SATURDAY SHUFFLE

I actually did a shuffle on Wednesday, but it turned out lousy -- somehow the gremlins in my computer picked out every third-rate song I'd downloaded for reasons I can't even remember. So here, instead, is a twist on the shuffle idea -- ten songs in a row that I heard on Sirius/XM's Sixties on Six channel.

1. "Sweet Blindness" / The Fifth Dimension
From Stoned Soul Picnic (1968)
Mister Pleasant has recently reawakened my interest in these guys, especially when they do Laura Nyro songs (I'm a confirmed Nyro-phyte).  They swing, but they don't lose the song's edgy, racy spirit. "Don't let Daddy hear it / He don't believe in the gin mill spirit" -- up with teenage alcoholism!  And the drunkest refrain ever: "Come on baby do a slow float / You're a good-looking riverboat." Yassss.

2. "The House of the Rising Sun" / The Animals
Single 1964; included on The Best of the Animals
Of course, next to this classic song about the road to perdition, the kids in "Sweet Blindness" are model citizens...
 
3. "Listen People" / Herman's Hermits
From When the Boys Meet the Girls (1966)
The link here is Mickie Most, who -- hard to believe -- produced both the Animals and Herman's Hermits.  In the height of their American fame, Peter Noone and the boys didn't even release this as a single in the UK, but in the US it hit #3. This nifty little Graham Gouldman tune redeems its soppy earnest verse ("Listen, people / To what I say") with a snappy backbeat chorus ("Everybody's got to love somebody sometime.") 

4. "Build Me Up Buttercup" / The Foundations
From The Foundations (1968)
One of the greatest Motown singles ever to be released outside of Motown -- in England, yet!

5. "I Say A Little Prayer" / Aretha Franklin
From Aretha Now (1968)
And now the Queen of Motown gives a master class.  A Bacharach-David standard, mellow as Malibu ("The moment I wake up / Before I put on my make-up . . . At work I just take time ./ And all through my coffee break time") -- until Aretha unleashes her gospel pipes and starts to testify. Well, it is about praying, isn't it?  By the end, she's scatting all over the place, laying down five layers of syncopation, transforming it into free-form jazz.  And that, folks, is how it's done. 

6. "Windy" / The Association
From Insight Out (1967)
Not my favorite Association tune -- I greatly prefer "Along Comes Mary" -- this track has great harmonies, but such dopey lyrics. I mean, come on -- "Who's tripping down the streets of the city / Smilin' at everybody she sees / Who's reaching out to capture a moment / Everyone knows it's Windy" -- even by Flower Power standards, that's way too cutesy. And I hate the way I have to chair dance with that syncopation in the chorus...

7. "Ruby Don't Take Your Love to Town" / Kenny Rogers and the First Edition
From Ruby Don't Take Your Love to Town (1969)
Now, this is where I'd normally just change channels.  Not just because it's country -- I like some country -- but because Kenny Rogers' gravelly croon infuriates me.  I have so successfully avoided this song, it wasn't until today -- compelled by the Shuffle to stick it out -- that I finally listened enough to realize it's about a disabled Vietnam vet whose wife is stepping out on him.  "It wasn't me that started that old crazy Asian war" -- well, boohoo. Opportunistic songwriting at its worst.

8. "Catch A Wave" / The Beach Boys
From Surfer Girl (1963)
Classic classic classic. That tripping beat, the passed-around vocals, the explosion of harmonies in the chorus -- divine. Okay, so Dennis Wilson was the only Beach Boy who ever surfed; so much for "So take a lesson from a top-notch surfer boy."  And yes, these too are dopey lyrics -- like "You paddle out turn around and raise / And baby that's all there is to the coastline craze" or "They'll eat their words with a fork and spoon / And watch 'em, they'll hit the road and all be surfin' soon." But you don't come to Brian Wilson for the lyrics.  He rises above them every time.

9. "Magic Carpet Ride" / Steppenwolf
From Steppenwolf the Second (1968)
Whoa.  The jump from "Catch a Wave" to "Magic Carpet Ride" epitomizes how much music changed in the Sixties, from jangly rock-pop to churning psychedelia. As sun-kissed and clean as the Beach Boys' sound is, Steppenwolf's is just as smoky and dirty. But it's an insanely good track, full of tempo changes and texture shifts.  Dig that wicked minor-key organ progression on the bridge -- "Close your eyes, girl / Look inside, girl / Let the sound take you away" -- a contact high.  Yes, this song is about drugs.  Was there ever a doubt? 

