Thank you for reading my second post of the day…but you might regret it. My wife absolutely hates this song with an undying passion. She said it ruins her favorite Elvis Presley Christmas song. With that in mind, I keep it in heavy rotation at Christmas!!!! Just to see her face light up! WARNING…once you hear this…you cannot un-hear it. I haven’t heard Elvis’s version of Blue Christmas the same again since I heard this.
“Seymour Swine” is voice actor Denny Brownlee. He recorded this parody in 1985 for the John Boy and Billy radio show. Brownlee channels his inner Porky Pig by singing Blue Christmas sticking to the Elvis version. I was starting my work career at the time mixed in with college and I remember this taking off. I’ve heard it every year since then. I have to say…the kazoo in the middle was a nice touch.
The song Blue Christmas was written by Billy Hayes and Jay W. Johnson… but I bet they didn’t count on this cover. There have been many who have covered this song…such as Ringo Starr, Celine Dion, The Beach Boys, Sheryl Crow, Smash Mouth, Brooks and Dunn, Vince Gill, Face to Face, Bette Midler, Harry Connick Jr., Shakin’ Stevens, Bill Haley, and the Comets, Eilert Pilarm, Mary Margaret O’Hara, Misfits, Freddy Fender, Collective Soul, and many more.
This version is either loved or hated it seems. It can make you laugh and get on people’s nerves at the same time…win win! Merry Christmas!
Blue Christmas
I’ll have a blue Christmas
Without you
I’ll be so blue just thinkin’
About you
Decorations of red
On a green Christmas tree
Won’t be the same, dear
If you’re not here with me
And when those blue snowflakes
Start fallin’
That’s when those blue mem’ries
Start callin’
You’ll be doin’ all right
With your Christmas of white
But I’ll have a blue
Blue
Blue
Blue Christmas
If you are a KISS fan…yes you are reading this right. On their 1984 album Let It Be the always unpredictable Replacements put a KISS cover in the middle of their album. It felt out of place on the album but was a fun cut. The Replacements and Big Star were similar…not music as much but as an influence. Every punk band that got huge in the ’90s, especially Nirvana and Green Day owes a major debt to the Replacements.
The Replacements have been described as being one of the best live rock and roll bands ever witnessed…or if they were in a playful or pissed-off mood…they might play covers all night long and some very bad on purpose. They started off as a punk band and doing KISS covers was not high on the punk list…neither was guitar player Bob Stinson idolizing Yes’s prog rock guitar player Steve Howe.
They gradually morphed into a great rock band after their second album. I’ve known people who saw them in the 80s…say that yes they could compete with the best rock band on earth when they were on. When they were not on…they would at least entertain you.
In the mid-80s they were playing at CBGB’s and near the set’s end, Kiss bassist Gene Simmons walked in. Peter Jesperson (Replacements manager) was at the soundboard. “They had a talkback system at CBGB where you could communicate from the booth into the monitors.” He alerted Paul Westerberg to Simmon’s presence, and the band went right into “Black Diamond.” “Simmons was looking all around like ‘How did they know I was here?’” recalled Jesperson. The ’Mats’ “suck ass version” quickly chased Simmons from the venue. The band followed up with an X-rated version of the “Ballad of Jed Clampett,” then whistled their way through the theme from The Andy Griffith Show before finally leaving the stage. Someone was watching them from the audience that night…the one and only Alex Chilton.
When the Replacements went through their routine, Chilton had a grin plastered on his face. After the show, both Jesperson and Chilton were waiting to get paid by CBGB owner Hilly Kristal. Jesperson offered to buy breakfast the next morning. Chilton accepted. That started a friendship between Chilton and the band.
Seymour Stein was the head of Sire records which was owned by Warner Brothers. He was interested in the band and listened to their albums and finally got to see them a few nights after the CBGB disaster…he was knocked out by how great they were. They went all out and were definitely on. That is how big the contrast was with their shows.
The song was written by Paul Stanley. Black Diamond is the closing track on the band’s eponymous first album, Kiss, released in 1974. Paul Stanley did the intro vocal and then Peter Criss takes over. This is a good example of why Criss’s voice is the one I like best of all of them. It has a raspy feel to it.
The Replacements version changes it somewhat and they make it more of their style…is it a great cover? No, but it is interesting. If you asked me my favorite rock band of the 80s…The Replacements would be my pick. They played rock with intelligent lyrics and they were armed with Westerberg who I would place among the best songwriters of his era.
PaulWesterberg: ““That was, in 1974, dangerous, exciting rock-and-roll for us, I was ashamed to admit it at that time, but now I’m smart enough to know that that music was the thing that got me going.”
Paul Stanley (KISS): “‘Black Diamond’ was a song that I wrote about New York. New York was very dear to us, and life there was all we could write about. Seeing hookers on the street, whether we lived it, we saw it and it kind of gave us something to fantasize about.”
Black Diamond
Out on the street for a living You know it’s only begun They’ve got you under their thumb
Out on the street for a living Shits only begun Doing whatever killed him They got you under their thumb
Oooh, black diamond Oooh, black diamond
Out on the street for a country And it’s only a dream Got other people marching And it’s only a way
Oooh, black diamond Oooh, black diamond
Out on the street for a living And it’s only begun Regardless a street or a country They got you under their thumb
I had to double-check my index to make sure I didn’t post this song before. Well no I haven’t and I can’t believe it because it’s WAY up there in the top 3 of my favorite Stones songs. My order probably goes as follows… 1. Memory Motel, 2. 100 Years Ago, and 3. Happy.
This song is on one of my favorite double albums. Since I made a short list of my top 3 favorite Stones songs…I’ll make a short one of my favorite double albums. Number 1 is also my favorite album of all time…The Beatles The White Album, 2. would be Exile On Main Street (and that is where Happy is found), and number 3 The Clash London Calling. I’m thankful none of them were trimmed down.
