PowerPop... An Eclectic Collection of Pop Culture

Fastball – Fire Escape

I liked this group the first time I heard them. This song was released right after “The Way” and I’ve always been partial to songs played in variations of the D chord like this one, Here Comes The Sun, and If I Needed Someone by the Beatles.

This song peaked at #10 on the Alternative Billboard Chart in 1998. The song has a jangling feel to it with good lyrics.

From Songfacts

In this song, a guy is trying to explain his true self, probably to a girl. He knows he doesn’t want to be Superman, and he’s not sure where he’s headed, so he settles on an abstract answer: he’ll be the rain falling on her fire escape. He’s more comprehensible at the end of the song: “I can be myself, how ’bout you?”

This was written and sung by Fastball guitarist Miles Zuniga, who along with Tony Scalzo did most of the songwriting in the band. It was released as the second single from the band’s breakthrough album All the Pain Money Can Buy, following their hit, “The Way.”

The video was directed by Francis Lawrence, whose credits include the films Constantine and I Am Legend, as well as videos for Audioslave (“Be Yourself”) and Lady Gaga (“Bad Romance”).

It’s one of the more unusual videos ever made: the band appear in it, but they’re all dead. It takes place in an home of an obsessed female fan who is getting ready for work, casually ignoring their corpses. At one point, a TV news program comes on and Access Hollywood host Pat O’Brien announces that the band has disappeared. “If anybody sees them, they might want to show them the way,” he says, referencing their hit song.

The video is all one shot (well, not really – there’s an edit when they go from a Steadicam to what is likely a crane), and breaks the fourth wall at the end when the woman breaks character and says, “Francis, I can’t work like this.”

The video was shot in Newhall, California on a sweltering hot day. According to Tony Scalzo, it took them about 10 takes to get it right. “The second-to-last one was almost perfect, and then the girl closed the door too fast and closed it on the camera, which upset everybody not just because the shot was ruined, but because it was a very expensive camera,” he told Songfacts. “It’s deathly hot. I’m in this bathtub so that’s okay. But I gotta lie upside down in the water with my face under water. Well, it took all day, but we finally got it and it came out a pretty creepy, weird video. The only other shots we had to do were us walking out of the house, looking stupid, and the live stuff where you see a performance video that’s on a TV in the house.”

Fire Escape

Well, I don’t wanna be President, Superman, or Clark Kent
I don’t wanna walk around in their shoes

‘Cause I don’t know whose side I’m on
I don’t know my right from wrong
I don’t know where I’m goin’ to
I don’t know about you
I’ll be the rain falling on your fire escape

And I may not be the man you want me to
I can be myself, how ’bout you?

I don’t wanna make you mad
I don’t wanna meet your dad
I don’t wanna be your dream come true
‘Cause I don’t know just what I’ve found

I don’t know my sky from ground
I don’t know where I’m goin’ to
I don’t know about you
I’ll be the rain falling on your fire escape

And I may not be the man you want me to
I can be myself, how ’bout you?

I’ll be the rain falling on your fire escape
And I may not be the man you want me to
I can be myself, how ’bout you?
I can be myself, how ’bout you?
I can be myself, how ’bout you?

Marcia Trimble

Most Nashvillians know her name even if they were not alive when Marcia Trimble was murdered in 1975…Nashville was never the same again.

I saw it all happen on the news when I was 8 years old. That is when I learned that the world wasn’t a nice safe place. I’ve seen it written many times…1975 is when Nashville lost its innocence. It was never crime free…no city ever is but this changed people forever here. It became high profile and went national.

Marcia Trimble was a 9-year-old Girl Scout selling cookies on February 25, 1975, and disappeared where she lived in Green Hills…a very affluent part of Nashville then as well as now.

My Uncle Fulton was a Sergeant in the Vice Squad at that time. We were at my grandmother’s for Easter and I saw his car pulling up the drive and his three girls looked shocked. I saw him walking over to my mom so I walked over also. I remember he looked at my mom and then me and said…we found her and it’s beyond bad. He didn’t have to say who or what…we knew what he was talking about.

Marcia was found murdered and sexually assaulted under a tarp in a garage near her Green Hills home 33 days after she was declared missing.

The prime suspect was Jeffrey Womack…a then 15-year-old neighbor who had told the cops that Marcia had been by his house but he had no money and didn’t buy anything. The police later thought he kill Marcia…and he was suddenly the prime suspect… until 2008.

There has been plenty of crime here before and after this murder but none had the impact of this horrible event. I live north of Nashville but it affected everyone around middle Tennessee. At the time parents were obviously more on guard and kids would stick together while out.

From the Nashville Scene…about the neighborhood it happened in.

Former homicide Lt. Tommy Jacobs, who investigated the murder, says that for whatever reason, many of the children in the neighborhood stagnated in the years after the killing. “We interviewed the kids when they were 9 and 10 years old and went back and interviewed them 20-some-odd years later,” he says. “You won’t believe how many of the kids wound up in a mental institution or working at a gas station. Several of the kids were still living at home.”

60-year-old Jerome Sydney Barrett was convicted after DNA was examined in 2008 and he was sentenced to 44 years in prison in 2009…Barrett had killed more people in Nashville in 1975 and was finally connected to Marcia.

