Onesey Character Netherlands d150Rd3R, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

Some of my favorite songs appear on albums and compilations I have no interest in reviewing. The Onesies Series allows me to avoid writing reviews that go like this: “This song sucks, this song is terrible, this song should be banned, GREAT SONG, I wouldn’t play this song for my worst enemy.” As I’m unsure whether or not I’m going to continue after my around-the-world journey, I’ve also included some favorites from albums on my “future reviews” list just in case.

I chose to start with rock’n’roll because that’s the music I love best. I wish I’d come up with this idea sooner because I can imagine applying the concept to folk, jazz, pop, country and blues numbers. Oh, well.

Don’t be disappointed if your favorite rock song is not included. I’ve written 342 reviews in the “Rock, Punk, Alternative, Garage” category, so you have a good chance of finding your fave on this site (unless the artist is on my no-fly list).

Frankie Ford, “Sea Cruise”: If lo-fi rock is your thing, I heartily recommend this classic by Frankie Ford. I’m pretty sure that the engineer fell asleep during the session and missed the many occasions when the needle shot into the red and stayed there. The musique concrète that opens the song—a collage of ship bells and horns—sounds like it was captured on a cheap mic during a hurricane. None of that matters—the comments on YouTube say it all:

• “LOVE this toe-tapper, Frankie’s voice and those saxophones!”
• “One of the greatest Rock and Roll songs ever! “
• “So I’ve just come back home from a drunken night out and at one point we started playing rock and roll. I told my friends, ‘I will now play you the greatest rock and roll song you have never heard’ and afterwards the cool ones agreed with me. This song is probably the most underappreciated rock and roll song of its time.”

I’ve always loved this song and was seriously pissed off that it was not in my father’s collection when I did the Dad’s 45s series. I loved it even more after I saw the video where Frankie lip-syncs to the music on Dick Clark’s Saturday Night Beech-Nut Show, revealing the secret to the song’s success:

This dude had so much testosterone flowing through his veins and such a mean-lean bod that I’d fuck him in a New York minute once he took off that silly costume. His hips tell you he feels the music right down to his bones and his voice screams, “This is MY song, baby!”

Only it wasn’t. The song was originally written and recorded by Huey “Piano” Smith and the Clowns and was fully ready for release but the management at Ace Records figured that since Huey already had a hit on the charts, they would wipe Huey’s vocals and have then-hitless Frankie Ford overdub his vocals to Huey’s backing track. Though the switch was cited by historians as another example of racial injustice in the music industry, the truth is Huey’s vocals lacked fire in comparison to the heat generated by Frankie. Fortunately, the Clowns knew how to kick rock’n’roll ass, making it easy for Frankie to find the groove when he launched into his overdub. His phrasing is perfect for a rock’n’roll song and I approve of most of the lyrics (especially “Oo-ee, oo-ee baby”) but the line, “I got to boogie-woogie like a knife in the back” is a twisted metaphor on multiple levels.

The blazing tenor sax you hear is played by Lee Allen, one of the great unsung heroes of early rock. The Billboard obituary begins, “For many, Lee Allen, who died of cancer Oct. 18 in Los Angeles at the age of 67, was the rock’n’roll saxophone player.” The article continues . . .

“There was no rock’n’roll saxophone until Lee Allen,” says Phil Alvin, who played with Allen in the L.A.-based band the Blasters. “Lee Allen is one of the most important instrumentalists in rock’n’roll.” Drummer Earl Palmer, whose career in New Orleans paralleled Allen’s, says, “Prior to the guitar, it was the tenor sax that played the solos on rock’n’roll records, and I don’t know anybody who played more than Lee Allen . . . Lee was a phenomenal player.” You can hear Lee Evans on some of the biggest hits from Little Richard and Fats Domino.

Frankie never managed to recreate the excitement in his performance of “Sea Cruise.” His version of “You Talk Too Much” pales in comparison to the better-known Joe Jones version and his take on “Seventeen” was ruined by a chorus of squeaky female singers before he even stepped up to the mic.

But for one glorious hormone-drenched moment, Frankie Ford captured the essence of rock ‘n’ roll.

The Young Rascals, “Good Lovin'”: Speaking of raging hormones and silly costumes, how about ‘dem Young Rascals? I always thought their choice of fashion was based on Our Gang characters or Buster Brown (without the dog) but the Rhino bio describes their attire as “juvenile Lord Fauntleroy onstage outfits.” The get-up isn’t something I’d expect from a bunch of Jersey boys, but I didn’t expect to find out that they spent some time serving as the backup band for Soupy Sales either.

Worry not, my friends, for the testosterone-driven music of “Good Lovin'” will obliterate those images of Little Lord Fauntleroy and faces drenched in cream pies.

