When I bought Full Moon Fever in 1989 I was happy with my first pass through the album. The album doesn’t have seven hits like Born In The USA but it doesn’t have a bad track on it.
Tom Petty started running down his dream of being a rocker in 1961 when he met Elvis Presley. Petty, 11 years old, came to the Ocala, Florida set where Elvis was working on the film Follow That Dream – a title Tom took to heart. In a brief encounter, Petty saw how Elvis captivated onlookers and made the girls go crazy. Petty became fascinated with Elvis and set out to follow his path.
This song peaked at #23 in the Billboard 100, #23 in Canada, and #55 in the UK in 1989.
Those noises were made by Shannon and Jeff Lynne; Petty used them as an interlude to mark the middle of the album because you don’t have to flip over a CD. This section was included only on CD versions of Full Moon Fever but survived the transition when the album was released digitally….I have this at the bottom
From Songfacts
In this song, Petty sings about driving into the great wide open, with nothing but glorious possibility in his path.
The animated video was inspired by a comic strip called Little Nemo In Slumberland by Winsor McKay. Each strip told the story of one of Nemo’s dreams, and at the end, he always woke up.
Full Moon Fever was listed as a Tom Petty solo album even though members of The Heartbreakers played on it. Roy Orbison, George Harrison and Jeff Lynne also played on it.
Heartbreakers’ guitarist Mike Campbell wrote this with Petty and Jeff Lynne. The three of them worked on the album at Campbell’s house. Petty and Campbell were very impressed with Lynne’s production techniques, and learned a lot from the experience. Campbell gave us an example of Lynne’s style: “We’d put the mics up on the drums, and he’d walk out and take the microphone over the drum and he’d turn it away from the drum facing the corner, and he’d go ‘OK, record it like that.’ Sure enough, 99% of the time he’d be right. We’d go, ‘Yes sir, Mr. Lynne.’ We learned so much from him about arrangements and countermelodies and all kinds of stuff.” (Check out our interview with Mike Campbell.)
The line, “Me and Del were singin,’ little ‘Runaway'” is a reference to the 1961 Del Shannon hit “Runaway.” Shannon is credited on the album for “barnyard noises,” which can be heard just after this song ends on the album. Under the animal noises, Petty says, “Hello CD listeners. We have come to the point in this album where those listening on cassettes or records will have to stand – up or sit down – and turn over the record or tape. In fairness to those listeners, we will now take a few seconds before we begin Side 2. Thank you, and here is Side 2.”
In 2007, the documentary Runnin’ Down A Dream was released. Directed by Peter Bogdanovich, the film chronicles the career of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. >>
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers played this at the halftime show of the Super Bowl in 2008. Rather than the usual medley of hits, the band played four full songs, the others being “American Girl,” “I Won’t Back Down” and “Free Fallin’.”
Hello CD Listeners
Runnin’ Down A Dream
It was a beautiful day, the sun beat down I had the radio on, I was drivin’ Trees flew by, me and Del were singin’ little Runaway I was flyin’
Yeah runnin’ down a dream That never would come to me Workin’ on a mystery, goin’ wherever it leads Runnin’ down a dream
I felt so good like anything was possible I hit cruise control and rubbed my eyes The last three days the rain was unstoppable It was always cold, no sunshine
Yeah runnin’ down a dream That never would come to me Workin’ on a mystery, goin’ wherever it leads Runnin’ down a dream
I rolled on as the sky grew dark I put the pedal down to make some time There’s something good waitin’ down this road I’m pickin’ up whatever’s mine
Yeah runnin’ down a dream That never would come to me Workin’ on a mystery, goin’ wherever it leads Runnin’ down a dream
“I just got paid today, got me a pocket full of change.”
That Little Ol’ Band From Texas has a great groove going on in this song. I was going to save this to a more appropriate Friday but for some of us the days are blending into each other at home so let’s just pretend.
This song was inspired by Peter Green’s opening riff in Fleetwood Mac’s “Oh Well.” Billy Gibbons was living in Los Angeles, sitting on the steps of his apartment and it was raining and he couldn’t go anywhere… he kept trying to learn that riff and as he said…it got tangled up and it stayed tangled up.
Just Got Paid was on their second album, Rio Grande Mud released in 1972. The album peaked at #104 in the Billboard Album Charts. The song didn’t chart in the Billboard 100 but it has become an FM staple.
Just Got Paid
I just got paid today, got me a pocket full of change. Said, I just got paid today, got me a pocket full of change. If you believe like workin’ hard all day, just step in my shoes and take my pay.
I was born my papa’s son, when I hit the ground I was on the run. I had one glad hand and the other behind. You can have yours, just give me mine. When the hound dog barkin’ in the black of the night, stick my hand in my pocket, everything’s all right.
I just got paid today, got me a pocket full of change. Said, black sheep, black, do you got some wool? Yes, I do, man, my bag is full. It’s the root of evil and you know the rest but it’s way ahead of what’s second best.
I’m including at least one song off of Tom’s album Full Moon Fever every day this week…So if you don’t know the album stay tuned, if like the album stay tuned,and if you don’t like the album…sorry. It was a great album released in 1989 that was arguably the peak of Tom’s career.
Full Moon Fever
Tom was not happy with the last Heartbreakers album (Let Me Up (I’ve Had Enough) released in 1987 and wanted a change. Mike Campbell (Heartbreakers guitar player): “Tom called me up and said, ‘We’re done. I think we’re done.” He called back later and said that at least temporarily he wasn’t going to work with the Heartbreakers.
He ended up using Belmont Tench and Howie Epstein from the Heartbreakers for a few songs but it was Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, Mike Campbell and Phil Jones on drums who made the album. They did have some help from George Harrison, Roy Orbison, and Del Shannon among others.
Released in 1989, Full Moon Fever would become Petty’s greatest commercial success. During its creation Jeff Lynne helped inspire him to create some of his best and most popular songs. But along the way he also risked further alienating several members of the Heartbreakers.
Free Fallin’
Free Fallin’ may be the song he is most remembered. Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne wrote and recorded “Free Fallin'” in just two days, the first song completed for Full Moon Fever.“We had a multitude of acoustic guitars,” Petty told Rolling Stone of the song’s Byrds-y feel. “So it made this incredibly dreamy sound.”
The song peaked at #7 in the Billboard 100, #5 in Canada, #4 in New Zealand, and #59 in the UK in 1989.
Tom Petty: “There’s not a day that goes by that someone doesn’t hum ‘Free Fallin” to me or I don’t hear it somewhere,” “But it was really only 30 minutes of my life.”
From Songfacts
Mike Campbell is The Heartbreakers’ guitarist. He has also produced and written the music for many of their songs, as well as “The Boys of Summer” and “The Heart Of The Matter” for Don Henley. Mike told us about working with Jeff Lynne: “When we did that first record with Jeff Lynne, Full Moon Fever, that was an amazing time for me because it was mostly just the three of us – me and Tom and Jeff – working at my house. Jeff Lynne is an amazing record-maker. It was so exciting for a lot of reasons. First of all, our band energy in the studio had gotten into kind of a rut, we were having some issues with our drummer and just kind of at the end of our rope in terms of inspiration – having a lot of trouble cutting tracks in the studio.