Jeffrey Womack, the kid that was falsely accused, was finally free of suspicion after 33 years.

For more of the details… https://www.insidehook.com/article/action/city-shadows-1974-murder-marcia-trimble-changed-nashville-forever

Fastball – The Way

This song is based on the true story of Lela and Raymond Howard, an elderly couple from Salado, Texas who drove to the annual Pioneer Day festival 10 miles away in Temple and didn’t return. She had Alzheimer’s disease and he was recovering from brain surgery.

When they disappeared, a reporter wrote a series of articles about the missing couple. Fastball bassist Tony Scalzo came up with the idea for the song after reading the articles. “It’s a romanticized take on what happened,” he said. Scalzo pictured them “taking off to have fun like they did when they first met.”

Thirteen days after the Howards went missing, they were found in Hot Springs, Arkansas, about 400 miles from their destination; they were still in the vehicle, which had veered off the side of the road and was hidden in the brush. Scalzo had finished writing the song when he learned that the couple had died.

The song peaked at #1 on the Billboard Alternative Charts in 1998. When I heard this band I thought they would be around for a while but I never heard much more from them. They did follow this song up with “Fire Escape” which I liked even better than this one.

From Songfacts

The song was released in February 1998 as the first single from Fastball’s second album, All The Pain Money Can Buy. The band was little known at the time, so it took a few months for the song to catch on, but by the summer of 1998 it was getting lots of airplay.

The keyboard figure that plays throughout this song was made with a Casio keyboard Tony Scalzo had. It was processed to loop around itself, creating a distinctive, but lo-fi sound.

The song opens with the sounds of an analog radio going up and down the dial, briefly tuning in stations amongst the static. When “The Way” starts, it’s as if the listener has found a song he likes and is going to give it a listen. For the first 40 seconds, the dynamics are restricted to simulate the limited frequency of a radio signal. At the line, “they drank up the wine,” the full range comes in.

The band didn’t put much thought into the radio collage: they simply put a microphone in front of a radio and turned the dial. The result is a sampling of Los Angeles radio in the summer of 1997. Most of it is indistinguishable chatter, but you can pretty clearly hear a split second of “Foolish Games” by Jewel in the mix – part of her line “in case you failed to notice.”

In a Songfacts interview with Tony Scalzo, he talked about writing this song while the Howard saga was unfolding. “I didn’t think it would be anything but an abstraction of their story, so I wasn’t really thinking about that,” he said. “Also, I wasn’t expecting it to be this massive song that everybody liked, so I was unfettered by any of those concepts.”

Guitarist Miles Zuniga is a big fan of ’50s music and drew inspiration from the hit “Secret Agent Man” for his solo.

This is a rather unusual song with a retro feel and lot of little sound effects incorporated into the mix. “There was this brief moment in time when people were having hits with really weird stuff,” Miles Zuniga said. “We got lucky that we came around at that time. Even two years later was too late.”

This was Fastball’s breakout hit, but it came on their second album. The group was signed to a major label, Hollywood Records (owned by Disney) and in 1996 released their debut, Make Your Mama Proud. It tanked, in part because the label was in disarray and gave it little promotional support. This story usually ends with the band getting dropped, but there was so much turnover at Hollywood Records that there was nobody to drop them, and they got to record a second album in the summer of 1997.

Once the album was recorded, there was no guarantee it would be released. One of the reps at the record company felt very strongly about “The Way” and took it to radio stations, which got lots of positive feedback from listeners when they played it. The song was clearly a hit, and about six weeks later the album was released.

In America, “The Way” wasn’t sold as a single, which was a ploy to force listeners to buy the album. It worked: All the Pain Money Can Buy sold over a million copies in the US.

This was a big song in the summer of 1998. It peaked on the Billboard Airplay chart at #5 on June 20 that year.

This song proved quite enduring, selling over 500,000 copies by 2014 after it was released digitally in 2003.

The music video was suitably abstract, with no allusion to the tragic story that inspired the song. It shows the band driving into the desert, arriving at a camper where dancers emerge, performing as the band plays the song.

It was directed by McG, who before directing films like Charlie’s Angels and Terminator Salvation did music videos, mostly for bands around his stomping grounds of Orange County, California. He also did most of the videos for Sugar Ray and Smash Mouth

The Way

They made up their minds and they started packing
They left before the sun came up that day
An exit to eternal summer slacking
But where were they going without ever knowing the way?
They drank up the wine and they got to talking
They now had more important things to say
And when the car broke down they started walking
Where were they going without ever knowing the way?
Anyone can see the road that they walk on is paved with gold
It’s always summer they’ll never get cold
They’ll never get hungry, they’ll never get old and gray
You can see their shadows wandering off somewhere
They won’t make it home but they really don’t care
They wanted the highway, they’re happier there today, today
The children woke up and they couldn’t find ’em
They left before the sun came up that day
They just drove off and left it all behind ’em
Where were they going without ever knowing the way?
Anyone can see the road that they walk on is paved with gold
It’s always summer they’ll never get cold
They’ll never get hungry, they’ll never get old and gray
You can see their shadows wandering off somewhere
They won’t make it home but they really don’t care
They wanted the highway, they’re happier there today, today
Anyone can see the road that they walk on is paved with gold
It’s always summer they’ll never get cold
They’ll never get hungry, they’ll never get old and gray
You can see their shadows wandering off somewhere
They won’t make it home but they really don’t care
They wanted the highway, they’re happier there today, today

The Paul Is Dead Rumor

There has been a rumor that’s persisted for over 50 years that Paul McCartney actually died in a car crash on November 9, 1966, in a fiery car crash while heading home from the EMI recording studios and was replaced with a look-alike imposter.