When the Young Rascals finally got around to developing their own repertoire, they built their sets in the same way the Beatles managed to fill the hours in Hamburg and The Cavern: they scanned the radio stations and hung out at record stores. One day Felix Cavaliere heard The Olympics’ version of “Good Lovin’ over the airwaves and added it to the setlist. The song was written by songsmiths Rudy Clark (“The Shoop Shoop Song”) and Arthur Resnick (“Under the Boardwalk”) and originally recorded in doo-wop style by a guy with the stage name of (I’m not kidding) Lemme B. Good. We can thank our lucky stars that Felix heard The Olympics’ version first for three very good reasons: one, The Olympics’ version is more R&B; two, their insertion of an E major chord adds more tension to the transition leading from verse to chorus; and three, they had the balls and good sense to change the lyrics because Lemme’s rendition contains no reference to doctors whatsoever.

If ever a song needed a doctor as a foil, it was “Good Lovin.'”

The Olympics performed the song on Shindig with Billy Preston guesting as organist, but their appearance failed to stir much in the way of demand for the single, which peaked at #87. The Olympics had strengthened the song’s bones but there was still something missing that the Young Rascals would provide: unbridled energy, a crashing rhythm guitar, a superb application of stop-time and one hell of a drummer.

The Rascals didn’t think much of their performance and were blown away when “Good Lovin'” topped the charts in both the U.S. and Canada. From the “One-Two-Three” countdown and the initial shouts of “good-a-lovin!” you get the feeling that the party has been going on for hours and is now at its peak. Felix’s plaintive and soulful vocal is soon joined by joyous responses from Eddie Brigati and guitarist Gene Cornish. The boys shake it up with a little bit of cha-cha on the “Yeah, yeah, yeah” lines then drive it home with crashing chords from Cornish and precision octopus drumming from Dino Danelli, one of the most underrated drummers in music history. Felix’s organ solo is seriously hot, and I love the way he ends on a slightly sour note, a perfect transition to the stop-time segment.

What you don’t hear is a bass guitar. Eddie Brigati was supposed to handle that job but had no feel for the instrument. Instead of giving Eddie the boot, the band members felt strongly that they wanted to remain a quartet while keeping Eddie’s fine voice in the mix. The temporary fix was to have Eddie add supplemental percussion and let Felix provide the bottom on his pedalboard. Later they would hire bass pros for their recordings.

To conclusively prove that the Young Rascals could kick rock’n’roll ass while dressed like . . . whatever . . . this clip from their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show will relieve you of any and all doubts—and I don’t have to tell you to keep an eye on the drummer because Dino’s going to take care of that all by his lil’ ol’ lonesome:

Deep Purple, “Hush”: I temporarily removed Deep Purple from my no-fly list so I could honor the only Deep Purple song I like. Do NOT expect a review of Machine Head any time in the next century.

“Hush” was recorded in 1968 during Deep Purple’s relatively brief psychedelic-progressive phase and became the lead single from their first album, Shades of Deep Purple. Written by Joe South (who would go on to win the Grammy for Song of the Year for “Games People Play” the following year), “Hush” was a monster hit in the U.S. and Canada but bombed (along with the album) in their U.K. home. Quoting heavily from Dave Thompson’s Smoke on the Water: The Deep Purple Story, Wikipedia explained this burst of British animosity towards one of their own: “Deep Purple’s stage excesses and success in the US did not make a good impression on British audiences. The Deviants frontman and later journalist Mick Farren described Deep Purple’s music as a ‘slow and pompous din, somewhere between bad Tchaikovsky and a B-52 taking off on a bombing run.’ They were also criticized for being too American and the ‘poor man’s Vanilla Fudge.'”

Ritchie Blackmore had no defense for that last accusation; in fact, he embraced the comparison: “We loved Vanilla Fudge—they were our heroes . . . we wanted to be a Vanilla Fudge clone.” The Fudge connection played well in the States, where Deep Purple was advertised as “The English Vanilla Fudge.” I don’t consider myself much of a Fudge fan, but I do respect their ability to reimagine pop/rock classics as they did most famously with “You Keep Me Hanging On.” That kind of deconstruction/reconstruction was a staple of modern jazz and Vanilla Fudge deserves credit for opening the door to new possibilities in old rock, pop and soul songs. Deep Purple would take advantage of that open door in their version of “Help!” on Shades of Deep Purple, a cover so impressive that even John Lennon gave it a thumbs up.

By contrast, “Hush” pretty much follows the Joe South arrangement but Deep Purple imbues the song with ten times the power. The recording quality isn’t quite as bad as “Sea Cruise,” but when you record an album in a few days for a record company close to going bust, you aren’t going to get a George Martin production. As in “Sea Cruise,” the red-needle moments give the recording an extra helping of roughness in sync with Nick Simper’s throbbing bass, Ian Paice’s energetic drums, Jon Lord’s whirling organ and Blackmore’s nasty guitar. Rod Evans offers a nice counter to the intensity with a slick, sexy, blue-note-heavy vocal that works like a charm. The result is an unusually thrilling performance from a band just starting to get their feet wet.

The Mark I lineup didn’t last long, as Blackmore, Paice and Lord wanted to move in a heavier direction and decided that Evans and Simper weren’t up to the challenge. Though I don’t particularly care for ’70s hard rock, that was where the fans were headed, so the change in personnel gave Deep Purple a new lease on life.