10. "Undun" / Guess Who
From Canned Wheat (1969)
This one blew me away -- sure, I'd heard it a million times on the radio or in movie soundtracks, but I had no idea this song was by Guess Who.  The same guys who strut their macho way through "American Woman"?  The same guys who croon the Bread-like "These Eyes"?  A pack of Canadians -- not only that, but Manitobans? But for this song -- originally the B-side to something called "Laughing" -- they went tripping, pulling out the spooky reverb and a psychedelic organ part worthy of the Zombies.  Burton Cummings' vocal is unforgettable on this. You learn something new every day.

WEDNESDAY SHUFFLE

My son told me yesterday that when he hears me say I like someone's music, he automatically assumes it's someone English. Hmmm -- am I that transparent? Let's consult the shuffle and see...

1. "When It Sings" / Elvis Costello
From North (2003)
If I'd still been listening to Elvis Costello in 2003 -- which I wasn't -- I too might have been baffled by this tender album of jazz-drenched ballads. But finding it retrospectively, after Elvis' marriage to Diana Krall, it all made perfect sense. And doesn't Elvis live in Vancouver now? Does he still qualify as English?

2. "The Things We Never Said" / Thea Gilmore
From Rules for Jokers (2002)
Ha! Thea isn't English; she's from Scotland. A wonderful singer-songwriter, by the way.

3. "London Look" / Herman's Hermits
From The London Look EP (1968)
Not only a song by an English band, a song about London from an English band -- I am not doing so well here. What's worse, the Hermits did this song exclusively for a promo EP, sponsored by Yardley Cosmetics (remember the cologne Oh! De London? I wore nothing else for a year.) The basic idea is to stuff in as many London place names as possible. Who cares? It's a delightful, delicious little track.

4. "Nervous on the Road (But Could Not Stay Home)"/ Brinsley Schwarz
From Nervous on the Road (1972)
Despite the affected country drawl on this romping picaresque number about a touring musician, Nick Lowe is English, it's true.

5. "Don't Be Ashamed of Your Age" / Jerry Lee Lewis and George Jones
From Last Man Standing (2006)
Aha! Nobody's more American than that old rockbilly devil Jerry Lee and the king of country music George Jones. Normally I hate duet albums; this odds-defying LP is the exception to the rule. Listen to these two sly old dogs twiddling through this Bob Wills chestnut.

6. "Saint Beneath the Paint" / Nick Lowe
From Radio Daze (1984)
Not just one but two Englishmen -- the aforementioned Nick Lowe and his sometime colleague Paul Carrack, on particularly juicy bootleg live album. This obscure track from Nick's obscure LP The Abominable Showman (for that title alone he ought to be hung) is greatly improved with harmonies by Paul and a little boogie-woogie piano.

7. "Fool for a Lonesome Train" / Ben Harper & the Innocent Criminals
From Life Line (2007)
Another American -- whew! -- singing a trumpery bit of country blues. I still haven't quite figured out the riddle that is Ben Harper, but I keep on trying -- that voice can make any song sound better than it should.

8. "Rivers of Babylon" / The Melodians
From The Harder They Come (1972)
Do Jamaicans count as English (being former colonials) or American (being in the same hemisphere)? Like most American kids my age, Jimmy Cliff's Jamaican gangster movie was my introduction to reggae, and I played it so often, it's still hard-wired in my memory. "And let the words of my mouth / and the meditations of my mind / be acceptable in your sight" -- I still sing this song under my breath whenever I hear that blessing in church.

9. "Queen of Sheba" / Nick Lowe
From Nick the Knife (1982)
Not this one again! (Like I mind.)

10. "Knapsack" / Amy Rigby
From Diary of a Mod Housewife (1994)
Well, at least we're ending with an American -- not only an American, but a country punk female (talk about defying cliches). Fantasizing about the guy who checks her bags at the bookstore -- I picture the old Shakespeare and Company on the Upper West Side -- that's enough to fuel this Mod housewife's daydreams for week.

WEDNESDAY SHUFFLE

An eclectic bunch of tunes for the end of summer [sigh] . . . .

1. "When I Live My Dream" / David Bowie
From David Bowie (1967)
Before he was Ziggy Stardust, Bowie's first album featured a quirky mix of songs like this Anthony Newley knock-off. (Pizzicato strings! A triangle!) Insurance, just in case the rock-and-roll thing didn't pan out, you know...

