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James Brown – Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag

Happy Father’s Day! I hope everyone has a great day.

I do miss my dad…this is Christmas 1975…yea I’m the dork beside him.

James Brown = The MAN

James Brown recorded this song in one take…the released version was supposed to be a run-through, but sounded so good it was kept anyway.

Brown, who still hadn’t memorized the song’s lyrics, read from a sheet in front of him at the beginning of the original take, he can be heard saying “There’s a lot of words here, man.” He also can be heard exclaiming “This is a hit!” just before the band kicks in.

The song peaked at #8 in the Billboard 100 and #1 in the R&B Charts in 1965.

This song was followed by “I Got You (I Feel Good),” which quickly became Brown’s biggest hit (until “Living in America” was released in 1985) as it went to #3 on the Hot 100.

This won a Grammy for Best R&B Recording of 1965. It was also inducted into the Grammy Hall Of Fame in 1999.

From Songfacts

A “bag” is slang for a way of doing something or a kind of lifestyle. It was a popular saying in the ’60s, especially among musicians, who wouldn’t describe songs as being “in an R&B bag” or “in a doo-wop bag.”

In this song, James Brown sings about coming up with a new “bag,” meaning a completely different way of approaching music. Inspired by what he heard in church, he punctuated the music on the downbeat, creating his “brand new bag.”

In March 1965, after a legal battle with King Records, Brown agreed to a new contract with a higher royalty rate than their previous agreement, plus Brown’s own publishing company and complete artistic control. Brown promptly went into a Charlotte, North Carolina, studio and cut “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag.”

King Records executive Syd Nathan gave a copy of this to New York DJ Frankie Cocker, who hated the new James Brown style but was impressed with the response when he put it on the air anyway. When King Records released the track as a single, Smash Records, the label Brown had leased some of his songs to that prompted the lawsuit, released an instrumental version of the song. As part of the ruling, Smash Records could release only instrumental versions of Brown’s songs.

Brown had recorded the very similar sounding “Out Of Sight” for Smash earlier that year, violating his King contract. James retooled the song, using a riff his band had been playing live, as a peace offering to King.

The original song was about seven minutes long, moved at a slower pace, and featured a more elaborate intro. After the song was cut, Brown sliced off most of the intro, sped the song up to get it played on pop radio, and broke it up into three parts (the second of which can be heard on the flipside of the original single).

The vocal version reached #8 in the US. It was the first Top 10 hit for the Godfather of Soul, and marked a departure from his early music toward the definition of his signature sound. Horns are used for percussive effect, and Brown’s vocals are tightly attached to the overall instrumental mix.

Dancing was a big part of James Brown’s stage show, and he often referred to dances in the lyrics to his songs. The dance crazes mentioned in this one are: The Jerk, The Fly, The Monkey, The Mashed Potatoes, The Alligator, The Twist, and the Boomerang.

Artists to record this song include Pat Boone, Freddy Cannon, Georgie Fame, Quincy Jones, L.A. Guns, Willie Mitchell, Pigbag, Otis Redding, Roger, Jimmy Smith, The Ventures, Charles Wright & the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band.

Brown’s longtime sax player Maceo Parker played baritone sax on this track, and Maceo’s older brother Melvin was the drummer. The guitar, which is most prominent when it answers Brown’s chorus line, came courtesy of Jimmy Nolen.

This was performed in Beat the Devil, one of a series of BMW films (see it at YouTube). Faced with the problem of viewers skipping past commercials or simply ignoring them, BMW decided to make short films starring their products that people would choose to watch. James Brown stars in this one.

This was used in the 1993 Robin Williams film Mrs. Doubtfire.

Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag

Come here sister, Papa’s in the swing
He ain’t too hip, about that new breed babe
He ain’t no drag
Papa’s got a brand new bag

Come here mama, and dig this crazy scene
He’s not too fancy, but his line is pretty clean
He ain’t no drag
Papa’s got a brand new bag

He’s doing the Jerk
He’s doing the Fly
Don’t play him cheap ’cause you know he ain’t shy
He’s doing the Monkey, the Mashed Potatoes
Jump back Jack, See you later alligator

Come here sister
Papa’s in the swing
He ain’t too hip now
But I can dig that new breed babe
He ain’t no drag
He’s got a brand new bag

Oh papa! He’s doing the Jerk
Papa, he’s doing the Jerk
He’s doing the twist, just like this
He’s doing the Fly every day and every night
The thing’s, like the Boomerang
Hey, come on
Hey! Hey, come on
Hey! Hey, he’s put tight, out of sight
Come on. Hey! Hey!

Blue Ridge Rangers – Jambalaya (On The Bayou) 1973

Sorry if you are seeing this twice…I can’t blame WordPress for this…I scheduled it for yesterday…this morning. I’m posting it again.

Who are all of those shadows on the cover? That would be the one-man band of John Fogerty who played everything on the album. It was released in 1973.

John wanted to pay tribute to the country artists he admired so he released this album right after CCR broke up. Instead of going about it the traditional country-music way…with a bunch of musicians sitting together in a room and performing the music live as the tapes roll – Fogerty played every single instrument on The Blue Ridge Rangers himself.

Jambalaya is a song written and recorded by country music singer Hank Williams that was first released in 1952. Named for a Creole and Cajun dish, jambalaya, it spawned numerous cover versions.

Jambalaya (On The Bayou)

Goodbye, Joe, me gotta go, me oh my oh.
Me gotta go, pole the pirogue down the bayou.
My Yvonne, sweetest one, me oh my oh.
Son of a gun, gonna have big fun on the bayou.

[CHORUS:]
Jambalaya and a crawfish pie and fillet gumbo
‘Cause tonight I’m gonna see my ma cher amio.
Pick guitar, fill fruit jar and be gayo,
Son of a gun, gonna have big fun on the bayou.

Thibodeaux, Fontaineaux, the place is buzzin’,
Kinfolk come to see Yvonne by the dozen.
Dress in style, go hog wild, and be gayo.
Son of a gun, gonna have big fun on the bayou.

[CHORUS:]
Oh, guitar!

[CHORUS]

Oh, Lord!
Hang tight, ooh Lord!
Ah, take it out.
He’s comin’, ah!