Conspiracy theorists claim that John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr worried about how his death might impact the Beatles’ commercial success, so they covered up his death by replacing him with a lookalike named William Campbell (or Billy Shears), who looked the part.

Well, not just look the part but just so happen to play incredible bass, be a brilliant songwriter, a top-notch singer and the same memories as the real Paul. They really must have hit the goldmine with Mr. Campbell or Shears.

The rumor was started by Russ Gibb a Detroit disc jockey on WKNR-FM. A listener named Tom, who announced that McCartney was dead, and for clues, to play the Beatles song “Revolution #9” backward. In reverse, the words that are repeated over and over, “number nine, number nine,” sort of sound like “turn me on, dead man.”

At the end of the song I’m So Tired Lennon is heard mumbling as “Monsieur, monsieur, how about another one?“, insinuating that he was requesting another attempt at the backing vocals. This final mumbling was the only one that made it onto the finished mix.

In 1969 when the “Paul is dead” rumor went around the world people insisted when the mumbling at the end of this song was played backward, John was saying “Paul is dead, miss him, miss him, miss him!”

The rumor grew legs and wings and spread all over the world. Some of the clues…

Abbey Road cover – John was the minister, Ringo the undertaker, Paul the corpse, and George the gravedigger.

A Volkswagon has the license plate 28IF…. That was supposed to mean Paul would have been 28 if he would have been alive…BUT the major flaw in this is…he was 27.

Sgt Pepper…in the fold out Paul is wearing a patch that read OPD (Officially Pronounced Dead)… but no…it was given to Paul by the Ontario Police Department.

There are hundreds of “clues”… this is a link to a site that lists some clues…just one site of many…

http://beatlesnumber9.com/dead.html

Led Zeppelin – Wearing and Tearing

This was on the album Coda it was released two years after John Bonham’s death and features outtakes from sessions throughout their career.

the song was supposed to be released as a single to coincide with their 1979 tour, but it was delayed because of production problems. This was Zeppelin’s answer to the Punk Rock groups at the time. It was recorded during the making of the In Through The Out Door album.

I don’t think it would have fit well on In Through The Out Door but it is too bad they didn’t release it as a single at the time.

From Songfacts

John Bonham died before this could be released. It was included on Coda, an album of unreleased tracks.

They planned to release this under the name of a fake band so it would not be judged as a Zeppelin song and could compete against the popular Punk bands.

Led Zeppelin never performed this live, but in 1990, Page and Plant played it at the Knebworth Festival in England.

Wearing and Tearing

It starts out like a murmur
Then it grows like thunder
Until it bursts inside of you
Try to hold it steady
Wait until you’re ready
Any second now will do
Throw the door wide open
Not a word is spoken
Anything that you want to do

Ya know, ya know, ya know
Ya know, ya know, ya know

Don’t you feel the same way?
Don’t you feel the same way?
But you don’t know what to do
No time for hesitatin’
Ain’t no time for hesitatin’
All you got to do is move
They say you’re feeling blue, well
I just found a cure
It’s a thing you gotta do, yeah

(Ya know, ya know, ya know)

Now listen, when you say your body’s aching?
I know that it’s aching
Chill bumps come up on you
Yeah, the funny fool
I love the funny fool
Just like foolin’ after school?
And then you ask for medication
Who cares for medication
When you’ve worn away the cure

(Ya know, ya know, ya know)

(Hey, hey)
Go back to the country yeah, go back to the country
Feel a change is good for you
When you keep convincin’
Ah, don’t keep convincin’
What’s that creeping up behind a you?
It’s just an old friend, it’s just an old friend
And what’s that he’s got for you?

(Ya know, ya know, ya know)

Yeah, yeah, yeah I can feel it, I can feel it ?
Oh, medication, medication, medication

Dire Straits – Industrial Disease

Love the lyrics to this song and also Knopfler’s guitar. When this song came out my friends and I would quote these lines to one another at school. Any song with I don’t know how you came to get the Betty Davis knees…But worst of all young man you’ve got Industrial Disease’ …..is alright with me.

The song was off of their Love over Gold album which peaked at #19 in the Billboard album chart in 1982. Industrial Disease peaked at #75 in the Billboard 100 in 1983.

From Songfacts

The song focuses on the decline of the British manufacturing industry in the 1980s. The song focuses on strikes, depression and dysfunctionality.

The title of what later became an AC/DC song is mentioned in the lyrics: “Thunderstruck.”

The reference to “brewers droop” as a medical condition is an in-joke, referring both to the effect of alcohol on libido and to the band of the same name that Mark Knopfler played in prior to Dire Straits.