I love Keith Richard’s voice. I wish he would have had lead vocals on more than he did. I think Jagger is terrific and the perfect singer for them but it’s a raw quality about Keith’s voice that I like. I’ve read that he sang in the choir as a youngster until cigarettes and other substances made it a little raw. The song is great and I can’t believe that Mick didn’t fight to sing this one.
I love the studio version but I also like the 1972 tour version of this song with Mick Taylor with his fat Gibson-sounding guitar driving it also. Everyone who reads me knows I’m a huge Mick Taylor fan. It’s not that I don’t like Ronnie Wood…he fits them perfectly but his and Keith’s guitar sometimes sound too much like each other with the same tones. There was no mistaking Taylor.
A few years ago Mick Taylor joined them onstage and they had that sound again as soon as he was chugging away at the chords. I want to mention one more thing about that era. Mick Taylor contributed as I said but also Jimmy Miller their producer. He needs a hell of a lot of credit for the success they had with that 5-album stretch. Without Jimmy Miller who knows if those albums would have had the same sound. Once he left…so did that sound.
Happy was recorded at Keith’s Villa Nellcote in France when The Stones left England to avoid paying taxes. They used the basement as a recording studio but had a hard time getting everyone together at once because of the party atmosphere. The only people to play on this were Keith (guitar, bass, vocals), producer Jimmy Miller (drums), and horn player Bobby Keys (percussion). Horns were dubbed in later.
The song peaked at #22 on the Billboard 100 and #9 in Canada. The B side was a song that is just as good as this one… All Down The Line. Exile On Main Street peaked at #1 on The Billboard Album Charts, Canada, and the UK in 1972.
Keith Richards:“That’s a strange song, because if you play it you actually become happy, even in the worst of circumstances. It has a little magical bounce about it. I wrote it one afternoon when we were cutting Exile on Main St. in France and the studio was in my basement. And Bobby Keys was with me and they got this lick going. So we went down and I recorded it with just guitar and Bobby Keys on baritone saxophone. While we were doing that, Jimmy Miller, who was our producer at the time, came in. And he was a very good drummer as well. So we said, well let’s put down a dub, we’ll just sort of sketch it out and play it later. But it’s another one of those things that ended up being on the record. It was just one of those moments that you get that are very happy. And I can play it now and it gives you a lift. I don’t know why except for maybe the word.”
Happy
Well I never kept a dollar past sunset
It always burned a hole in my pants
Never made a school mama happy
Never blew a second chance, oh no
I need a love to keep me happy
I need a love to keep me happy
Baby, baby keep me happy
Baby, baby keep me happy
Always took candy from strangers
Didn’t wanna get me no trade
Never want to be like papa
Working for the boss ev’ry night and day
I need a love to keep me happy
I need a love, baby won’t ya keep me happy
Baby, won’t ya keep me happy
Baby, please keep me
I need a love to keep me happy
I need a love to keep me happy
Baby, baby keep me happy
Baby
Never got a flash out of cocktails
When I got some flesh off the bone
Never got a lift out of Lear jets
When I can fly way back home
I need a love to keep me happy
I need a love to keep me happy
Baby, baby keep me happy
Baby, baby keep me happy
Baby
Happy, baby won’t you keep me
Happy, baby won’t you keep me
Happy, baby won’t you keep me
Happy, baby won’t you keep me
Happy, baby won’t you keep me
Happy, oh, keep on, baby, keep me
Happy, now baby won’t you squeeze me
Happy, oh, baby got to feel it
Happy, now, now, now, now, now keep me
Happy, my, my, my, keep me
Happy, keep on baby, keep me
Happy, keep on baby, got to
Happy, my, my, baby keep me happy
Merry Christmas everyone… another year older…and a new one just begun.
This is my favorite Christmas song hands down. This song gets me in the Christmas mood like no other. The song is highly idealistic but that is alright. It was the early seventies and the time for idealism.
In 1969 John and Yoko had rented billboard spaces in 12 major cities around the world, for the display of black-and-white posters that declared “WAR IS OVER! If You Want It – Happy Christmas from John & Yoko”. Two years later this slogan became the basis for this song when Lennon decided to make a Christmas record with an anti-war message…plus John said he was sick of White Christmas.
John’s voice goes so well with this song. The song peaked at #2 in the UK charts in 1971….the song did peak at #42 in the Billboard 100 in 2019.
John Lennon and Yoko Ono wrote this in their New York City hotel room and recorded it during the evening of October 28 and into the morning of the 29th, 1971 at the Record Plant in New York. It was released in the US for Christmas but didn’t chart. The next year, it was released in the UK, where it did much better, charting at #2. Eventually, the song became a Christmas classic in America, but it took a while.
Lennon originally wrote this as a protest song about the Vietnam War, and the idea “that we’re just as responsible as the man who pushes the button. As long as people imagine that somebody’s doing it to them and that they have no control, then they have no control.”
The children’s voices are the Harlem Community Choir, who were brought in to sing on this track. They are credited on the single along with Yoko and The Plastic Ono Band.
I think of High School when I hear this song. Our school had a Christmas poster contest and a buddy and I made a poster as a joke and wrote “So this is Christmas and what have you done another year over, and a new one just begun” and won first prize…with an assist from John.
This didn’t appear on an album until 1975, when it was included on Lennon’s Shaved Fish singles compilation. This is one of the first Lennon albums I bought.
Happy Xmas (War is Over)
(Happy Christmas Kyoko) (Happy Christmas Julian)
So this is Christmas And what have you done Another year over And a new one just begun And so this is Christmas I hope you have fun The near and the dear one The old and the young
A very Merry Christmas And a happy new year Let’s hope it’s a good one Without any fear
And so this is Christmas For weak and for strong For rich and the poor ones The world is so wrong And so happy Christmas For black and for white For yellow and red ones Let’s stop all the fight
A very Merry Christmas And a happy new year Let’s hope it’s a good one Without any fear
And so this is Christmas And what have we done Another year over A new one just begun And so happy Christmas We hope you have fun The near and the dear one The old and the young
A very Merry Christmas And a happy new year Let’s hope it’s a good one Without any fear War is over, if you want it War is over now
I’m doing this post for Jim’s Song Lyric Sunday! The subject today is “Power Pop” so I could not pass this by. Power pop is my favorite genre of music. Today I’m focusing on the 1990’s band Marcy Playground. The main song today is “Sex and Candy” AND I also included their other hit “Sherry Fraser” above Sex and Candy at the bottom of the post. Give them both a listen if you can…and thank you Jim for inviting me.