2. "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore" / The Walker Brothers
From Portrait (1966)
A trio from California, none of them really brothers, who found success by moving to the UK in 1965 -- payback for the British Invasion, I guess. Their first hit was Bacharach & David's "Make It Easy On Yourself" (remember the Jerry Butler version?); this single got a little more airplay in the States and cracked the top 20. I love how they copied that Righteous Brothers white-soul sound perfectly, all echo and back-up choirs and manly harmonies. "The sun ain't gonna shine anymore / The moon ain't gonna rise in the skies / The tears are always clouding your eyes" -- tear those heart-strings!

3. "You're Telling Me" / Alan Price
From Between Today and Yesterday (1974)
After O Lucky Man!, where could Alan Price go? Well, it took him a while -- the record company rejected his first try, Savaloy Dip (a long-lost album, until my friend Tony discovered a carton of 8-track tapes in a record warehouse's dumpster). But undaunted, Price bounced back with this masterpiece LP, perhaps best known for the UK hit "Jarrow Song." This song is the highlight of side 2, the "today" side, where Price finally unleashes the brooding, bluesy organ riffs we've been waiting for. "My friends all tell me, 'you should be happy, / You have more than many others in this town.' / But I can see now, just what they mean now, / They're my friends until my money lets them down." Yup, that's the cynical Alan Price we know and love.

4. "He's Evil" / The Kinks
From Preservation Act 2 (1974)
Another favorite album from 1974 -- totally different, of course, with Ray Davies leading the Kinks deep into campy musical theater. Dig the finger-wagging back-up choir in this snappy character sketch of dastardly Mr. Flash, the villain of this dystopian fable. Over and over, building to the finish, "He's evil (he's evil) / He's evil (he's evil) / He's evil, he's evil, he's evil." Get the picture? Yes, we see.

5. "What Good Am I Without You?" / Kim Weston & Marvin Gaye
From Take Two (1966)
Classic Motown duet -- what a groove these two hit together. . . .

6. "Am I Wrong" / Keb' Mo'
From Keb' Mo (1994)
Just Keb' and his steel guitar, with handclaps and a few grunts providing snappy percussion -- and it's divine. How can he be wrong, falling in love with her, when her other man was out there cheatin' and lyin' and steppin' all over her? Sexiest line: "Just want to make a home for you, baby / And all of your children too."

7. "You Are What You Love" / Jenny Lewis & The Watson Twins
From Rabbit Fur Coat (2005)
Jenny's spunky, tuneful first solo album, her breakaway from Rilo Kiley, was so good. . . .what's happened since?

8. "Ain't That Loving You" / Sir Douglas Quintet
From Soul Jam (2000 -- compilation)
South Side Chicago blues, filtered through Texas. You may know this old chestnut by Deadric Malone -- alias Houston black record producer Don Robey -- from the Grateful Dead's version, or Buddy Guy's. (Elvis Presley's was a different song -- man, this stuff gets confusing.) But man oh man, did Doug Sahm have a great voice -- I could listen to him sing the Yellow Pages and I'd be happy.

9. "These Roads Don't Move" / Jay Farrar & Benjamin Gibbard
From Big Sur (2009)
Wonder what Kerouac would've thought of Jay and Ben turning his prose into Americana music?

10. "What Is Wrong, What Is Right?" / Herman's Hermits
From Very Best of Herman's Hermits (compilation)
This 1966 B-side proves that there was more to Herman's Hermits than the teen fan mags ever let us know -- just as I always suspected!

WEDNESDAY SHUFFLE

Sure, the Memorial Day long weekend threw us all off -- it still feels only like Tuesday. But it isn't! It's Wednesday! So let's shuffle!!!

1. "For the Girl" / The Fratellis
From Costello Music (2007)
High-energy beat, crunchy guitars, rapid-crammed lyrics, and cheery la-la-la la-la-la's -- a bracing jolt of Brit Pop indeed. I love the shifting minor and major keys in this track. "She was into the Stones when / I was into the Roses" -- whoever this girl is, he's sure ambivalent about their never-quite-meshing relationship.

2. "Pontiac" / Fred Eaglesmith
From Lipstick, Lies & Gasoline (1997)
Fred who? One of America's best-kept secrets, a true grass-roots music treasure, with an unwavering connection to real American music fans. I won't give away the story this track tells -- it's a heartbreaker -- find it online and listen for yourself.