Industrial Disease

Warning lights are flashing down at Quality Control
Somebody threw a spanner and they threw him in the hole
There’s rumors in the loading bay and anger in the town
Somebody blew the whistle and the walls came down
There’s a meeting in the boardroom they’re trying to trace the smell
There’s leaking in the washroom there’s a sneak in personnel
Somewhere in the corridors someone was heard to sneeze
‘goodness me could this be Industrial Disease?

The caretaker was crucified for sleeping at his post
They’re refusing to be pacified it’s him they blame the most
The watchdog’s got rabies the foreman’s got fleas
And everyone’s concerned about Industrial Disease
There’s panic on the switchboard tongues are ties in knots
Some come out in sympathy some come out in spots
Some blame the management some the employees
And everybody knows it’s the Industrial Disease

The work force is disgusted downs tools and walks
Innocence is injured experience just talks
Everyone seeks damages and everyone agrees
That these are ‘classic symptoms of a monetary squeeze’
On ITV and BBC they talk about the curse
Philosophy is useless theology is worse
History boils over there’s an economics freeze

Sociologists invent words that mean ‘Industrial Disease’
Doctor Parkinson declared ‘I’m not surprised to see you here
You’ve got smokers cough from smoking, brewer’s droop from drinking beer
I don’t know how you came to get the Betty Davis knees
But worst of all young man you’ve got Industrial Disease’

He wrote me a prescription he said ‘you are depressed
But I’m glad you came to see me to get this off your chest
Come back and see me later – next patient please
Send in another victim of Industrial Disease’
I go down to Speaker’s Corner I’m thunderstruck
They got free speech, tourists, police in trucks
Two men say they’re Jesus one of them must be wrong
There’s a protest singer singing a protest song – he says
‘they want to have a war to keep us on our knees

They want to have a war to keep their factories
They want to have a war to stop us buying Japanese
They want to have a war to stop Industrial Disease
They’re pointing out the enemy to keep you deaf and blind
They want to sap your energy incarcerate your mind
They give you Rule Brittania, gassy beer, page three

Two weeks in Espana and Sunday striptease’
Meanwhile the first Jesus says ‘I’d cure it soon
Abolish Monday mornings and Friday afternoons’
The other one’s on a hunger strike he’s dying by degrees
How come Jesus gets Industrial Disease

John Fogerty – Rockin’ All Over The World

In 1975 John Fogerty was battling his old record label Fantasy and his ex-bandmates in Creedence. He released his second solo album, John Fogerty, it was released by Asylum Records in the United States and Fantasy Records internationally. The album peaked at #78 in 1975.

It contained two songs are among my favorite of Fogerty’s solo material… this one and Almost Saturday Night. Rockin’ All Over The World peaked at #27 in the Billboard 100 in 1975.

Status Quo did a cover of this song and it peaked at #3 in the UK Charts. John isn’t concerned that many people think it was written by Status Quo. He said: “It’s wonderful to have a cover that’s much better known than the original. Even at the time, when I was still lost in the woods, the fact that there was a song I’d written that was doing quite well made me feel much better.”

From Songfacts

Creedence Clearwater Revival was one of the top American acts from 1968 until their split in 1972. Their leader, John Fogerty, released an album under the name The Blue Ridge Rangers in 1973 that got away from the CCR sound, with covers of classic country songs. For his next album, released in 1975 under his own name, he wanted to re-establish himself as a rocker, which he did on this song, which is the first single.

The 2:50 “Rockin’ All Over The World” finds Fogerty singing about life as musician bringing rock to the masses, which is something he knew well. The song did well, but the album stalled at #78. The following year, Fogerty said in an interview with Phonograph Record, “When I finished it, there was something wrong that I just couldn’t put my finger on. It sounded dated in a way, like it should have come out in 1971.”

Bruce Springsteen added this song to his setlist when he toured the UK in 1981, typically playing it as part of his encore. The song would show up again on tours in 1985 and 1993, then occasionally at concerts in the ’00s and ’10s.

Typical of Fogerty’s solo work, he played all the instruments on this track and did all the vocals himself.

The British group Status Quo took this to #3 in the UK with their 1977 cover. Their guitarist Rick Parfitt got the idea to cover the song; he first heard it after a night in the studio when copious amounts of alcohol were consumed. Driving home, he stopped to pick up what he thought was a hitchhiker, but was really a mailbox. Realizing he was quite impaired, he turned on the radio and “Rockin’ All Over The World” came on, which he later suggested to the band.

“When we all heard it, it just sounded piddly to us,” Quo frontman Francis Rossi told us. “But once we’d done the track and then Rick got that kind of ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ piece on the end, it started to build into something.”

Status Quo made this the title track of their 1977 album, and embarked that year on the “Rockin’ All Over The World” tour. This tour, however, skipped America. After making stops in the US the previous four years, the group gave up on the States, where their only significant hit was the 1968 track “Pictures Of Matchstick Men.”

This was the first song performed at Live Aid. Status Quo was the opening act at the London stage, and played it first in their set, which also included “Caroline” and “Don’t Waste My Time.”

Status Quo re-recorded the song in 1988, to support Sport Aid, as “Running All Over The World” with slightly amended lyrics. The new version reached #17 in the British Singles Chart.