This project came along and really we were just doing it for fun at the beginning, but Jeff would come in and every day he would blow my mind. It was so exciting to have him and Tom come over and go, ‘OK, here’s this song,’ and then Jeff would just go. I’d never seen this done before, he’d say, ‘OK, here’s what we’re going to do: Put a drum machine down. Now put up a mic, we’re going to do some acoustic guitars. Put up another mic, were going to do a keyboard. OK, here’s an idea for the bass. Mike, let’s try some guitar on this. I’ve got an idea for a background part here…’
Sure enough, within five or six hours, the record would be done, and we’d just sit back and go, ‘How the f-ck did you do that?’ We were used to being in the studio and like ‘OK, here’s how the song goes’ and everybody would set up to play and just laboriously run the song into the ground, and it usually got worse and worse from trying to get the groove and the spirit and trying to get a performance out of five guys at once. This guy walked in and he knew exactly how to put the pieces together, and he always had little tricks, like with the background vocals how he would slide them in and layer them, and little melodies here and there. Tom and I were soaking it up. Pretty amazing, a very exciting time, like going to musical college or something.” (Read more in our interview with Mike Campbell.)
In a 2006 interview with Esquire magazine, Petty said: “‘Free Fallin” is a very good song. Maybe it would be one of my favorites if it hadn’t become this huge anthem. But I’m grateful that people like it.”
The lyrics deal with Los Angeles culture, mentioning actual places in the area: Reseda, Mulholland and Ventura Boulevard. It implies that the people of LA will casually use others for personal gain, as the singer has just dumped a girl and doesn’t even miss her. Petty was born and raised in Gainesville, Florida and moved to LA with The Heartbreakers in 1974. His outsider perspective came in handy in this song.
Directed by Julien Temple, the music video was ahead of its time in that it featured skateboarding before the X Games existed and action sports went mainstream. Legendary skater Mark “Gator” Rogowski appears in the video.
Petty considers this song a ballad; it’s one of his few hits without a guitar solo. There are plenty of ballads on his albums, but his record companies rarely released them as singles.
Petty and the Heartbreakers played this to close out their set at the halftime show of the Super Bowl in 2008. The song turned out to be appropriate for the New England Patriots, who were undefeated going into the game and led at halftime, only to lose at the end to the New York Giants. In 2002, when the Patriots won their first Super Bowl, the featured song at halftime was “Beautiful Day” by U2.
A live version by John Mayer returned this song to the US Hot 100 in July 2008, going to #51.
Petty performed this song, along with “Runnin’ Down A Dream,” with The Heartbreakers on Saturday Night Live when they were the musical guests on May 20, 1989. Their record company, MCA, wanted them to play “I Won’t Back Down,” which was out as a single and climbing the charts, but Petty defied them.
Petty often tells a story about performing this song at a pivotal night in his career. His label, MCA, rejected the Full Moon Fever album when he submitted it in 1988, claiming they didn’t hear a hit. Crestfallen, he went to a dinner party with George Harrison and Jeff Lynne at the home of Mo Ostin, head of Warner Bros. Records. Harrison had them break out the guitars and play “Free Fallin’,” which everyone thought was great. When Petty explained that it wasn’t good enough for his label, Ostin offered to sign him and put it out. They did the deal, but kept it secret until Petty fulfilled his commitment to MCA. Ostin didn’t have to put it out though: In 1989, management changed at MCA; the new regime liked Full Moon Fever and released it.
While MCA kept him in limbo, Petty teamed up with Lynne, Harrison, Roy Orbison and Bob Dylan to form the Traveling Wilburys, a fruitful and highly acclaimed collaboration that sold over 3 million copies of their first album.
The song achieved its highest position on the UK singles chart in May 2012 after being covered by contestant Max Milner on the music talent show The Voice. It previously peaked at #64 in 1989.
Here’s what Tom Petty said about this song on his VH1 Storytellers appearance:
“‘I used to ride down Mulholland Drive and make up songs. Some of the songs were good, and some of the songs just wouldn’t swing. I had this one: [sings] ‘Mulholland Drive’ and I never could get anywhere with that song. So, I sat down one day with my friend Jeff Lynne and we were playing around on the keyboard. I hit this lick and he said, ‘That’s a good lick you got there,’ and I played it again. So, just to make him laugh I started to make up words:
She’s a good girl, loves her mama
Loves Jesus and America too
She’s a good girl, crazy about Elvis…
And he goes, ‘Good.’
I said, ‘What? What was good?’
‘It’s all good, just sing that.'”
The girl in the music video is Devon Kidd (born Devon Renee Jenkin). She also had roles in Enemy Of The State, Slammer Girls and Slumber Party Massacre III.
She was a gymnast and model when she got the call to audition for “Free Fallin’.”
“I don’t know if you want to do it,” her agent said. “It’s a small job.”
She knew Tom Petty and “Free Fallin'” and jumped at the opportunity. Today, it’s probably the role she’s best known for.
Free Fallin’
She’s a good girl, loves her mama Loves Jesus and America too She’s a good girl, crazy ’bout Elvis Loves horses and her boyfriend too
It’s a long day living in Reseda There’s a freeway runnin’ through the yard And I’m a bad boy ’cause I don’t even miss her I’m a bad boy for breakin’ her heart
And I’m free, free fallin’ Yeah I’m free, free fallin’
All the vampires walkin’ through the valley Move west down Ventura boulevard And all the bad boys are standing in the shadows All the good girls are home with broken hearts
And I’m free, free fallin’ Yeah I’m free, free fallin’ Free fallin’, now I’m free fallin’, now I’m Free fallin’, now I’m free fallin’, now I’m
I want to glide down over Mulholland I want to write her name in the sky Gonna free fall out into nothin’ Gonna leave this world for a while
And I’m free, free fallin’ Yeah I’m free, free fallin’
Ricky Nelson was a two-way star in the 50s. He gets overlooked at times compared to his peers.
This song was written by Jerry Fuller, a singer who had minor hits in 1959 with “Betty My Angel” and a cover of “Tennessee Waltz.” Fuller wrote “Travelin’ Man” one day at De Longpre Park in Hollywood while he was waiting to pick up his wife. He didn’t play an instrument, so he beat out the melody on his car’s dashboard.
Fuller recorded a demo of this song with Glen Campbell on guitar. He was hoping Sam Cooke would record it, so he brought it to Cooke’s manager, J.W. Alexander. Joe Osborn, who was Ricky’s bass player, heard it through the wall, He said, ‘J.W., do you have that ‘Travelin” song you just played?’ He said, ‘Yeah, you can have it,’ and he reached in the trash and he pulled out the demo.”
Osborn brought the song to Nelson, who loved it and recorded it. The song became his second (and last) #1 hit, and gave him a huge career boost.
Travelin’ Man peaked at #1 in 1961.
From Songfacts
For the lyrics, Fuller came up with a “girl in every port” idea – a guy who travels all over the world and finds a different girl waiting for him wherever he goes. He used an atlas to get ideas for places and looked up what the word for “girl” was in those places, so in German it’s “Fraulien,” in Mexico it’s “Senorita,” and in Alaska it’s a “cute little Eskimo.” He couldn’t figure out what the term was in Hawaii, so he went with “pretty Polynesian baby.”
Nelson used Elvis Presley’s backing singers The Jordanaires on this song, as he did on most of his recordings. He loved the background vocals on the demo though, which were done by Fuller, Glen Campbell and Dave Burgess. Nelson brought them in to record on subsequent records.
Depending on the criteria, “Travelin’ Man” could be the song with the very first music video. Ozzie Nelson realized that whenever he had Ricky sing on their show The Adventures Of Ozzie And Harriet, Ricky’s record sales shot up the next day, so Ozzie tried to work it into the plot whenever Ricky had a new record out. As Ricky became popular and the demand for his songs was overwhelming, Ozzie realized that working his singing into the plot was going to be impossible, so Ozzie filmed Ricky singing “Travelin’ Man,” superimposed some travelogue scenes over the film and tacked it onto a show episode at the end. Viola! The music video was born.