3. "What Is Wrong, What Is Right" / Herman's Hermits (1966)
From The Very Best of Herman's Hermits
A deft satiric character sketch that even Ray Davies could appreciate. It was only on the B-sides that Hermits Derek Lekenby and Keith Hopwood got to feature their own compositions, but while the band's radio hits sound trite today, those original numbers are a revelation.

4. "Michelle" / David and Jonathan (1967)
Yes, that "Michelle" -- but it's not Paul McCartney singing. Not a bad cover, though, all things considered.

5. "End of the Party" / The English Beat
From Special Beat Service (1982)
Ska-flavored jazzy pop from Dave Wakeling and company. There's always a soap opera embedded in these English Beat songs, a series of betrayals and frustrated love affairs played out in dingy flats and grubby streets. It seems the girl here is keeping our singer on tenterhooks, making him wait to sleep with her -- the tension is palpable in every word-crammed line, the yelp of every leaping, offbeat interval.

6. "The Crush" / John Hiatt
From Warming Up to the Ice Age (1985)
Having shed his proto-New Wave punk pose, Johnny Hiatt went into neo-soul mode on this album, recorded at the tail-end of his boozy California years. Oh, sure, I know that Hiatt's seriously great work would come later, once he got his life together -- but I hafta admit, his voice is in spectacular shape here, and his guitar licks sizzle. For a flop album, this is a neglected gem, 80s synths and all.

7. "Sinister But She Was Happy" / Robyn Hitchcock
From Moss Elixir (1996)
Neurotic rhythms, non sequitur lyrics, and a frenzied sawing of fiddle and cello -- ah, Robyn Hitchcock lets his English eccentric freak flag fly. There's something baroque about this track, with surreal lines like "Sinister but she was happy / Like a chandelier festooned with leeches," but it's also a totally nifty acoustic rocker, with an addictive loose-limbed beat. I can just imagine Robyn, in a loose flowered print shirt and jeans, gray hair flopping across his forehead, strumming madly away. Imagine? I've seen him sing this, with a wicked glint in his mad dark eyes. Delicious.

8. "I Am Your Singer" / Wings
From Wild Life (1971)
I know I'm supposed to look down on this stoned mishmash of an LP. The songs make no sense, they go on too long, the rhymes are infantile, and Linda is encouraged to sing way too much. (Any Linda vocals are too much in my book.) Well, sorry, folks, I love Wild Life. IMO Paul McCartney is at his best when he isn't trying to score radio hits or prove a critical point; he's just reveling in melody, rhythmic patterns, and musical textures. Wings would become a hit machine soon enough -- let's enjoy this freeform debut album for what it is.

9. "No Other Baby" / Paul McCartney
From Run Devil Run (1999)
And then Linda died and a grief-numbed Paul was spinning his wheels, unable to write new material for the first time in his fertile career. For some reason I think it was Elvis Costello who suggested that Paul try his hand at a covers album, paying tribute to the early rock 'n' roll numbers that first inspired him; this one is an old 1957 Dickie Bishop hit. You can pretty much hear Paul healing his heart on every track of this CD.

10. "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" / Death Cab for Cutie
From Maybe This Christmas (2004)
Death Cab's winsome cover of the classic Darlene Love Xmas tune, this has just enough tinsel shimmer (dig Ben Gibbard's reverbed vocals!) to put the frost on your holiday listening. It's from one of those me-too all-star charity Christmas albums (god forbid any hipsters should record a Christmas album without the air quotes of a do-gooder objective). It's weird to hear a Christmas tune in June -- but hey, that's what the shuffle's all about!

The 100 Best Singles In My Head
Nos. 41-45

Ah -- a tale of Five Obsessions. Five fleeting obsessions perhaps, but powerful while they lasted.

