THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE! (VOLUME 1): The Castaways! (and The Beatles, Monkees, Ramones, Buzzcocks, Raspberries, and other chapters left outta the book)

When you're writing a book, revisions are a part of the process. I've been working all of this year on my book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1), dedicated to the giddy concept that an infinite number of songs can each be THE greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns.

Along the way, I've tweaked, revamped, re-thought, and played with warring notions of what songs I want to discuss and what gets left on the cutting room floor. That process has nothing whatsoever to do with the merit of the individual songs, and is dictated solely by the needs of the book and my vision of the overall story I want to tell. Even as folks keep reminding me of songs they think I'm crazy to exclude, I remind them that this is a book, not a list. A lot of records I regard as top o' the pops aren't in the book, either. 

And that's okay. It's an infinite number, man.

I'm getting closer to a final decision of what's in and not in. and my most recent proposed Table of Contents was posted here. All of the supplemental material is done, and 94 of the 113 song chapters have been written, leaving me 19 yet to complete. 

There have been several completed chapters that I decided to remove. Most of them have been posted on this blog instead:



THE BEATLES: Hey Jude

This was actually never intended to be used in the book, at least not in Volume 1. I wrote this to run on the blog on September 23d, 2017, the day of my first Paul McCartney concert. 



THE BUZZCOCKS: Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've)

Based on what I wrote for This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio following the death of Pete Shelly. It didn't fit the flow of the book.



THE CASTAWAYS: Liar, Liar

This short chapter was removed for no other reason than to make room for another song I wanted to include instead. BUT! It gives me another excuse to post a photo of the girls from Gilligan's Island because, y'know, castaways.



AL HIRT: The Green Hornet Theme

This was written solely because I decided I wanted to place an instrumental into the middle of the book. Then I changed my mind, and took it out. 



THE MONKEES: The Girl I Knew Somewhere

Originally written as an entry in my series The Other Side Of The Hit (B-Side Appreciation), and I thought it would make an appropriate addition to the book. I like this piece a lot, but ultimately there was too much redundancy with material in the book's other Monkees chapter ("Porpoise Song [Theme From Head]").



THE RAMONES: I Don't Want To Grow Up

Along with the Monkees chapter above, this is my other favorite among the book's castoffs. I wrote this because I felt The Ramones' story merited a little more oomph than the book's chapter on "Sheena Is A Punk Rocker" provided. But I needed to make room for other songs, so I went back, made the "Sheena" chapter what it needed to be, and took this one out.



THE RASPBERRIES: I Wanna Be With You

I confess that some recent comments from Eric Carmen sapped my enthusiasm for this piece. It might not be fair, but honestly, it's my book, so if something doesn't feel right to me, it's out. Period. Still love The Raspberries, and I'll still play The Raspberries, but I didn't want this in my book anymore.




THE VENTURES: Walk--Don't Run

Another instrumental intended for the middle of the book, another instrumental removed from the book. There actually is still an instrumental--"Take Five" by The Dave Brubeck Quartet--as a Bonus Track bookending The Beatles' "Yesterday." (Bob Dylan's "Like A Rolling Stone" is the other Bonus Track bookend in this example.)




One additional discarded chapter was completed but has not been posted publicly. That would be my piece about "We Used To Be Friends" by The Dandy Warhols. This chapter ties a personal reminiscence of someone who used to be a friend--a long time ago--with a brief appreciation of the Veronica Mars TV series, which used the song as its theme. There are still emotions attached to these memories, and I grew uncomfortable with trying to include them in the book.

And that's the cutting room floor for The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1). 

TIP THE BLOGGER: CC's Tip Jar!

You can support this blog by becoming a patron on Patreon: Fund me, baby! 

Fans of pop music will want to check out Waterloo Sunset--Benefit For This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, a new pop compilation benefiting SPARK! Syracuse, the home of This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl. TIR'N'RR Allstars--Steve Stoeckel, Bruce Gordon, Joel Tinnel, Stacy Carson, Eytan Mirsky, Teresa Cowles, Dan Pavelich, Irene Peña, Keith Klingensmith, and Rich Firestone--offer a fantastic new version of The Kinks' classic "Waterloo Sunset." That's supplemented by eleven more tracks (plus a hidden bonus track), including previously-unreleased gems from The Click Beetles, Eytan Mirsky, Pop Co-Op, Irene Peña, Michael Slawter (covering The Posies), and The Anderson Council (covering XTC), a new remix of "Infinite Soul" by The Grip Weeds, and familiar TIRnRR Fave Raves by Vegas With Randolph, Gretchen's Wheel, The Armoires, and Pacific Soul Ltd. Oh, and that mystery bonus track? It's exquisite. You need this. You're buying it from Futureman.

(And you can still get our 2017 compilation This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 4, on CD from Kool Kat Musik and as a download from Futureman Records.)

Hey, Carl's writin' a book! The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) will contain 100 essays (and then some) about 100 tracks, plus two bonus instrumentals, each one of 'em THE greatest record ever made. An infinite number of records can each be the greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns. Updated initial information can be seen here: THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE! (Volume 1).