My Birthday #1s

Happy Birthday to Me Pt. 2

Now we're getting into music that really resonates with me.  It was an era in which charts and lists still mattered -- I remember staying up until midnight every New Year's Eve with my neighbor and close pal Kay Wolf, waiting to find out what was the number one song of the year.  Wonder if any of these songs was in the year-end Top Ten...

1963: Bobby Vinton, "Blue Velvet"
Another one of the Bobbys!  Schmaltz and strings again, angel-choir backing vocals, and one of the most memorable vocal swoops in all pop -- "She wore blue-oooo VEL-vet." I very distinctly remember this drippy song on the radio, and being riveted for reasons I still can't explain.

1964: Roy Orbison, "Pretty Woman"
Legit rock & roll, at last. I saw Roy Orbison perform this song on the weekly music TV show Shindig, with his black pompadour and dark glasses, coolly standing center stage, no dancing or gyrating -- and oh, that knock-out voice. This song (Orbison's biggest hit ever) was clearly about a man on the prowl (he even purr-growls at one point) -- hardly the stuff this little 11-year-old wanted to hear at the time. But I couldn't turn away from it. Mercy!

1965: The McCoys, "Hang On Sloopy"
Granted, this was a blip on the charts -- the next day the new #1 was the Beatles' "Yesterday," which I yearned to write about instead, as the first of these #1s that I actually went out and bought as a 45. However, I cannot deny the McCoys their fleeting moment in the sun (especially since they, like me, were from Indiana). I'll admit, I always conflated this song with Snoopy, the dog from the Peanuts cartoons, and with the Beach Boys' goofy single "Sloop John B," which would hit the charts a few months later. Neither a boat nor a dog, however, Sloopy was a girl from "the wrong side of town," that all-American story line. At the time, I didn't know the song's backstory -- how the Strangeloves recorded it, but, not wanting to cannibalize their still-active hit "I Want Candy" (yes, that song), hired an unknown teen band to release it under their name, flying the lead singer into New York to overdub the vocals. As luck would have it, it leaped to the top of the charts, outselling "I Want Candy" by far. Who knew? And by the way, who was that 17-year-old lead singer of the McCoys? None other than Rick Derringer, who'd later under his own name have a hit with "Rock and Roll Hoochie Koo," and who also played guitar on Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart." More than you wanted to know, I bet.

 


1966: The Association, "Cherish"
Did I own this single? You bet I did. Although it was nowhere near as great as the Association's previous hit, "Along Comes Mary," this song was probably a better showcase for their plush vocal harmonizing (the Association's raison d'etre, I realize in retrospect). "Cherish," however, was tailor-made for a 13-year-old's hopeless crushes, with lyrics like "Well I'm beginning to think / That man has never found / The words that could make you love me / That have the right amount of letters / Just the right sound / That could make you feel / Make you see / That you are driving me out of my mind..." Well, obviously, even though I cannot remember the name of my current dentist, the date of my recent brain surgery, or what pills I need to take in the morning -- even though I still have not remembered to sign up for Medicare -- I still remember every word of "Cherish." Just sayin'.

1967:  The Box Tops, "The Letter"
Oh, sweet Jesus, here it is. My Number One Favorite Pop Song of All Time.  Just confirming my belief that 1967 was probably the greatest year in music ever. At fourteen, I was just on the cusp of appreciating the raw urgency and heat of Alex Chilton's lead vocal. How was I to know he was barely older than I was?

1968:  The Beatles, "Hey Jude"
Iconic. ICONIC. How much has been written about this song (although, oddly, it seems I never did a post on it before)?  It was Paul's song to comfort John's son Julian on his parents' break-up; John was convinced it was Paul's blessing on his relationship with Yoko; Paul himself may have been writing about the beginning of his great true love with Linda. The fact that it is all these songs at once testifies to its greatness. I've been a Paul girl from Day One, but honestly, you don't need to be a Paul girl to know this is a genius track. Even though it was more than 7 minutes long -- unheard-of in Top Ten radio -- it held the #1 spot for nine weeks in the US, the Beatles' longest #1 streak ever. We didn't know at the time that this was the first step in the Beatles' long goodbye. (There's a whole book in that.) But hey, on my 15th birthday, how could I know that my Beatles universe was about to fall apart? All I knew was that I had better start memorizing all the nah-ne-nah-nahs, to make sure I'd get them right when this came on the radio in a carful of us true believers.
   (Hang in there on this video clip, by the way -- it charmingly messes around a bit before the song takes off.)

1969:  The Archies, "Sugar, Sugar"
Oh, Lord. Was this single the beginning of the end? A made-up band for a cartoon series based on a comic book -- and yet it hit #1? It's an earworm, yes -- but honestly, WHO BOUGHT THIS RECORD? But here it is, a milestone in bubblegum pop, proving that the music biz was still all over the map. 

1970:  Diana Ross & the Supremes, "Ain't No Mountain High Enough"
Was Diana Ross still a Supreme at this point, or not? It almost doesn't matter. Her diva status was already certified, and this overblown hit -- a remake of a 1966 Marvin Gaye/Tammi Terrell written by Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson -- claimed #1 as if it was Diana's due. Man, I loved the Supremes back when they were just the best of the girl groups, but the minute Diana went diva (enabled by a smitten Berry Gordy), Motown lost whatever credibility it still had with me. I'd follow Stevie Wonder to the ends of the earth, but Diana Ross? Count me out.

1971:  Rod Stewart, "Maggie May"
Freshman year of college, and I didn't buy singles any more; I bought LPs. And I bought this one. That raspy voice, that mandolin, those whomping drumbeats -- it was loose and sexy and boozy and everything that 60s pop was not. I listened to college radio stations now, which played entirely different music; I was beginning to leave chart-based radio behind. (Though there was still a station in Springfield, MA, with a pre-programmed playlist and no DJs, that kept me listening to "Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone," "One Toke Over the Line," Cat Stevens' "Wild World," and all the Carpenters and Three Dog Night I could handle....) 

1972: Mac Davis, "Baby Don't Get Hooked on Me"
Are you kidding me? This cheesy country-crossover hit -- another of those "men got to be free, women just want to tie you down" songs -- was definitely not on my radar; or rather, I knew it was out there and it made my baby feminist flesh creep. Wikipedia duly tells me that Mac Davis wrote both "In the Ghetto" and "A Little Less Conversation" for Elvis Presley, and that raises Mac Davis multiple notches in my estimation. But in 1972, I wanted nothing to do with it.

1973: Cher, "Half Breed"
Okay, now I'm really getting annoyed. It was the 1970s, rock music was going in a million fascinating directions, and the chart-toppers were zigging and zagging. Good stuff from Carly Simon and Roberta Flack and Stevie Wonder, but we also had Dawn's "Tie a Yellow Ribbon" and Jim Croce's "Bad Bad Leroy Brown."  Look, I'd dug Sonny and Cher when they first landed on Shindig singing "I Got You Babe," but Cher's march into diva status left me totally cold. (Am I the only person who hated the fact that she was in Mamma Mia 2?)

 

But let's be honest -- I was 21 and no longer the pop charts' target audience. (How swiftly do we reach obsolescence....). From here on in, it would be the songs I DID care about that would make all the difference. 

Stay tuned.

RAY DAVIES IS IN THE HOUSE!  I'LL BE OTHERWISE ENGAGED THIS WEEK -- BUT JUST TO KEEP THE KINKS CHANNEL ON THE AIR, HERE'S A 2007 POST ABOUT MY FAVORITE BRITISH INVASION BAND.  *

*WHAT AM I SAYING? MY FAVORITE BAND OF ALL TIME!!!

Autumn Almanac & Shangri-la / The Kinks

Long before Ben Folds and Fountains of Wayne started writing their odes to suburban life, there was Ray Davies, peering out the windows of his East Finchley villa to chronicle the lives of his neighbors.

Take the narrator of his 1967 single “Autumn Almanac.”



It opens with such nostalgic pastoral charm: “From the dew-soaked hedge creeps a crawly caterpillar / When the dawn begins to crack / It’s all part of my autumn almanac / Breeze blows leaves of a musty-colored yellow / So I sweep them in my sack.” You can’t tell me that’s not lovely, despite the twinges in our hero’s rheumatic back. I’m warmed by the comforting image of his friends gathering for “tea and toasted buttered currant buns.” The sound is a music hall softshoe, with corny horns, plinky piano, and sugary backing ooh’s; good times, good times.