Bob Seger – Night Moves

I always liked this song by Seger. This song is a staple on classic radio and I still listen to it when it comes on. Seger has great imagery in this song.

It took Seger around six months to write this song. Along with “Turn The Page,” this was one of just two songs Seger ever wrote on the road.

Night Moves was a breakthrough hit for Seger, introducing the heartland rocker to a much wider audience. He had been very popular in Michigan ever since his first album in 1969… which had the hit Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man. That song went to #17 on the Hot 100, but over the next few years, he struggled to make a national impact.

A big break came in April 1976 when his label, Capitol, seeing the success of Peter Frampton’s Frampton Comes Alive, issued a Seger live album, Live Bullet, recorded at two of his Detroit concerts in 1975. It quickly found a following and outsold every other Seger album.

Bob was born in Detroit. His father was a bandleader and musician who worked in an auto plant to support his wife and two children. He was the younger of two sons and got less attention from his father.

Bob Seger was inspired by the movie American Graffiti, which was released in 1973 but set in 1962. He said, “I came out of the theater thinking, Hey, I have a story to tell too. Nobody has ever told about how it was to grow up in my neck of the woods.”

Night Moves peaked at #4 in the Billboard 100, #5 in Canada, and #39 in New Zealand.

From Songfacts

This song is about a young couple losing their virginity in the back seat of a Chevy. Seger says the song is autobiographical, but he took some liberties, as their tryst was after high school. The girl he was with had a boyfriend away in the military, and when he came back, she married him, breaking Seger’s heart. Seger says the song represents the freedom and possibility of the high school years.

The phrase “night moves” has a number of meanings, which made it an intriguing song title. It could mean “putting the moves on” a girl in the back seat of a car, but Seger says it also relates to the impromptu parties he and has buddies threw in the fields of Ann Arbor, Michigan, where they would turn on the headlights and dance their “night moves.” They called these gatherings “grassers.”

Four songs on the Night Moves album were recorded at Muscle Shoals Sound Studios in Alabama with the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, and another four at Pampa Studios in Detroit with Seger’s Silver Bullet Band. They needed one more for the album, so Seger’s manager booked three days at Nimbus Nine Studios in Toronto with producer Jack Richardson. They quickly recorded three songs that weren’t that memorable. Seger’s guitarist and sax player returned to Detroit, but the rest of the crew kept working on a very stubborn song Seger had been toiling over: “Night Moves.” When it started to come together, Richardson brought in the local guitarist Joe Miquelon and organist Doug Riley to play on the track along with Seger and two members of his band: bass player Chris Campbell and drummer Charlie Allen Martin.

It’s also the only track on Night Moves with female backing vocals, which were provided by Laurel Ward, Rhonda Silver and Sharon Dee Williams, a trio from Montreal that happened to be in town.

The famous bridge in this song, where Seger strips it down and sings “I woke last night to the sound of thunder,” is something he and producer Jack Richardson came up with on the fly in the studio.

Night Moves was released in October 1976, with the title track issued as the lead single. When the Night Moves album entered the chart at #84 on November 13, Live Bullet was hanging around at #159. For the rest of the year and most of 1977, both albums were on the chart. Each ended up selling 5 million copies.

As for the “Night Moves” single, it rose to #4 in March 1977, making the heartland rocker a national name.

On the album, this runs 5:25. The single version was cut down to 3:23, taking out the bridge section where Seger wonders about the thunder and hums a song from 1962.

This reflective track was a change of pace for Seger, whose songs tended to be rockers with lot of live energy. It wasn’t his first slower song though: “Turn The Page” was released in 1972 but got little attention. After “Night Moves” and the next single, “Mainstreet,” took off, many radio stations added “Turn The Page” to their playlists.

According to Seger, he knew he had a hit after he recorded the song. Folks at his record company were also sure of it; Seger recalls the esteemed promotions man at Capitol, Bruce Wendell, telling him, “You’re going to be singing this song for your entire career.”

Like many of Seger’s songs, there is a touch of nostalgia in the lyrics. When he sings, “And it was summertime, sweet summertime, summertime,” he’s not only referring to the time of the year, but to that season of his life as well. In the last verse of the song, when he is reminiscing, he says, “With autumn closing in” and is referring to the autumn of his life, getting older. >>

Rolling Stone magazine named this Single of the Year for 1977.

The tempo changes were inspired by Bruce Springsteen’s “Jungleland.” Seger wrote the song in pieces; he had the first two verses written but was having trouble finishing the song. After hearing “Jungleland,” he realized he could connect the song with two distinct bridges.

When Seger sings the line about how he dressed in high school, “Tight pants, points, hardly renowned,” “Points” refers to small metal objects some teenagers wore on their shoes in the ’60s.

“Night Moves” didn’t get a video when it was first released (it was five years before MTV), but when Seger’s Greatest Hits album was released in 1994, a video was made to promote it. The video borrows heavily from American Graffiti, showing young people at a ’60s drive-in, intercut with shots of Seger singing the song in the projection room. It was directed by Wayne Isham and stared some soon-to-be famous actors, notably Matt LeBlanc, who would later appear on the TV series Friends. His love interest is played by Daphne Zuniga, who was already starring in Melrose Place. Johnny Galecki, who later found fame on Roseanne and The Big Bang Theory, also appears. The video version of the song runs 4:30, splitting the difference between the album version and the single edit.

In the UK, the song charted for the first time (at #45) when it was released as a single along with Seger’s Greatest Hits package.

According to Seger, he and the girl really made it in the backseat of a ’62 Chevy, but it didn’t fit lyrically, so he changed the line to “my ’60 Chevy.” >>

“Night Moves” is also the name of a 1975 movie starring Gene Hackman that is unrelated to the song. Another movie called Night Moves, this one starring Jesse Eisenberg and also unrelated to the song, hit theaters in 2013.

Since this is such a personal song, it has garnered few covers, although Garth Brooks and The Killers have performed it live.

Seger revealed in a radio interview that in the line, “Started humming a song from 1962,” the song he had in mind was “Be My Baby” by the Ronettes (which was actually released in 1963).

Seger credits the Kris Kristofferson-written song “Me And Bobby McGee” for inspiring the narrative songwriting style he employed on this track.