The song has been reworked by the supporters of several football teams. Southend United fans, for instance, began singing “Shrimping All Over the World” after the 2004 Football League Trophy final and it is now their anthem. Also supporters of the Northern Ireland national football team often sing the song, particularly on away trips, changing the lyrics to “Drinkin’ All Over the World.”

Status Quo have a devoted rock following who love this song, even thought it’s one of their poppier efforts. As Francis Rossi tells it, even in 2013 when they played the Sweden Rock festival, metal bands were clearly enjoying this song. “It went out as a single and it was just monstrous,” he said. “I don’t really understand why.”

By the time Quo were ready to film the video, bassist Alan Lancaster had moved to Australia to get married. When the band asked him to fly back for the promo, he refused. Quo’s solution was to replace him with a life-sized puppet with a guitar, its strings operated by the band’s manager from the studio ceiling. “I didn’t mind the puppet,” Lancaster told Q magazine April 2013, “But that was the first time we’d done something without all four of us.”

John Fogerty recorded his original during a dark period when he was boycotting his old Creedence Clearwater songs.

Rockin’ All Over The World

Oooh! Ah!
Well, a-here-ee-yup, a-here-ee-yup, a-here we go,
Four in the mornin’, justa hittin’ the road,
Here we go-oh! Rockin’ all over the world! Yeah.
Well, a-geedeeup, a-geedeeup, a-get away,
We’re goin’ crazy, and we’re goin’ today, here we go-oh!
Rockin’ all over the world!

[Chorus:]
Well I like it, I like it, I like it, I like it,
I la-la-like it, la-la-la, here we go-oh! Rockin’ all over the world!
Yeah! Yeah!
Well, I’m gonna tell your Mama what your Daddy do,
He come out of the night with your dancin’ shoes,
Here we go-oh! Rockin’ all over the world! Yeah.

[Chorus x5]

David and David – Swallowed By The Cracks

This was a duo from the eighties I really liked. This song peaked at #14 in the Billboard Mainstream Rock Hits in 1986. The album Boomtown peaked at #39 in 1986 and it contained three radio hits. Welcome to the Boomtown, Ain’t So Easy, and Swallowed by the Cracks.

The two Davids were David Baerwald and David Ricketts. They broke up after their only studio album which really disappointed me because I was really looking forward to their next album. There is hope though…in 2016 it was reported that they are working on their second album.

Boomtown was a very underrated album. David Baerwald’s voice is so down to earth and the lyrics and melodies were really good. This album got lost in the mega album 80s.

They did work later with Sheryl Crow on her Tuesday Night Music Club album.

Swallowed By The Cracks

I once was a dancer
I was young once like you
Though I know I don’t look it
Jumped high as the sky

Had fire in my eyes
And legs like a stallion
And I had a girl and I loved her
My best friend was her brother

We were on top of the mountain that summer
Thought we’d never be swallowed by the cracks
Fallen so far down
Like the rest of those clowns begging bus fare back

Swallowed by the cracks
Our pride worn down talking times gone by
Like everybody else
Swallowed by the cracks

We would never be swallowed by the cracks
We would talk through the night
About what we would do
If we just could get started

I would choreograph
Eileen she would act while
Steve was a writer
Then Stevie ran away and get bored

Eileen took a job in a store
Me I became this drunken old whore
‘Cause you see we’d be swallowed by the cracks
Fallen so far down

Like the rest of those clowns begging bus fare back
Swallowed by the cracks our pride worn down
Talking times gone by like everybody else

Swallowed by the cracks
Swallowed by the cracks
You see we’d be swallowed by the cracks
Maybe it ain’t over I can see it’s up to me

You only out when you stay out you stay out when you don’t
Believe we could drive around in circles getting nowhere
All night long getting drunk with strangers telling lies
And singing along with the jukebox baby
Swallowed by the cracks

John Kilzer – Red Blue Jeans

She got Stalin on the wall, Beatles in her box, flags in the hall, Lennon in a locket…a hell of a statement to open up a song. The song was written by Richard Ford and John Kilzer.

Kilzer also reached #36 on the same chart with his preceding single ‘Green, Yellow, and Red’ earlier in 1988 (the song was also recorded by Roseanne Cash on her acclaimed 1987 album ‘King’s Record Shop’. His album ‘Memory In The Making’ reached #110 on the Billboard album chart.

I was commenting with Vic at The Hinoeuma and she remembered this song and thought that Kilzer was saying Lenin in a locket and after reading the rest of the lyrics I agreed but all of the lyrics I found it is Lennon. It makes sense both ways.

Either way, it is a nice rocker from the 80s that peaked at #12 in the Billboard Mainstream Rock Songs.

Red Blue Jeans

She got Stalin on the wall, Beatles in her box
flags in the hall, Lennon in a locket.
Stalin on the wall, Beatles in her box
flags in the hall, Lennon in a locket
Stalin on the wall, Beatles in her box
flags in the hall, Lennon in a locket

Get red blue jeans, she wears a red blue jeans.

She loves Big Brother, she wants to be true
when she goes to the parties it’s in red white and
blue.

She wears a red blue jeans, (ha) red blue jeans.
Bursting at the seams, dying to be free.

