewing animatronic Godzilla with flashing eyes would appear on stage when the band performed this song. Buck Dharma would give it a convincing introduction, often referring to recent newsworthy catastrophes. In later years, the stage Godzilla was retired, but the band still used a barrage of sound effects to start the song

According to the book Contents Under Pressure: 30 Years Of Rush, while opening on tour with Blue Öyster Cult, Rush members replaced a sound recording that queued up with a video of Godzilla at the opening of the set with a recording of “Hello, My name is Mister Ed.” The two bands often played pranks on one another during the tour.

The tune has been used in the soundtracks of numerous other movies, such as “Detroit Rock City,” “Dogtown” and “Z-Boys,” as well as in television shows, commercials, video games, and compilation recordings. It has been covered by bands like Racer X and the Smashing Pumpkins. It also has been parodied by several artists, most notably Blue Oyster Cult members Eric Bloom and Donald Roeser, who released “NoZilla” in response to their song not appearing in the 1998 “Godzilla” film soundtrack.

Buck Dharma: “The story of the tune was, I just came up with the parallel fifths guitar riff in a hotel room in Dallas, Texas back in the day, probably about 1975. And it immediately made me think of Godzilla, like the plodding, you know, guy-in-a-suit monster. And I started writing the lyrics from what happened in the movie. Like, the high-tension wires are a big part of that movie.”

The NEW version

Godzilla

With a purposeful grimace and a terrible sound
He pulls the spitting high-tension wires down

Helpless people on subway trains
Scream, bug-eyed, as he looks in on them

He picks up a bus and he throws it back down
As he wades through the buildings toward the center of town

Oh, no, they say he’s got to go
Go, go, Godzilla (yeah)
Oh, no, there goes Tokyo
Go, go, Godzilla (yeah)

Godzilla!

臨時ニュースを申し上げます
臨時ニュースを申し上げます
ゴジラが銀座方面に向かっています
大至急避難してください
大至急避難してください

Oh, no, they say he’s got to go
Go, go, Godzilla (yeah)
Oh, no, there goes Tokyo
Go, go, Godzilla (yeah)

History shows again and again
How nature points out the folly of man
Godzilla!