Night Moves

I was a little too tall, could’ve used a few pounds
Tight pants points hardly renown
She was a black-haired beauty with big dark eyes
And points all her own sitting way up high
Way up firm and high

Out past the cornfields where the woods got heavy
Out in the back seat of my sixty Chevy
Workin’ on mysteries without any clues
Workin’ on our night moves
Trying’ to make some front page drive-in news
Workin’ on our night moves
In the summertime
In the sweet summertime

We weren’t in love, oh no, far from it
We weren’t searching for some pie in the sky summit
We were just young and restless and bored
Living by the sword
And we’d steal away every chance we could
To the backroom, the alley, the trusty woods
I used her she used me, but neither one cared
We were getting our share

Workin’ on our night moves
Trying to lose the awkward teenage blues
Workin’ on out night moves
And it was summertime
Sweet summertime, summertime

And oh, the wonder
Felt the lightning
Yeah, and we waited on the thunder
Waited on the thunder

I woke last night to the sound of thunder
How far-off, I sat and wondered
Started humming a song from nineteen-sixty-two
Ain’t it funny how the night moves?
When you just don’t seem to have as much to lose
Strange how the night moves
With autumn closing in

Hmm, night moves
(Night moves) night moves
(Night moves) yeah
(Night moves) night moves
(Night moves) I remember the night moves
(Night moves) ain’t it funny how you remember?
(Night moves) funny how you remember
(Night moves) I remember, I remember, I remember, I remember
(Night moves) oh
(Night moves) move away
(Night moves) we’re gonna practice, love
(Night moves) night moves
(Night moves) oh, I remember
(Night moves) yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember
(Night moves) oh, I remember
(Night moves) god, I remember
(Night moves) lord, I remember

Oh, woman, oh, yeah, yeah, uh-huh, I remember, I remember

Fanny – Ain’t That Peculiar

I’m always on the lookout for new old music…I’ve heard this band mentioned by rock stars before like David Bowie…I see why a lot of musicians liked them. They opened up for some huge bands. They were one of the pioneer all-female rock bands.

Fanny was formed in the late sixties in Sacramento by two Filipina sisters, Jean and June Millington. Fanny would be the first all-female band to release an album on a major label (their self-titled debut, on Reprise, 1970) and land four singles in the Billboard Hot 100 and two in the top 40. The band played blues, rock, and some pop.

They never got that one big hit single to break them to the masses. The broke up in 1975 and reunited in 2018 and released an album titled Fanny Walked the Earth.

They really impressed David Bowie…he said in 1999:

“They were one of the finest fucking rock bands of their time,” “They were extraordinary: They wrote everything, they played like motherfuckers, they were just colossal and wonderful, and nobody’s ever mentioned them. They’re as important as anybody else who’s ever been, ever; it just wasn’t their time.”

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/fanny-lives-inside-the-return-of-the-pioneering-all-female-rock-band-125635/

Lowell George of Little Feat was another fan of the band and jammed with the group when they were in Los Angeles

Ain’t That Peculiar was a song written by Pete Moore, William Smokey Robinson, Bobby Rogers, and Marv Tarplin. Marvin Gaye covered it in 1965.

Fanny’s version peaked at #85 in the Billboard 100 in 1972.

Ain’t That Peculiar

You do me wrong but still
I’m crazy about you
Stay away too long
And I can’t do without you

Every chance you get
You seem to hurt me
More and more
But each hurt makes my love
Much stronger than before

I know that flowers
Grow with the rain
But how can love
Grow with the pain

Ain’t that peculiar
Ain’t that peculiar

You tell me lies that
Should be obvious to me
But I’m so much
In love with you, baby
That I don’t want to see

That the things you do and say
Are designed to make me blue
Now, it’s a doggone shame
My love for you makes
All your lies seem true

Now, if the truth
Makes love last longer
Why do lies make
My love stronger

Ain’t that peculiar
Ain’t that peculiar

You do me wrong but still
I’m crazy about you
Stay away too long
And I can’t do without you

Every chance you get
You seem to hurt me
More and more
But each hurt makes my love
Much stronger than before

I know that flowers
Grow with the rain
But how can love
Grow with the pain

Ain’t that peculiar
Ain’t that peculiar
Ain’t that peculiar
Ain’t that peculiar
Ain’t that peculiar
Ain’t that peculiar

Supertramp – The Logical Song

In 1979 the album Breakfast In America was huge. The album had 4 singles in the Billboard 100. The Logical Song was the lead single. It peaked at #4 in the Billboard 100, #1 in Canada, #7 in the UK, and #13 in New Zealand in 1979.

Breakfast In America peaked at #1 in the Billboard Album Charts, #1 in Canada, #1 in New Zealand, and #3 in the UK…and won 2 Grammys.

This was a very personal song for Roger Hodgson would work on the song during soundchecks, and completed it long before bringing it to the band. The lyrics were based on his experience of being sent away to boarding school for ten years.

To accentuate the “d-d-digital” line in the lyrics, the band borrowed a Mattel handheld electronic football game from an engineer named Richard Digby-Smith, who was working next door. This device provided an unusual sounding, layered bleep. The specific sound occurs near the end of the song just after Hodgson sings the word “digital.” The sound itself indicated a player had lost control of the football.

Roger Hodgson: “I had actually finished the words and the arrangement six months before I proposed it to the band for the album… I didn’t think anyone would like it. Interestingly enough this song has the distinction of being one of the most quoted lyrics in schools.”

From Songfacts

The lyrics are about how the innocence and wonder of childhood can quickly give way to worry and cynicism as children are taught to be responsible adults. It makes the point that logic can restrict creativity and passion. Supertramp keyboard player Roger Hodgson, who wrote this song and sang the lead vocals, said in our 2012 interview: “I think it was very relevant when I wrote it, and actually I think it’s even more relevant today. It’s very basically saying that what they teach us in schools is all very fine, but what about what they don’t teach us in schools that creates so much confusion in our being. I mean, they don’t really prepare us for life in terms of teaching us who we are on the inside. They teach us how to function on the outside and to be very intellectual, but they don’t tell us how to act with our intuition or our heart or really give us a real plausible explanation of what life’s about. There’s a huge hole in the education. I remember leaving school at 19, I was totally confused. That song really came out of my confusion, which came down to a basic question: please tell me who I am. I felt very lost. I had to educate myself in that way, and that’s why California was very good for me to kind of re-educate myself, if you like.