41. "Get Back" / The Beatles (1969)
The Beatles, of course, are one of the major obsessions of my life. But I'm thinking of a more particular obsession here -- my obsession with the film Let It Be. In May 1970 my friend Karen Butcher and I went to the Vogue Theatre in Indianapolis (then a real movie theater, not a music club like it is now) to see Let It Be the weekend it opened. We saw every showing that first Saturday, in fact, hiding out in the bathroom between screenings so the ushers wouldn't throw us out. Slipping back into our red plush seats in the dark, we avidly drank in every mumbled line of dialogue, every grainy shot of Our Boys. That climactic scene on the rooftop of the Apple headquarters on Savile Row riveted us, as the band played an unannounced LIVE BEATLES CONCERT in the middle of the London working day. (Can you imagine opening your office window and hearing that?) Karen and I were no casual Beatles fans -- throughout that next summer, we'd spend countless evenings sitting on Karen's front porch, holding imaginary conversations with our future husbands John Lennon (Karen's) and Paul McCartney (mine). (I'm not sure how we killed off Linda Eastman and Yoko Ono, but I'm sure it was bloodless and legal.) We lived in that movie. Of course, we already knew "Get Back" -- it had been released as a single way back in the spring of 1969, even before Abbey Road. With its chugging locomotive rhythm track and blithe McCartney melody, not to mention Billy Preston tripping all over on the keyboards, it teased us with riddling character portraits -- loner JoJo rambling from Tucson to California, transsexual Loretta Martin -- everyone trying to get back to where they once belonged. Hearing it resurface in Let It Be was like meeting an old friend. Now, years later, I know that the Beatles actually recorded Let It Be first, planning it as a back-to-basics reunion titled Get Back; it was still in production when -- having moved on to Abbey Road -- they decided to split. Shrewdly, they finished Abbey Road, then recast the Get Back material as their farewell, Let It Be. All along, we fans were kept in the dark, ignorant of how carefully the break-up was being orchestrated. But by the time Karen and I sat in that movie theater -- watching them on that rooftop, Paul with his bushy black beard and John in his round spectacles and short fur coat, peeling off a rare guitar lead -- we knew we'd never see them again. And at the end, John's sardonic sign-off -- "I'd like to say thank you on behalf of the group and I hope we pass the audition" -- well, crikey.

42. "Message In a Bottle" / The Police (1979)
Let's just get it right out there: Sting was the hottest guy in rock music in 1979. Those wary eyes, that sulky sneer . . . and there I was, with my longtime weakness for bassists. Against the hard-edged sounds of punk, metal, and disco, the reggae groove of the Police almost single-handedly kept the roll in rock 'n' roll for a couple of years. It's hard to believe that a three-piece combo could create a sound this full; that melodic, lounging bass line was essential. Their tracks were tight, lithe, muscular, but never felt stripped-down. Add to that the reverbed, minor-key spookiness of tracks like "Roxanne," "Don't Stand So Close to Me," and "Walking on the Moon," and there was really no way I could resist. By the time they hit it big in the US, the Police were cranking out sunnier, blander easy-listening tracks like "Every Breath You Take" and "Everything She Does Is Magic," and I lost all interest. But when this song came along -- their first #1 hit in the UK, from their second LP Reggatta de Blanc -- I was completely under its spell. Fine songcraft, developing the image of a castaway shipwrecked on some desert island (in the Caribbean, from the sound of it), sending out an "SOS to the world" in countless pleading bottles. Sting's mopey wail fit this song perfectly, declaring, "Love can mend your life but / Love can break your heart" (our first clue that the island is a metaphor for heartbreak -- the old John Donne "no man is an island" line). And then after the instrumental break, in the third verse, the money shot: "Woke up this morning / Don't believe what I saw / A hundred million bottles / Washed up on the shore." Can't you just see them, camera panning out to show them all, bobbing in the surf? A lesser songwriter might have turned this into a happy ending, but not Sting -- he interprets it: "Seems I'm not alone / In being alone / A hundred million castaways / Looking for a home." Everybody's lonely, the message goes; everybody hurts. But me personally? All I could think about was mopping the tears of poor shipwrecked Sting, brushing the sand from his blond hair, tasting the salt on his sun-bronzed skin. . .