Good for them, and at least I still have “Hush.”

Shocking Blue, “Venus”: I was unable to identify the exact date when gossip columnist Earl Wilson described lead singer Mariska Veres as a “beautiful, busty girl,” but I’m going to guess that the column in question aired during the first week in February 1970. “Venus” had languished in the #2 spot on the Billboard charts for three weeks and I think the boys who hadn’t purchased the record yet cried out, “She’s got a great rack, too?” and pushed the song into the #1 slot on February 7.

There’s no question in my mind that her fabulous tits, bedroom eyes, high cheekbones, and thick black hair (a wig, actually) were plusses, but I think the song would have still topped the charts in fourteen countries and every continent except Africa and Antarctica even if she had wrapped herself in an invisibility cloak. For one brief musical moment, Mariska Veres was Venus, the embodiment of female sexuality. When she shifts the narrative to the first person and sings, “I’m your Venus, I’m your fire, at your desire,” it sure sounds to me like she fucking means it. Better still is her performance in the second verse, when she displays her desire to dominate the truly weaker sex:

Her weapons were her crystal eyes
Making every man mad
Black as the dark night she was
Got what no one else had, whoa!

Her unusual accent (not Teutonic, as described by some lazy-ass critics, but the result of a Romani father and French-Russian mother) strengthens the universality of the piece while adding to the erotic essence of the song, for no matter where you live, foreign accents have an undeniable mystique that often triggers hormonal overload. “Venus” is clearly one of the hottest female vocals ever recorded.

The boys in the band deserve a lot of credit for their musicianship, and in this case, restraint. The most noticeable ornamentation comes in the form of Robbie van Leeuwen’s fiery strum attacks, but for the most part, the arrangement is suitably disciplined, allowing Mariska to have her moment. The rhythm section of Klaasje van der Wal (bass) and Cor van der Beek (drums) hit their spots with perfection, giving Mariska solid backing that allows her to do her thing.

Great fucking song—and I mean that literally. It’s a regular on my fuck playlists.

The Move, “Brontosaurus”: Looking On is a bloody mess of an album, largely due to an identity crisis. Roy Wood had abandoned the pop orientation of early Move and both he and new member Jeff Lynne wanted to morph into the Electric Light Orchestra ASAP. Unfortunately, they had a contractual obligation to produce two more Move albums, so what you get with Looking On is half-assed ELO, half-assed Move and more than a hint of Wizzard. Bev Bevan described Looking On as “plodding,” and if I were to review the album, I’d open and close it with “plodding” and an asterisk.

The asterisk is “Brontosaurus.”

The good news is that Roy Wood’s articulation is so piss-poor it’s likely you won’t understand half of the lyrics, a messy melange of Spangle wrappers, a home-invading dinosaur and an old man losing control. The salient point is there is a girl who can really do the brontosaurus (a dance) and she can really rock.

Really!

The song is divided into three sections. The first contains the song proper with verses and choruses, and though the lyrics are gibberish, the song has good vibes and feels funny, like when something makes you laugh and you have no idea why—it just strikes you as funny. The loping, mid-tempo rhythm, Rick Price’s plodding bass and Jeff Lynne’s rising riff ending with a speedy downward collapse all combine to form a sonic picture of a dinosaur lumbering through the forest, clumsily wiping out dozens of species with his humongous feet without blinking an eye. Roy delivers his lines with noticeable enthusiasm, ending the first section encouraging the girl to “Do it, do it, do it!” At that point, the band comes to the fore, playing the rising riff with slightly greater intensity while Bev Bevan supplements his drum part with a few hits on the cymbal bell. Then, instead of ending the riff with the downward collapse, the scene cuts to three quick chords (D-C-G) and a downward glissando on the piano from Lynne that take us to the second section where we find ourselves in double-time for three truncated rounds of the chorus. On the last go-round, the D-E-G-C pattern that has dominated the song so far ends with a surprising A major tension chord, Roy shouts “Yeah” and after another D-C-G blast we are off to the races, people!

The third and final section is pure rock’n’roll bliss with Roy ripping it on slide guitar, Bev and Rick pounding away and Jeff adding classic rock piano touches. My favorite part comes when Lynne follows one of Roy’s solos with stereo glissandi that evokes a heartfelt scream from yours truly. They made a good choice by going with a fade instead of a cute closing passage, leaving the listener with the impression that the boys are going rock the night away. Whenever I feel down, there’s nothing like “Brontosaurus” to slap a smile on my face.

Jackson Browne, “Redneck Friend”: For Everyman is a pretty decent effort but I refuse to review it because I’m afraid that the opening track (“Take It Easy”) will cause me to break out in hives and ruin my sex life for a whole week.

Then again, the hives might have magically disappeared once I made it to side two and David Lindley took over. Elton John makes an appearance as well, but I couldn’t care less. This is all about David Lindley, maxi-instrumentalist and one of my favorite slide guitarists.