But once Ray has hooked us, he begins to layer on mundane details that spell out the guy’s complacency: “I like my football on a Saturday, / Roast beef on Sundays, all right. / I go to Blackpool for my holidays, / Sit in the open sunlight” (sung in a plumping rhythm in a wavery old-timey Victorola voice -- this is where the satire starts to really dig in). In the last verse -- if you can call them verses; the melody never repeats itself, just rambles in a senile wool-gathering way -- Ray lets his narrator hang himself: “This is my street / And I’m never gonna leave it,” he stoutly declares, “And I’m always gonna stay here / If I live to be 99 / ‘Cos all the people I meet / Seem to come from my street”). Well, yeah, if you never go anywhere else, that’s who you’re bound to meet, innit?

Just two years later, Ray Davies revisits this territory with “Shangri-La,” a single off their LP Arthur (the soundtrack for a never-completed teleplay that would have been the first rock opera – but that’s another story).



Ray isn’t playing a character this time, he’s addressing a man who’s finally “made it” to that detached villa. All the flip satire is gone; Ray sings with earnest poignance, “Now that you’ve found your paradise / This is your kingdom to command / You can go outside and polish your car / Or sit by the fire in your Shangri-la.” The rueful melody drifts down the scale, ending every line on a gruff low note. Even before Ray tells you about the hollowness of this dream fulfilled, the melody’s made you feel it.

Yes, “Gone are the lavatories in the back yard” (a vivid and totally English detail, baffling to us Americans) – but Ray counters that with the reminder that “You've reached your top and you just can't get any higher.” How depressing is that? Then the satire turns even more biting: “The little man who gets the train / Got a mortgage hanging over his head / But he's too scared to complain.” I don’t know, I think Ray sounds terrified by this prospect -- terrified because he’s tempted by it too. And here’s the capping image: “And all the houses in the street have got a name / 'Cos all the houses in the street they look the same.” That English penchant for cutesy house names – “Rose Cottage” or “Storm’s End” – we don’t do that in America, but we’re just as guilty of building cookie-cutter housing developments. Little boxes on a hillside – there’s a nightmare for you.

Ray actually seems fond of his “Autumn Almanac” geezer and his cozy neighbours, but the guy in “Shangri-la”? He’s a gloomy wreck, surrounded by vicious gossips and weighed down by debt payments. Comedy and tragedy – just two sides of the same coin, courtesy of Mr. Ray Davies.

"How Can I Be Sure" / Shelby Lynne

My first thought, on hearing that country artist Shelby Lynne had released an album of Dusty Springfield covers, was knee-jerk furious. How dare she? Just because Dusty recorded one album in Memphis -- admittedly one of her greatest albums -- it still doesn't mean that she was anything like a country artist. And I just couldn't bear to hear my girl Dusty's songs all twanged-up.

Herewith, then, is my most sincere public apology to Ms. Lynne. Because that album, Just a Little Lovin', is a beautiful thing. Lynne reinterprets a handful of Dusty songs with grace and sensitivity. She has a simply gorgeous voice -- light and silky where Dusty's was powerful and passionate -- and she plays to her own strengths without ever trying to erase Dusty's magnificent versions. These acoustic versions of the Dusty songs are folky renditions that Dusty herself might have done if she were playing small clubs today. Of course they won't replace the originals, but they're a wonderful complement to them.

I was surprised to see this song on the album; I never realized Dusty had recorded it (obsessives like me will be glad to know that you can find it on Dusty in London, long available only as an import). Of course, being the AM radio baby that I was, I only know it through the Young Rascals'* 1967 hit single (it was written by their front man Felix Cavaliere), which one could also steal from one's older brother's bedroom on the album Groovin'.



One thing that always bugged me about this song was its pumped-up passion -- too fervid and sweaty for my taste -- that and the tootling organ, which turned its waltz tempo into a cheesy carousel ride. I am sad to report that Dusty herself carried on in this same spirit, except for course -- being Dusty -- she jacked the passion even higher.

Shelby Lynne, however -- God bless her -- strips all that away. She even goes for a different time signature, dropping the waltz in favor of a samba-like 4/4. Most of all, the lightness of her voice is perfect for a song that is, after all, all about being tentative. [Smacks self on forehead.] What a revelation!

Listen to this track. "How can I be sure?" she asks softly, wistfully, "In a world that's constantly changing / How can I be sure / Where I stand with you?" Doubt edges her voice, just the right degree of uncertainty. "How do I know, maybe you're trying to use me / Flying too high can confuse me" -- her phrasing makes her truly sound hesitant and confused. And the whole "whenever I am away from you" verse works like a dream -- she does sound a little frantic, like she's lost her moorings. When she insists, "I really, really, really want to know" -- well, you honestly believe it.

Twanged up? No way. If anything, this song is really a jazz track, with that delicate, syncopated guitar playing fast and loose with the beat. So much for genres. I see that Shelby Lynne wandered away from the mainstream country pack a while ago, refashioning herself as an alt-country artist with her 2000 album I Am Shelby Lynne. (In a stroke of serendipity, I also learn that her younger sister is Allison Moorer, whom I'm going to see singing with Steve Earle tomorrow night -- who knew?) And far from being a pampered country music queen, she's had more than her share of hardships, both personal and professional. Somehow I always got her mixed up with Shania Twain -- wow, was I off base!

Note to self: You really have to get over that old prejudice against country music, honey. . . .

*Known these days just as the Rascals, for obvious reasons.

The 100 Best Singles In My Head
Nos. 1-5

AND THE WINNER IS . . .

[ . . . drum roll, please!]

Well, I told you it would be subjective. These are not the top five singles of all time on Rolling Stones' list, or Mojo's list, or any other list put together by rock snobs or music pundits. I haven't jiggered it to showcase my favorite bands (look, no Kinks! no Nick Lowe!) or to make a political statement or to show off my superior taste. You'll notice I've already written about all of these songs -- BUT OF COURSE!! These are simply the five singles that knocked me hardest off my feet in the course of my life.

And yeah, they're all from the 1960s, because that was the decade that made me the music fan I am. Or more importantly, that made me the person I am. Which is really what the music's all about, isn't it?

[Click on the highlighted links to read my earlier posts on those songs]

1. "The Letter" / The Box Tops (1967)
I hear those knocking lead-in drum beats, and I am GONE. When all is said and done, the essence of rock and roll is nothing more or less than hormonal teenage cravings, and nobody has ever expressed that randy yearning better than an absurdly young Alex Chilton, fronting this seminal Memphis pop group.



2. "Happy Together" / The Turtles (1967)
They were hardly one-hit wonders, but even the Turtles never again hit such a sweet spot, a magical convergence of lilting melody, playful rhythms, and intimate vocals that will forever be the soundtrack of my eighth-grade nirvana.



3. "She's Not There" / The Zombies (1964)
The first 45 I ever owned -- if only my taste had always been this impeccable!



4. "If I Fell" / "And I Love Her" / The Beatles (1964)
Desperately in love with the Beatles -- okay, okay, in love with Paul McCartney, who was in 1964 the most beautiful man on the planet -- of course I had both of these tracks on the Hard Day's Night album, the first LP I ever owned. But I simply had to buy the single too, so smitten was I with this matched set of John/Paul declarations of love.

5. "Wouldn't It Be Nice" / "God Only Knows" / The Beach Boys (1966)
Honestly, I wasn't a Beach Boys fan, not really. And by 1966, I already had the Beatles to keep me warm -- what did I need with these clean-cut California boys in their squaresville striped shirts? But then they unleashed this pair of gloriously inventive tracks, back and front of one 7-inch vinyl masterpiece, and set a new gold standard for rock-pop brilliance.

And now, YOU tell ME -- what would your #1 be?

The 100 Best Singles In My Head
Nos. 51-55

Hovering here at the middle of my list are a curious bunch of songs, each one testing the boundaries of its era's shifting musical tastes -- American bands aping the British Invasion sound, Philly soul artists updating their streetwise groove, or a girl group trying to stand out from the pack. Usually I detest calculated hits -- but here are five songs too clever and fun to resist.

[Click on the highlighted links to read my earlier posts on those songs]

51. "We Ain't Got Nothing Yet" / The Blues Magoos (1967)
In 1967 every major band in London was dropping acid and trying to express the psychedelic experience. As it turns out, the template was laid down by this upstart bunch of kids from New York City.