Within the halls of the Kremlin she holds her Manifesto
but what really sets her trembling are the words of the
Bible.
She keeps it in bed, reads it at night
knows what’s are real she knows it ain’t right
To wear (a) red blue jeans, (ha) red blue jeans.
Bursting at the seams, dying to be free.

BRIDGE
And in the realm of the terminally blue
it’s not who you are it’s what you do.
And in the realm of the marginally free
it’s not how you look it’s what you see.

Getting red blue jeans, (yeah) red blue jeans
(such a) busting at the seams, she’s dying to be free.
(Ha) red blue jeans, (yeah) red blue jeans
(ha) red blue jeans, (yeah) red blue jeans
copyright <a href=”https://elyrics.net”>http://elyrics.net</a>

Beatles – Cry For A Shadow

I’ve always liked this instrumental because it is a fun listen. Nothing intricate but just a fun song. Its original name was Beatle Bop. This was not released on any Beatle albums during their time. This was before Brian Epstein and fame.

This instrumental is the only Beatles track to be credited to John Lennon and George Harrison alone (who play rhythm and lead respectively). It was intended as a parody of British rock band The Shadows (Hence the name), whose instrumental music was enjoying success. Whilst Harrison imitates Shadow’s guitarist Hank Marvin’s signature lead sound, McCartney can be heard replicating the style of bassist Jet Harris.

This song was recorded in Hamburg in 1961 when they were backing Tony Sheridan by the name of the Beat Brothers.

This song is one of only two officially released Beatles singles to feature Pete Best on drums. The other is “Ain’t She Sweet,” although it is alleged that a studio drummer “sweetened” the drum parts on this recording for American release. The producer Bert Kaempfert would take away Pete’s bass drum at these sessions and kept him only on the snare because of his timing issues.

From Songfacts

In a 1987 interview with Guitar Player magazine, George Harrison said: “In Hamburg we had to play so long, we actually used to play ‘Apache‘… But John and I were just bulls–tting one day, and he had this new little Rickenbacker with with a funny kind of wobble bar on it. And he started playing that off, and I just came in, and we made it up right on the spot.”

This track features the original Beatles drummer Pete Best, who received some royalties from the song when it was included on the 1995 Anthology collection.

This track was recorded in Hamburg whilst the Beatles performed under the moniker “The Beat Brothers” as a backing band for English singer Tony Sheridan. The track was produced by German big band leader and composer Bert Kaempfert.

Released on Polydor Records, the label declined further recordings from The Beatles, who returned to England, whilst Tony Sheridan stayed in Hamburg. At the request of The Beatles new manager Brian Epstein, Kaempfert dissolved his contract with the band in May 1962.

Keith Moon’s Replacement at the Cow Palace 1973

After reading about Keith’s exploits it doesn’t surprise me this incident happened to him, what surprises me is that it didn’t happen more often.

On the 1973 tour opener at the Cow Palace in San Fransico Keith found out that Horse Tranquilizers and Brandy don’t mix with drumming. It has been said that someone slipped the tranquilizer in his drink backstage. Dougal Butler his PA said it was a Monkey Tranquilizer.

Keith was playing erratic most of the night slowing down and speeding up the tempo. The Who were coming towards the end of their set and Moon was clearly struggling. A few minutes into Won’t Get Fooled Again he ground to a halt, and left the stage. He came back and played Magic Bus and just fell over on his drums near the end of the song…he looked out of it on the video. He was soon carried off stage

Pete Townshend told the audience “We’re just gonna revive our drummer by punching him in the stomach,” “He’s out cold. I think he’s gone and eaten something he shouldn’t have eaten. It’s your foreign food…”

Pete then asked if anyone can play the drums… someone really good.

It’s hard to imagine one of the biggest bands in the world at that time asking for someone in the audience to fill in for their passed out drummer.

19-year-old Scott Halpin was there with a friend and said…“My friend was pushing me forward and saying, ‘Come on man, you can go up there and play, you can play,’” said Halpin. “He’s really the one that got me into it.”

In interviews, Halpin claimed the last thing he remembered was swallowing a shot of brandy and being introduced to the crowd by Roger Daltrey. That, and the size of Keith Moon’s kit: “It was ridiculous. The tom-toms were as big as my bass drum.” Scott did really well and Daltrey said afterward that he was really good. Halpin walked away from the kit an even bigger Keith Moon fan than before: “I only played three numbers, and I was dead.”… He talked later about the stamina that Moon must have had to play just a set.

From Wiki

Halpin was born in Muscatine, Iowa, to Elizabeth and Richard Halpin, of Muscatine. He grew up in Muscatine, showing early promise as a visual artist and musician. In the early 1970s, he moved to California, where he met his wife and lifetime collaborator Robin Young at City College of San Francisco in 1978. Halpin went on to earn an MA in Interdisciplinary Arts from San Francisco State University.

Halpin became a composer in residence at the Headlands Center for the Arts, in Sausalito, California, and played with a number of bands over the years, including The Sponges, Funhouse, Folklore, SnakeDoctor and Plank Road. While on the West Coast, Halpin and his wife managed a new wave punk rock night club, The Roosevelt, before moving to Indiana in 1995 to pursue opportunities in the visual arts.