That is, if you don’t count performance videos and extracted movie scenes like “Jailhouse Rock.” And if you’re OK with it being black and white.
The episode, “A Question of Suits and Ties,” aired on April 5, 1961 (the song hit #1 on May 29). The clip is far from groundbreaking, but it was footage synched to a performance. Around this time, standalone concept videos were starting to show up for use throughout Europe in Scopitone video jukeboxes, which were typically placed in bars. A few American artists made videos for these machines in the mid’-60s when they started to appear Stateside. Neil Sedaka made one for “Calendar Girl” and Nancy Sinatra did one (for a company called Color-Sonics) for “These Boots Are Made For Walkin’.”
Rick Nelson was born Eric Hilliard Nelson in 1940. He died in a small plane crash in Texas in 1985 while flying to a New Year’s Eve concert. Mechanical problems and a cabin fire were suspected as the cause of the crash. Speculation that the fire was caused by someone on board freebasing cocaine was never proven, though aerosol cans were found at the crash site. The Nelson family said that the cans were part of the makeup box and that no drugs were involved. The matter was never completely resolved.
This is a crowd favorite on the “Ricky Nelson Remembered” show, staged by his twin sons Matthew and Gunnar. In our interview with Matthew Nelson, he said, “When I’m singing ‘Travelin’ Man,’ it’s 1977 at the Sahara in Las Vegas, when I hung out for a week while Pop did a residency there. And I think about the guys who were in the band.”
Travelin’ Man
I’m a travelin’ man and I’ve made a lot of stops All over the world And in every part I own the heart Of at least one lovely girl
I’ve a pretty Señorita waiting for me Down in old Mexico If you’re ever in Alaska stop and see My cute little Eskimo
Oh, my sweet Fraulein down in Berlin town Makes my heart start to yearn And my China doll down in old Hong Kong Waits for my return
Pretty Polynesian baby over the sea I remember the night When we walked in the sands of the Waikiki And I held you, oh so tight
Oh, my sweet Fraulien down in Berlin town Makes my heart start to yearn And my China doll down in old Hong Kong Waits for my return
Pretty Polynesian baby over the sea I remember the night When we walked in the sands of the Waikiki And I held you, oh so tight
Oh, I’m a travelin’ man Yes, I’m a travelin’ man Yes, I’m a travelin’ man Whoa, I’m a travelin’ man
I was looking through UK #1’s Blog posts and I found this song from 1967. If you haven’t visited his site…do it. He lists every number 1 in the UK starting in the 50s and now he has just started the 1970s. I’ve found a lot of songs I didn’t know like this one.
I’ve always known the Carl Carlton version released in 1974 and it is a great version but I really like this one. This version from 1967 sounds fresh…especially the bass. The only member of the group who performed on it was their 16-year-old vocalist Steve Ellis. The rest of the band were replaced in the studio by studio musicians.
Love affair went onto achieve five more UK Top 20 hits on which the group did get to perform.
Everlasting Love peaked at #1 in the UK in 1967.
Steve Ellis: “The general opinion seemed to be that I should do it with an orchestra and then give it a Phil Spector-type production. Obviously, I felt odd without the band being in the studio but it was for the good of all involved. Two takes and it was done. The band were not too concerned about this approach to things.”
Everlasting Love
Hearts gone astray, deep in hurt when they go I went away, just when you, you need me so You won’t regret, I come back beggin’ you Won’t you forget, welcome love we once knew
Open up your eyes then you realize Here I stand with my everlasting love Need you by my side, girl to be my bride You’ll never be denied, everlasting love
From the very start, open up your heart Feel that you’re part of everlasting love
Need a love to last forever Need a love to last forever
Where life really flows, no one really knows Till someone’s there to show the way to lasting love [Lyrics from: https:/lyrics.az/love-affair/the-everlasting-love-affair/everlasting-love.html] Like the sun it shines, endlessly it shines You always will be mine, if eternal love
Whenever love went wrong, ours would still be strong We’d have our very own everlasting love
Need a love to last forever Need a love to last forever
Open up your eyes then you realize Here I stand with my everlasting love Need you by my side, girl to be my bride You’ll never be denied, everlasting love
From the very start, open up your heart Be a lasting part of everlasting love Whenever love went wrong, ours would still be strong We’ll have our very own everlasting love
This song is a great ballad by the Rolling Stones. Keith Richards wrote this song in Switzerland after the Exile on Main St. album had been approved by the record company, but before it was released. “Angie” was one of the first songs The Stones recorded for Goat’s Head Soup.
It was on 20 October 1973 that the Rolling Stones secured their 7th US No.1 when ‘Angie’ made the top of the Billboard chart.
It has been speculated that it was inspired by Angie, David Bowie’s wife, or even Keith’s daughter. Keith, who wrote the majority of the song’s music and lyrics. Keith said in his autobiography that the name Angie came to him while in Switzerland detoxing from his heroin addiction. “I wrote ‘Angie’ in an afternoon, sitting in bed, because I could finally move my fingers and get them in the right place again…It was not about any particular person, it was a name, like “Ohhh, Diana””I didn’t know Angela was going to be called Angela when I wrote ‘Angie.’ In those days you didn’t know what sex the thing was going to be until it popped out.”
The song peaked at #1 in the Billboard 100, #5 in the UK, #1 in Canada, and #1 in New Zealand in 1973.
From Songfacts
The big rumor about this song is that it was written about David Bowie’s wife, Angela, who wrote in her autobiography that she once walked in on Bowie and Mick Jagger in bed together – a story Jagger denies. According to the rumor, Jagger wrote this song to appease her, but it was Jagger’s bandmate Keith Richards who wrote most of the song. Jagger had this to say about it: “People began to say that song was written about David Bowie’s wife but the truth is that Keith wrote the title. He said, ‘Angie,’ and I think it was to do with his daughter. She’s called Angela. And then I just wrote the rest of it.”
There was also speculation that Richards’ girlfriend Anita Pallenberg inspired this song, but Keith cleared it up in his 2010 autobiography Life, where he wrote: “While I was in the [Vevey drug] clinic (in March-April 1972), Anita was down the road having our daughter, Angela. Once I came out of the usual trauma, I had a guitar with me and I wrote ‘Angie’ in an afternoon, sitting in bed, because I could finally move my fingers and put them in the right place again, and I didn’t feel like I had to s–t the bed or climb the walls or feel manic anymore. I just went, ‘Angie, Angie.’ It was not about any particular person; it was a name, like ohhh, Diana.
A rare ballad for The Stones, this was the first single released from Goat’s Head Soup. It wasn’t typical of their sound, since most of the band’s material at the time was hard and aggressive. Still, it was a huge hit, and their only ballad that hit #1 in the US.
This is one of the few Rolling Stones songs that is acoustic.
The Angela Bowie rumor picked up steam in 1990, when she went on The Joan Rivers Show and claimed she once walked in on David Bowie and Mick Jagger in bed together naked. What’s even more shocking is that Rivers had her own talk show. She was quickly replaced by Arsenio Hall.
Nicky Hopkins played piano on this track. He became part of the band’s inner circle after working on the 1966 Stones album Between The Buttons.
In 2005 German chancellor Angela Merkel appropriated this acoustic ballad for her Christian Democratic Union Party. “We’re surprised that permission wasn’t requested,” said a Stones spokesman of Merkel’s choice of song. “If it had been, we would have said no.”
The line from this song, “Ain’t it time we said goodbye,” was used as the title to Robert Greenfield’s 2014 book, which chronicles his time covering the Stones’ 1971 British tour and their Exile on Main St. sessions for Rolling Stone magazine. Greenfield is not a fan of the song, however, calling it “soppy and far too sweet for my taste.”