52. "She's About A Mover" / Sir Douglas Quintet (1965)
The late great Doug Sahm recorded under many names over the years -- it was almost impossible to keep up with them -- but when this early ensemble scored his first nationwide hit, the name sure fooled me into thinking they were another British band. Dig this video -- there's nothing about it to suggest that these long-haired guys in their skinny suits were from Texas, at least not until Trini Lopez spills the beans at the end. This stripped-down little rocker even has that sort of primitive Mersey sound, with its offbeat Farfisa chords, clangy guitars, and mumbled bluesy vocals. The lyrics are minimal -- mostly a lot of things like "Whoa, yeah, what I say, / Hey, hey!" and, for a chorus, "She's about a mover!" repeated over and over, toggling back and forth between two notes. (What is a "mover," anyhow? Inquiring minds want to know.) The thing has like four chords total, so it's no surprise that every garage band I knew included this in their repertoire -- once they'd mastered the Shadows of Knight's "Gloria," that is. But there's an art to making a record this ecstatic and fun, and Doug Sahm had that art down cold. Every time this song came on the radio we'd yelp with joy and turn the volume up. Years later, I still do the same whenever I hear any Doug Sahm record. A sorely neglected genius.

53. "98.6" / Keith (1967)
Every time I take my temperature, I think of this song. Don’t you? Honestly, without this song for a mnemonic, how did previous generations ever remember what a normal temperature should be? It’s the only hit that Keith (real name James Barry Keefer) ever had, but he certainly hit the jackpot with it. The central conceit is dead simple: The singer’s temperature is back to normal now that he’s happy in love (“Your lovin’ is the medicine that saved me / Oh, I love my baby”). What could have been a formulaic pop song, however, turned out to be anything but. It was written by the Brill Building team of composer George Fischoff and lyricist Tony Powers, who also wrote Spanky and Our Gang’s “Lazy Day” (hear the resemblance?). Fischoff’s bouncy melody, with its skipalong beat, was perfectly suited to Keefer’s suave Philly-soul voice, but the real key to success was Powers’ lyrics, which tapped into the hippie era's madcap flower-child giddiness. “Good morning sun, I say it’s good to see you shinin’,” Keith begins exuberantly, “I know my baby brought you to-oo-oo-oo me / She kissed me yesterday, hello you silver lining / Got spring and summer running throo-oo-oo-ough me.” (Notice how compression jazzes up those familiar nature images.) There’s a wonderful contrast between the good-timey sound of the verses, with their jubilant horns and softshoe tempo, and the hushed chorus, tautly confined to a few notes and a heartbeat pulse, as he checks his temperature again (“Hey, ninety-eight point six, it’s good to have you back again…).” My favorite line, though, comes in the second verse, where Keith proclaims, “You know she got me on another kind of highway / I want to go-oo where it ta-aa-aa-akes me!” Is that sexy or what?

54. "One on One" / Daryl Hall and John Oates (1983)
I suppose I could blame MTV for hooking me on these 80s groovemeisters, with their well-groomed shag haircuts and big-shouldered pastel suits. But the real history is a bit more complicated . . .

55. "Leader of the Pack" / The Shangri-Las (1964)
I know there were classier girl group songs -- the Ronettes' "Be My Baby" for one, or the Shirelles' "Will You Love Me Tomorrow," or the Exciters' "Tell Him." But I was too young in the early 1960s, and probably too white, to be a serious girl group aficionado. By the time "Leader of the Pack" vroomed into the charts, however, Beatlemania had transformed me into a voracious pop music fan, gobbling it all up. Among the East Coast girl groups, the Shangri-Las specialized in a tough-girl image; this romance about star-crossed love with a biker (I pictured him as a James Dean hottie) was right up their gritty alley. With all the sound effects -- the revving motorcycle, the screeching tires, the shattering glass -- it verged on being a novelty song, though that wouldn't have bothered me; it riveted me with its themes of death and breaking class barriers (I think this was the first time I'd ever heard the phrase "the wrong side of the tracks"). But more than anything else I was sucked in by its narrative technique. We overhear the girls chatting on the sidewalk:

"Is she really going out with him?"
"Well, there she is. Let's ask her."
"Betty, is that Jimmy's ring you're wearing?"
"Mm-hmm."
"Gee, it must be great riding with him. Is he picking you up after school today?"
"Unh-unh."

Real dramatic irony in a pop song! And then Betty takes center stage to wail her tale of woe: "I met him at the candy store / He turned around and smiled at me / You get the picture?" to which her girlfriends, nodding, reply, "Yes, we see." (That conversational set-up was another Shangri-La trademark.) A few months later, though, when a band called the Detergents released a parody called "Leader of the Laundromat," I was ready to laugh at the melodrama of "Leader of the Pack." Ah, how fickle the public can be!

The 100 Best Singles In My Head
Nos. 61-65

By some great serendipity, here in the early 60s of my list comes a cluster of five mid-60s classics from the British Invasion. Major artists? Maybe not (I'd make an exception for Georgie Fame, but only the basis of his later jazz albums). But major British Invasion hits? Indeed they are.

[Click on the highlighted links to read my earlier posts on those songs]

61. "To Sir With Love" / Lulu (1967)
I'll admit, my love for this song is inextricable from my love for the film it appeared in, an Inspiring Teacher drama starring Sidney Poitier, Suzy Kendall, and teenaged Lulu herself. I still cry whenever I see it; even this clip makes my eyes well up. While Lulu had been a star in the UK ever since she was 15, belting out a hit version of the Isley Brothers' "Shout," this was the song that really broke her into the U.S. market. In the movie, she sings it in the closing scene, when a pack of troubled urban secondary-schoolers gather to thank the teacher (Poitier, natch) who helped them turn their lives around. (Bonus points if you recognize the band playing in the first part of that clip as the Mindbenders.) For a natural diva like Lulu, there was plenty of drama to play with in those lyrics by Don Black (a movie-theme specialist, who also wrote "Born Free") -- "Those schoolgirl days / Of telling tales and biting nails are gone" or "If you wanted the sky I would / Write across the sky in letters / That would soar a thousand feet high." But perhaps more important was that emotive melody, written by Mark London, the husband of Lulu's longtime manager Marion Massey. London knew exactly how to showcase their girl's brassy, rich contralto -- octave leaps, swift swoops up and down the scale, long sustained notes packed with crescendo and vibrato, heartfelt warbles of melisma. And Lulu, god love her, made it all sound so easy, effortless, spontaneous. "But how can you thank someone / Who has taken you from crayons to perfume?" THIS is how you do it.

62. "Georgy Girl" / The Seekers (1966)
Another movie theme song, from another brilliant 60s British movie -- slightly earlier, in arty black-and-white. (Have I ever mentioned that this is my #1 favorite era in cinema?) Another girl singer, too -- Judith Durham -- with a voice that nearly rivaled Dusty Springfield for clear hard power. Back then, when I played this 45 constantly on the fold-up stereo in our basement rec room, I never noticed that this song was in fact written by Dusty's brother Tom Springfield, her old partner from the folk trio the Springfields. Tom also wrote the Seekers' earlier hits, "I'll Never Find Another You" and "A World Of Our Own" (I'd love to know Dusty's reaction to having her brother feed hits to Judith Durham); for the lyrics on "Georgy Girl," he turned to musical comedy actor Jim Dale. With its perky whistling motif, "Georgy Girl" sounds more like cabaret, or at least folk music, than backbeat rock 7 roll. The Seekers weren't British but Australian -- the first Aussies, in fact, to score Top 5 hits in the US, UK, and Australia -- and like many people, I often confused them with the Searchers. In general I think the Searchers were a much better band, but this one single gets me more than anything the Searchers ever did. Maybe that's because I so loved the movie, with Lynn Redgrave playing an impulsive, cheerful, slightly overweight girl harboring a mad crush on the gorgeous boyfriend (Alan Bates) of her icy roommate (Charlotte Rampling). Now there was a movie I could identify with. Despite its plucky melody, we all knew this was a desperately sad song. "You're always window shopping / But never stopping to buy / So shed those dowdy feathers and fly! / A little bit" -- what an anthem to grow up with.

63. "A Summer Song" / Chad & Jeremy (1964)
It really does blow my mind that in the course of one year -- 1964 -- I could have so many crushes on different British musicians. Oh, Chad, with your golden mop and black-framed glasses . . .