With lyrics that included “Like disco superfly” and “In platform double suede” plus “Like disco Lemonade” my “like” meter went off the charts. I love the 70s-like phrases and the interplay between guitar and lyrics in this late 90s power pop song. It’s not a high-energy pop song by any measure but it keeps me interested.
I loved the overall sound of this band and was excited about what would come next. They really never hit with anything else after this. Sex and Candy was written by singer-songwriter and guitarist John Wozniak. Wozniak got their name from his childhood school called “Marcy Open School” located in Minnesota.
This song peaked at #8 on the Billboard 100 and #29 in the UK in 1997. The song was on their self-titled debut album. It peaked at #21 in the Billboard Album Charts, #16 in Canada, and #61 in the UK in 1998. It also peaked at #1 in the Billboard Heatseeker charts.
They released 3 more albums but none of them charted in Billboard 200. The band still releases albums and tours.
John Wozniak: “Where did I get the ‘sex and candy’ part from? Well, I was dating a girl and she was going to Bryn Mawr College and it’s where my dad teaches. And I was probably 17 or something like that and she was like 18. I always liked the older girls. (laughs) But we were in her dorm room, and her roommate came in and she saw us there, and she was like, ‘Oh, it smells like sex and candy in here.’ And I always remembered that. And that was back in the late ’80s.
And then when I was writing the song and I was coming up with all these weird disco-era references that I was making up, ‘platform double suede’ and all that business, I was like, hey, let’s just throw in that phrase that’s been sticking in my head for the last 5 years or whatever. So I wrote that song in ’92, ’93, somewhere around there. And it didn’t really come out until ’97. That song had been at least in my consciousness since the late ’80s. At least with the concepts behind it.
But it’s just about seeing some sexy girl and then falling in love, and then asking a dumb question to yourself… well, it’s not even asking a question. It’s just – I don’t know!! I don’t know. (laughing) I’m just gonna be straight up honest. I don’t know. I’m telling you, when I was very young I experimented with drugs, but when I was writing these songs, I wasn’t high. But it sounds like I was high.
Sex and Candy
Hangin’ round downtown by myself And I had so much time To sit and think about myself And then there she was Like double cherry pie Yeah there she was Like disco superfly
I smell sex and candy here Who’s that lounging in my chair Who’s that casting devious stares In my direction
Mama this surely is a dream Yeah mama this surely is a dream Yeah mama this surely is a dream
Hangin’ round downtown by myself And I had too much caffeine And I was thinkin’ ’bout myself And then there she was
In platform double suede Yeah there she was Like disco lemonade
I smell sex and candy here Who’s that lounging in my chair Who’s that casting devious stares In my direction
Mama this surely is a dream Yeah mama this surely is a dream Yeah mama this surely is a dream
I smell sex and candy here Who’s that lounging in my chair Who’s that casting devious stares In my direction
Mama this surely is a dream Yeah mama this surely is a dream Yeah mama this surely is a dream Yeah mama this must be my dream
This is fast becoming my favorite rock Christmas song second only to John Lennon’s Happy Xmas (War Is Over)
This is a great Christmas song that was released in 1973 and ever since it re-enters the charts every December in the UK. The song never hit in America but it went to #1 in the UK Charts. I first heard it on a Doctor Who episode in the mid-2000s and have liked it ever since.
This was based on a psychedelic song, “My Rocking Chair,” which Noddy Holder wrote in 1967. In 1973 the Slade vocalist decided to convert it into a Christmas song after a night out drinking at a local pub.
He and the band’s bass player and co-writer Jimmy Lea camped out at Noddy’s mother’s house and got down to changing the lyrics to make them more Christmassy. Jimmy Lea incorporated into the verse parts of another song which he was then writing and Noddy re-wrote the words incorporating different aspects of the Christmas holiday season as they came to mind.
This went straight in at #1 in the UK, selling over 300,000 copies on the day of its release, making it at the time the fastest ever selling record in Britain. It eventually became Slade’s best-ever selling single in the UK, selling over a million copies.
In the UK this has become a standard, and it is usually reissued in its original form each Christmas. On several occasions, the song has re-entered the Top 40.
UK copyright collection society and performance rights organization PRS For Music estimated in 2009 that 42 percent of the earth’s population has heard this tune.
The song was written by Noddy Holder and Jim Lea of Slade. It was produced by Chas Chandler formerly of the Animals. The harmonium used on this is the same one that John Lennon used on his Mind Games album, which was being recorded at the studio next door.
Noddy Holder: “I wrote the original verse with the lyrics, ‘Buy me a rocking chair, I’ll watch the world go by. Bring me a mirror, I’ll look you in the eye,’ in 1967 in the aftermath of The Beatles’ Sgt Pepper,” I was being psychedelic. Dave (Hill) wrote another part to the song but it didn’t work so we put it away. Then in 1973 he remembered my verse one day when we were trying to write a Christmas single. We changed the words to, ‘Are you hanging up your stocking on the wall?’ and the rest fell into place.”
Noddy Holder: “As a lad we used to knock sleds with old orange boxes and go tobogganing down this big old quarry in the snow at Christmas. It was the inspiration for the line ‘are you hoping that the snow will start to fall.’”
I want that hat he starts off with… in this video…very subtle.
Merry Christmas Everybody
Are you hanging up a stocking on your wall? It’s the time that every Santa has a ball Does he ride a red nosed reindeer? Does a ‘ton up’ on his sleigh Do the fairies keep him sober for a day?