But it’s interesting that that song, I hear it all the time, it’s quoted in schools so much. I’ve been told it’s the most-quoted song in school. That may be because it has so many words in it that people like to spell. But I think it also poses that question, and maybe stimulates something with students. I hope so.” (Here’s our full interview with Roger Hodgson.)

Like the Lennon/McCartney partnership, most of Supertramp’s songs are credited to their lead singers Roger Hodgson and Rick Davies, although in many cases one writer was entirely responsible for the song. “The Logical Song” was written by Hodgson, but it shares some themes with a song Davies wrote on Supertramp’s 1974 album Crime of the Century called “School.” Speaking of the connection in 1979 at a time when the songwriters were at odds, Davies said to Melody Maker: “‘School’ was a device, in some ways. I don’t know whether Roger would be able to associate too much with that, although I can see the connection with ‘Logical Song.’ Roger went straight from public school to a rock group, so his personal experience is a bit limited in that area. He’s very public school.”

Hodgson often writes songs by singing over his keyboard riffs. He’ll try different words and phrases to get ideas for his lyrics, which is how the title of this song came about. Said Hodgson: “From singing absolute nonsense, a line will pop up that suddenly makes sense, then another one, and so on. I was doing that when the word ‘logical’, came into my head and I thought, ‘That’s an interesting word’.”

Like another famous song from 1979, “Another Brick In The Wall (part II),” this song rails against English schooling. “What’s missing at school is for me the loudest thing,” Hodgson said. “We are taught to function outwardly, but we are not taught who we are inwardly, and what really the true purpose of life is. The natural awe and wonder, the thirst and enthusiasm and joy of life that young children have, it gets lost. It gets beaten out of them in a way.”

In 1980, Hodgson won the Ivor Novello Award from The British Academy of Composers and Songwriters, who named “The Logical Song” the best song both musically and lyrically of that year.

The German dance music band Scooter did a techno version of “The Logical Song,” which was wildly popular across Europe and hit #2 in the UK. It has been certified gold by the BPI, selling over 400,000 copies and was the 15th best selling single of 2002.

In 2004, a Supertramp tribute band called Logicaltramp formed in the UK. Supertramp members John Helliwell and Roger Hodgson have given the band favorable reviews, and Helliwell has joined them on stage. >>

At a concert appearance, Roger Hodgson said of this song: “I was sent to boarding school for ten years and I definitely emerged from that experience with a lot of questions, like What the hell happened to me? What is life about? And why a lot of the things I had been told didn’t make any sense. ‘Logical Song’ was really a light hearted way of saying something pretty deep. Which is they told me how to conform, to be presentable, to be acceptable and everything but they didn’t tell me who I am or why I m here. So, it s a very profound message and I think it really resonated with a lot of people when it came out.”

The Logical Song

When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful
A miracle, oh it was beautiful, magical
And all the birds in the trees, well they’d be singing so happily
Oh joyfully, playfully watching me
But then they send me away to teach me how to be sensible
Logical, oh responsible, practical
And they showed me a world where I could be so dependable
Oh clinical, oh intellectual, cynical

There are times when all the world’s asleep
The questions run too deep
For such a simple man
Won’t you please, please tell me what we’ve learned
I know it sounds absurd
Please tell me who I am

I said, watch what you say or they’ll be calling you a radical
Liberal, oh fanatical, criminal
Won’t you sign up your name, we’d like to feel you’re acceptable
Respectable, oh presentable, a vegetable
Oh, take it take it yeah

But at night, when all the world’s asleep
The questions run so deep
For such a simple man
Won’t you please tell me what we’ve learned
I know it sounds absurd
Please tell me who I am, who I am, who I am, who I am
‘Cause I was feeling so logical
D-d-digital
One, two, three, five
Oh, oh, oh, oh
It’s getting unbelievable

Paul Simon – The Boy In The Bubble

“The bomb in the baby carriage was wired to the radio”

That lyric got my attention when I first heard the song. The song sounded so different at the time than anything else that was going on.

Paul Simon wrote the lyrics for this song when he returned to America from South Africa When he was there his concern was recording just the music.

The words had to work with the track that Simon’s producer Roy Halee assembled from the reels of tape they returned with. It took Simon a long time to finish the lyrics, working in phrases like “the boy in the bubble and the baby with the baboon heart” in a way that would mesh with the African rhythm.

This song is credited to Simon and Forere Motloheloa.

There was a United Nations cultural boycott in place that was designed to pressure political leaders into giving up their Apartheid policy. The boycott was to keep popular musicians away from places like Sun City where they played to the white ruling class in South Africa. The problem was that any violation of the boycott could undermine the sanctions, and many locals were not happy with Simon’s visit. Some people still complain about him making this album there.

These South African sanctions didn’t just keep outside musicians away from the country, but it also kept their local music from getting out… Simon only heard it because a friend gave him a bootleg cassette tape.

The song peaked at #86 in the Billboard 100 in 1986. The singles off the album didn’t have huge success in Billboard because they didn’t fit easily into the 80’s radio formats.

Paul Simon: “‘The Boy In The Bubble’ devolved down to hope and dread. That’s the way I see the world, a balance between the two, but coming down on the side of hope.”

The Boy In The Bubble

It was a slow day
And the sun was beating
On the soldiers by the side of the road
There was a bright light
A shattering of shop windows
The bomb in the baby carriage
Was wired to the radio

These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long distance call
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all

The way we look to a distant constellation
That’s dying in a corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don’t cry, baby, don’t cry
Don’t cry

It was a dry wind
And it swept across the desert
And it curled into the circle of birth
And the dead sand
Falling on the children
The mothers and the fathers
And the automatic earth

These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long distance call
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all, oh yeah

The way we look to a distant constellation
That’s dying in a corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don’t cry baby, don’t cry
Don’t cry

It’s a turn-around jump shot
It’s everybody jump start
It’s every generation throws a hero up the pop charts
Medicine is magical and magical is art
Think of the boy in the bubble
And the baby with the baboon heart

And I believe
These are the days of lasers in the jungle
Lasers in the jungle somewhere
Staccato signals of constant information
A loose affiliation of millionaires
And billionaires and baby

These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long distance call
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all, oh yeah

The way we look to a distant constellation
That’s dying in a corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don’t cry baby, don’t cry
Don’t cry, don’t cry

Buffalo Springfield – Expecting To Fly

I had a friend’s dad who owned their 1969 greatest hits album when I was in sixth grade and we wore it out. Broken Arrow and Expecting to fly were the ones we played over and over and heard something we missed on the previous play.