Angie
Angie, Angie, when will those clouds all disappear? Angie, Angie, where will it lead us from here? With no loving in our souls and no money in our coats You can’t say we’re satisfied But Angie, Angie, you can’t say we never tried
Angie, you’re beautiful, but ain’t it time we said good-bye? Angie, I still love you, remember all those nights we cried? All the dreams we held so close seemed to all go up in smoke Let me whisper in your ear:
Angie, Angie, where will it lead us from here? Oh, Angie, don’t you weep, all your kisses still taste sweet I hate that sadness in your eyes But Angie, Angie, ain’t it time we said good-bye?
With no loving in our souls and no money in our coats You can’t say we’re satisfied But Angie, I still love you, baby Ev’rywhere I look I see your eyes
There ain’t a woman that comes close to you Come on baby, dry your eyes But Angie, Angie, ain’t it good to be alive? Angie, Angie, they can’t say we never tried
I always post music that I like…it would be hard for me to post something I didn’t like and write about it indifferently. This one…I have played on guitar more than I’ve listened to. I played in bands for years and when I was beginning, this one was taught to me. I never heard it before I played it but it’s pretty easy…if you take away all of the space effects. It was a few years after I’d played it at least 20 times before I heard the record.
Billy Thorpe, was an English-born Australian singer-songwriter, producer, and musician. He was in a band called Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs in Australia. their first major pop hit was a cover of “Poison Ivy” in 1964. The band broke up in 1967 but re-formed one year later, with Thorpe on guitar as well as vocals. Thorpe’s signature song in Australia was “Most People I Know (Think that I’m Crazy)” in 1972.
Children of the Sun made it to #41 in 1979. The song was written by Billy Thorpe and Spencer Proffer. This was his only hit in America.
Children of the Sun
People of the Earth can you hear me? Came a voice from the sky on that magical night And in the colors of a thousand sunsets They traveled through the world on a silvery light –More–(51%) The people of the Earth stood waiting Watching as the ships came one by one Setting fire to the sky as they landed Carrying to the world Children Of The Sun
All at once came a sound from the inside Then a beam made of light hit the ground [Lyrics from: https:/lyrics.az/billy-thorpe/children-of-the-sun-revisited/children-of-the-sun.html] Everyone felt the sound of their heartbeat Every Man – Every Woman – Every Child
They pa**ed the limits of imagination Through the doors – to a world – of another time On the journey of a million lifetimes With the Children Of The Sun – They started their climb
No more gravity, nothing holding them down Floating endlessly, as their ship leaves the ground through the walls of time – at the speed of light Fly the crystal ships on their celestial flight On their celestial flight.
On May 17, 1983, I know where I was…I was watching the Kinks play in Nashville at the newer Grand Ole Opry. This is a song I remember well from that show. The Kinks were still in their early 40s and they had more energy than their much younger opening band The White Animals.
The song was on the album Low Budget released in 1979. The album peaked at #11 in the Billboard Album Charts. Catch Me Now I’m Falling didn’t make the Billboard 100 but it was an FM hit. Another song off of Low Budget did chart… (Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman peaked at #41 in the Billboard 100 in 1979.
I will have to say that Ray borrowed liberally from the Stones Jumping Jack Flash as far as the riff goes…but the song is great.
Catch Me Now I’m Falling
I remember, when you were down And you needed a helping hand I came to feed you But now that I need you You won’t give me a second glance Now I’m calling all citizens from all over the world This is Captain America calling I bailed you out when you were down on your knees So will you catch me now I’m falling
Help me now I’m calling you Catch me now I’m falling I’m in your hands, it’s up to you Catch me now I’m falling
I remember when you were down You would always come running to me I never denied you and I would guide you Through all of your difficulties Now I’m calling all citizens from all over the world This is Captain America calling I bailed you out when you were down on your knees So will you catch me now I’m falling
Help me now I’m calling you Catch me now I’m falling I’m in your hands, it’s up to you Catch me now I’m falling
When you were broke you would come to me And I would always pull you round Now I call your office on the telephone And your secretary tells me that she’s sorry, But, you’ve gone out of town.
This is Captain America calling This is Captain America calling
Help me now I’m calling you Catch me now I’m falling I’m in your hands, it’s up to you Catch me now I’m falling
Catch me now I’m falling Catch me now I’m falling Catch me now I’m falling Catch me now I’m falling
I stood by you through all of your depressions And I lifted you when you were down Now it’s your chance to do the same for me I call your office and your secretary tells me That you’ve gone out of town
This is Captain America calling This is Captain America calling
Catch me now I’m falling Catch me now I’m falling
I was the one who always bailed you out Of your depressions and your difficulties I never thought that you would let me down But the next time you’re in trouble Better not come running to me
Now I’m calling all citizens from all over the world This is Captain America calling I bailed you out when you were down on your knees So will you catch me now I’m falling Catch me now I’m falling
Catch me now I’m falling Catch me now I’m falling Catch me now I’m falling Catch me now I’m falling
Just think of the photographs snapped of Muhammad Ali and the Beatles. Put together they would reach the moon and back. Muhammad Ali was probably the most famous person in the world in the 20th century. Kids on remote islands in the middle of nowhere knew about Ali. The two were truly the greatest in their fields.
Muhammad Ali played with the idea of reuniting the Beatles in the 1970s.
The two culture icons would meet on February 18, 1964 right after the Beatles broke through America. The Beatles wanted to meet Sonny Liston because he was favored 7-1 to win the match between him and Ali but Sonny declined to meet them.
By all accounts, Ali had no idea who The Beatles were. But he welcomed the opportunity for some extra publicity with them. Although The Beatles fumed because the soon-to-be-new champ was late and kept them waiting, when he arrived he quickly broke the ice with his opening line, which has since been reported as either: “Hey, Beatles, let’s go make some money!”; or the equally memorable: “Hello there, Beatles! We oughta do some roadshows together. We’ll get rich!”
At one point, Ali used one of his favorite lines at the time, telling the Beatles: “You ain’t as dumb as you look!”
Lennon… but of course… shot back: “No. But you are!”
After a nervous silence…everyone started to laugh. Ali made up one of his rhymes. “When Liston reads about The Beatles visiting me / He’ll get so mad, I’ll knock him out in three!” It actually took 6 rounds for Ali to win on February 25, 1964…Sonny wouldn’t return for the 7th.
Joel Sacher was attending the inauguration gala for President Jimmy Carter. He was there as a personal guest of Muhammad Ali, maybe the most recognizable man on the planet at the time. Ali and Sacher were meeting with one of the few men who was almost as recognizable Ali. They were talking to John Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono, and while the conversation included plenty of nostalgia about meeting the Beatles in Miami long ago.
Ali was armed with a proposal, one that was the brainchild of Sacher and a business associate that had the potential to stun the world. They wanted to reunite The Beatles.
In 1976 inventor Alan Amron and businessman Joel Sacher partnered with Ali to promote The International Committee to Reunite the Beatles. They asked fans worldwide to contribute a dollar each. Ali said the idea was to use the proceeds to establish an international agency to help poor children. “This is money to help people all over the world”, he said. He added, “I love the music. I used to train to their music.” He said a reunion of the Beatles “would make a lot of people happy.” The Beatles were indifferent to the plan. No reunion happened.
Here is a PDF of a newspaper article describing Ali’s plan. It was a nice gesture. Ali and the Beatles.pdf
The International Committee to Reunite the Beatles released a single called “Get Back Beatles” and it was released by singer-songwriter Gerald Kenny.