From 1995 until his death, Halpin resided in Bloomington, Indiana, with his wife Robin and son, James. According to local newspapers in the Bloomington area, Halpin died February 9, 2008, of an inoperable non-malignant brain tumor.

Keith leaves the stage 1:13:40 … and then passes out around 1:29:48. Pete talks to the audience and asks someone to play drums 1:37:50.

I have a friend named Bob who lived in Boston in 1976. His father worked for MCA Records and he saw The Who with Moon. After the first two songs, I Can’t Explain and Substitute Moon passed out and the show was canceled. The show was rescheduled but he didn’t make it to the makeup show…he regrets it now but he got to see Moon in action for 2 songs anyway… No call out for replacements in this concert since it was so early in the show.

San Francisco and Boston are the only two occasions that I know of that Keith passed out and caused a cancellation. I sent Bob this link and told him at least he has a short audio souvenir of the concert he attended. It doesn’t have the opener Can’t Explain but it does have Substitute and Pete telling the audience about Keith at 3:22… you can hear people talking about it on this bootleg. The cause of this one was too much Brandy and downers.

John Lennon – Jealous Guy

Lennon wrote this when he was in The Beatles. They recorded it as a demo called “Child of Nature,” which he’d written about their trip to India to study with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. It didn’t make it onto any Beatles albums, so Lennon used it on his Imagine album with the lyrics changed to reflect his jealous nature. It was not released as a single in 1971.

The single reached #80 in the Billboard Hot 100 in1988, in conjunction with the release of the film Imagine John Lennon.

Joey Molland and Tom Evans of Badfinger both played acoustic guitar on this track. Badfinger was signed to the Beatles-run Apple label and George Harrison recommended to Lennon, “if you need some guitar players on Imagine, use the Badfinger guys.”

John Lennon said this about the song: My song, melody written in India. The lyrics explain themselves clearly: I was a very jealous, possessive guy. Toward everything. A very insecure male. A guy who wants to put his woman in a little box, lock her up, and just bring her out when he feels like playing with her. She’s not allowed to communicate with the outside world – outside of me – because it makes me feel insecure.

From Songfacts

John Lennon confronts the green-eyed monster in this song, where he sings about the fits of jealousy that controlled him. At the time, he was married to Yoko Ono, who believes the jealousy Lennon describes is not sexual, but more an unfounded feeling of inadequacy. “He was jealous about the fact that I had another language in my head, you know, Japanese, that he can’t share with me,” she told Uncut in 1998. “It was almost on a very conceptual, spiritual level. It wasn’t on a level of physical or anything ’cause I just would never give him a reason for that.”

Paul McCartney stated in the February 1985 issue of Playgirl: “He (John) used to say, ‘Everyone is on the McCartney bandwagon.’ He wrote ‘I’m Just a Jealous Guy,’ and he said that the song was about me. So I think it was just some kind of jealousy.”

Speaking with Rolling Stone months after Lennon’s death, she said that he made her write out a list of all the men she slept with before they met. “He wrote a song, ‘Jealous Guy,’ that should have told people how jealous he was,” she said. “After we started living together, it was John who wanted me there all the time. He made me go into the men’s room with him. He was scared that if I stayed out in the studio with a lot of other men, I might run off with one of them.”

Klaus Voormann played bass on this track. He was an old friend of the Beatles and designed the cover of Revolver. Other musicians were Jim Keltner on drums, Alan White on vibes and John Barham on harmonium.

In 1981 Roxy Music recorded this as a tribute to Lennon, who was murdered on December 8, 1980. Their version went to #1 in the UK. Many other groups have covered it as well, including The Faces and The Black Crowes.

Joey Molland recalled working with Lennon in an interview with Gibson.com, “It was great! He was just a plain-talking, regular guy. No b.s. at all. Now, of course, he was John Lennon, so he had that energy about him; he kind of lit up the room, you know? But he welcomed us, said he was thrilled to have us, and then he said, ‘The first song we’re going to do is something called ‘Jealous Guy.” It was pretty amazing, sitting there with your headphones on, hearing John Lennon singing this fantastic song. Totally remarkable.”

Yoko Ono contributed to the track’s lyrics. However, because of the public’s negative attitude towards her at the time, her role was downplayed. She told NME: “Well, if it was just John, [he] would have given me the right credit, but it was a difficult time. No famous songwriter would have thought of splitting the credit with his wife.”

Yoko added regarding her influence on the track: “I think it’s a good song from a women’s point of view as well. John was trying to create a fun song about going on a trip to Rishikesh. That might have been great too, but it ended up not being that.”

Jealous Guy

I was dreaming of the past
And my heart was beating fast
I began to lose control
I began to lose control
I didn’t mean to hurt you
I’m sorry that I made you cry
Oh my I didn’t want to hurt you
I’m just a jealous guy

I was feeling insecure
You might not love me anymore
I was shivering inside
I was shivering inside
Oh I didn’t mean to hurt you
I’m sorry that I made you cry
Oh my I didn’t want to hurt you
I’m just a jealous guy

I didn’t mean to hurt you
I’m sorry that I made you cry
Oh my I didn’t want to hurt you
I’m just a jealous guy

I was trying to catch your eyes
Thought that you was trying to hide
I was swallowing my pain
I was swallowing my pain
I didn’t mean to hurt you
I’m sorry that I made you cry
Oh no I didn’t want to hurt you
I’m just a jealous guy
Watch out baby I’m just a jealous guy
Look out baby I’m just a jealous guy

Ringo Starr – Back Off Boogaloo

Back Off Boogaloo was Ringo’s follow up to his 1971 hit It Don’t Come Easy. It was released as a single only in 1972.