64. "Michelle" / David and Jonathan (1967)
Truly, this is not a shameless way to sneak yet another Paul McCartney song on here. I honestly did love David and Jonathan's cover of "Michelle," and besides, the Beatles didn't release this one as a single. In case your memory of this has been obliterated forever by the Beatles' album version (I know mine has), here's a video:



Okay, okay, OKAY, it's not better than the Beatles' recording. It clips along a little faster, and David and Jonathan's voices are smooth and banal compared to Paul's. They weren't really singers, after all; they weren't even named David and Jonathan (corny Bible reference), but songwriters Roger Greenaway and Roger Cook, who also wrote "You've Got Your Troubles" for the Fortunes. Rog and Rog teamed up here with George Martin to help the Beatles extend their brand, maintaining their full frontal assault on the record charts. Martin added background oohs and a touch of strings, transposed Paul's acoustic finger-picking to what sounds like a harmonium, and had Rog and Rog harmonize the whole way through. It's just slightly slicker than the Beatles track -- but for a genius track like "Michelle," that slickness is no improvement. On the other hand, you'd never know that if you hadn't heard the Beatles' version yet, which I hadn't when this first hit the airwaves. And I have to say, it does feels more Parisian -- I could almost hear accordions in there, and visualize Apache dancers in a smoky Left Bank cafe. McCartney, always keen to score points for sophistication, was striving for that French bohemian sound, which is why he asked his pal Ivan Vaughn's wife Jan to supply a few French phrases -- "Michelle, ma belle, sont les mots qui font tres bien ensemble." Paul hadn't a clue what it meant. I'd just started studying French in grade school, though, and it was lovely to imagine that Paul was sending me secret messages in "our" second language. The fact that he'd had to employ David and Jonathan to slip that message to me made no difference at all.

65. "Yeh Yeh" / Georgie Fame (1965)
Sorry, Mr Lennie, but you do not know whereof you speak. It should be apparent by now that I have a sneaking affection for jazz-inflected rock, and here's the guy who led me to it.

The 100 Best Singles In My Head
Nos. 66-70

Here in the middle of the list, we're in serious Sixties Earworm territory. From the poppiest pop to the deepest soul, here are five songs that defy you not to sing along. (C'mon, you know you know the words.)

[Click on the highlighted links to read my earlier posts on those songs].

66. "Doo Wah Diddy Diddy" / Manfred Mann (1964)
Being a baby boomer is way too broad a category -- let's narrow it down a little. It's significant that I was old enough in 1964 to experience the British Invasion, yet I was still young enough that I was completely ignorant of where those British bands were stealing their music from. For me, this WAS the original.

67. "I Think We're Alone Now" / Tommy James & the Shondells (1967)
Sneaking around and doing things behind your parents' back -- that's what being a teenager is all about. Just because I wasn't misbehaving in 1967 didn't mean I wasn't ready to, given half a chance.

68. "Come and Get It" / Badfinger (1969)
I know what you're gonna say -- she's sneaking in another Paul McCartney song. But honestly, when this record first came out I didn't know McCartney had written it, as the theme song for his mate Ringo's new movie The Magic Christian. I should have guessed, though. As the first non-Beatles artists signed to the Apple Corps record label, Badfinger was hyped big-time as the Beatles' heirs apparent. (Watching that green apple on the label spin around and around was definitely one of this single's charms.) The Beatles, who were heading for Splitsville themselves, had a LOT invested in these guys -- no point in leaving anything to chance. Paul produced the record as well, and as insurance he renamed the band from the Iveys to the hipper-sounding moniker Badfinger (a Neil Aspinall suggestion). Ultimately I think that the Beatles legacy unfairly overshadowed Badfinger; despite their string of melodic, addictive singles ("No Matter What," "Day After Day," "Baby Blue," "Without You"), they rarely got credit for what a fine band they really were. Just listen to this debut single -- Tom Evans' buoyant lead vocals, the tight, beautifully blended back-up harmonies. (I was always torn between singing along to the high harmonies or the melody.) Sung against that bouncy timekeeping piano, the melody is always slower than I remember it, lagging lazily just behind the beat -- a genius tempo, actually, for a song about sitting back and waiting. I guess we never really knew what the "It" was that he was inviting people to take. If you saw the movie, you'd know it was money (the Magic Christian being like a hippie version of that old TV show The Millionaire), but trust me, it works equally well as a song about drugs or sex -- "If you want it, here it is / Come and get it / But you better hurry 'cos it's going fast." Wishful thinking, probably.

69. "Love Potion No. 9" / The Searchers (1964)
So much new music hit my ears in 1964, and it was definitely not all of a piece. Take this classic Leiber and Stoller number, for example -- first recorded in 1959 by the Clovers, it was already a standard when the Searchers covered it in 1964. But did I know that? No, I did not. To me, it was clever and witty and brand-new. I was still young enough to enjoy the occasional novelty tune, and this one was right on the cusp of being a novelty number. Three verses and a bridge, with a neat, if primitive, plot -- the singer asks for help with his pathetic love life from a fortune-telling gypsy ("with the gold-capped tooth," though I thought it was "gold tattoo"). He's definitely in the Loveable Loser category: "I told her that I was a flop with chicks/ Ain't had a date since nineteen-fifty-six" (in the re-recording, his 3-year celibate streak was inevitably changed to an 8-year drought). She gives him a potion, he gulps it down, and then he goes merrily bonkers, until he kisses a cop on the corner beat, who then breaks his potion bottle. This is not a song that you had to take seriously, and maybe that's what I liked about it -- plus it didn't depend on a sex-infused subtext that would shoot right over my adolescent head. This one's pure slapstick comedy -- "She bent and turned around and gave me a wink / She said I'm gonna mix it up right here in the sink / It smelled like turpentine and looked like India ink / I held my nose and closed my eyes [beat, beat] / I took a drink!" It's like Jerry Lewis meets Jekyll and Hyde. And the Searchers executed it perfectly, with their brisk drumbeat and crisp surf guitars -- a perfect Tin Pan Alley piece of pop comedy.

70. "You've Lost That Loving Feeling" / The Righteous Brothers (1964)
I remember seeing The Righteous Brothers on Shindig! and being surprised they weren't black -- not disappointed, mind you, just surprised. I'd never heard the term "blue-eyed" soul. But hey, I was already lapping up all those British beat bands' covers of Motown and girl group singles -- I couldn't deny Bill Medley and Bobby Hatfield the right to sing R&B. As it climbed to the top of the charts in early 1965, no doubt American record companies breathed a sigh of relief that some American acts could still stave off the British Invasion. The ace in the bag -- as producer Phil Spector must have known -- was those booming low vocals by Medley, something no British band was equipped to compete with. Of course, a swoony Barry Mann melody helped, and Cynthia Weill's mournful lyrics -- "You never close your eyes anymore / When I kiss your lips," sung at the bottom of Medley's range, then jumping up an octave to continue, "And there's no tenderness like before / In your fingertips." By the time they got to the chorus, when Hatfield's tenor joined in on harmonies, we were already slain. "You've lost that lovin' feeling, now it's / Gone / Gone / Gone / Whoah-oh-oh oh" -- dig how those "gone's" toll away like the bells of doom. It's such a great song, and so much fun to sing. In college, my friend Mary MacManus and I did a pretty mean version of this while we worked the dishwashers in the dorm kitchen -- as I recall, the dining room would fall silent to listen, then burst into applause. At least that's how I remember it -- don't you dare tell me different.

The 100 Best Singles In My Head
Nos. 76-80

Okay, now we're starting to hit a groove. I've already written about most of these before -- they're all the sort of numbers that make you break out grinning the minute they dial up on the jukebox. The secret? They all share one vital component: Intros so distinctive, you know within two seconds what song you're hearing.

[Click on the highlighted links to read my earlier posts on those songs]

76. "Killer Queen" / Queen (1974)
Three fingersnaps, then Freddie Mercury's arch voice prances into "Killer Queen," backed by fastidious wrist-flicking piano chords. This song hit in 1974, the year my brother let me take his car to college, which meant I spent a lot of time driving and listening to the car radio. Every time this came on I'd crank it up, lean closer to the speakers, and work to decipher a few more of these lyrics. Wicked funny.

77. "Build Me Up Buttercup" / The Foundations (1968)
That great bouncy rhythm line -- bomp de-bomp, bomp bomp de bomp -- laid down by keyboards, bongos, and tambourine, and we're out of our seats already.
I swear, for the longest time I didn't even know that the Foundations were an English band. But then, they were a multiracial outfit -- more British Empire than British Isles -- and let's be honest, the PR machine that pushed Herman's Hermits and Peter & Gordon would never have done the same for a band with a West Indian horn section and a lead singer from Barbados. It didn't help that their roster kept shifting -- Clem Curtis, the mellow lead singer on 1967's "Baby, Now that I've Found You" had been replaced by the more youthful-sounding Colin Young in 1968 when they recorded "Build Me Up Buttercup." Written by Mike D'Abo (of Manfred Mann) and Tony Macauley, "Buttercup" was the song that really hit in the U.S.; that was the single I bought, and it was on constant rotation on my turntable for several months.
You can't help but sing along to this baby, right out of the gate with Colin Young's frantic cry "WHY do you build me up?" Even better is singing it in a group, chiming in on the echoes ("build me up," "let me down," "worst of all," "say you will," "I need you"). I remember singing it raucously in the backseat of my parents' car, with Beth Wood, Betsy Morris, Patsy DeFusco, and Margie Pugh. High spirits and good times rule, with those staccato horns rat-tat-tatting the accents on the end of every line. Forget the fact that his girlfriend's messing up his head -- "'I'll be over at ten' / you told me time and again / But you're late / I wait around and then. . . ", he wistfully reports. But he's so hooked, there's more joy than anguish in his voice as he declares, "I'll be home / I'll be beside the phone, waiting for you / Ooooh ooh ooooh Ooooooh ooh ooh" (those ooh's are ESSENTIAL). It's a karaoke favorite, for very good reason; no wonder this song has been covered so often, by bands who don't even bother to change the arrangement, and who sound just as good as the Foundations did. I love how the Farrelly brothers used it at the end of There's Something About Mary, with all the cast and crew singing lustily along. Pure pop heaven.