The Beatles turned down big-time money in the seventies and didn’t reunite. Personally, I’m happy they didn’t…no way could they have lived up to people’s expectations.
After Muhammad Ali died
Paul McCartney:
“I loved that man. He was great from the first day we met him in Miami, and on the numerous occasions when I ran into him over the years. Besides being the greatest boxer, he was a beautiful, gentle man with a great sense of humor who would often pull a pack of cards out of his pocket, no matter how posh the occasion, and do a card trick for you.
Ringo Starr:
“I taught (Ali) everything he knew!” Starr said, before growing more – and less – serious. “That was a thrill, of course, and I was putting my money on Liston, so I really knew what was happening!”
When I think of lead guitar players…Eric Clapton is usually the first to automatically come to mind. I’ve seen Clapton twice and was always impressed with his trademark blues licks. His Cream era guitar playing influenced generations of guitar players.
This is a song I don’t hear as much anymore and I’ve always liked it. This song was written and originally recorded by the rock pioneer Bo Diddley in 1957.
He never considered putting it on a record until guitarist Robert Cray and drummer Jim Keltner started jamming on the song one day in the studio during the Journeyman sessions. The Cray/Clapton combo on this song makes it a favorite of guitar fans.
Eric released the song as the B-side of “Bad Love,” the first single from Journeyman. …I like this one better than the A side.
Before You Accuse Me
Before you accuse me, take a look at yourself Before you accuse me, take a look at yourself You say I’ve been spending my money on other women You’ve been taking money from someone else
I called your mama ’bout three or four nights ago I called your mama ’bout three or four nights ago Well your mother said “Son” “Don’t call my daughter no more”
Before you accuse me, take a look at yourself Before you accuse me, take a look at yourself You say I’ve been spending my money on other women You’ve been taking money from someone else
Come back home baby, try my love one more time Come back home baby, try my love one more time If I don’t go on and quit you I’m gonna lose my mind
Before you accuse me, take a look at yourself Before you accuse me, take a look at yourself You say I’ve been spending my money on other women You’ve been taking money from someone else
This was released as a double A-side single with “Come Together.” It was the only song written by George Harrison released as a single by The Beatles. They had used some of his songs as B-sides, including “The Inner Light” and “Old Brown Shoe.”
The song was written about his then-wife Pattie Boyd. This song moved his songwriting abilities up… in the eyes of his bandmates Lennon and McCartney. George had written some very good songs before like Taxman, If I Needed Someone, and While My Guitar Gently Weeps but this one…this one placed him in another league. George had two of the highlights on the album wth Something and Here Comes The Sun.
Harrison wrote this during a break while they were working on The White Album. It was not recorded in time for the album, so Harrison gave this to Joe Cocker, but Cocker didn’t release it until after The Beatles did.
When I saw Paul McCartney in 2014 he played this as a tribute to George Harrison. He played a version of this using a ukulele George had given him…and it made it really special.
Frank Sinatra called this “”the greatest love song of the past 50 years”.” He often performed it in the ’70s, at one point wrongly attributing it to Lennon and McCartney rather than Harrison.
With at least 200 cover versions on record, this is the second-most-covered Beatles song; only “Yesterday” has been covered more.
Harrison chastised McCartney for being too active with his bass lines in this song. In the past, Paul had sometimes been critical of George’s guitar playing on his songs. I have to say though…Paul did a great job on this song…his bass playing compliments the song.
From Songfacts
Pattie did inspire “Layla” when Eric Clapton realized he loved her a few years later. She and Clapton were married from 1979-1988 (he also wrote “Wonderful Tonight” for her).
In her 2007 book Wonderful Tonight: George Harrison, Eric Clapton, and Me, Pattie Boyd wrote: “George wrote a song called ‘Something.’ He told me in a matter-of-fact way that he had written it for me. I thought it was beautiful and it turned out to be the most successful song he ever wrote, with more than 150 cover versions. George’s favorite version was the one by James Brown. Mine was the one by George Harrison, which he played to me in our kitchen. But, in fact, by then our relationship was in trouble. Since a trip to the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s ashram in India in 1968, George had become obsessive about meditation. He was also sometimes withdrawn and depressed.”
Harrison came up with the title and the first line after listening to a James Taylor song called “Something In The Way She Moves.” Taylor was signed to Apple Records (The Beatles’ label) at the time.
This is the only song on the Beatles 1 album that was not a #1 hit on its own in the US or UK. “Something” and “Come Together” spent one week at #1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart when the compilers of the chart changed its ranking method and stopped giving separate rankings for the two sides of a single. It was also gave Harrison representation among the 27 tracks.
Harrison had the first line, “Something in the way she moves,” but had trouble coming up with the second. He considered “attracts me like a pomegranate,” before coming up with “attracts me like no other lover.”
This was used in a commercial for Chrysler cars in 1987.
John Lennon said that this was his favorite song on Abbey Road.
Harrison wrote this on a piano. The Beatles often composed and recorded separately at this time.
Harrison pictured Ray Charles on vocals when he wrote this. Charles did eventually cover it.
With 21 string players used in overdubs, this ended up being one of the most orchestral Beatles songs. This sound made it a staple of light rock radio and, in bowdlerized instrumental form, Muzak.
Before this was edited down, it contained a long instrumental tag at the end.
Dave Grohl, a former member of Nirvana and leader of The Foo Fighters, recorded a tribute song to Harrison on the Foo’s first album called “Oh, George” based on the guitar lead to this. Harrison was Grohl’s favorite Beatle, and this was one of the first leads he learned to play on guitar.
Jeff Lynne, Joe Walsh and Dhani Harrison performed this song on the CBS special The Beatles: The Night That Changed America. The show featured Grammy-winning performers covering Beatles songs; it aired on February 9, 2014 – the 50th anniversary of the group’s first Ed Sullivan Show appearance.
Something
Something in the way she moves Attracts me like no other lover Something in the way she woos me I don’t want to leave her now You know I believe and how
Somewhere in her smile she knows That I don’t need no other lover Something in her style that shows me I don’t want to leave her now You know I believe and how
You’re asking me will my love grow I don’t know, I don’t know You stick around and it may show I don’t know, I don’t know
Something in the way she knows And all I have to do is think of her Something in the things she shows me I don’t want to leave her now You know I believe and how
Great album cut by The James Gang. Val brought this one to my attention a few weeks ago and I’ve been listening ever since.
Bill Szymczyk produced the second album for the James Gang called Rides Again which was released in 1970.
A big space was filled with “The Bomber,” which took up more than seven minutes of Rides Again‘s 35-minute running time, and ended up spawning a couple of classic James Gang stories in the process…while triggering a decades-long copyright battle and paving the way for the invention of industry-standard speakers in the bargain.
The Record Plant had just installed new expensive monitors, and Bill Szymczyk was the first guy to use them, which was a real mistake. During playback of “The Bomber” the speaker just physically blew out of the wall.
Bill Szymczyk: “We blew eight of those speakers up,” “The next day, [Record Plant co-founder] Gary Kellgren went to his maintenance guy, his head tech, who was Tom Hidley, and he said to Tom, ‘Make me a monitor that Szymczyk can’t blow up!’ That was the birth of the Hidley monitor, which is in hundreds of studios around the world at this point.”
“The Bomber” also included a passage from Ravel’s “Boléro,” which ended up costing the James Gang a fair bit of legal drama. “Ravel was French, and French copyright law and French law, in general, is insane. The French copyright, Ravel’s heirs and Ravel’s estate stipulated in the French copyright law that the piece had to be played in its entirety, top to bottom,” recalls Walsh. “You could never play little parts of it. And it had to be played by the full orchestra that it was written for. Well, we didn’t know that!”