43. "If This Is It" / Huey Lewis & the News (1984)
Another case of fangirl lust. Huey Lewis wasn't my usual type -- I favored long-haired skinny Brits, not clean-cut virile preppie types from California -- but that hoarse edge to his voice snagged my heart. (His resemblance to Jeff Bridges didn't hurt, either.) Huey Lewis flirted at the edges of New Wave hipsterdom -- his original band Clover, sans Huey, backed Elvis Costello on his first album -- but his essential talent was for clean radio pop, with enough of a retro gloss to cash in on the Eighties' 1950s nostalgia. For a while there, Huey & Co. were just cranking out the hits -- "The Heart of Rock and Roll," "Power of Love," "I Want a New Drug," "Heart and Soul" -- all lively, well-crafted tracks that got tons of radio play. No less than four hit singles were released from their megatuple platinum LP Sports; it would've been the year's #1 album if not for Thriller. In the early 80s MTV exposure was also critical, and the video for "If This It It" is a classic, a stylish sitcom set on the Santa Cruz boardwalk. (Remember the band, buried in sand up to their necks, doing the doowop harmonies on the chorus?) It was all mainstream as hell, and you know me, mainstream is not usually my thing. Besides, in 1984 I got engaged and then married; naively I assumed that the fangirl part of me would now be locked up in a streamer trunk, along with the faded corsages and torn ticket stubs. But there we were, in September 1984, on our honeymoon, a tour of quaint New England inns (no Poconos heart-shaped tubs for us!). And every time we turned on the car radio -- I'm telling you, every time -- there was Huey's pleading rasp, urging me to reconsider, "If this is it / Please let me know / If this ain't love, you better let me know!" I didn't reconsider, of course; I had no reason to. No matter how many times Huey cajoled, "Girl don't lie, and tell me that you need me / Girl don't cry, and tell me nothing's wrong." (Oh, how he growled with frustration on the "rl" of "girl!). I'd look out the car window, press my knees together. But I knew that the fangirl was still in the back seat; she wasn't going ANYWHERE.
44. "Can't You Hear My Heartbeat" / Herman's Hermits (1965)
My first post-Paul McCartney crush, fed by a crush of hype in Tiger Beat and Sixteen magazines. But oh, Peter Noone was adorable in 1965, with his crooked front tooth, his shiny gray eyes, and that sleek mop of fair hair. He may have been a manufactured teeny-bopper phenom, but he was MY manufactured teeny-bopper phenom, and he actually had the singing talent -- not to mention the acting chops -- to pull it off. Hell, he's still out there flogging these oldies. (And still adorable.) Herman's Hermits actually had two careers -- an initial run in the UK with a string of respectable R&B numbers, then a crossover to the US when they increasingly specialized in goofy English music-hall songs like "Mrs. Brown You've Got A Lovely Daughter" and "Henry The Eighth." Released in January 1965, "Can't You Hear My Heartbeat" marked the crossover -- it climbed to #2 on the US charts, but in the UK it was only the B-side to "Silhouettes." All I knew was, it was track one on their second US album, Herman's Hermits on Tour (I've still got my battered copy, with its cheesy cover graphic of the band inserted into a hot-air balloon). Producer Mickey Most was taking no chances; "Can't You Hear My Heartbeat" features the same stompy beat and cheery girl-group-style harmonies as the Hermits' debut single "Something Good." The song was written to order by John Carter and Ken Lewis, incidentally the backing vocalists on the Who's "Can't Explain," who also sang in their own group The Ivy League -- remember "Tossing and Turning?" I loved Herman's guttural Manchester vowels as he sang, "Cos you're the one I lo-ove," but the best part is that little cry at the end of the bridge, when he sings, "I get the feeling, you're ooooh-wee (ah!)" He'd cock his head, hook his thumbnail on that crooked tooth, and all us little fanbabies would just dissolve. . . .

45. "Don't You Worry 'Bout A Thing" / Stevie Wonder (1974)
If Jeff Bridges gets the Academy Award for Crazy Heart this year -- and oh, how I hope he does -- it won't just be because he was brilliant in Crazy Heart, though of course he was. It'll be because he's been brilliant in every single damn movie he's made since his 1971 debut in The Last Picture Show. Same thing here with Stevie Wonder. No single Stevie Wonder track stands out enough to make it into my Top Ten, but Stevie is so close to my heart, he had to be on here somewhere. For sheer musicality, nobody (except maybe Paul McCartney) can equal the guy. But which single to write about? "Uptight (Everything's Alright)"? "Superstition"? "Livin' for the City"? "I Wish"? "Part-Time Lover"? It's an impossible choice. But in the end, the Stevie Wonder LP I loved most was 1973's Innervisions, at the apex of his amazing streak from Talking Book through Songs in the Key of Life. It came along the spring of my junior year, when I had just started editing the college newspaper, was proposing my senior thesis, was in the thick of deciding where my life should go (like I've EVER figured that out.) Some days the only way to survive was to lock my dorm room door and put Innervisions on my turntable. By the time "Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing" came along -- side two, track four -- I'd be lost in Wonder. That crazy tango intro, with Stevie muttering some jive-ass hustle ("Paris, Beirut, Iraq, Iran ... you know, I speak very very fluent Spanish!"), morphing magically into a smooth-as-silk samba. "Everybody's got a thing / But some don't know how to handle it / Always reachin' out in vain / Accepting things not worth having" -- gee, was that my life or what? And there was Stevie, with those long, caressing, overlapping lines of the jazzy chorus, reassuring me: "Don't you worry 'bout a thing, mama /Cause I'll be standing on the side /While you check it out." Lyrics aren't Stevie's strength (again, like Paul McCartney) but even an English major like me can forgive a little verbal fuzziness when the sentiment is so beautiful. Stevie in the studio must have been like a kid in a candy shop, delighting in how many musical textures he could pile on, pouring it all into one richly complicated groove. And soaring above it all, his soothing vocals: "Everybody needs a change / A chance to check out the new" (or "loo," as I always heard it). "But you're the only one to see / The changes you take yourself throo-oo-oo-oo-oo-ough," ringing the chord changes on that "through." I can feel myself relax, even now; I can breathe again. Better than yoga, Stevie.