78. "Girl Don't Come" / Sandie Shaw (1964)
In that catalog of British girl singers from the 60s, tall langorous Sandie Shaw never cracked the American market like Dusty Springfield, Petula Clark, Cilla Black, or Lulu did. Still, this one glorious single shimmered through. That cool trombone intro, how it sliced through the British Invasion haze with a note of sophistication. . .

79. "It's Only Rock 'n' Roll (But I Like It)" / The Rolling Stones (1974)
I know I'm gonna take flak for this, but all my life I've fought liking the Rolling Stones. I knew at least one song had to be on this list -- c'mon, The Stones -- but which single could I publicly admit to liking? I had to zero in my brief Stones interlude, sandwiched between the demise of the Beatles and my growing infatuation with the Kinks. For this one album only, I was a whole-hearted, unclouded Stones fan. I hear those first guitar chugs, followed by that long sassy twang, and I can't help thinking, "My boys!"

80. "Kind of a Drag" / The Buckinghams (1967)
Yes, I too loved "Don't You Care" and "Susan." But that opening fanfare -- who could resist?

The 100 Best Singles In My Head
Nos. 91-95

Quite a mixed bag in today's installment -- most of these artists are here for their general importance in my musical life, not because of these specific singles. But for various reasons, each of them simply HAS to be on the list somewhere, so here they are . . .

[Click on the highlighted links to read my earlier posts on those songs]

91. "Cruel to Be Kind" / Nick Lowe (1979) Ah, c'mon, you KNOW I love Nick. But he was never very lucky when it came to singles; this was his only hit, a power-pop gem that still never tempted me to buy his albums. It would be years before I saw the light.

92. "Hungry" / Paul Revere and the Raiders (1966)
Throughout the mid-60s, I was a stubborn Anglophile, watching the nighttime music revues Shingdig! and Hullaballoo only to catch the latest British bands. But I had a secret. Every day when I came home from school, I'd turn on Where the Action Is to watch Paul Revere and the Raiders cavort on a SoCal beach in their full trademark regalia of ponytails, breeches, and tricorn hats. My crush on lead singer Mark Lindsay was a deep dark secret (secret, that is, from my true love Peter Noone of Herman's Hermits). Only years later did I realize that the Raiders were in fact a tight, energetic dance band, with songs that were hardly inane fluff. The costumes, the gimmick, were just the price of fame. "Hungry" -- which, like their other big hit "Kicks," was by veteran songwriters Barry Mann and Cynthia Weill -- simply seethes with sexual appetite, underlaid with Revere's thrusting keyboards and a prowling deep bassline. Lindsay's bluesy voice was like America's answer to Eric Burdon -- those cajoling, intimate verses just exploded into the frenzied chant of the chorus: "Hungry for those good things, baby / Hungry through and through." The segue into verse two is devastating, as Lindsay sucks in his breath, then groans, "I can almost taste it, babe . . . " And me on the sofa with my 6th grade homework, the little fangirl storing it all up.

93. "For Your Love" / The Yardbirds (1965) I say I was infatuated with the British Invasion -- and yet of its Big Six bands (Beatles, Stones, Kinks, Animals, Who, Yardbirds) I only liked the first four. I was way too young to "get" the heady guitar-driven sound of the Yardbirds back in 1965. My loss . . .

94. "I Can See For Miles" / The Who (1967)
The other major British Invasion band I couldn't quite love at first. I didn't like the Who because they'd copied their sound from the Kinks. I didn't like the Who because they busted up their instruments. I didn't like the Who because somehow, instinctively, I felt they were perves. (Come on, Tommy was just creepy.) But for a little period there, just as British rock headed into psychedelia, the Who won me over. Ostensibly a song about catching his girlfriend cheating, to me "I Can See For Miles" was always really about getting high, about the illusion of expanded consciousness. The spookiness of this track haunted me, with those clanging windmill guitar strums, Daltrey's echo-chambered vocals ("I know you deceived me, now here's the surprise / I know that you did 'cos there's magic in my eyes"), and best of all, the slow-mo progression of dissonant chords on "miles and miles and miles and MILES and MILES and m i l e s." The Who's lyrics never really held up, and they weren't much for melody, but for hooks and riffs they couldn't be beat. With this song, they added texture, playing metal against muffle, dark against glitter, and showmanship against sincerity; it was like they'd gone 3-D. The rest of this album, The Who Sell Out, baffled me, but this song? It made me forgive the Who. It's their Get Out of Jail Free card as far as I'm concerned.

95. "Heart of Glass" / Blondie (1979)
I moved to New York City in 1979 and immediately plunged into the New Wave scene, along with all the other recent college grads with nice entry jobs and tiny Manhattan apartments, privileged kids who didn't dare be associated with the punk scene down on St. Mark's Place. Blondie -- or more precisely, Blondie's lead singer, Debbie Harry -- reigned as Queen of that New Wave scene, but as I recall it, her power was not unquestioned. All the men I knew were infatuated with her ex-Playboy Bunny pout and fishnet-covered legs; most women I knew resented her for exactly the same qualities. Compared to the other New Wave ladies -- Kate and Cindy of the B-52s, Tina of the Talking Heads -- why did we need a vamp like Debbie Harry, even if she did have a killer singing voice? Nevertheless, Blondie's slightly edgy but catchy power-pop was deliriously fun to dance to, with great singalong hooks, and it'll always remind me of those glory days, when the downtown music clubs hadn't yet given way to disco. "Heart of Glass" was already heading in that direction -- just listen to that metronomic rhythm track, the syncopated synths, the robotic high flutter of Debbie's voice on "Once I had a love, it was a blast." It was Blondie's 3rd hit single from their breakout album Parallel Lines; when "Heart of Glass" hit #1, I remember finally dismissing Blondie as a mainstream sellout band. Now, of course, when this song comes on the radio I'm hit by waves of fond nostalgia. Go figure.

The 100 Best Singles In My Head
Nos. 96-100

THE COUNTDOWN BEGINS!

I'm going to start at the bottom of the list and work my way up, five songs a day. Down here at the end of the list, I'll admit, guilty pleasures rule -- they're on here as much for nostalgia as anything else. But before I hang my head in shame, I ask you, if you're really being honest -- What's on your list?

[Click on the highlighted links to read my earlier posts on those songs]

96. "Spinning Wheel" / Blood, Sweat & Tears (1969)
In 1969, both Blood, Sweat & Tears and Chicago hit the airwaves, a jolt of contrast to the reigning vibes of acid rock. Instinctively I knew they weren't my kind of music -- I loved the funky horns and riddling lyrics, but their sound was too big and glossy for me. (I see an arc here leading directly to the Eagles.) But on this second album, their big breakthrough, the musical genius of the recently departed Al Kooper still invigorated BS&T, now sweetened with David Clayton Thomas's juicy vocals, and for a season -- when it was being played everywhere -- I couldn't help succumbing to this song's slouchy beat -- "What goes up must come down / Spinning wheel got to turn round." How did I know that Clayton-Thomas's lyrics were meant as a put-down of psychedelic rock? In short order, BS&T churned out more hits -- we'd already had the ingratiating "You Make Me So Very Happy," to be followed soon by the faux-folk "And When I Die" and an overbaked rendition of "God Bless The Child," both of which horrified me later when I discovered the Laura Nyro and Billie Holiday originals. In the course of one album, the band had already jumped the shark for me. But could I leave "Spinning Wheel" off this list? I could not.

97. "When A Man Loves A Woman" / Percy Sledge (1966) No special stories here, just a vintage soul classic that's too great to be denied a spot on my list.