The band was forced to remove the Boléro part but it was restored when the CD was released.
The Bomber
When I became of age my mama sat me down Said “Son, you’re growin’ up, it’s time you looked around” So I began to notice some things I hadn’t seen before That’s what brought me here knockin’ on your back door Oh, yeah
A closet queen, the busstop’s dream, she wants to shake my hand I don’t want to be there, she decides she can It’s Apple Dan, he’s just the man to pick fruit off your branches I can’t sleep, and we can’t keep this cattle on my ranches Oh, yeah
It’s too strong, something’s wrong and I guess I lost the feelin’ I don’t mind the games you play, but I don’t like your dealin’ God looked bad, the luck’s been had and there’s nothin’ left to smoke Will I be back tomorrow for the punchline of the joke?
The opening track to The Beatle’s last album Abbey Road.
This song was part of one of their best double A-sided singles…Come Together was sided with Something and the single peaked at #1 in 1969.
In 1969, Timothy Leary decided to run for Governor of California and asked John Lennon to write a song for him. “Come Together, Join The Party” was Leary’s campaign slogan a reference to the drug culture he supported and was the original title of the song. Leary never had much of a campaign, but the slogan gave Lennon the idea for this song.
Leary wasn’t happy with it when he heard it and said: “I was a bit miffed that Lennon had passed me over this way…When I sent a mild protest to John, he replied with typical Lennon charm and wit that he was a tailor and I was a customer who had ordered a suit and never returned. So he sold it to someone else.”
In the song, Lennonwrot the opening line o “Here come old flat-top / he come grooving up slowly,” which is very similar lyrically and in meter to a line in Chuck Berry’s “You Can’t Catch Me,” “Here come a flat-top / he was moving up with me.”
This similarity caught the notice of the song’s publisher Morris Levy who, shortly after the Beatles song was released, filed a lawsuit against John for plagiarism. Timothy Leary may have walked away quietly, but Morris Levy was to do nothing of the sort.
A settlement was reached in 1973 which stipulated that Lennon would record three songs owned by Big Seven Music Corp., which was owned by Levy. Lennon picked Ya Ya, You Can’t Catch Me, and Angel Baby. He recorded the first two but the last one, Angel Baby he never did. Levy sued Lennon again and was eventually awarded a total of $6,795 in damages.
Aerosmith covered this song and did a good job…
John Lennon: “Though it’s nothing like the Chuck Berry song,” “they took me to court because I admitted this once years ago. I left in one line, which is not just Berry’s: ‘Here come old flat top.’ I could have changed it to ‘Here comes old iron face.’
Paul McCartney: “here come old flat-top, “That was a lyric John could NOT let go of. And he couldn’t better it, so he just used it. And I said, ‘Well, it’s a bit of a nick, isn’t it?’ He said, ‘No, it’s a quote.’ I said, ‘OK, fair enough.”
From Songfacts
Timothy Leary was a psychologist who became famous for experimenting with LSD as a way to promote social interaction and raise consciousness. Leary did many experiments on volunteers and himself and felt the drug had many positive qualities if taken correctly. When the government cracked down on LSD, Leary’s experiments were stopped and he was arrested on drug charges.
After Timothy Leary decided against using this song for his political campaign Lennon added some nonsense lyrics and brought it to the Abbey Road sessions. Paul McCartney recalled in Rolling Stone magazine’s 500 Greatest Songs: “I said, ‘Let’s slow it down with a swampy bass-and-drums vibe.’ I came up with a bass line, and it all flowed from there.”
John Lennon was sued for stealing the guitar riff and the line “Here comes old flat-top” from Chuck Berry’s “You Can’t Catch Me.” The lawsuit did not come from Berry, but from Morris Levy, one of the music industry’s most infamous characters (see our interview with Tommy James for more on Levy). He owned the song along with thousands of other early rock songs that he obtained from many poor, black, and unrepresented artists. Levy sued the Beatles, or more accurately, John Lennon, over the song around the time the Beatles broke up.
For years, Lennon delayed the trial while he and the Beatles tried to sort out all the legal and business problems that plagued Apple Records. Finally, in an attempt to avoid the court room as much as he could (Lennon felt like he was appearing in court more often than not), he settled with Levy. Lennon agreed to record his Rock N Roll album, which was just a series of cover songs, including three songs Levy owned (including “You Can’t Catch Me”) on the tracklist.
The deal made sense: Lennon always wanted to make a covers album, and Levy wanted the value of his songs to increase (when a Beatle re-records a song, that is just what happens). To make a long long long story short, Lennon recorded the album over the Lost Weekend, a year-or-two period when he was separated from Yoko Ono and lived in Los Angeles. During that time he was often drunk or high, and was rather sloppy and useless. Levy was getting frustrated with the lack of progress. Phil Spector was the producer, but in a fit of madness (which was not too unusual for Spector) he ran away and stole the recording session tapes. Levy invited Lennon to his upstate New York recording studio, and that is where he finally recorded the album, which ended up with only two Levy songs: “You Can’t Catch Me” and “Ya Ya.” >>
The whispered lyric that sounds like “shoot” is actually Lennon saying “shoot me” followed by a handclap. The bass line drowns out the “me.”
The Beatles recorded this on July 21, 1969 and it was the first session John Lennon actively participated in following his and Yoko’s car accident 3 weeks earlier. John was so insistent on Yoko being in the studio with him that he had a hospital bed set up in the studio for her right after the accident, since she was more seriously injured than he was. >>
The line “Ono sideboard” refers to Yoko.
The British Broadcasting Company (The BBC) banned this because of the reference to Coca Cola, which they considered advertising.
This has one of the most commonly misheard lyrics in the history of popular music: “Hold you in his -armchair- you can feel his disease.” It’s actually “Hold you in his arms, yeah, you can feel his disease.” All published sheet music had the “armchair” lyric, including the inner sleeve of the 1967-1970 compilation, which contained lots of other errors too, notably on “Strawberry Fields Forever.” After John heard that his lyric was incorrect in the sheet music and other folios, he decided he liked “armchair” better and kept it. >>
The Beatles released this as a “double A side” single with “Something.”
In 1969, this won a Grammy for best engineered recording.
When rumors were spreading that Paul McCartney was dead, some fans thought the line “One and one and one is three” meant that only George, John and Ringo were left. The line “Got to be good lookin’ cuz he’s so hard to see” was supposed to be Paul’s spirit. >>
A rotary phone was used to make the sound heard before each verse and after the chorus. The sound was accompanied by the bass Paul played. Kids, ask your parents or grandparents what a rotary phone was. >>
Aerosmith recorded this song with Beatles producer George Martin for the 1978 movie Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, which turned out to be one of the worst films ever made. Aerosmith appeared in the film performing this song (as the Future Villain Band), agreeing to the role only because they couldn’t resist the chance to record a Beatles song with George Martin. They weren’t the only big names in the film – Peter Frampton and The Bee Gees were also in it.
The Aerosmith version of “Come Together” made #23 in the US when it was released as a single. When we asked their guitarist Brad Whitford why some folks prefer the Aerosmith version, he replied, “I’ve actually never heard anybody say that.” Whitford added, “But you know, it’s funny, I hear our version more on the radio than I do The Beatles’ version.”
In 2001, Beck, Moby, Marc Anthony, and Nelly Furtado were scheduled to put on a tribute concert in Radio City Music Hall called “Come Together: A Night For John Lennon.” Due to the terrorist attacks on America, it was postponed and dedicated to the people of New York City, with proceeds benefiting victims of the attacks.