Chorus: So here it is merry Christmas Everybody’s having fun Look to the future now It’s only just begun
Are you waiting for the family to arrive? Are you sure you got the room to spare inside? Does your granny always tell ya that the old are the best? Then she’s up and rock ‘n’ rollin’ with the rest
Chorus: So here it is merry Christmas Everybody’s having fun Look to the future now It’s only just begun
What will your daddy do When he sees your Mama kissin’ Santa Claus? Ah ah
Are you hanging up a stocking on your wall? Are you hoping that the snow will start to fall? Do you ride on down the hillside in a buggy you have made? When you land upon your head then you’ve been slayed
Chorus (4x) So here it is merry Christmas Everybody’s having fun Look to the future now It’s only just begun
The bass intro to this song is worth the price of admission by itself. It still sounds alive and fresh 42 years later. When you namecheck Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, Milhous Nixon, Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, and Rin Tin Tin…you are doing damn well.
Bassist Paul Simonon was busy starring in a film called Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains when the Clash started the album Sandinista!Ian Dury and the Blockheads’ bassist Norman Watt-Roy was there so we wrote the superb bassline.
There was a controversy after Sandinista! was released due to every song having the”The Clash” writing credit that failed to name outside writers like Norman Watt-Roy. This has been considered the first rap-style song to be written by a white rock band. It was recorded in March 1980, six months before Blondie’s own attempt at the genre with “Rapture.” For me, I do think it has elements of course but it’s a cross between rock, rap, funk, and Bob Dylan’s Subterranean Homesick Blues. I also hear elements of the next album Combat Rock in this one.
The song peaked at 21 on the Billboard Dance Chart, #18 in Canada, and #34 in the UK.
ThesongwasrecordedinMarch1980atElectricLadyStudiosinNewYorkCity. Sandinista! was released as a triple album in 1980. It peaked at #24 on the Billboard Album Charts, #3 in Canada, #3 in New Zealand, and #19 in the UK in 1980. They did get the title from the famous 1960 movie.
Joe Strummer on the triple album: “I stand proud of it, warts and all. It’s a magnificent thing! I wouldn’t change it even if I could. And that’s after some soul-searching. Just from the fact that it was all thrown down in one go. It’s, like, outrageous. And that it was released like that, it’s doubly outrageous — triply outrageous.”
The Magnificent Seven
Ring, ring, it’s 7:00 A.M.
Move yourself to go again
Cold water in the face
Brings you back to this awful place
Knuckle merchants and your bankers too
Must get up and learn those rules
Weather man and the crazy chief
One says sun and one says sleet
A.M., the F.M. the P.M. too
Churnin’ out that boogaloo
Gets you up and it gets you out
But how long can you keep it up?
Gimme Honda, gimme Sony
So cheap and real phony
Hong Kong dollar, Indian cents
English pounds and Eskimo pence
You lot, what?
Don’t stop, give it all you got
You lot, what?
Don’t stop, yeah
You lot, what?
Don’t stop, give it all you got
You lot, what?
Don’t stop, yeah
Working for a rise, better my station
Take my baby to sophistication
Seen the ads, she thinks it’s nice
Better work hard, I seen the price
Never mind that it’s time for the bus
We got to work and you’re one of us
Clocks go slow in a place of work
Minutes drag and the hours jerk
Yeah, wave bye, bye (when can I tell ’em what I do?)
(In a second, maan, alright Chuck)
Wave bub-bub-bub-bye to the boss
It’s our profit, it’s his loss
But anyway the lunch bells ring
Take one hour, do your thang
Cheeesboiger
What do we have for entertainment?
Cops kickin’ gypsies on the pavement
Now the news has snapped to attention
Lunar landing of the dentist convention
Italian mobster shoots a lobster
Seafood restaurant gets out of hand
A car in the fridge, a fridge in the car
Like cowboys do in TV land
You lot, what?
Don’t stop, give it all you got
You lot, what?
Don’t stop, huh
You lot, what?
Don’t stop, give it all you got, yeah
You lot, what?
Don’t stop
So get back to work and sweat some more
The sun will sink and we’ll get out the door
It’s no good for man to work in cages
Hit the town, he drinks his wages
You’re frettin’, you’re sweatin’
But did you notice, you ain’t gettin’
You’re frettin’, you’re sweatin’
But did you notice, not gettin’ anywhere
Don’t you ever stop, a long enough to start
Take your car outta that gear
Don’t you ever stop, long enough to start
Get your car outta that gear
Karlo Marx and Frederick Engels
Came to the checkout at the 7-11
Marx was skint but he had sense
Engels lent him the necessary pence
What have we got? Yeah, ooh
What have we got? Yeah, ooh
What have we got? Magnificence
What have we got?
Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi
Went to the park to check on the game
But they was murdered by the other team
Who went on to win fifty-nil
You can be true, you can be false
You’ll be given the same reward
Socrates and Milhous Nixon
Both went the same way through the kitchen
Plato the Greek or Rin Tin Tin
Who’s more famous to the billion millions?
News flash, ‘Vacuum cleaner sucks up budgie’
Ooh, bye-bye, bub-bye
The magnificent seven
Magnificent
Magnificent seven
There have been many versions of this song but this one is the one I listen to the most. The dynamics in this version are great.
This Dec 31st, 1980 performance of Merry Christmas Baby was recorded at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale, NY, during The River Tour. The song was played in its E Street Band arrangement. It was released in November 1986 as the B-side to WAR. This was the lead single from the Live/1975-85 box set.
Although Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley covered “Merry Christmas Baby” before Bruce did, it sounds like he based his version on Otis Redding’s 1968 version.
Lou Baxter wrote this song but it was called “Merry Christmas Blues” and Charles Brown took it home to work it out. He rewrote it with the new title. Baxter wanted Charles Brown to record it the way Charles rewrote it and it became a big hit with Brown singing with Johnny Moore’s Three Blazers.
Then the music business struck again…The company promised Charles he would have a co-writer credit but of course, it didn’t happen and Johnny Moore had his name listed on the song instead. Charles never got paid royalties for the song. It was originally released in 1947 and peaked at #3 in the Charts.