“What Is Wrong, What Is Right”/ Herman’s Hermits

MAY IS BRITISH INVASION MONTH!

I was sooooo in love with Peter Noone, the singer of Herman’s Hermits, when I was eleven. He was my second rock crush, right after Paul McCartney, sparked by the fact that Peter was only 16, much closer to my age than Paul. I realize now that I was manipulated into it by Tiger Beat and 16 magazines, which were plastered with pictures of Peter’s shaggy mop of fair hair, twinkly pale eyes, and crooked front tooth (which he used to point to, adorably, in concert). That breathy, sincere voice went perfectly with his glottal Manchester accent, shamelessly emphasized to draw in an audience of Brit-o-maniac little girls. Peter Noone was the first teenybopper idol, and I fell for him HARD.

I’m amazed to find out now that Herman’s Hermits only had one #1 UK hit, “I’m Into Something Good” (September 1964). They had quite a string of chart-toppers over here, beginning in May 1965 with “Mrs. Brown You’ve Got A Lovely Daughter” and continuing with “Henry VII,” “Leaning On A Lamp Post,” and many others that apparently weren’t even released as singles in the UK. We Americans simply ate up those music-hall and pub-singalong numbers, novelty songs that the British audience would have disdained. The British Invasion had taken root so deeply by then, Herman’s Hermits could charm us just by being “so English.”

Since I depended on Tiger Beat and Sixteen for my information, I never heard the rumor that Herman’s Hermits used session musicians in the recording studio. (Shades of the Monkees, just a couple years later.) They weren’t encouraged to write their own songs, either. But I’m convinced that this band was a lot more talented than the handlers and packagers gave them credit for. Look, for example, at the goopy 1966 single “East West” (“East, west, over the ocean / Perpetual motion / Bringing me down,” yadda yadda yadda) -- tucked away on the B-side is a wonderful track co-written by the band’s lead guitarist, Derek Leckenby, and rhythm guitarist Keith Hopwood. “What Is Wrong, What Is Right” has a jazzy beat, nifty guitar riffs, and the sort of smart satiric lyrics that were popping up all over the British Beat second wave.

It’s a character study, with details and word play worthy of Ray Davies – from the very first line, when we see her “stroking her cat with silken fingers” we know what sort of overprotected girl she is. There’s a hint of class conflict, too: “I’m working so hard to try and get to know her / Her parents say who she sees and who she meets.” But basically this sheltered bird is a lost soul, as the poignant bridge describes: “Always on her own / Walking through the city / Doesn’t want to know / If anyone should try to pick her up, she’ll put them down.”

The second verse defines her even further: “She only drinks at the dining table / She’s not allowed to stay out late at night / Her only joy is the riding stable / Her parents say what is wrong and what is right.” Amidst the new freedoms of Swinging London, this seems just plain perverse. (Compare this to the spoiled heiress in the Stones’ “Play With Fire.”) It catches perfectly the cultural dislocations of the mid-1960s. The girl may go wild when she turns twenty-one -- and the singer plans to be there to enjoy it, I’ll bet.

I wonder where these guys could have gone if they’d been allowed to be themselves. It might have happened if Peter Noone hadn’t been so darn cute. If I’d spent less time kissing those album covers and more time listening to the music…

What Is Wrong, What Is Right sample