Buffalo Springfield were only active between 1966-68 but had a huge impact on other artists. The band was very talented……with Neil Young, Stephen Stills, Richie Furay, Bruce Palmer, Dewey Martin and Jim Messina who replaced Bruce Palmer. They had some great songs like Mr Soul, Now days Clancy Can’t Even Sing, Burned, Expecting to Fly, Bluebird, Rock and Roll Woman, Broken Arrow and their big hit For What It’s Worth…

Ritchie Furay and Steven Stills had played together in the Au Go Go Singers. Bruce Palmer and Neil Young had played together in the Mynah Birds. That band featured Rick James on lead vocals and was signed to Motown.

It was written by Neil Young. The song peaked at #98 in the Billboard 100 in 1968.

Expecting to Fly

There you stood on the edge of your feather,
Expecting to fly.
While I laughed, I wondered whether
I could wave goodbye,
Knowin’ that you’d gone.
By the summer it was healing,
We had said goodbye.
All the years we’d spent with feeling
Ended with a cry,
Babe, ended with a cry,
Babe, ended with a cry.

I tried so hard to stand
As I stumbled and fell to the ground.
So hard to laugh as I fumbled
And reached for the love I found,
Knowin’ it was gone.
If I never lived without you,
Now you know I’d die.
If I never said I loved you,
Now you know I’d try,
Babe, now you know I’d try.
Babe, now you know I’d try,
Babe.

Bachman Turner Overdrive – Roll On Down the Highway

I’ve always liked the guitar riff in this song.

This Canadian’s band name is a combination of the members’ last names and Overdrive, the trucker magazine. It’s been said that Randy and Frank were sitting around a table at a Husky Restaurant (which is a big “Truck Stop” chain in Canada) and they were trying to think of a name for the band. Randy was reading the magazine and said as a joke, “We should name ourselves Overdrive.”

Randy Bachman and Fred Turner would often give themselves assignments as motivation to write songs, often writing something in the style of a current hit. This song evolved out of something they wrote for a Ford commercial. In our interview with Randy Bachman, he explained:

The song peaked at #14 in the Billboard 100, #4 in Canada, and #22 in the UK in 1975.

Randy Bachman – “It’s like getting an assignment: write a new commercial for Ford and you’ll get paid $100,000. Well, I’d sit down and I’d write a commercial for Ford, ‘let it roll down the highway.’ Ford never picks it up and I have a song called ‘Roll On Down the Highway.'”

Roll On Down The Highway

We rented a truck and a semi to go
Travel down the long and the winding road
Look on the map, I think we’ve been there before
Close up the doors, let’s roll once more

Cop’s on the corner, look he’s starting to write
Well, I don’t need no ticket so I screamed out of sight
Drove so fast that my eyes can’t see
Look in the mirror, is he still following me?

Let it roll down the highway
Let it roll down the highway
Roll, roll

Look at the sign, we’re in the wrong place
Move out boys and let’s get ready to race
Four fifty-four’s coming over the hill
The man on patrol is gonna give us a bill

The time’s real short, you know the distance is long
I’d like to have a jet but it’s not in the song
Climb back in the cab, cross your fingers for luck
We gotta keep moving if we’re going to make a buck

Let it roll down the highway
Let it roll down the highway
Roll

Let it roll
Let it roll
Let it roll
Let it roll

Let it roll down the highway
Let it roll down the highway
Roll, roll, roll

Down the highway
Let it roll down the highway
Roll, roll, roll

Let it roll down the highway
Let it roll down the highway
Roll, roll, roll

Paul McCartney – Live and Let Die

I’ve seen Paul in concert twice. Some performers you go and see and you may know a lot of their songs but with Paul…it’s nearly 3 hours of songs that you have heard all of your life.

Paul McCartney was given a copy of the Ian Fleming novel to read and he read the book one Saturday, during a break from sessions for the Red Rose Speedway album before writing the song on the following day.

Live and Let Die was the title song for the eighth James Bond film. It was the first to star Roger Moore as Bond.

George Martin produced this song for Paul, they hadn’t worked together since Abbey Road. The song was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song but lost to Barbra Streisand’s The Way We Were, but George Martin won a Grammy for his work on the song.

“Live and Let Die” was not featured on a McCartney album until the Wings Greatest compilation in 1978.

Live and Let Die peaked at #2 in the Billboard 100, #2 in Canada, #9 in the UK, and #20 in New Zealand.

Denny Seiwell (Wings Drummer) “Everybody thought it was cool that we were doing something for James Bond. I remember what Paul told us – he said a couple weeks before we did the actual recording, he said they wanted him to write the theme to the next James Bond movie, and they sent him the book to read. And we were up at the house one day and he had just read the book the night before, and he sat down at the piano and said, ‘James Bond… James Bond… da-da-dum!’, and he started screwing around at the piano. Within 10 minutes, he had that song written. It was awesome, really. Just to watch him get in there and write the song was really something I’ll remember the rest of my life.”

From Songfacts

The former Beatle recalled the writing of the song in an interview with the October 2010 edition of Mojo magazine: “I got the book and it’s a very fast read. On the Sunday, I sat down and thought, OK, the hardest thing to do here is to work in that title. I mean, later I really pitied who had the job of writing Quantum Of Solace. So I thought, Live And Let Die, OK, really what they mean is live and let live and there’s the switch.

So I came at it from the very obvious angle. I just thought, ‘When you were younger you used to say that, but now you say this.'”

George Martin produced this and arranged the orchestra. Martin produced most of The Beatles work, so this was McCartney’s chance to work with him again.

This was the most successful Bond theme up to that point. Other hits from James Bond movies include “Nobody Does It Better” by Carly Simon (from The Spy Who Loved Me), “For Your Eyes Only” by Sheena Easton, and “A View To A Kill” by Duran Duran.