Moore died, largely unknown, in the 1960s. Brown, meanwhile, became renowned as a pioneer of the laid-back, piano-driven style of West Coast blues and was recognized as an early influence on Ray Charles; he had a renaissance in the 1990s, touring with Bonnie Raitt.
Charles Brown was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999 but died before the induction.
It was also on a compilation album A Very Special Christmas of various artists released in 1987.
Merry Christmas Baby
Bring it down, band!
Now, I just came here tonight to say… I just wanna say… I just wanna say…
Merry Christmas baby, you surely treat me nice Come on, merry Christmas baby, you surely treat me nice I feel just like I’m living, living in paradise
Now listen Now you see, I feel real good tonight And I got music on the radio And I feel real good tonight And I got music on the radio And the boys in the band are playing pretty good! Now, I feel just like I wanna kiss you Underneath my mistletoe
But now listen Santa came down chimney, half past three With lots of nice little presents for my baby and me Merry Christmas baby, you surely treat me nice And I feel like I’m living, just living in paradise Come on boys!
Well now, Santa came down chimney, half past three With lots of nice little presents for my baby and me Merry Christmas baby, you surely treat me nice I feel like I’m living, I’m living in paradise
And I just came down to say Merry Christmas baby I just wanna say, merry Christmas baby I just wanna say, merry Christmas baby I just wanna say, merry Christmas baby And happy New Year, too! Oh yeah! Play it boys, go! Merry Christmas Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-happy New Year Ohhhh!
A great Cheap Trick song. In 1982 it was released off the album “One on One” and peaked at #45 on the Billboard 100 and #57 on the UK Charts. That low charting surprised me somewhat because it received heavy airplay on MTV when they actually played music videos.
When I heard the bridge of this song I noticed the strong Beatle influence. I would tell people in the 80s…if the Beatles released a song now…this is what it would sound like. Just a couple of years before, their album All Shook Up was produced by no other than George Martin.
This song was off the album One On One which was produced by Roy Thomas Baker. I bought the album and is one of my favorites by them. John at 2loud2oldmusicreviewed this album a while back. It peaked at #39 on the Billboard Album Chart, #39 in Canada, and #95 in the UK. The two hit singles were If You Want My Love and She’s Tight.
Original bassist Tom Petersson left the band in 1980 and was replaced by Pete Comita. Comita didn’t make it through the recording of this album and he was replaced by Jon Brant. Brant played on Saturday at Midnight, If You Want My Love, and She’s Tight. The rest of the album’s bass tracks were recorded by Rick Nielson. Brant left on good terms in 1987 after playing on the next three albums. Tom Petersson returned after that. Brant has filled in for Petersson when he wasn’t able to tour.
A similar instance happened with Tom Petty and The Heartbreaker’s original bass player Ron Blair. He left the band in 1982 only to return in 2002.
Cheap Trick was always one of the hardest-working bands ever…they toured relentlessly. Rick Nielson has said If You Want My Love is one of his favorite songs he ever recorded.
If You Want My Love
If you want my love, you got it When you need my love, you got it I won’t hide it I won’t throw your love away, ooh
If you want my love, you got it When you need my love, you got it I won’t hide it I won’t throw your love away, ooh
Yes, I thought you were a mystery girl A special girl in this crazy old world You couldn’t see me when I laid eyes on you
Lonely is only a place You don’t know what it’s like You can’t fight it And it’s a hole in my heart, in my heart
If you want my love, you got it When you need my love, you got it I won’t hide it I won’t throw your love away, ooh
You hold the secrets of love in this world I’m hypnotized by your every word A special face, a special voice, a special smile in my life
‘Cause lonely is only a place You don’t know what it’s like You can’t fight it And it’s a hole in my heart, in my heart
If you want my love, you got it When you need my love, you got it I won’t hide it I won’t throw your love away, ooh
If you want my love, you got it When you need my love, you got it I won’t hide it I won’t throw your love away, ooh
If you want my love, you got it When you need my love, you got it You won’t hide it You won’t throw your love away, ooh
On December 8th I left my schedule empty because I know who I’m going to slide in there. It’s the ugliest rock date of the year. John by far is my favorite Beatle and the leader of that band. My next post as always on this date will be about where I was when I found out…and I update it some every year.
I’ve always considered Plastic Ono Band and Imagine the top two albums that Lennon made and either one will match up with the best of the other solo Beatles albums. They both are sparse and more simple than his Beatle colleagues. Imagine is a more polished album than Plastic Ono Band… of course, that is not saying a lot. Phil Spector produced this album and I’ve always wondered why Lennon got him when he didn’t like overproduced music. He kept Spector under control for the most part.
When the Beatles broke up, John and Paul dove headfirst into their individual careers. Paul jumped straight into pop and Lennon dived into writing what he thought was the truth and setting it to a backbeat. They were not going to veer from their respective targets. You could tell they didn’t have each other to hold the other back anymore. That is what the Beatles had as a whole that the two head Beatles didn’t anymore. George just went on… already accustomed to writing alone but John and Paul had no brakes.
For John, it paid off in two brilliant albums off the bat that probably would not have been the same with The Beatles. With Paul, it paid off with Ram but with just an OK debut album. After these first two albums, John seemed to lose some of his edge and Paul took a while but finally gained more confidence until he made his masterpiece Band On The Run released late in 1973.
David Bowie gave John a huge compliment. He said he could find the most odd ideas and turn them around for the masses.
Imagine peaked at #1 on the Billboard Album Charts and the UK. It also peaked at #2 in Canada in 1971.
David Bowie:“Hell, I mean, he was one of the major major influences on my musical life. I just thought he was the very best of what could be done with Rock and Roll. I felt such kin to him as much as he would rifle the avant-garde and look for ideas that were so on the outside on the periphery of what was the mainstream and then make them apply in a functional manner to something that was considered populist and make it work.”
