Tag: Life Is White

My Top 5 Big Star Songs

This band is one of the big reasons I started to blog in the first place. To meet more Big Star fans and if I got just one person who didn’t know them to listen… my mission was a success. Want a great documentary?  Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me

I thought I would list some songs that would be in my top 5 of their catalog. So maybe one of you reading this will take a listen. Here are Graham’s top 10 Big Star songs on his site. These songs are up there with the Beatles, Stones, Kinks, and Who to me. They didn’t have the quantity those bands had, but they had the quality.

Let’s make it 6. My bonus pick is:

BONUS: In The Street – I would say, hands down, the most known song by them besides September Gurls because it was the theme of That Seventies Show. Cheap Trick covered it and someone else for the intro…I wish they had used the original version. 

5: Life Is White –  Love this driving song by Big Star. It was on Radio City, their second album. Some say it is a response to the Chris Bell song off the first album called My Life Is Right…or a message to his girlfriend Diane (Don’t like to see your face Don’t like to hear you talk at all) that he was splitting with at the time.

4: When My Baby’s Beside Me: Great riff by Alex Chilton and full of the hooks that Big Star is known for. This song was the A-side to In The Street released in 1972. Both songs are on Big Star’s album #1 Record.

3: September Gurls: If Big Star had been heard, this would have been a top-ten hit or at least top 20. It was one of the best pop songs that didn’t chart. September Gurls was rated #180 by Rolling Stone in the magazine’s top 500 songs of all time.

Released as a single, it did not chart despite receiving excellent reviews, due mainly to poor marketing and distribution. It was on their second studio album Radio City. The song was later covered by The Bangles on their album Different Light.

2: Thirteen – This song is an absolutely perfect song about adolescence. I played it to my then 14-year-old son, and it made him a Big Star fan, now 10 years later. This song is the most covered song by Big Star, with 49 different covers. It’s almost a perfect acoustic song. The song is about an adolescent guy and his girlfriend who are rock fans, being what 13-14-year-olds are…confused and lost.

1: The Ballad of El Goodo – There are some songs that I hear, and I think…damn I wish I would have written this. This is one of those songs. To me, it’s a perfect song and represents everything I like. The way they transitioned into the chorus is magical to me. It comes very close to being my favorite song of all time. 

The Ballad of El Goodo

Years ago, my heart was set to live, oh
And I’ve been trying hard against unbelievable odds
It gets so hard in times like now to hold on
But guns they wait to be stuck by, at my side is God

And there ain’t no one going to turn me ’round
Ain’t no one going to turn me ’round

There’s people around who tell you that they know
And places where they send you, and it’s easy to go
They’ll zip you up and dress you down and stand you in a row
But you know you don’t have to, you could just say no

And there ain’t no one going to turn me ’round
Ain’t no one going to turn me ’round
Ain’t no one going to turn me ’round
Ain’t no one going to turn me ’round

I’ve been built up and trusted
Broke down and busted
But they’ll get theirs and we’ll get ours if you can
Just-a hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on

Years ago, my heart was set to live, oh
Though I’ve been trying hard against strong odds
It gets so hard in times like now to hold on
Well, I’ll fall if I don’t fight, and at my side is God

And there ain’t no one going to turn me ’round
Ain’t no one going to turn me ’round
Ain’t no one going to turn me ’round
Ain’t no one going to turn me ’round

Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on

Big Star – Life Is White

Love this driving song by Big Star. It was on Radio City, their second album. Some say it is a response to the Chris Bell song off the first album called My Life Is Right…or a message to his girlfriend Diane (Don’t like to see your face Don’t like to hear you talk at all) that he was splitting with at the time.

After the failure of their first album, singer/songwriter guitar player Chris Bell quit Big Star. Alex Chilton didn’t know if Big Star was going to make another album. He continued making demos because he could always do a solo album. The two other members, drummer Jody Stephens and bass player Andy Hummel wasn’t sure either what was going to happen. They had talked about ending the band.

Their record company Ardent was under the Stax umbrella. They sent out invitations to all of the major rock journalists of the day in 1973. They invited them to Memphis to see Ardent’s roster of bands but most of all Big Star. The rock writers loved Big Star. Many legendary writers were there including Lester Bangs.

Stax agreed to foot the bill, which amounted to $40,000 to fly in more than one hundred rock critics from across the U.S. and U.K., put them up at the Holiday Inn, wine and dine them, bus them to Memphis landmarks like Graceland, and, on the final night, knock them out with a showcase at Lafayette’s Music Room, featuring Skin Alley, Larry Raspberry and the High-Steppers, and Big Star.

As writers from California (Shaw, Gene Sculatti, and Cameron Crowe), the New York City area (Richard Meltzer, Andy Shernoff, Gary Kenton, Pete Tomlinson, Lenny Kaye, and Nick Tosches), upstate New York (Billy Altman), Austin (Chet Flippo), Detroit (most of Creem’s staff, including Lester Bangs and Jaan Uhelszki), and the U.K. (Simon Frith, Ben Edmonds, and Pete Frame) signed on, Big Star was persuaded to play the gig.

The writers sat through the other bands and by the time Big Star took the stage, around midnight, they were well lubricated. Big Star couldn’t have had a more receptive audience. Rock critics are not known to dance but they were all on the floor and some has since called the performance by Big Star magic. Some called it the greatest performance and sound they ever heard. That night is what convinced Big Star to stay together and finish their second album Radio City. They played most of the first album, some covers, and a few songs they had worked on including Life Is White.

What I question is…Stax would give money for things like this but could not distribute records?

Alex had the quote below while he was in Big Star. What he said foretold Big Star’s future. It would be years later before the album would sell anything and get noticed. They would make one more album…Big Star Third/Sister Lovers before ending it.

Alex Chilton: “The important thing is to make a good record,” “because if you make a good record, it doesn’t matter what happens. It’s going to sell from then on to some degree, even though it doesn’t sell anything when it comes out and is a big disappointment to everybody. If it’s really good, people are going to want it from then on, and that’s the important thing. It might take five or ten years for it to pay off—or it might take twenty years, and you might be dead when it pays off. If it’s good, it’s going to pay off for somebody, sometime.”

Life Is White

Don’t like to see your face
Don’t like to hear you talk at all
I could be with Ann
But I’d just get bored

Can’t even bring myself to call
And I don’t want to see you now
‘Cause I know what you lack
And I can’t go back to that

Whatever’s all the same
Now there’s nobody to know
And I can’t recall, recall your name
All I can say is so

And I don’t want to see you now
‘Cause I know what you lack
And I can’t go back to that

Your life is white
And I don’t think I like
You hanging around

Don’t like to see your face
Don’t like to hear you talk at all
I could be with Ann
But I’d just get bored

Can’t even bring myself to call
And I don’t want to see you now
‘Cause I know what you lack
And I can’t go back to that now

…