98. "Losing My Religion" / R.E.M. (1991)
Another band that eventually jumped the shark for me, as their songs became too samey and were grossly overplayed, not just on radio but on MTV as well. And yet, and yet, and yet . . . in the 1980s R.E.M. were the standard-bearers for that endangered species, intelligent rock music, with their oddball blend of hooky Southern rock and cryptic New Wave lyrics, and I can't deny I was seduced. In 1991 I couldn't take my eyes off this video, set in a gauzy side-lit bare room, Peter Buck plucking a winsome mandolin while Stipe sat morosely on a hard-backed chair, pining for love. What a poetic figure he cut, in that white linen shirt, sleeves rolled up, long arms crossed, the fine-boned hands drooping. (Despite all the shots of falling angels and stigmata, we could tell this song had nothing do with actual religion, although of course the Catholic Church protested like crazy.) "That's me in the corner / That's me in the spotlight, I'm / Losing my religion" -- it's like an updated version of "Tears of A Clown," only ten times more neurotic. Obsessive, vacillating, self-conscious, despairing -- here was a love song all us losers could relate to. "Oh no, I've said too much," Stipe agonizes; or, wait, "I haven't said enough." And then Stipe starts to dance, all spastic and geeky -- somehow that endeared him to me even more.

99. "Show Me The Way" / Peter Frampton (1976) My ultimate guilty pleasure.

100. "Different Drum" / Stone Poneys (1967)
Okay, so Linda Ronstadt squeaks onto my list. I'll confess, I was an early Ronstadt fan, snapping up this 1967 hit single from her original band, an L.A.-area folk-rock trio called the Stone Poneys (mid-60s cute misspelling and all). The Stone Poneys weren't long for this world, as the record execs were already pushing her bandmates out the door to highlight the girl singer, with her bold, expressive contralto. Linda was a great popularizer of other people's songs (how I wore out my audiocassette of Linda Ronstadt's Greatest Hits until I discovered the original artists' versions!), and this one's no exception. It was written by Mike Nesmith, who'd become famous a nanosecond later when The Monkees blazed onto television. But when a guy sings about needing his freedom, it's not the same as when a girl says the same thing. "Don't get me wrong, it's not that I knock it, / It's just that I am not in the market / For a boy who wants to love only me" -- that was practically radical feminism in 1967 pop music, and something about it plugged right into my little pre-teen heart. "Yes, and I ain't saying you ain't pretty / All I'm saying is I'm not ready / For any person place or thing / To try and pull the reins in on me." Reins, get it? Stone Poneys? I really thought that was clever. And who knows, maybe the girl-power oomph of this song is what eventually sprung me out of Indianapolis years later. We are the music we've listened to, and when all's told, even "Different Drum" accounts for at least a few sinews and corpuscles.

"Strawberry Fields" /
"Penny Lane"
The Beatles

THE BEST A + B SIDES

Okay, Alex, you guessed this one -- though, given my known Beatles addiction, it was an easy call.

It's another John/Paul smackdown, each one delivering his own memory piece about their long-gone Liverpool childhood. But they're as different as chalk and cheese, and listening to the two, I'm struck by how far these former musical soulmates had drifted from each other by 1967.

You can' t ignore the drugginess of "Strawberry Fields," from that woozy mellotron intro all the way through its mysterious coda -- the train whistle, the backwards organ, that ponderous voice intoning "cranberry sauce" (though, really, we all know he was saying "I buried Paul"). The sinuous melody and trippy key changes remind me of "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" -- the ultimate LSD song -- only without the surreal imagery. In fact there's very little imagery here, for "nothing is real." He's having a hard time just putting a sentence together; by the third verse, the best he can do is

Always, no sometimes, think it's me,
But you know I know and it's a dream.
I think I know, I mean, ah yes, but it's all wrong.
That is I think I disagree.

Ever tried to have a conversation with a straight person when you were stoned? John absolutely nails that spaced-out dialogue.

Strawberry Fields may have been a real place in Liverpool, but John's turning his back on the world -- "Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see" -- and burrowing into his own weird inner reality. Verse two especially intrigues me after visiting John's boyhood home in Liverpool last spring -- I saw the actual tree where lonely young John used to sit ("No one I think is in my tree") looking over a wall at the playing children from the Strawberry Fields orphanage. His Aunt Mimi scolded him for spying, but he retorted to her that it wasn't a hanging offense -- "nothing to get hung about." He's a lost soul crying to be found, and it's incredibly poignant.

Compared to the phantasmagoric "Strawberry Fields," Paul's "Penny Lane" is much more accessible, a sunny panorama of English suburban life (wonder what Ray Davies thought when he first heard this). Marching along to that time-keeper piano, this song is pure music-hall softshoe, decorated with a panoply of sound effects -- car horns, firetruck bell, thunderclaps, tootling flutes, and that magnificent cornet solo in the middle eight. (Remember, George Martin had produced comedy records as well; there's more than a touch of Goon Show to all this.) As the refrain reminds us, this is all in his head -- "Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes" -- it has all the golden haze of nostalgia, and yet it's so vivid, so present, you can't help but be sucked into it.

Like an Ealing comedy, this cinematic song zooms in on each verse's vignette: barber, banker, fireman, nurse. It's literary, too, as each character is drawn in Dickensian detail -- the barber's picture of "every head he's had the pleasure to know"; the banker with his motorcar and trail of taunting children; the fireman with his hourglass and portrait of the Queen; the nurse selling poppies from a tray. As upbeat as that bouncy melody is, at the end of every verse Paul slides into a diminished chord as he adds a darker brushstroke -- the banker caught in the rain without his mac, the fireman's obsession with his "clean machine," the nurse's out-of-body feeling that she's in a play. And naturally, those lines are the ones that resonate when the song is over.

One thing you've got to say for "Penny Lane": it's an irresistible singalong. We may sing along to "Strawberry Fields" too, but not quite on key, and we always stumble over those incoherent words. John offers to take us down to Strawberry Field, but I'm not totally sure he wants the company. Paul, though -- he's already packed such a lovely picnic hamper (ooh, look, gooseberry tart!). Just ask me whose car I'm jumping in.

"Never My Love" / The Association

I fought it, I really did. I've been agonizing for days over choosing the "right" song for my landmark 500th post. Back and forth, back and forth. Naturally I considered bestowing this honor upon the Kinks (though I've inflicted an awful lot of the Kinks on you folks lately) or the Beatles (I did get the remastered stereo boxset for Christmas). Then I was distracted by a rare flurry of activity on the Nick Lowe Yahoo message group, and began to write about Rockpile's "Now and Always," Nick and Dave Edmunds' blissful go at channeling the Everly Brothers.

But in the spirit of this blog, it's fitting that I finally succumbed to a random earworm I couldn't get out of my head. It started over Christmas, when my sister played me an oldies mix CD someone had given her. We were gabbing a mile a minute, catching up, sharing gossip, comparing children, only half listening to the thing. "I can make you a copy of this," she kept offering, and I kept refusing, saying, "But I already have all these songs." Which wasn't strictly true -- I don't have "Yummy Yummy Yummy" or "Hitchin' A Ride" by Vanity Fare (you know this 1970 ditty -- "a thumb goes up, a car slows down..."). But so many others -- "98.6" by Keith, "Have I The Right" by the Honeycombs, "Please Don't Ever Leave Me" by the Cyrkle -- yep, I've got them all digitally stowed, good to go.



And then this baby came on the stereo. My first reaction? Horrified fascination. It's too syrupy sweet, way over-produced, with hopelessly inane lyrics. And yet I know I loved this record when it first came out, in late 1967. I remember thrilling to hear it begin at a school dance, hoping the right guy would ask me to dance (was that Bruce Jordan? Mark Miles? Jeff Arthur?), and dreading that I'd have to slow dance on such an Important Song with the wrong guy (here I won't name names, but believe me I know who I'm thinking about). I can still picture the school gym hung with wilting crepe paper streamers, moonlight falling in diamond shapes through the protective steel mesh on the windows. Makes me perspire just to think of it.

Mind you, when "Never My Love" began playing the other night, I couldn't remember at first whether it had been sung by the Association or Bread. I know, I looked it up, Bread wasn't even formed until 1969. Nevertheless, it's quite possible that this very same Association track spontaneously spawned Bread, like a retrovirus. Think about it: No other Association songs were quite this soupy and saccharine, were they? "Along Comes Mary"? No. "Windy"? No. "Cherish" . . . . oh, well, point taken.