Nortel used this in commercials, as did Macy’s.
On an early demo version of “My Monkey” by Marilyn Manson (whose vocals were sped up to sound like “a demonic toddler”), Manson sang the second verse as an opener. It appeared on Demos in Lunchbox by Manson’s former band, The Spooky Kids.
This has been covered by Michael Jackson, Tina Turner, Meat Loaf, Guns N’ Roses, Soundgarden, Marilyn Manson, Nazareth, and Oasis.
Though Ringo is best known for playing on Oyster Black Pearl Ludwig drum kit, he used for this his Ludwig “Hollywood” maple-finish equipment, with a 22″ kick. Starr produced his distinctive late ’60s drum muffling sound on tracks like this by wrapping tea towels (dishtowels) around his snares and toms.
On October 7, 2016, The Rolling Stones covered this song during their headline set at the Desert Trip festival in Indio, California. Before launching into the tune, Mick Jagger told the crowd: “We’re gonna do a cover song of a sort of unknown beat group. I think you might remember [them], we’re gonna try a cover of one of their tunes.”
Come Together
Here come old flat top He come groovin’ up slowly He got joo joo eyeballs He one holy roller He got hair down to his knee Got to be a joker He just do what he please
He wear no shoeshine He got toe jam football He got monkey finger He shoot Coca-Cola He say I know you, you know me One thing I can tell you is You got to be free Come together, right now Over me
He bad production He got walrus gumboot He got Ono sideboard He one spinal cracker He got feet down below his knee Hold you in his armchair You can feel his disease Come together, right now Over me
He roller coaster He got early warning He got muddy water He one Mojo filter He say one and one and one is three Got to be good looking ‘Cause he’s so hard to see Come together right now Over me
Come together, yeah Come together, yeah Come together, yeah Come together, yeah Come together, yeah Come together, yeah Come together, yeah Come together, yeah Come together, yeah
Slade was very successful in the UK with 6 number ones, 16 top ten, and 24 top 40 singles. They could not duplicate their success in America where they only had two top forty singles…Run, Runaway, and My, Oh My both in the 80s.
Jim Lea and Noddy Holder of Slade wrote this song, and it was produced by Chas Chandler, who managed Jimi Hendrix before working with Slade. The song entered the UK charts at #1, becoming the first to do so since The Beatles “Get Back” in 1969. It was Slade’s fourth UK #1.
This song peaked at #98 in the Billboard 100 and #1 in the UK in 1973.
Americans know this song and Slade’s Mama Weer All Crazee Now more by Quiet Riot in the 80s. I’ve grown to appreciate Slade’s glam rock and wonder why they weren’t more successful in America.
From Songfacts
This is a glam rock classic. Slade performed loud, anthemic songs in flamboyant costumes, often with lots of makeup and plenty of energy. Glam rock was big in the UK in the mid-’70s, and this was one of the genre’s first hits. Slade also hit #1 with similarly misspelled songs “Coz I Love You” and “Mama Weer All Crazee Now.”
Most Americans know this song from the Quiet Riot cover, which went to #5 in 1983 and helped their album Metal Health become the first metal album to hit #1 on the Billboard 200. It was the band’s producer, Spencer Proffer, who asked them to cover the song; lead singer Kevin DuBrow wanted nothing to do with it, since he wanted the band to write every song on the album. He and the band cooked up a plan to sabotage the song, but it failed.
In a Songfacts interview with Quiet Riot drummer Frankie Banali, he told the story: “We were supposed to rehearse the song and go in and record it. The producer kept calling the rehearsal studio, ‘Are you working on ‘Cum On Feel the Noize’?’ And we’d say, ‘Yeah. It sounds great.’ But we never played it.
So the day came when it was time to record the song, and I came in early and told the engineer what was going on. I was honest with him. I said, ‘You might just want to record this for laughs and giggles.’
We went in, there was no intro, no nothing at all. There was a little bit of arguing as to how it was going to start, and finally, when I knew the engineer was rolling tape, I just started playing what became the intro. Rudy [Sarzo, bass] joined in, and then Carlos [Cavazo, guitar] joined in. Kevin was sitting at the corner of the studio, just giggling, waiting for this massive train wreck, and the train wreck never happened.
I had already done so many sessions in LA – even before the Metal Health record – that I knew, ‘Vamp long, there’s no click track on it,’ and all of that. And then when we were done, the producer says, ‘That sounded great. I wish we had recorded it.’ And the engineer said, ‘Come on in.’
He went in to listen, and Kevin grabbed me by the arm and almost dislocated my shoulder. He says, ‘What the hell was that?’ And I said, ‘I don’t know man. I just started playing it!’ He says, ‘Well, what am I supposed to do now?’ And I said, ‘Well, you can always sing it s–tty, can’t you?’ He smiled a little, but he was really pissed off.
The thing is, when you listen to the original Slade version and you listen to our version, Slade begins at a different part of the song. Slade did not have an intro – it just goes right in. And because we weren’t familiar with the song – and I definitely wasn’t familiar with the song – I think I either left out a verse or a chorus in our arrangement. So if you play them side-by-side, they’re not going to match.
I will say that there is a lot of similarities between Kevin’s voice and Noddy Holder’s. It was good call on the producer’s part to do that. And I understand why he did it: Quiet Riot was a new band, doing music that nobody else was doing, and he just wanted to have a ‘safety song’ that was a hit everywhere except for the United States. I get it. And the reality is, if we had not done that song, you’d probably be interviewing the drummer from another band right now.”
Quiet Riot had been recording since 1975 without a hit. After finding success with “Cum On Feel The Noize,” they had a minor hit with their next single “Bang Your Head (Metal Health)” and recorded another Slade song, “Mama Weer All Crazee Now.” After Metal Health, they never caught on and failed to enjoy the success of similar bands like Mötley Crüe and Poison.
In 2007, Quiet Riot lead singer Kevin DuBrow died of a drug overdose at age 52. The band re-formed in 2010 with a number of vocalists going through the ranks. James Durbin, the fourth place finisher on American Idol in 2011, took over in 2017.
The Quiet Riot version took off thanks to a video that got lots of airplay on MTV. At the time, pop radio was dominated by Michael Jackson, The Police, Madonna and other acts that were chasms away from metal, but MTV had plenty of wiggle room in their playlist and was looking for American rock bands in particular. The “Cum On Feel The Noize” video was sweet nectar to the young male audience they were trying to attract; one of this species stars in the clip, undergoing a metal assault in his bedroom. Mark Rezyka, who did all of Quiet Riot’s early videos, was the director.
Though little known Stateside, Slade was enormously popular in the UK, where they had 18 songs reach the Top 5, seven of them #1s.
Much of their musical output was produced by Chas Chandler, famous for managing Jimi Hendrix and a talented rocker in his own right, playing bass as a founding member of the seminal British rock band The Animals. But Glam Rock was buried in Britain by the late 1970s and Slade slid into semi-obscurity in the US until the release of Quiet Riot’s cover, which helped boost their own sales a bit.
Cum On Feel The Noize
Baby baby baby!
Yow!