McCartney performed this on his solo tours in 1989-1990 and 1993.

Live and Let Die

When you were young
And your heart was an open book
You used to say live and let live
You know you did
You know you did
You know you did
But if this ever changin’ world
In which we live in
Makes you give in and cry
Say live and let die (live and let die)
Live and let die (live and let die)

What does it matter to ya
When you got a job to do you got to do it well
You got to give the other fella hell

You used to say live and let live
You know you did
You know you did
You know you did
But if this ever changin’ world
In which we live in
Makes you give in and cry
Say live and let die (live and let die)
Live and let die (live and let die)

Grateful Dead – Uncle John’s Band

There are songs like Itchycoo Park, Can’t Find My Way Back Home, and this one that transports me back to a time that I’m too young to remember… but these songs make me feel like I was there.

Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter collaborated on “Uncle John’s Band,” which was originally part of their stage set before they recorded it as a single track from their Workingman’s Dead album. It would go on to become one of their better-known songs

It’s possible that this song is about a string band called the New Lost City Ramblers (NLCR), whose John Cohen was nicknamed “Uncle John.”

For two albums the Dead tried a more roots Americana type of music that may have been inspired by the then-new Crosby, Stills, and Nash. Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty. Personally, they are my favorite albums by them though I do like some others like From The Mars Hotel.

The song peaked at #69 in the Billboard 100. If you want to read more info on the Dead…go to https://jimadamsauthordotcom.wordpress.com/2020/04/08/g-is-for-grateful-dead/

Jim has over 30 Dead concerts in his past.

From Songfacts
The style is a laid-back bluegrass-folk arrangement on acoustic guitar. Vocals are in close harmony in a conscious effort to echo Cosby Stills & Nash – it worked, because CS&N covered it on their 2009 concert circuit.

Lots of Americana to touch on here – this was the first time the epithet “God Damn” had been heard in a Hot 100 hit. A “buckdancer” is “one who dances the buck-and-wing” according to The Dictionary of American Regional English. The phrase “buckdancer’s choice” is both a popular fiddle tune of Appalachia, and the title of a poetry collection by the American poet James Dickey; you’ll recognize him more when we tell you that one of his other works was turned into a little 1972 film called Deliverance.

More Americana: the line “fire and ice” references American poet Robert Frost’s poem of the same name, and the line “Don’t tread on me” is a famous phrase that first came out during the American Revolution from Britain – scope out an image of a yellow flag with a coiled, hissing snake sometime, that’s the “Gadsden flag,” later popular with the American Tea Party political movement. The line “the same story the crow told me” references Johnny Horton’s “The Same Old Tale the Crow Told Me,” which was the B-side to the better-known “Sink the Bismarck.” While that’s a British song, Horton was very much an American rockabilly artist (and he has no relation to the Horton who hears a who).

OK, who is Uncle John? That could be anybody and everybody – fan speculations run wild from the Biblical John the Baptist to Mississippi John Hurt. But maybe, like the Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper, it was just an alias made up for fun.

This was one of the Dead’s first attempts to reach beyond their little cult and take a shot at the mainstream. The single release was cut by 25 seconds from the album version. Although this plan didn’t work out with the single scoring a lukewarm #69, the album itself went on to sell well at one million copies – a first for them – and “Uncle John’s Band” became one of their more well-known songs.

Uncle John’s Band

Well the first days are the hardest days, don’t you worry any more
‘Cause when life looks like easy street, there is danger at your door
Think this through with me, let me know your mind
Wo, oh, what I want to know, is are you kind

It’s a buck dancer’s choice my friend; better take my advice
You know all the rules by now and the fire from the ice
Will you come with me? won’t you come with me
Wo, oh, what I want to know, will you come with me

Goddamn, well I declare, have you seen the like
Their wall are built of cannonballs, their motto is don’t tread on me
Come hear uncle John’s band playing to the tide
Come with me, or go alone, he’s come to take his children home

It’s the same story the crow told me; it’s the only one he knows
Like the morning sun you come and like the wind you go
Ain’t no time to hate, barely time to wait
Wo, oh, what I want to know, where does the time go

I live in a silver mine and I call it beggar’s tomb
I got me a violin and I beg you call the tune
Anybody’s choice, I can hear your voice
Wo, oh, what I want to know, how does the song go

Come hear uncle John’s band by the riverside
Got some things to talk about, here beside the rising tide

Come hear uncle John’s band playing to the tide
Come on along, or go alone, he’s come to take his children home
Wo, oh, what I want to know, how does the song go

Marshall Tucker Band – Can’t You See

“Gonna buy me a ticket now, as far as I can, ain’t never comin’ back
Take me Southbound, all the way to Georgia now, till the train run out of track”

A song that most garage bands can and do play at least once. A simple D-C-G and you are off to the races with this classic song. I was re-introduced it with the movie Blow. “”Till the train run out of track” is a great line.

This song has grown on me through the years. It’s simple, effective, and to the point. “That woman” left the singer high and dry.

There is no Marshall Tucker in The Marshall Tucker Band. The name refers to a blind piano tuner from Columbia, South Carolina. They saw the name on a door key where they used to rehearse and decided it would make a good name for their band.

This song was written by lead guitarist Toy Caldwell.

The mix between the flute (Not a southern rock standard) at the beginning with Caldwell’s great guitar licks along with his powerful singing sets this song off.

The song only peaked at #108 in the Billboard 100 in 1973 but was reissued in 1977 and peaked at #75 in Billboard and #39 in Canada…and has remained a classic radio staple.

From Songfacts

This became the anthem song for The Marshall Tucker Band, similar to “Free Bird” for Lynyrd Skynyrd. It was never a Top 40 hit, but was very popular on Album Oriented Radio (AOR) and continues to get a lot of airplay on Classic Rock stations.

The open in unusual – it starts with the picking of a guitar and the playing of a flute. Jerry Eubanks of the Marshall Tucker Band played the flute, giving the song a very distinctive sound – it’s not a common instrument in the world of Southern Rock.

The song was named the #1 greatest Southern Rock song ever recorded by Ultimate Classic Rock with Sweet Home Alabama as runner-up.