One influential critic and the bulk of Jackson Browne’s fanbase had their heads up their asses with their evaluation of “Redneck Friend.” Janet Maslin wrote a review for Rolling Stone in which she whined that the song “sounds like too deliberate an attempt to create a single by someone whose art, even at its most casual, remains too complex for strictly AM audiences.” My take is that Janet Maslin is a snob who never rocked out in her entire life. The fans didn’t care for the song either, allowing the single to die a miserable death at #85.

What the hell is the matter with people? Geez, I let go with my first “Fuck yeah!” five seconds into the song! Lindley’s sweetly distorted intro warms the cockles, lubricates the private parts and makes you want to trip the light fantastic to the sound of guitar-based rock’n’roll. His fills during the lyrical parts are quick and to the point, never interfering with Jackson’s vocals. His solo qualifies as an extra-added attraction and the descending blues riff in the close is executed to perfection.

While Lindley does his thing, Jackson Browne locks into the groove and delivers a spirited vocal in sync with his role of facilitator, determined to connect a teenage girl with his cut-through-the-bullshit redneck friend and give her a clearer perspective on life. The parents don’t give a crap about the girl’s interests or potential; they treat her like a baby, occasionally taking a break from their personal issues to say, “Don’t do that!”

Pretty little one, how has it all begun?
They’re teachin’ you how to walk, but you’re already on the run
Little one, what you’re gonna do?
Little one, honey, it’s all up to you

Now your daddy’s in the den
Shootin’ up the evenin’news
Mama’s with a friend
Lately she’s been so confused
Little one, come on and take my hand
Well, I may not have the answer, but I believe I got a plan

What I find most exciting and encouraging about Lindley’s guitar approach is that he eschewed the $5000 custom deluxe models, choosing to play on shit guitars from Sears instead. Though his licks may be somewhere between blues, country and rockabilly, the sound comes straight from the garage.

Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers, “Born to Lose (or “Born Too Loose”):

Johnny Thunders created his own niche in rock-and-roll history with a combination of attitude, looks, and high musical personal style. He broke the mold completely. He was a real-life Buckaroo Bonzai, a rock-and-roll brain surgeon. Like that Kinks song about a cowboy hero—“Johnny Thunder lives on water, feeds on lightning.” Johnny had a new melodic twist on the “chain-saw” rock guitar sound. He influenced punk, gnu wave, and alternative music for generations to come. He pioneered his very own Wall of Sound sonic vision. It may be a lot easier today to sound like Mr. Thunders with new computer-chip technology, but nobody before or since could conjure up his rock-and-roll liberty-or-death attitude. That uncompromising force will always be at the very heart of punk rock.

—Arthur “Killer” Kane. I, Doll. Chicago Review Press

L.a.M.F is NOT one of the one-song-and-done albums in this set. I’ve had it on my to-do list for years but never found the right moment. The sound you cannot hear because I didn’t turn on Apple’s shitty computer mic is me kicking myself in the ass for not reviewing that album.

And yes, I can kick myself in the ass thanks to years of martial arts training.

Punk will always have a special place in my heart and soul because it was my go-to genre during my impressionable years (along with Britpop). I’ve always been leery of overdoing punk reviews because of that unshakeable bias. But shit, Ari, how could you not review an album titled Like a Mother Fucker? That’s the essence of punk right there, so to hell with your worries about your teenage music crush bullshit!

And yes, I talk to myself frequently.

After finally settling into a relatively stable lineup, The Heartbreakers toured the U.S. and failed to impress American audiences. They caught a break when they were invited to join the U.K. Anarchy tour, sharing the bill with Sex Pistols, the Clash and The Damned and receiving a much warmer reception. They managed to snag a recording contract with U.K. label Track Records, where they recorded their only official studio album. Alas, the album suffered from a poor mix due to an excess of democracy where each of the band members came up with different mixes. L.a.M.F. only appeared on the U.K. charts for a single week and the band called it quits soon after.

Fortunately for us living in the 21st century, there have been several attempts to remix and revitalize the album. I have a copy of The Found ’77 Masters and it sounds just fine to me.

As an opening track, “Born to Lose” (or “Born Too Loose”) delivers the rip-and-strip sort of music implied in the album title. The confusion regarding the song title is somewhat understandable—the phrase appears in the chorus when Thunders, rhythm guitarist Walter Lure and drummer Jerry Nolan sing in unison and I’m not sure they’re all on the same page. At times the word in question sounds like “loose,” sometimes like “lose” and sometimes both. I hear more “loose” than “lose” but “lose” is a better fit for the lyrics about life in the Big Apple during the dreadful year of 1977. It’s possible that I want to hear “loose” because I have a reputation for being born too loose (and proud of it).