So you think I got an evil mind, well I’ll tell you honey And I don’t know why And I don’t know why So you think my singing’s out of time, well it makes me money And I don’t know why And I don’t know why Anymore Oh no
So come on, feel the noise Girls, grab your boys We get wild, wild, wild We get wild, wild, wild So come on, feel the noise Girls, grab your boys We get wild, wild, wild At your door
So you say I got a funny face, I ain’t got no worries And I don’t know why And I don’t know why Say I’m a scruff bag well it’s no disgrace, I ain’t in no hurry And I don’t know why I just don’t know why Anymore Oh no
So come on, feel the noise Girls, grab your boys We get wild, wild, wild We get wild, wild, wild So come on, feel the noise Girls, grab your boys We get wild, wild, wild At your door
Yow! So you think we have a lazy time, well you should know better And I don’t know why I just don’t know why And you say I got a dirty mind, well I’m a mean go-getter And I don’t know why And I don’t know why Anymore Oh no
So come on, feel the noise Girls, grab your boys We get wild, wild, wild We get wild, wild, wild So come on, feel the noise Girls, grab your boys We get wild, wild, wild At your door
So come on, feel the noise (come on, come on) Girls, grab your boys (grab your boys) We get wild, wild, wild (we get wild) We get wild, wild, wild (yeah) So come on, feel the noise (feel it, feel it) Girls, grab your boys (grab ’em, grab ’em) We get wild, wild, wild (we get wild) We get wild, wild, wild (we get wild)
Come on, feel the noise (can you feel it, can you feel it?) Girls, grab your boys (feel the noise) We get wild, wild, wild (come on, get wild) We get wild, wild, wild (get wild) So come on, feel the noise (come on, come on, come on) Girls, grab your boys (feel the noise) We get wild, wild, wild We get wild, wild, wild
This song was an anthem for teenagers when it was released in 1971 . It remains one today.
Eighteen peaked at #21 in the Billboard 100 and #7 in Canada in 1971.
Most of the band’s support was in the midwest, and they often toured with Detroit groups like the Stooges, the MC5, and Bob Seger. They were usually very low on the bill, but when this song came out, they moved up a few rungs.
Neal Smith (drummer in the Alice Cooper Band) said: “The first show we did after they started playing ‘I’m Eighteen’ was the Detroit Auto Show. It was the big teen event of the year. It was the very first time we played a song where the crowd went crazy. That’s what we were trying for the whole time.”
John Lydon auditioned for The Sex Pistols by singing along to this song for the group’s manager, Malcolm McLaren. This took place in a pub, when Lydon was hanging out after closing and McLaren asked him to mime some songs. Lydon said that the jukebox was filled with “that awful ’60s mod music,” and that “I’m Eighteen” was the only song on it he could tolerate. McLaren gave him the job and renamed him Johnny Rotten.
From Songfacts
This song is about the feelings of a frustrated teenager, which described many of Alice Cooper’s fans. 18 was an interesting age in America at the time, as in many states, you had to be older to vote or drink alcohol, but you could be drafted to fight in the Vietnam War. The group’s drummer, Neal Smith, told us: “It was a song about growing up in the ’60s, with lines in it like you could go to war but you couldn’t vote. We had no idea it would become an anthem; we were just thinking it would be a cool song.”The band (“Alice Cooper” was the name of both the lead singer and the group at the time) wrote the song in the summer of 1970 when they were living in a dorm house in Cincinnati. Their drummer, Neil Smith, told us how the song came together: “We were getting a lot of work in Ohio and Michigan; we were working and writing all the time. We had access to a club and we rehearsed there if we weren’t playing a show. Mike Bruce (guitarist) had this idea for a song called ‘I’m Eighteen.’ At first it was almost like a Pink Floyd kind of thing. We’d always been two guitars, bass, drums and the lead singer. Michael was well versed as a keyboard player. So we got a Farfisa organ and he wrote the song on that. The intro was kind of a melodic, haunting tune that built and built.”“I’m Eighteen” was eight minutes long in it’s original form. The group had an elaborate stage show with lots of gore and histrionics, so they wrote longer songs that would give them time to build a story with their visuals.
An 8-minute freakout was fine for a live performance, but the group needed a hit: their first album had made #199 on the charts, and their next one didn’t chart at all. They were signed to Frank Zappa’s Straight Records label, but when Zappa’s interest waned, the Straight’s parent company, Warner, took over the band and made them produce a 4-song demo to prove their worth. They went to the producer Jack Richardson, who had worked with the Guess Who, looking for help. Richardson wanted nothing to do with them, but he dispatched a young producer working at his Nimbus 9 studios named Bob Ezrin to see the band perform. Ezrin went to New York and saw them perform this song at a club called Max’s Kansas City. The band was so raw that Ezrin thought Cooper was singing “I’m Edgy,” but he saw lots of potential in the group and in the song.
Alice Cooper recorded their four-song demo with Ezrin at RCA Studios in Chicago, and “I’m Eighteen” was the standout track. With Ezrin at the controls, they polished the song down to 2:56. The label was impressed, the song became a hit, and Ezrin continued to work with the band, helping them craft radio-friendly rock songs without compromising their caliginous image. Neal Smith told us, “We were playing every night on stage. We knew how to get a crowd excited. We were like a pot ready to boil over. But the heat wasn’t hot enough yet. We always worked with a total group effort, everybody collaborating, everybody making suggestions. But Bob became like the 6th member of the band. He was the one person who had the final word.”Cooper was not really 18 at the time. He was 23 when they recorded it.This song was released in November 1970 as the first single from Love It To Death, which came out in January 1971. The song got a lot of early support on the Windsor, Ontario radio station CKLW, whose signal went into Cleveland.
Lydon, who was always a huge fan of Alice Cooper, narrated a 2000 BBC documentary on Cooper and wrote liner notes for his 1999 boxed set. Creed covered this on the soundtrack to the 1998 movie The Faculty.In 1998, the publishing company that owned the copyright of this song sued Kiss, claiming that “Dreamin’,” from their Psycho Circus album, resembled this too closely. The case was settled a year later.Alice told Mojo magazine December 2010 how producer Bob Ezrin contributed to this song: “Eighteen was a jam that we’d warm up with, it wasn’t even a song, and Bob said, ‘That’s a hit.’ ‘How?’ we said. He kept saying, ‘Dumb it down. Make it simpler.’ He’d add a piano on the bassline, and we’d go, ‘You can’t put a piano on an Alice Cooper song.’ But he was absolutely correct. When we got done listening to Eighteen, we just could not believe it.”The single was issued with the title “Eighteen.” On the album, it’s listed as “I’m Eighteen,” which is how it’s most commonly known.Anthrax recorded this song for their first album, Fistful of Metal (1984). It was the only album Dan Lilker played on with the band, and his performance on the song was sometimes cited by Anthrax members as a reason for his departure, since it took him a long time to get it right.
In our interview with Lilker, he explained that the producer, Carl Canedy, made lots of little changes during overdubs, which caused problems. “After a while I would get confused and play a note the wrong way,” he said. “It took 25 or 30 takes for me to play that right because he kept changing the part – which was about a good 20 of them – and then I would f–k up, because all the tiny little changes that would mess me up. So a song that sounds relatively easy was actually very difficult.”
Eighteen
Lines form on my face and hands Lines form from the ups and downs I’m in the middle without any plans I’m a boy and I’m a man
I’m eighteen And I don’t know what I want Eighteen I just don’t know what I want Eighteen I gotta get away I gotta get out of this place I’ll go runnin in outer space Oh yeah
I got a Baby’s brain and an old man’s heart Took eighteen years to get this far Don’t always know what I’m talkin’ about Feels like I’m livin in the middle of doubt Cause I’m
Eighteen I get confused every day Eighteen I just don’t know what to say Eighteen I gotta get away
Lines form on my face and my hands Lines form on the left and right I’m in the middle The middle of life I’m a boy and I’m a man I’m eighteen and I LIKE IT Yes I like it Oh I like it Love it Like it Love it
Eighteen! Eighteen! Eighteen! Eighteen and I LIKE IT
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