Said the site, “Next time you hear this song in public, take notice and you’ll make the strangest observation, especially if there is booze involved. There seems to be something about this particular song that makes the majority (very ironically) close their eyes and sway their head from left to right while singing the song’s famous ‘Can’t you see’ line. That universal connection earns this song the top spot on our Southern Rock songs list.”

Can’t You See

I’m gonna take a freight train, down at the station
I don’t care where it goes
Gonna climb me a mountain, the highest mountain, Lord,
Gonna jump off, nobody gonna know

Can’t you see, can’t you see, what that woman, she been doin’ to me
Can’t you see, can’t you see, what that woman been doin’ to me

I’m gonna find me a hole in the wall, gonna crawl inside and die
That lady, mean ol’ woman Lord, never told me goodbye

Can’t you see, can’t you see, what that woman she been doin’ to me
Can’t you see, can’t you see, what that woman been doin’ to me

Gonna buy me a ticket now, as far as I can, ain’t never comin’ back
Take me Southbound, all the way to Georgia now, till the train run out of track

Can’t you see, can’t you see, what that woman, she been doin’ to me
Can’t you see, can’t you see, what that woman been doin’ to me

The Mynah Birds

Super Freak meets Heart of Gold

They were the first mostly white band signed to Motown Records in 1966. So who was the band’s lead singer? A young AWOL American sailor who went by the name of Ricky James Matthews, later Rick James. On lead guitar you had Canadian Neil Young.

The band lasted from 1964 to 1967.

The band didn’t last a long time but the memorable lineup was Rick James, Neil Young, Bruce Palmer, Rickman Mason, and John Taylor. Neil and Bruce would later be members of Buffalo Springfield. Earlier members Goldy McJohn and Nick St. Nicholas would later become members of Steppenwolf.

Canadian rocker Neil Merryweather was also an earlier member of the band.

Neil joined in 1965 and Neil and James wrote some songs together and they were recorded…but the band’s manager apparently misappropriated their advance money from Motown and they fired the manager. In return, the manager informed Motown that the band’s singer was AWOL from the Navy. Rick James was taken into custody and incarcerated by the Navy. “It’s My Time” remained unreleased, and Motown scrapped plans for a Mynah Birds album.

The music was not released until the single was included in the 2006 box set The Complete Motown Singles, Vol. 6: 1966

Neil and Bruce bought a hearse…yes a hearse when Rick was detained and drove to California to start Buffalo Springfield.

The Mynah Birds were a really good band. In a biography of Neil Young called Shakey… Jimmy McDonough writes this:

The Mynah Birds—in black leather jackets, yellow turtlenecks and boots—had quite a surreal scene going…. Those lucky enough to see any of the band’s few gigs say they were electrifying. ‘Neil would stop playing lead, do a harp solo, throw the harmonica way up in the air and Ricky would catch it and continue the solo.’

Neil Young: “We got more and more into how cool the Stones were. How simple they were and how cool it was.” James had them play “Get Off My Cloud” and “Satisfaction”—before the braids, cocaine, and sequins, Rick James “fancied himself the next Mick Jagger.”

The band did get back together with different members when Rick James returned in 1967…but they soon broke up.

If you want to read more about them check out the links below.

https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/neil-young-rick-james-the-mynah-birds/

https://afropunk.com/2014/08/feature-the-strange-history-of-the-mynah-birds-the-lost-rb-supergroup-ft-rick-james-and-neil-young-soundcheck/

Otis Redding – Shake

“Shake” was written and originally recorded by Sam Cooke. Cooke’s version reached #7 on the Billboard 100. Cooke was a huge influence on Otis Redding; along with “Shake,” Redding also recorded covers of Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come,” “Chain Gang,” “Cupid,” “Nothing Can Change This Love,” “Wonderful World,” and “You Send Me.”

The song peaked at #47 in the Billboard 100 in 1967.

Otis made a huge impact at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival along with The Who, Jimi Hendrix, and Janis Joplin.

The album this was on was Otis Blue/Otis Redding Sings Soul and it peaked at #77 in the Biullboard Album Charts in 1966.

Shake

Shake!
(Everybody say it!) Shake!
(Early in the morning) Shake!
(Late in the evening) Shake!
(In the midnight hour) Shake!
(When the time’s going bad, now) Shake!
Shake with the FEELING!
Shake with the FEELING!

Listen while I’m talkin’ to you now
Tell you what I’m gonna do now
There’s a new thing going around now
I’ll tell what to put down now

You move your body all around
And just shake
Thats the way you do it Shake, Shake, Shake it baby
Shake it like a bowl of soup
Let your body loop de loop
Put your hands on your hip
Come on and let your backbone slip
Move your body like your hip
And just shake!

Shake early in the morning
Shake early in the evening

A Ring-A-Ling-a-Ling
Honey, Shakin’ is the greatest thing
But if you really roll Gotta do the thing with SOUL!

Shake shake with all your might now
If you do it, do it right now
Put your hands on your hip,yeah
Come on and let your backbone slip
Move your body like your hip
And just shake

(God have mercy now!)
Early in the morning
Early in the evening All night long, y’all!
If you really want to roll
Gotta do the thing with SOUL!
Shake shake with all your might
If you do it, do it right
Let your body loop de lite
Shake!
Everybody say it, Shake!
One more time, Shake!
Everybody louder, Shake!
One more time, now, say Shake!
Everybody a bit louder, Shake!

https://www.songfacts.com/facts/otis-redding/shake

Bruce Springsteen – Atlantic City

I bought the Nebraska album when it was released when I saw the video for this song. Bruce recorded this album on a Tascam 4 track machine as a demo for the band. He tried to do the songs with the E-Street band but they just didn’t sound as good as the demo.

After carrying the cassette around in his pocket for weeks they mastered the cassette and made the Nebraska album…it was the demo. Here is more of the complete story by sound engineer Toby Scott. https://tascam.com/us/support/news/481#:~:text=Although%20most%20people%20know%20the,%2Dtime%20recording%2Fmix%20engineer.

The album was only Bruce with an acoustic guitar with overdubs by him. It’s one of my favorite all-time favorite songs and albums by Bruce.

The Band covered this song in 1993, years after Robbie Robertson left. I like this version just as well as Bruce’s original. Levon Helm does a great job on the vocals.