The song opens with a mini-overture in the form of two rounds of a sour descending pattern on electric guitar that sounds like a musical ode to misery. Nolan steps in with two quick whacks, and then the band enters in overdrive with Thunders and Lure doubling up on the rhythm guitar and Billy Rath pumping away on bass. Johnny immediately steps up to the mic and delivers a rough and raw vocal somewhere between Lou Reed and Tim Armstrong, dripping with pure punk attitude. The song just roars down the track, seeming to peak during the renditions of the unison chorus until Johnny makes sparks fly with his no-doubt-about-it solo, where he keeps the train rolling with a blistering attack of straight notes and rising bends, moving up the fretboard to deliver the killer closing riff that inspires the band to take it up a few notches, with Jerry Nolan pounding drums and cymbals, the bass pumping at near heart-attack levels and the guitarists driving and throwing in a few more hot licks as the song begins to fade.

And yes, I just had an orgasm.

Toronto, “Your Daddy Don’t Know”:

This song from an 80s Canadian band allows me to share some insights regarding the art of creating a fuck playlist.

The content of a fuck playlist will vary with your sexual preferences and erotic stylings, but in general, you want music that arouses sexual desire. For me, that means rock, blues, soul, funk and jazz. Though I don’t particularly care for rap or hip-hop, the emphasis on the beat makes those genres strong candidates for those who appreciate those styles. I suppose other genres could work; for example, if you and your partner prefer to have sex when dressed as valkyries or Vikings, you might want to check out Richard Wagner. If you like to have sex when listening to polka, I don’t want to know you.

Rock generally dominates my playlists and my preferences lean towards R&B-influenced rock—more Stones than Beatles or Kinks. Early Kinks (“You Really Got Me”) works; golden-era Kinks not so much. Since my sexual preferences are on the rougher side of the ledger, I can’t imagine grinding away to Herman’s Hermits or the Partridge Family, but they might be appropriate for those who prefer extra-sweet vanilla sex. Surprisingly, Jethro Tull appears frequently in my fuck playlists because of their mastery of syncopation.

It is not necessary to limit yourself to songs about sex— you just want to make sure that the lyrics don’t kill the mood. The worst kind of song to include in a fuck playlist is a song about politics, as the topic is likely to remind you of how often you’ve been fucked by politicians and that’s not the kind of fucking we’re talking about here.

My fuck playlists are designed for a party of two, in this case, two kinky women. One of the parties is “the audience” and the other is “the performer.” The person designated as the audience enters the bedroom first, activates the playlist and waits for the performer to make her entrance. A proper fuck playlist is a symphony in four movements:

• Mood Setting: This movement consists of about fifteen minutes of music designed to put the audience in the mood while waiting for the performer to make her entrance. Examples include several tracks from Candy Dulfer’s Saxuality, Tull’s “A New Day Yesterday,” Sade’s “Smooth Operator” and Sonny Landreth’s “Broken Hearted Road.”
• The Entrance: The Entrance is the most important movement in the symphony and the first song must be dripping with sexuality because the performer needs music that motivates her to strut her stuff and express her erotic power so she can stimulate her audience. David Bowie’s “Fame,” The Doors’ “Roadhouse Blues,” The Stones’ “Spider and the Fly” and several Robert Palmer songs fit the bill. Since the performer may continue posing, teasing and displaying her wares for several minutes, it’s important to build a sequence of hot songs to allow her to fully express her eroticism.
• The Fuck: This movement consists of anywhere from sixty to ninety minutes of hard-driving rock mixed with Chicago blues numbers and hot soul songs. It’s time to leave it all on the playing field.
• The Close: Even the horniest bitches run out of gas, and once we’re spent, we end our erotic adventure by dancing to slow love songs. “Wild Horses,” “Sea of Love,” “Stand by Me,” “Soul and Inspiration” and “Reasons for Waiting” are our faves.

And what does this bit of elucidation have to do with “Your Daddy Don’t Know?” It’s one of my go-to entrance songs, lyrically and musically designed for female stuff-strutting!

The opening run of power chords (F-C-D-Bb-D-C/F-C-D-Bb-C) combined with crashing drums and bass is more than enough the get the juices dripping, but instead of continuing to bang away, the band lowers the volume and shifts to muffled notes on the guitar, essentially creating the foundation for the upcoming build. Annie “Holly” Woods from the great state of North Carolina makes her entrance by essentially standing in the wings—her voice is soft as she sings Mama’s internal monologue, where she appears to be talking herself through an upcoming performance:

Making your move
You come down fast as lightning
Crossing the stage
And now you can feel the excitement

The band returns to power mode and Holly’s voice gains more heft and grit with each line as Mama gives herself a blessed shot of encouragement:

So shake it up
Turn it on
Shake it up
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Your daddy don’t know
What your mama’s gonna do tonight
I said your daddy don’t know
What your mama’s gonna do tonight

Daddy don’t know, but it’s pretty obvious that Mama’s about to launch her career as a stripper! Now why on earth would she want to do that?

She’s breaking your heart
You’d better be your own best friend
‘Cause once you learn the steps
It’s something you’ll never forget

Oh, my! The “she” who is breaking her heart is her best friend and the implication is that her “friend” is bonking Daddy! With no one but herself to rely on, she takes up stripping as a means of restoring confidence in her womanhood while soaking up the guilty pleasure of doing it behind Daddy’s back.