Some say Ringo wrote this song about Paul McCartney to stop his snide remarks in the press about the other Beatles and also to make better music. I can see why some people saw that in:

Wake up, meat head
Don’t pretend that you are dead
Get yourself up off the cart

Get yourself together now
And give me something tasty
Everything you try to do
You know it sure sound wasted

That last line was because Paul was very fond of Cannabis at the time. Ringo has since cleared that up and said it was inspired by Marc Bolan of T-Rex. Bolan had often said the word Boogaloo and Ringo wrote the song. Later on, George helped him finish the song but didn’t want songwriting credit as was the case in It Don’t Come Easy.

The song peaked at #9 in the Billboard 100 and #2 in the UK in 1972.

Chris Welch wrote in Melody Maker: “A Number One hit could easily be in store for the maestro of rock drums. There’s a touch of the Marc Bolan in this highly playable rhythmic excursion … It’s hypnotic and effective, ideal for jukeboxes and liable to send us all mad by the end of the week.”

Back Off Boogaloo

Back off, Boo-ga-loo, I said
Back off, Boo-ga-loo, come on
Back off, Boo-ga-loo, Boo

Back off, Boo-ga-loo
What d’yer think you’re gonna do
I got a flash right from the start

Wake up, meat head
Don’t pretend that you are dead
Get yourself up off the cart

Get yourself together now
And give me something tasty
Everything you try to do
You know it sure sound wasted

Back off, Boo-ga-loo, I said
Back off, Boo-ga-loo
You think you’re a groove
Standing there in your wallpapers shoes
And your socks that match your eyes

Back off, Boo-ga-loo, I said
Back off, Boo-ga-loo, come on
Back off, Boo-ga-loo, Boo

George Harrison – Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth)

Another positive song from George. The song peaked at #1 in the Billboard 100, #8 in the UK and #9 in Canada in 1973. Just another good song from George that continues his positive message.

“Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth)” replaced Wings’ “My Love” at number 1 on the Hot 100 singles chart…For the week ending 30 June that year, the Harrison and McCartney songs were ranked numbers 1 and 2 respectively.

George Harrison said this about the song: “Sometimes you open your mouth and you don’t know what you are going to say, and whatever comes out is the starting point. If that happens and you are lucky, it can usually be turned into a song. This song is a prayer and personal statement between me, the Lord, and whoever likes it.”

Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth)

Give me love
Give me love
Give me peace on earth
Give me light
Give me life
Keep me free from birth
Give me hope
Help me cope, with this heavy load
Trying to, touch and reach you with,
Heart and soul

Om m m m m m m m m m m m m m
M m m my lord . . .

Please take hold of my hand, that
I might understand you

Won’t you please
Oh won’t you

Give me love
Give me love
Give me peace on earth
Give me light
Give me life
Keep me free from birth
Give me hope
Help me cope, with this heavy load
Trying to, touch and reach you with,
Heart and soul

Om m m m m m m m m m m m m m
M m m my lord . . .

Jon Butcher – Wishes

When I heard this guitar intro I was surprised, to say the least. In the late eighties after hearing Eddie Van Halen and Steve Vai endless finger tapping and scales on guitar.. this was refreshing. Jon Butcher sounded like he was inspired by Jimi Hendrix and it showed in this song….but he didn’t just sound like Hendrix in his other songs.

These comparisons to Hendrix were because of Butcher’s onstage appearance and mannerisms, patterned after Hendrix, and his choice for the band name Axis, which was a reference to Hendrix legendary album Axis: Bold as Love. Butcher’s stated influences are Richie Havens, John Lennon, Phil Lynott, Bob Dylan, and Taj Mahal and today he maintains that the Hendrix comparisons are superficial and has been quoted as saying “Being black, left-handed, and playing a Stratocaster created certain inevitable comparisons, particularly in the early days”.

This song peaked at #42 in the Billboard Mainstream Rock Song Chart in 1987.

Wishes

It’s late at night in the neighborhood
And the thieves have all gone to bed
They can hear your heartbeat in the distance
As you lay down your weary head

But don’t worry, ’cause the dawn is breaking
In another room halfway around the world
And you can’t waste your life
Wishing upon a star

‘Cause if wishes were horses
If wishes were horses
If wishes were horses
Then dreamers would ride
Huh, yes they would

A girl lives her life missing
Some things that she never had
Spends too much time in the unemployment line
You see in her eyes that it drives her mad

Deep within her constitution
Her pride and her dignity show through
So she works that dream
‘Cause it’s all she can do

If wishes were horses
If wishes were horses
She says: if wishes were horses
Then dreamers would ride
Yes they would

Now I’m looking
All around me for the answers
And I know you’re looking hard too
I know what you’re thinking
Maybe wishes come true

If wishes were horses
If wishes were horses
I know, if wishes were horses
Then dreamers would ride