The first line, “They blew up the Chicken Man in Philly last night,” was taken from a newspaper article about a mob hit in Atlantic City. The “Chicken Man” was Phil Testa, number two man in the Philadelphia Mob under Angelo Bruno.

After Bruno was murdered in his car, Testa was blown up by a bomb placed under his front porch. These hits were orchestrated by Nicky Scarfo, who took over the Philly boys so he could control the new Atlantic City gambling rackets. He made such a mess of things that he and most of his crew were either murdered or in jail within a few years.

The Nebraska album peaked at #3 in the Billboard 100, #3 in the UK, Canada, and New Zealand in 1982.

From Songfacts

Atlantic City is a very poor city in New Jersey where gambling is legal. When casinos were built there in the early ’80s, it was supposed to revitalize the city. The casinos made it a popular tourist destination, but the city itself continues to be very run-down. There is a stark contrast between the glamorous casinos on the boardwalk and the city itself.
Atlantic City is also a haven for organized crime, and it’s implied that the narrator, who struggles with his finances and ruminates on the inevitability of death, as taken a job as a hit man.

This was the first Springsteen song to be made into a video (unless you count live performance clips), but Bruce does not appear in it. Springsteen had no interest in making concept videos, but an executive at his label, Columbia Records, named Arnold Levine knew that Bruce could benefit from exposure on MTV and put together the clip using footage of Atlantic City. MTV was based in New York and run by radio veterans who were big fans of Springsteen, so the video got some airplay on the network, which was trying to stick to a rock format in 1982.

This is the only track from Nebraska included on Springsteen’s Greatest Hits album.

The title and many of the images are shared with a 1981 Louis Malle movie starring Burt Lancaster and Susan Sarandon.

Springsteen recorded this as a demo on a 4-track tape recorder in his house. After trying it with the band, he decided this and the other songs that would make up Nebraska sounded best as he originally recorded them.

The version on the album is acoustic, but the plugged-in live version is a concert favorite.

Other songs Springsteen wrote about his home state of New Jersey towns include “Freehold” and “Fourth Of July, Asbury Park.” He is wildly popular there.

This was released as a single in Europe, but not the US.

Springsteen recorded three takes, each with slightly different lyrics, on the tape he gave his manager which became Nebraska.

Since Springsteen did not tour for Nebraska, the first time this was played in concert was on the Born In The U.S.A. tour two years later.

When Bruce Springsteen toured with The Seeger Sessions Band in 2006, they played a drastically different arrangement of this song with multiple outros. This can be heard on the 2007 album Live in Dublin.

Atlantic City

Well they blew up the chicken man in Philly last
Night now they blew up his house too
Down on the boardwalk they’re gettin’ ready
For a fight gonna see what them racket boys can do

Now there’s trouble busin’ in from outta state
And the D.A. can’t get no relief
Gonna be a rumble out on the promenade and
The gamblin’ commission’s hangin’ on by the skin of its teeth

[CHORUS:]
Everything dies baby that’s a fact
But maybe everything that dies someday comes back
Put your makeup on fix your hair up pretty and
Meet me tonight in Atlantic City

Well I got a job and tried to put my money away
But I got in too deep and I could not pay
So I drew what I had from the Central Trust
And I bough us two tickets on that Coast City bus

[CHORUS:]

Now our luck may have died and out love may
Be cold but with you forever I’ll stay
We’re goin’ out where the sand’s turnin’ to gold
So put on your stockin’s ’cause the night’s getting’ cold and maybe everything dies
That’s a fact but maybe everything that dies
Someday comes back

Now I been lookin’ for a job but it’s hard to find
Down here it’s just winners and losers and
Don’t get caught on the wrong side of that line
Well I’m tired of comin’ out on the losin’ end
So honey last night I met this guy and I’m
Gonna do a little favor for him
Well I guess everything dies baby that’s a fact
But maybe everything that dies someday
Comes back
Put your makeup on fix your hair up pretty and
Meet me tonight in Atlantic City

Bewitched

“Oh My Stars” 1964-1972

I binged watched Bewitched during the lockdown and some afterward. The first five seasons were probably the best. Having the lovely Samantha (Elizabeth Montgomery) as a wife who could twitch her nose and whip up anything you desired…doesn’t sound half bad…therefore… I never understood Darrin…either Darrin.

Bewitched was full of funny characters. Mr and Mrs Kravitz next door. Uncle Arthur (the great Paul Lynne), Aunt Clara, Maurice, Endora, and a cast of witches and warlocks. The show stuck the characters with the same actors/actresses for the most part. The continuity was pretty good in this show with one big exception…the two Darrins. More on that in a few.

The show was about a mortal (Darrin Stevens) that married a witch (Samantha Stevens) and Darrin does not like Samantha to use her powers. Endora the mother-in-law was a witch that played the stereotypical mother-in-law but one that could Darrin into a horse if she so pleased.

One of my favorites was Aunt Clara played perfectly by Marion Lorne. The character Aunt Clara collected doorknobs. The writers did that because Marion Lorne actually collected doorknobs from everywhere… The producers of the show would ask to borrow one if they wanted one for a different look for the show.

A funny story about Marion Lorne is that she once called Elizabeth Montgomery and said, with her trademark stammer, to come to her hotel residence right away as she seemed to have actual magical powers like her character. Every time she clapped her hands, her TV set would change the channel. What Marion didn’t know was that the bracelets on each of her arms made contact when she clapped her hands, and the sound was the same as a remote control, which operated as tuning forks in those days. Montgomery never told her this.

The two Darrins. The first Darrin was Dick York. The second Darrin was Dick Sargent.

Dick York had severe back problems and a pain pill addiction. He was on for almost 5 full seasons. He came down with a fever during the last part of the 5th season and collapsed on an episode. He entered the hospital and never came back to the show. His career essentially ended then.

The next season Dick Sargent took over with no explanation to the audience. Sargent was never as popular with the audience and the ratings soon dropped. The show lasted 8 total seasons before ending in 1972.

It’s a fun show to watch and it had some great actors and actress that would show up. Agnes Moorehead who played Endora was part of the Mercury Theatre with Orson Welles.

Bewitched had some really good effects for the time. I grew up on this show in syndication.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057733/