Yeah, baby, you’ve got it!

Holly goes into serious belt-out mode on the second round of the chorus, adding more grit and confidence to her vocals and continuing to urge Mama to “shake it up” as the band ramps it up for Brian Allen’s equally hot lead solo. The band executes another quick cut to “soft” for the third round of the chorus, followed by that marvelous build in the “shake it up” transitional passage, exiting in full rock power mode and into the fade.

When you listen to this song you’ll likely wonder how in the hell Toronto fell short of becoming one of the most popular bands of the 80s. Based on this miniature sample size, it’s clear that they had a great and undeniably sexy lead singer, competent guitarists and a solid rhythm section. Despite those admirable qualities, only three of their singles and none of their studio albums made the Canadian RPM Top 20. “Your Daddy Don’t Know” became their highest charting single in Canada (peaking at #5) but failed to draw much excitement from its southern neighbors, topping out at #77 on the Billboard charts.

I did some research and listened to songs from their five studio albums and arrived at two conclusions. First, Toronto suffered from the worst possible form of band instability—they had a very hard time keeping the rhythm section together. Bassists and drummers came and went at an alarming rate and rarely had time to gel before one or the other (or both) decided to move on. As the rhythm section is the heart and soul of any rock band, the constant churn resulted in several inconsistent efforts. It also speaks volumes that their biggest hit (“Your Daddy Don’t Know”) was composed by two non-band members and the album the single was designed to promote (Get It on Credit) charted at #162, largely because the album was filled with comparatively weak band compositions.

But for one brief sex-drenched moment, Toronto was one of the best rock ‘n’ roll bands on the planet.

Robert Palmer, “Simply Irresistible”: Perceptive readers have probably noticed that the songs in this series are arranged in chronological order. I wanted to point that out for those who might have missed that feature and emphasize that the back-to-back appearance of two of my favorite entrance songs is completely accidental.

As a dominant female, this song fits my style like a tight leather glove. Robert Palmer’s power-packed ode to female superiority always gets my juices flowing because there are few experiences in life as satisfying as a handsome, aggressive male acknowledging my power and getting down on his knees where he belongs:

How can it be permissible
She compromise my principle, yeah yeah
That kind of love is mythical
She’s anything but typical
She’s a craze you’d endorse, she’s a powerful force
You’re obliged to conform when there’s no other course
She used to look good to me, but now I find her
Simply irresistible

Her loving is so powerful, huh
It’s simply unavoidable
The woman is invincible
She’s a natural law, and she leaves me in awe
She deserves the applause, I surrender because
She used to look good to me, but now I find her
Simply irresistible

Beneath all the grit in his marvelous voice I hear the sweet sound of unbridled vulnerability.

Allow me to give the ladies in the audience who might be thinking of surprising their male companion by entering the love nest and posing to “Simply Irresistible.” You don’t have to possess the dominant gene, you don’t need to be as beautiful as the women in the video and you don’t need to have what the culture defines as a great body to pull it off. All you need to do is let the estrogen flow and allow yourself to believe that Robert Palmer is singing about your irresistibility. Great sex is more about attitude than appearance.

Fastball, “The Way”: In a Quora discussion concerning the symbolic status of Route 66, commentator Ajay Verma opined, “During the 1930s and 1940s, the highway was a major route for people migrating westward in search of better opportunities during the Great Depression. It became a symbol of the ‘American dream,’ representing the promise of freedom, adventure, and opportunity.”

That’s one side of the coin. It’s equally true that the highway is symbolic for those who find the American Dream a dead end and hit the highway to escape its influence.

The term “American Dream” was originally coined by historian James Truslow Adams in his book The Epic of America, published during the dark days of the Great Depression. He defined the term as “that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement . . . It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.”

Huh. I heard something like that in MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech but can’t remember meeting too many people who embodied that vision. I always thought the American Dream was originally white-men-only and the goal was a wife, two kids, a house and a couple of cars. Eventually they let women and “minorities” into the club but instead of restoring Adams’ original vision, they merely joined the rat race and embraced the same tired equation: opportunity = making money and spending it.

The couple who take to the road in Tony Scalzo’s “The Way” have no particular destination in mind, they just want the hell out of the life they’re stuck with. The song opens with overlays of radio chatter, mixing bits of pop music with ads, ads and more ads—American culture in a nutshell. The intro and opening verse are recorded in lo-fi mode with a distinct absence of a bottom, a musical message I interpret as “let’s get down to the nitty-gritty”:

They made up their minds
And they started packing
They left before the sun came up that day
An exit to eternal summer slacking
But where were they going without ever knowing the way?

The bass enters at the start of the second verse, contrasting nicely with Miles Zuniga’s minor key arpeggios. Here we find the only clue regarding the couple’s motive when they make a brief stop for refreshments:

They drank up the wine
And they got to talking
They now had more important things to say

I read that last line as “more important than re-seeding the lawn, more important than paying the bills, more important than Brenda’s braces, more important than the water cooler gossip in the workplace.” They’re tired of living the American Dream and want something real for a change. They want it so bad that when the car breaks down they don’t call AAA but abandon the vehicle and start walking to who knows where.