“He would make the most odd idea and make it work for the masses I thought that was just so admirable. I mean, that was like making art work for the people and not sort of having it as an elitist, you know. The thing there was just so much about in that I admire, he was tremendous”
John Lennon:Songwriting is like getting the demon out of me. It’s like being possessed. You try to go to sleep, but the song won’t let you. So you have to get up and make it into something, and then you’re allowed to sleep. It’s always in the middle of the bloody night or when you’re half awake or tired, when your critical faculties are switched off.
‘Crippled Inside’ is a social comment. It talks about people having false fronts in society and really underneath there’s something else. Satire. There was one review of that song that said, ‘Oh, that kind of song has been done before…’ but I wasn’t even thinking about it. I was sitting down and this little riff came into me head, like an old Twenties song: ‘One thing you can’t hide is when you’re crippled inside.’ It just came to me, you know, like that, and I just finished it off.
Crippled Inside
You can shine your shoes and wear a suit
You can comb your hair and look quite cute
You can hide your face behind a smile
One thing you can’t hide
Is when you’re crippled inside
You can wear a mask and paint your face
You can call yourself the human race
You can wear a collar and a tie
One thing you can’t hide
Is when you’re crippled inside
Well now you know that your
Cat has nine lives
Nine lives to itself
But you only got one
And a dog’s life ain’t fun
Momma take a look outside
You can go to church and sing a hymn
You can judge me by the color of my skin
You can live a lie until you die
One thing you can’t hide
Is when you’re crippled inside
Well now you know that your
Cat has nine lives
Nine lives to itself
But you only got one
And a dog’s life ain’t fun
Momma take a look outside
You can go to church and sing a hymn
Judge me by the color of my skin
You can live a lie until you die
One thing you can’t hide
Is when you’re crippled inside
One thing you can’t hide
Is when you’re crippled inside
One thing you can’t hide
Is when you’re crippled inside
Sometimes a pop song is more important than just a regular pop song…this is one of them.
Great song by Dion. This song is a tribute to those involved in the battle for civil rights. The title refers to Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., and John F. Kennedy. The last verse in the song refers to Bobby …JFK’s brother, Robert Kennedy. Everyone mentioned in the song has died and this is symbolized by their progression over a hill.
This was written by the rockabilly singer Richard Louis Holler…better known as Dick Holler who also wrote the novelty hit Snoopy Vs. The Red Baron. Abraham, Martin and John has been covered by artists including Ray Charles, Bob Dylan, Kenny Rogers, Emmylou Harris, Andy Williams, Marvin Gaye, Whitney Houston, and Moms Mabley, among others.
Dion was in bad shape when this song presented itself. He had just recovered from heroin addiction and was offered this as a possible comeback song. It peaked at #4 on Billboard 100, #1 in Canada, and #12 in New Zealand in 1968 and reestablished Dion in the music business.
Initially, Dion detested the song, but he has since come to understand its legacy. Later on, Dion claimed to have received over 4,000 letters thanking him for recording this song.
Dion:“I realized that what these four guys had in common was a dream… It was like they had the courage to believe that a state of love really can exist.”
Abraham, Martin and John
Has anybody here seen my old friend Abraham?
Can you tell me where he’s gone?
He freed a lot of people
But it seems the good die young
But I just looked around and he’s gone
Has anybody here seen my old friend John?
Can you tell me where he’s gone?
He freed a lot of people
But it seems the good die young
But I just looked around and he’s gone
Has anybody here seen my old friend Martin?
Can you tell me where he’s gone?
He freed a lot of people
But it seems the good die young
But I just looked around and he’s gone
Didn’t you love the things that they stood for?
Didn’t they try to find some good for you and me?
And we’ll be free
Someday soon, it’s gonna be
One day
Has anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he’s gone?
I thought I saw him walkin’
Up over the hill
With Abraham, Martin and John
The song I know most by them is Hold Tight but after finding that one I found this odd song by them. It was their only #1 song in the UK. It also did well in New Zealand peaking at #1, #10 in Canada, and #123 in the Billboard 100 in 1968. The song was written by Ken Howard and Alan Blaikley.
You know…before we continue. Sometimes a band’s name can help and maybe hurt them a little. In this case, the word HINDER comes into play… although I do get a laugh out of it…I had to serach my own site to find their correct name again.
David John Harman (Dave Dee), Trevor Leonard Ward-Davies (Dozy), John Dymond (Beaky), Michael Wilson (Mick) and Ian Frederick Stephen Amey (Tich), who were childhood friends from Wiltshire (same area as the Troggs) formed a group in 1961. They were originally called Dave Dee and the Bostons. A few years later they changed their names to Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich.
Songwriter Ken Howard who recorded them: “We changed their name to Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich, because they were their actual nicknames and because we wanted to stress their very distinct personalities in a climate which regarded bands as collectives”.
They never made it big in America but they were huge in the UK. They had thirteen UK Top forty hits, eight UK Top 10’s, and one Number 1 with this song. In New Zealand, the band had three number-one hits, and seven other songs reached the top ten.
I heard them a bit through the 80s and 90s but not much. Quentin Tarantino must have liked them because he featured Hold Tight in his movie Death Proof during the infamous crash scene.
The group re-formed in the 1990s with Dee as lead vocalist once again. Dave Dee performed his last gig in Eisenburg, Germany on September 20, 2008, and died at Kingston Hospital, southwest London, in January 2009 at the age of 65, following a three-year battle with cancer.
The Legend Of Xanadu
Esta es la leyenda de Xanadu
You’ll hear my voice, on the wind, ‘cross the sand If you should return To that black barren land that bears the name of Xanadu
Cursed without hope, was the love that I sought Lost from the start Was the duel that was s’pposed to win her heart in Xanadu
And the foot prints leave no traces Only shadows move in places where we used to go And the buildings open to the sky All echo when the vultures cry as if to show Our love was for a day Then doomed to pass away In Xanadu, in Xanadu, in Xanadu
In Xanadu, in Xanadu, in Xanadu
What was it to you that a man laid down his life for your love Were those clear eyes of yours ever Filled with the pain and the tears and the grief Did you ever give your self to any one man in this whole wide world Or did you love me and will you find your way back one day to Xanadu
You’ll hear my voice, on the wind, ‘cross the sand If you should return To that black barren land that bears the name of Xanadu
This coming weekend I’m going to attempt a Beatles album ranking post which I’ve never done… so I’ve been listening to the White Album. Rocky Raccoon is a great way to start out the week
I bought the White Album in the winter of 1981 right after John Lennon was murdered. It has remained my favorite album ever by far. You have such a variety on this album and it gives you different glances at the Beatles without many studio tricks and sounds.