Two weeks later, my opinion of this song hasn't improved -- and yet it won't leave my brain. The final blow was struck this morning, as I was standing in a Radio Shack, forking over money for an external hard drive so I can fix my iTunes (don't ask). I heard that ponderous five-note guitar lick, followed by a splash of drums, and I knew I was sunk. At last I forced myself to listen, to figure out why this song is so addictive.(Ranked #2 of the most-requested radio songs of all time, or so I've read. ) Of course, it's a knee-jerk wedding song choice, but it can't just be that.

It certainly isn't the lyrics that makes this song so special. Each brief verse poses a question that his lover has asked -- an ordinary litany of romantic jitters, selected for their dead obvious rhymes (will there come a time when I "grow tired of you"/"lose my desire for you"/"change my mind and won't require you"). Over and over again he repeats the same lockstep answer: "Never my love." (Calling Edgar Allan Poe!) In the bridge, he wonders how she can possibly doubt him: "What makes you think love will end / When you know that my whole life depends / On you." (Second bridge, slight inversion -- "when I've asked you to spend your whole life / With me"). The sentiments are comforting, but horribly vague and cliched.

Then I had my flash of insight. What makes a song like this work is those sneaky "I's" and "you's" -- if you are already in love, you just project yourself into the song and let your own emotions do the responding. The fewer specific details the better, actually. If you are a thirteen-year-old girl, it's a no-brainer; you always have some romantic object ready to moon over, real or imaginary. Of course if you're not in love, it can make you feel like throwing a chair through the window. That's the risk the song takes.

The whole point of the Association, though, is the tapestry of sound -- the way those dense vocal harmonies (every guy in this band had a great voice) are layered on, blossoming with emotion, sliding into dissonance and then resolving. Tiny things like a keyboard fill, the counterpointed "da-da-da's," or the echoed "never my love" held just behind the beat -- they're just brilliant. (Note that Bones Howe produced this record -- I'll bet he had plenty of input on stuff like this.) This is the essence of what I think of as the L.A. Sound, mellow and yet muscular, glossy and compact -- a shimmering curtain of sound, rather than a hard and aggressive wall of sound. It's not what my heart craves, and yet I fall for its tricks, like a kid taking candy from a stranger.

Funny thing is, I know I owned this single back then -- but it was mysteriously missing from the carton of 45s my sister and I fought over later in the evening. (As the youngest in the family, she managed to grab all the detritus of our teen years after we others had left home.) Damn you, Buffie, for not surrendering "Wouldn't It Be Nice / God Only Knows" -- I bought that with my babysitting money! But at least I snagged the David and Jonathan version of "Michelle," and finally reclaimed "Mr. Dieingly Sad" by the Critters.

"But look at that big gouge on the rim -- you can't play that anymore," my sister protested. "It's all scratched, too. Why do you have to have it?" She knows perfectly well, of course, why I have to have it. Little sisters -- what can you do?

"Baby, Now That I've Found You" / The Foundations

I've had it up to HERE with my slow computer and its small hard drive -- I finally ordered a new one, which should be arriving next week. Once it comes, I promise I'll begin to post mp3s so you can all listen properly to the songs I write about. But if you're of a certain age, I'm betting you know this song already.

A few nights ago, this came on the sound system at an Italian restaurant we were eating at in our neighborhood, and it triggered an immediate, visceral response in me. I can remember singing this song at the top of my lungs when I was an adolescent, madly in love with some gangly boy or other (the name Bruce Jordan rings a bell). It came out in the fall of 1967, and I'll bet I assumed it was a Motown song: It certainly had all the earmarks -- the handclaps, the horn section, the passionate r&b lead vocals.

In fact, however, this was a British band, though it wasn't a bunch of white English boys pretending to be soul singers. No, the Foundations were Britian's first multiethnic group, with West Indians and even a Sri Lankan joining the English musicians in the band. (And here I thought all that had started in the early 80s with the English Beat). Their better-known song is probably "Build Me Up, Buttercup," but that one sounds definitely more pop and less soul. By the time they recorded that (1968) the original vocalist, Trinidadian Clem Curtis, had left and was replaced by a chap from Barbados, Colin Young. Ain't the British Empire grand?

In this earlier single, though, the sound is still pure soul, and I love it to death. The conceit is simple: a guy has found a girl and intends to hang onto her, even though his prospects are dicey. As a female listener, I responded intensely to the idea that a guy was willing to expend energy to keep a relationship together -- how refreshing!

The structure of this song is radical: It starts out with a chorus, and spins back around to that chorus over and over, with a kind of emphatic persistence that's perfect for the song's theme. "Baby," Curtis begins, leaning lovingly into that long sustained vowel sound, "now that I've found you I can't let you go / I'll build my world around you." Oh, ladies, this is music to our ears. A man expressing naked need? It must be a soul record. He shifts from those long statements into short urgent messages -- "I need you so / Baby, even though /You don't need me / You don't need me." Ah, there's the killer. He has to repeat it, as if he can't believe it. This chick has this guy wrapped around her finger, and she doesn't even appreciate it! This triggers what I like to think of as the Offstage Response -- we the listeners are dying to butt in, to divert this guy's devotion to our own service.

We move to a single verse, classic call and response, for the explication, as the singer describes how he first fell in love and the back-up guys underscore his persistence. Melodically, however, the sweet spot of this song is the bridge, when Curtis chromatically croons: "Spent a lifetime looking for somebody / To give me love like you." The key shifts in to minor as he regretfully adds, "Now you've told me that you wanna leave me," only to burst out willfully, "Darling, I just / Can't let you!" and swings into those exuberant chorus again -- twice, before he reiterates that bridge and then hammers away with the chorus again. It's as if saying it will make it so. Baby I need you Baby I need you Baby I need you!

Fellas, let me tell you, we women are sick and tired of doing all the heavy lifting. What we really want is to find a guy who'll cling to us like a bur, who's made an intelligent choice and chooses ME. This is intoxicating. All the brakes are off, passion is rocketing into the sky, and the man is the one expressing lifelong devotion. Of course it's a pop song; of course it's just hormones making him think this is a now-and-forever kind of love. Do I care? No; I want to believe that he is true. I didn't attach this song to the particular singer (did I even know who Clem Curtis was when this song came out?), but I adopted this song's ferocity and made it my own. Singing along in the back of a car, I could split into two: I was the singer, and I was the one the song was being sung to. It's two and a half minutes of raw romantic lust, with horns, and I defy you to resist its infectious charm.

Baby, Now That I've Found You sample

“Love Is All Around” / The Troggs

28 DAYS OF LOVE SONGS

Love, indeed, is all around us this time of year. But in 1967– the hippy-dippy flower-child aura of groovy love must have been impossible to escape. Hence this hit single, written by Reg Presley (great rock & roll name, eh?), lead singer of the Troggs – yes, the same Troggs who did “Wild Thing.” Hearing this song out of context – like for example, with Bill Nighy’s Christmas-ized parody in Love Actually -- I’d never have said it was the same band. “Love Is All Around” goes for a much more conventional pop sound, right down to a schmaltzy overlay of strings; to me it sounds much more West Coast (think the Association) than BritBeat.

But when all is said and done, it’s basically a seduction song, just like “Wild Thing.” Maybe it’s a different sort of girl he’s seducing this time, but hey, whatever works. He starts off all dreamy-- “I feel it in my fingers / I feel it in my toes” – and then drifts off on the trendy love vibes of the era (“love is all around me / And so the feeling grows / It is written on the wind / That’s everywhere I go”). But pretty soon he gets down to the bottom line: “So if you really love me / Come on and let it show.” In other words, put out or get out.

Smooth operator that he is, he slips his challenge in, oh so casually, and then deftly adds a layer of goo: “You know I love you, I always will / My mind's made up by the way that I feel / There's no beginning, there’ll be no end / ‘Cause on my love you can depend.” Right down to the rhyme-chasing inverted word order, this is complete poetic cliché. He’s regurgitating last week’s stale Valentine candy -- and he’s got an ulterior motive for sure.

Listen to the deliberate pace, those sidling chord shifts, that tick-tock percussion – it’s full of underlying tension, a.k.a. sexual frustration. It’s like he’s circling around her; in verse three he edges closer: “I see your face before me / As I lay on my bed” (Clue #1: He’s in bed). Look at how coy the next lines are: “I kinda get to thinkin’ / Of all the things we said.” (Clue #2: Promises were made.) He waves the contract in her face -- “You gave your promise to me / And I gave mine to you” – before making his demand: “I need someone beside me / In everything I do.” Sure, it’s not totally explicit (“everything” could be innocent), but those hip-shifting chord changes are totally suggestive. Especially in the song’s long fade, as he doggedly repeats “Come on and let it show” over and over-- this isn’t a plea, it’s a command.