The first rendition of the chorus introduces a key change from F# minor to A major, the always-welcome sound of power chords and a noticeable increase in intensity. Instead of continuing the narrative, Scalzo uses an extended aside to paint a romantic picture of life on the road, backhandedly describing the obvious downsides of road travel while acknowledging the irresistible allure of freedom:

Anyone can see the road that they walk on is paved in gold
And it’s always summer
They’ll never get cold
They’ll never get hungry
They’ll never get old and gray
You can see their shadows wandering off somewhere
They won’t make it home
But they really don’t care
They’re happier there today, today

It’s time to tally up how they’re doing in their quest to rid themselves of the essentials of the American Dream! House gone? Check. Car? On the side of the road. Kids? What the fuck?

Their children woke up
And they couldn’t find ’em
They left before the sun came up that day
They just drove off and left it all behind ’em
But where were they going without ever knowing the way?

Holy child abandonment, Batman! I wouldn’t have even considered taking my upcoming trip without making sure that my precious little dog was in good hands and with people who love her as much as I do. But leave the kids? Geez, people, couldn’t you have dropped them off at grandma’s? She’s only fifteen minutes away, f0r cryin’ out loud! The inspiration for the song came from a news clipping Scalzo read about an older couple, one suffering from Alzheimer’s and the other recovering from recent brain surgery, who drifted off-course from their intended destination and were found dead hundreds of miles away . . . but the couple in this song have no apparent disabilities or reasonable excuses. The only justification I can offer is this: the song is about wishes, not reality, and the desire to leave it all behind is so strong that in our wildest fantasies we dream of escaping the heavy responsibilities of parenthood.

What I found most interesting in my research was the worldwide appeal of “The Way.” The song was a certifiable hit in many European countries as well as the U.S., Canada and Australia. I interpret those findings in two different ways: either there are a whole lot of people all over the world who yearn to escape the dreariness of modern life or there were still people who knew a great rock’n’roll song when they heard it way back in 1999. In any case, “The Way” clearly belongs in any discussion of the great road songs of all time.

Jimmy Eat World, “The Middle”: Lurking beneath the dreary dominance of rap and hip-hop, power pop remained a steady, if not particularly lucrative form of music in the new millennium. Some of my earliest reviews featured power pop bands I heard on Little Steven’s Underground Garage (most notably The Dahlmanns and Sugar Stems), but Van Zandt’s influence rarely turned power pop singles into worldwide hits. The masses had abandoned melody for beats, relegating the musical style championed by early Who, early Todd Rundgren and Cheap Trick to the pop chart caboose.

Now and then a power pop song would break through the muck, but if you paid any attention to the power pop scene in the early days of the millennium, you never would have thought that Jimmy Eat World would be the band to achieve that breakthrough. Despite positive reviews and a five-fold increase in the sales numbers for their album Clarity, they were unceremoniously dumped by Capitol Records. While that black mark would have thrown most bands into a tizzy and likely led to a breakup, the band members still believed in themselves (and never liked working with Capitol anyway). Drummer Zach Lind considered the episode a blessing-in-disguise: “But in a way, that was sort of a good thing, because it let us take control of what we needed to do. We learned we had to do it ourselves because no one else would do it for us.”

Over the next two years, the band members engaged in various activities in an attempt to scrape up enough money to fund their future. They took low-level day jobs, managing to save enough money to fund a singles compilation album through an indie label. A five-week tour of Europe increased their piggy bank and boosted sales of their final Capitol album; they used those funds to buy copies of their previous releases from Capitol to sell them directly to the European market. Their management disagreed with that strategy, arguing that they should focus their efforts on the USA. In response, the band told management to take a hike.

Eventually they reached the point where they had enough material to enter the studio and record their fourth album but nowhere near enough funds to pull it off. In an amazing display of confidence, producer Mark Trombino (who had produced their two previous albums) agreed to work for free, betting he could recoup any short-term losses from the album’s success. Despite that gracious gesture and plenty of penny-pitching, they remained in touch-and-go mode, and as the album neared completion, the band found themselves on the verge of bankruptcy and still in need of a recording contract.

About halfway through the recording process, the band had uploaded some demos of the new songs to Napster in an attempt to get some buzz going. That proved to be a shrewd move that excited the fan base and drew attention from several A&R reps. After having been written off by the industry, they suddenly found themselves inundated with offers from several labels. Capitol’s attempt at a kiss-and-make-up reunion fell on deaf ears and Jimmy Eat World signed with DreamWorks. Bleed American was released on July 24, 2001.

And as if they didn’t have enough problems already, they had to change the album title seven weeks later to the bland Jimmy Eat World in response to 9/11.