This song starts with a strumming guitar and then comes Paul talking/singing in his best western voice. Now somewhere in the Black Mountain Hills of Dakota There lived a young boy named Rocky Raccoon.
The main character was originally called Rocky Sassoon but McCartney changed it to Raccoon, as he thought the name was more cowboyish.
The original title of the album was going to be “A Doll’s House“… but the band Family used the title Music from a Doll’s House for its debut album, so The Beatles scrapped the idea. The album’s real name ended up being “The Beatles” but the plain white cover nickname soon took over. From some accounts here is the original cover.
In 1968, McCartney got the idea for it when he was playing guitar with John Lennon and Donovan Leitch at the Maharishi’s camp in India. Rocky in the song is a cowboy in the old west and challenges Dan when Dan ran off with Rocky’s girl. In the gunfight, Dan is too quick and shoots Rocky wounding him. When the song was recorded… Beatles producer George Martin played the piano in an old-west saloon style.
Rocky in this song is not a raccoon but a boy whose girl runs off with his rival, Dan. The song is set in the Old West, so Rocky does what any self-respecting cowboy would do: he challenges Dan to a gunfight. Unfortunately for Rocky, he Dan is quick on the draw and shoots him first, wounding Rocky and proving himself worthy of the girl.
The album peaked at #1 in the US, Canada, UK, and just about everywhere in 1968.
Paul McCartney:“Rocky was me writing (speaks-sings in a baccy-chewing old prospector voice), ‘It was way back in the hills of Dakota-or Arkansas-in the mining days. And it was tough, picking shovels, and we were underground 24 hours a day…’ I could have taken this serious route, researched it – ‘Take This Hammer’ (a prison work song recorded by British skiffle star Lonnie Donegan in 1959), stuff I’d been brought up on. But at that point I was a little tongue-in cheek. So I crossed it with a (British singer and banjo player popular in the 1940s) George Formby sensibility, where John and I would go (sings a bit of doggerel in a choppy rhythm) – Stanley Holloway, Albert in The Lion’s Den (the comic poem The Lion and Albert, written by Holloway’s creative partner Marriott Edgar in 1932). We were very versed in all that stuff (sings opening lines of Rocky Raccoon in the same choppy way). The scanning of the poetical stanza always interested me. Somehow this little story unfolded itself.
I was basically spoofing ‘the folk-singer.’ And it included Gideon’s Bible, which I’ve seen in every hotel I’ve ever been in. You open the drawer and there it is! Who’s this guy Gideon! I still don’t know to this day who the heck he is. I’m sure he’s a very well-meaning guy. Rocky Raccoon was a freewheeling thing, the fun of mixing a folky ramble with Albert In The Lion’s Den with its ”orse’s ‘ead ‘andle,’ ha ha.”
Many cover versions have been recorded. Some of the artists are Richie Havens, Ramsey Lewis, Jack Johnson, Andrew Gold, James Blunt, Phish, Jimmy Buffett, Maureen McGovern, Kingston Wall, Charlie Parr, and Andy Fairweather Low.
Rocky Raccoon
Now somewhere in the Black Mountain Hills of Dakota
There lived a young boy named Rocky Raccoon
And one day his woman ran off with another guy
Hit young Rocky in the eye
Rocky didn’t like that
He said, “I’m gonna get that boy”
So one day he walked into town
Booked himself a room in the local saloon
Rocky Raccoon checked into his room
Only to find Gideon’s Bible
Rocky had come, equipped with a gun
To shoot off the legs of his rival
His rival it seems, had broken his dreams
By stealing the girl of his fancy
Her name was Magill, and she called herself Lil
But everyone knew her as Nancy
Now she and her man, who called himself Dan
Were in the next room at the hoe down
Rocky burst in, and grinning a grin
He said, “Danny boy, this is a showdown”
But Daniel was hot, he drew first and shot
And Rocky collapsed in the corner
Now the doctor came in, stinking of gin
And proceeded to lie on the table
He said, “Rocky, you met your match”
And Rocky said, “Doc, it’s only a scratch
And I’ll be better, I’ll be better, Doc, as soon as I am able”
Now Rocky Raccoon, he fell back in his room
Only to find Gideon’s Bible
Gideon checked out, and he left it, no doubt
To help with good Rocky’s revival
Like Neil Young, The Beatles, and a few others…Bowie could and would change his music direction on a dime and still be commercially successful. Personally, I liked his glam period the best but I liked all of them. He would venture into soul music, experimental music, dance music, pop music, stripped-down rock with Tin Machine, and the list goes on.
Not only was he a great singer and musician but he was also a very good actor. He appeared in such movies as The Man Who Fell To Earth, Labyrinth, The Last Temptation of Christ, and more.
I love this song and Bowie’s glam rock period. It hit high in the charts in the UK but was not released as a single in America or Canada. It peaked at #3 in the UK in 1973. The song was on the album Aladdin Sane which peaked at #1 in the UK, #17 on the Billboard Album Charts and #20 in Canada. Here is a review of the album from The Press Music Reviews.
Bowie had written Mott The Hoople’s greatest hit All The Young Dudes and he wrote this for them as a follow-up. They rejected it so he took it for himself. He said it was influenced by the landscape between Seattle and Phoenix, Arizona on his 1972 tour. Just a few hours after he wrote it he performed it on that 72 tour.