I’m sure love was all around in 1967. It was the dawn of the era of free love; the air in London must have reeked of sex, and this guy wants his piece of it. He’s willing to shovel on whatever romantic platitudes she requires—but he won’t be put off for long. Ah, Valentine’s Day – ain’t love grand?

Love Is All Around sample

“I Was Made to Love Her” / Stevie Wonder

28 DAYS OF LOVE SONGS

I suppose I could have written about “I Just Called to Say I Love You” – but after Jack Black’s record-store tirade in High Fidelity, I’ll never again admit I like that song.

It’s still safe to like early Stevie Wonder, though, right? This one’s just a pure, clear soul beauty from 1967. It’s a perfect Happy In Love song, about two childhood sweethearts who are still together. Except for a little parental friction way in the past (“my papa disapproved it, / My mama boo-hooed it”), they’ve made it through and are still happy together.

He almost sounds out of breath, rushing enthusiastically through word-crammed lines. As Stevie flash-forwards through their lives, he tosses off glancing details – “I was born in Little Rock,” “I wore hightop shoes and shirt tails / Susie was in pigtails,” and my favorite, “I was knee-high to a chicken / When that love bug bit me.” Mountains are crumbling, trees are blossoming, and Stevie’s got the fever – there isn’t a love song cliché he doesn’t trot out. He strings it all together exultantly, reiterating “My baby loves me / My baby needs me / That’s why we made it through the years” and “Don’t you know I was made to love her / Build a world all around her / Yah! Hey, hey, hey.” It’s completely uncritical, but who cares? Maybe that is the secret to staying happy.

Besides, it’s all just an excuse for Stevie to style away over one of the best rhythm grooves Motown ever crafted -- a confident funk-laden bass line, brash steady drums, topped at the end of every verse with a sassy flourish of vibraphones (or is it some kind of synth?). As the song goes on, they layer on back-up yeah-yeah-yeahs and syncopated strings, and like the icing on the cake, a joyous harmonica solo by Stevie -- man, I'd forgotten what a harmonica prodigy the boy was. It builds and builds, till it's practically bursting through the roof with joy.

Sure, these lovers are still happy together -- and what's more, I'm happy, just listening to him sing about it. If anybody else did this, it would sound simple-minded; but somehow Stevie Wonder can pull off this sort of magic, over and over again.

I Was Made To Love Her sample

"(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone" /
The Monkees

Another forgotten gem resurrected during the Great Music Transfer. What a great Boyce and Hart bit of snarky satire; it ranks right up there with the Kinks' "Starstruck" and Paul Revere and the Raiders' "Kicks" (I'm sure the Stones did something in this vein too, I just can't think of it right now) as a nasty putdown of some ambitious climber of a girlfriend. This goes way beyond a simple break-up song, doesn't it? There's actually a bit of weariness and menace in Mickey Dolenz's voice as he sings this -- not that the Monkees ever got credit for their dark side. And those minor-key background "ahhs," echoing across the room, they almost sound like the Yardbirds. Davy's tambourine sounds almost sinister here.

Now, I was a Davy girl; I still have to stifle a sigh when I hear "I Wanna Be Free." Yes, it's true, I did betray Peter Noone for Davy Jones back in the dark ages of 1967. I have nothing to say in my own defense. Perhaps this song was written about me....


I'm Not Your Steppin' Stone sample

"I Think We're Alone Now" / Tommy James and the Shondells

Okay, so I'm still stuck in 1967. But I'm really fascinated right now by all these songs that hung in the ozone back then -- pouring from the car radio, blasting in the background at every teen dance. I'm talking about the commercial pop rock, a sound that hovered somewhere between Frankie Valli and the Doors. In that watershed year, rock music was just starting to take itself seriously -- it's crazy to realize that this tune came out the same year as Procol Harum's "Whiter Shade of Pale" (so self-consciously poetic) and Buffalo Springfield's "For What it's Worth" (so earnestly political). But what Tommy James and the Shondells were up to was blessedly simple: making pop music you could dance to at parties. And they did it perfectly.

These guys were no one-hit wonders. Singles like "Hanky Panky" and "Mony Mony" established their dance party creds, and they hit the psychedelic note toward the end of their chart-topping days with "Crimson and Clover." But "I Think We're Alone Now" will always be my favorite Tommy James song. It sums up so perfectly the great burning issue on all pubescent minds: Where can we get some privacy to make out?

Tommy James grabs his audience from the very first line. "'Children behave' -- that's what they say when we're together," he complains with a petulant whine. "'And watch how you play' -- they don't understand." That's a pure adolescent sense of injustice. The verse builds earnestly, layering on guitars and drums and organ, almost a military march: "And so we're running just as fast as we can / Holding on to one another's hand / Trying to get away into the night." A noble bid for freedom indeed. But being teenagers, they quickly get to the real business: "And then you put your arms around me and we tumble to the ground and then you say / 'I think we're alone now...'"

Isn't this one of the sexiest choruses ever? There's such urgency in those staccato lyrics, and the sudden drop in volume, stripping away all the backing instruments, is riveting. Hear the quivering hush in his voice as he sings, "I think we're alone now / There doesn't seem to be anyone around." Hear the speeded-up pulse of that rapidly plucked guitar -- "I think we're alone now / The beating of our hearts is the only sound' -- that thump-thump heartbeat on the drums should be corny, but it's perfect. (Dig the nighttime cricket sound effects filling the silence behind it.) They're in the woods! They're lying down and making out! It's HOT!

The same year, you'd find the Rolling Stones, with their usual subtlety, blatantly proposing "Let's Spend the Night Together" (famously changed to "let's spend some time together" on the Ed Sullivan show). Brian Wilson would give it a romantic gloss, musing like a Boy Scout, "Wouldn't it be nice if we could wake up / In the morning when the day was new..." But Tommy James left it sweaty and furtive and hormonal -- and yet somehow naive. There's no battle of the sexes here, no seduction; this is completely consensual. The two kids are totally on the same wavelength, wrapped up in their private world. If you were in a couple at the time, you sympathized from experience; if you weren't in a couple, you hungered for it.

When this song came on at a party, everybody had to sing along. You huddled together to whisper that complicit chorus -- which also meant you could really let loose on the "running just as fast as we can" part. Courtesy of Tommy James, we were all in on the Big Teen Secret. Ah, youth culture.

I Think We're Alone Now sample

"(We Ain't Got) Nothing Yet" / The Blues Magoos

Apparently I'm stuck in a 1967 groove, but I can't say I mind. That was one hell of a year for music. What a tasty morsel of psychedelia this single was, for instance -- not too far out for AM radio, mind you, but loaded up with dizzying organ riffs and sibilant percussion and double-tracked vocals. It seemed exotic, and that was enough in 1967.

The Blues Magoos were just a bunch of teenagers playing the Greenwich Village folk clubs when they scored with this hit record; they even got to tour with the Who and Herman's Hermits, and to party with the Doors. Youthful enthusiasm percolates through this whole song, through the hustling skip of its syncopation and the slightly ragged chiming-in harmonies (reminds me of the Tremeloes). The sound may have been psychedelic, but there's no wink-wink drug message -- those lyrics are totally high on life: "Nothin' can hold us and nothin' can keep us down / And someday our names will be spread all over town / We can get in while the getting is good / So make it on your own, yeah, you know that you could." Sure, it's in a minor key, but despite that it's giddy and upbeat all the way.

It's not a love song -- that was still pretty unusual for 1967. Instead it's passing around a life philosophy, of sorts: "One day you're up and the next day you're down / You can't face the world with your head to the ground / The grass is always greener on the other side, they say / So don't worry, boys, life will be sweet some day." And it's friends that will get you through -- that chorus is downright raucous, perfect for boozy singalongs: "Oh, we ain't got nothin' yet / No, we aint' got nothing ye-et..." followed by a climbing guitar riff that takes off like a booster rocket. It's that "yet" that's important -- they're absolutely positive they will have something someday.

It's fitting that these guys toured with The Who, purveyors of youth anthems like "My Generation" and "Won't Get Fooled Again," but this song's cheerier and less apocalyptic -- it's only one step from this to "Hey, Hey, we're the Monkees" (not a criticism in my book -- I loved the Monkees). These kids aren't preaching anything -- not mind-expanding drugs, not the rise of youth culture, not overturning the establishment. They're just charged up with being young and having their whole lives ahead of them.

It's wonderfully innocent, even dolled up in all those paisley psychedelic swirls. I was even younger and more naive than the Blues Magoos in 1967; they seemed like pied pipers, leading us into some brave new world that still seemed fresh and exciting. On a fine spring day like today, it's tempting to believe it all over again.

(We Ain't Got) Nothing Yet sample