“The Middle” was the second single from the album, released two months after the terrorist attacks. Two months later, the song reached the top of the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart and hit #5 on the Billboard Top 100 shortly thereafter. Several elements contributed to the song’s remarkable success, beginning with the music itself. After the Capitol fiasco, the boys had decided that they wanted to keep things simple and more direct, and you can’t get much simpler than a three-chord pattern of D-A-G. The intro features muffled stereo guitars harmonizing on the dominant motif at high speed and low volume, immediately triggering listener curiosity. Zach Lind ends the intro and begins the song proper with a healthy whack and in a split second, Jim Adkins begins his vocal, supported by the simultaneous entry of Rick Burch’s pulsating bass. The melody is bright and upbeat; the message in the lyrics is suitably encouraging:

Hey, don’t write yourself off yet
It’s only in your head, you feel left out
Or looked down on

Tom Linton enters on rhythm guitar at the start of the second verse, picking away on the D note through the D-G part of the pattern and dropping down to C# for the A chord. The pulsating beat remains strong and steady, sending irresistible messages to the hips to keep grinding away.

Just try your best
Try everything you can
And don’t you worry what they tell themselves
When you’re away

The power increases tenfold at the start of the chorus when Adkins enters with a power chord in between the third and fourth word, punctuated via syncopation in the form of a tiny rest in the gap, supplying the chord with extra punch. All the band members ramp up their efforts while Adkins reaches down deep to imbue his vocal with passionate intensity, encouraging a shift from hip-shaking to full-on thrusting and forming one of the most memorable power pop passages of all time:

It just takes some time
Little girl, you’re in the middle of the ride
Everything, everything’ll be just fine
Everything, everything’ll be alright, alright

The pattern continues the rest of the song, alternating between soft and loud, deviating only to give Adkins a shot at a lead guitar solo that he delivers with heat and marvelous dexterity on the fretboard. “The Middle” earned at least eight “Fuck yeahs!” from yours truly the first time I heard it, and I still manage to come up with at least one after every repetition of that thrilling bit of syncopation.

The lyrics also contributed to the song’s success, sometimes in unexpected ways. On a very basic level, the storyline involves a girl who isn’t in with the in-crowd and a guy trying to buck her up by pointing out that the in-crowd is teeming with assholes and she should just tell them to go piss themselves. On another level, it’s hard not to interpret lines like “Hey, don’t write yourself off yet” in the context of Capitol’s rude dismissal of the band.

The third layer of meaning was likely the most influential in terms of getting listeners to buy the record, a message they desperately wanted to hear in the dark days following 9/11:

Everything, everything’ll be just fine
Everything, everything’ll be alright, alright

This sort of lyrical transference is not uncommon; American GIs trying to survive the insanity of Vietnam adopted “We Gotta Get Out of this Place” as an anthem, conveniently ignoring the fact that the lyrics told the tale of a guy determined to escape from the slums. Fear and loathing take a tiresome toll on people, and upbeat music has often served as a tonic for those in need of a heavy dose of hope, as most clearly demonstrated by the American embrace of the Beatles a few months after Dallas. The two “hidden meanings” form a wonderful ode to resilience, a pick-yourself-up-off-the-canvas-and-get-back-in-the-fight message everyone needs at one time or another.

Though “The Middle” is clearly the highlight of Bleed American, the album is pretty solid, featuring an array of styles from post-punk to power pop and a slight touch of grunge. The album was on my list of reviews for the Honeymoon Series (we heard the song at least once in every place we visited), but I concluded that people would get tired of hearing about The Adventures of Ari and Ali after five albums, so I decided to skip it.

Oh, I almost forgot! There was one more contributing factor to the song’s success—a video featuring a party where everyone except the band members and the two “heroes” are stripped down to their underwear!

*****

The songs I chose for this review span five decades and all of them are great songs that sound as fresh today as they did way back when.

Some of my Millenial contemporaries and Gen-Z visitors have asked me why I haven’t reviewed more contemporary albums. I point out that I did just that during the early years of this blog, writing seventy-two reviews covering the period from 2012-2016. After I decided that exploring music history was a more worthwhile endeavor, I continued to keep my ears open for quality contemporary music—but with a catch. I would only review a contemporary album once three years had passed since its release. I instituted that rule so that I wouldn’t fall victim to the “shiny new thing” dilemma. The artist would have to prove to me that the work in question had legs.

I’ve learned that most people tend to cling to the music of their generation and dismiss what came before and after. That’s why we have 60s radio stations, 70s radio stations, etc, etc, etc. There is great music in every decade but I think people are missing out on a lot of great music by erecting generational barriers.

Musical styles change over time and what’s fashionable in one era may not be fashionable in another, but the true test of what constitutes great music is timelessness. Most of the music I choose to review possesses that quality, though when I choose to do a series on a particular era or genre—or decide to review several of an artist’s offerings to showcase their development—I have to write about the good and the not-so-good.

A decent treatment of the subject of timelessness in music can be found in this article on Medium. For those of you who prefer short-and-sweet, I’ll provide you with a more compact treatment by making a slight modification to the Keats classic “Ode on a Grecian Urn”:

“Great music is timeless,—that is all

                Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”