In the song, he referenced some famous people like Mick Jagger, Carl Jung, and Twiggy. Twiggy would later appear on the cover of his album Pin-Ups. The song has an unusual storyline… In the future, nuclear war has caused humanity to forget how to have sex and they have to relearn seduction techniques from old films.
Before he played the new song he told the audience this:This is the bit where all the people with the tape recorders have to leave, because I’m gonna do a new number and you mustn’t record it…. I’ll tell you where we wrote this. We wrote this from Phoenix down to Seattle—no, see, it’s the other way around, isn’t it—from Seattle down to Phoenix, and it was about the future, and it’s about a future where people have forgotten how to make love, so they go back onto video-films that they have kept from this century. This is after a catastrophe of some kind, and some people are living on the streets and some people are living in domes, and they borrow from one another and try to learn how to pick up the pieces. And it’s called “Drive-In Saturday.”
Drive-In Saturday
(Uh uh ah) Let me put my arms around your head
(Dom do ah) Gee, it’s hot, let’s go to bed
Don’t forget to turn on the light
Don’t laugh babe, it’ll be alright
(Dom do ah) Pour me out another phone
(Dom do ah) I’ll ring and see if your friends are home
Perhaps the strange ones in the dome
Can lend us a book we can read up alone
And try to get it on like once before
When people stared in Jagger’s eyes and scored
Like the video films we saw
His name was always buddy (got got do ah aah aah)
And he’d shrug and ask to stay
She’d sigh like twig the wonder kid (got got do ah)
And turn her face away
She’s uncertain if she likes him (got got do ah aah aah)
But she knows she really loves him
It’s a crash course for the ravers (got got do ah)
It’s a drive-in Saturday
Jung the foreman prayed at work (dom do ah)
Neither hands nor limbs would burst
It’s hard enough to keep formation with this fall out saturation
(Bah dom bah) cursing at the astronette
(Dom do ah) who stands in steel by his cabinet
He’s crashing out with Sylvian
The bureau supply for aging men
With snorting head he gazes to the shore
Once had raised a sea that raged no more
Like the video films we saw
His name was always buddy (got got do ah aah aah)
And he’d shrug and ask to stay
She’d sigh like twig the wonder kid (got got do ah)
And turn her face away
She’s uncertain if she likes him (got got do ah aah aah)
But she knows she really loves him
It’s a crash course for the ravers (got got do ah)
It’s a drive-in Saturday
His name was always buddy (got got do ah aah aah)
And he’d shrug and ask to stay
She’d sigh like twig the wonder kid (got got do ah)
And turn her face away
She’s uncertain if she likes him (got got do ah aah aah)
But she knows she really loves him
It’s a crash course for the ravers (got got do ah)
It’s a drive-in Saturday, yeah, yeah
(Drive-in Saturday)
(It’s a drive-in Saturday)
(It’s a drive-in Saturday)
(It’s a drive-in Saturday)
It’s a, it’s a, it’s a drive in Saturday (It’s a drive-in Saturday)
It’s a, it’s a, it’s a, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir,
Yes sir
(It’s a drive-in Saturday) dom do do do, dom do do do
(It’s a drive-in Saturday) dom do do da, dom do do da
(It’s a drive-in Saturday) yes sir
(It’s a drive-in Saturday)
This song and The KKK Took My Baby Away are my two top favorite Ramones saongs.
This song was released in 1978 on The Ramone’s album Road to Ruin. It has no chart history on Billboard but is one of their best-known songs. The Ramones were to the point, with no solos, no frills… just about the song.
I’ve heard them described as punk, bubblegum, rock, heavy rock and everything in between. I always thought they combined the elements of all of them.
When Joey Ramone wrote the lyrics for “I Wanna Be Sedated,” he was not joking. They were on tour in New Jersey in 1977 when the singer badly burned his face and chest with scalding water from a vaporizer he was using to soothe his throat.
He finished the show, then went to the hospital with second and third-degree burns. They pulled a bunch of shows while he recovered, and when they returned to the road in Europe he was still in constant pain. The song was scribbled down in London around Christmas, and the band cut it in 1978. Needless to say, it didn’t impact the charts, but today it’s one of their most-played songs on the radio. Joey Ramone said at one time it was his favorite Ramone track.
Joey Ramone: It’s a road song. I wrote it in 1977, through the 78. Well, Danny Fields was our first manager and he would work us to death. We would be on the road 360 days a year, and we went over to England, and we were there at Christmas time, and in Christmas time, London shuts down. There’s nothing to do, nowhere to go. Here we were in London for the first time in our lives, and me and Dee Dee Ramone were sharing a room in the hotel, and we were watching The Guns of Navarone. So there was nothing to do, I mean, here we are in London finally, and this is what we are doing, watching American movies in the hotel room.
I Wanna Be Sedated
Twenty twenty twenty four hours to go I wanna be sedated Nothing to do, nowhere to go o, I wanna be sedated
Just get me to the airport, put me on a plane Hurry hurry hurry, before I go insane I can’t control my fingers, I can’t control my brain Oh no oh oh oh oh
Twenty twenty twenty four hours to go I wanna be sedated Nothing to do, no where to go o, I wanna be sedated
Just put me in a wheelchair, get me on a plane Hurry hurry hurry, before I go insane I can’t control my fingers, I can’t control my brain Oh no oh oh oh oh
Twenty twenty twenty four hours to go I wanna be sedated Nothing to do, no where to go o, I wanna be sedated
Just put me in a wheelchair, get me to the show Hurry hurry hurry, before I go loco I can’t control my fingers, I can’t control my toes Oh no oh oh oh oh
Twenty twenty twenty four hours to go I wanna be sedated Nothing to do, no where to go o, I wanna be sedated
Just put me in a wheelchair, get me to the show Hurry hurry hurry, before I go loco I can’t control my fingers, I can’t control my toes Oh no oh oh oh oh
Ba ba baba, baba ba baba, I wanna be sedated Ba ba baba, baba ba baba, I wanna be sedated Ba ba baba, baba ba baba, I wanna be sedated Ba ba baba, baba ba baba, I wanna be sedated
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