10 Songs is a weekly list of ten songs that happen to be on my mind at the moment. Given my intention to usually write these on Mondays, the lists are often dominated by songs played on the previous night's edition of This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl. The idea was inspired by Don Valentine of the essential blog I Don't Hear A Single.
This week's edition of 10 Songs draws exclusively from the playlist for This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio # 1068.
THE BEATLES: I'm Happy Just To Dance With You
Nothing has ever challenged The Beatles' secure ownership of the toppermost of my poppermost. Not even punk, nor my brief stated preference for The Rolling Stones in the early '80s. In the latter case, I was kidding no one but myself. I loved the Stones; The Beatles were the freakin' Beatles, man.
Previous posts have delved into the specifics of what period of Beatles music has been my primary obsession; you can see the parameters of all that here. Today, suffice it to say that I love really early Beatles, and I love later Beatles. But 1964 through 1966--everything The Beatles recorded and released in that period--is simply nonpareil in my mind. And it starts with A Hard Day's Night.
Oh my moptopped God, the music of A Hard Day's Night is imbued with a gravity and innate hipness that creates a Fab forever after from the title tune's opening CHANG!! forward. That's not to slight the "She Loves You"s and "I Want To Hold Your Hand"s and "Please Please Me"s that led to that transcendent moment, nor the pre-Beatles wonder of everything from Chuck Berry to The Everly Brothers, girl groups, Beach Boys, Little Richard, Arthur Alexander, Buddy Holly, and every guitar, bass, drum, and/or whoop-de-doo that built this wide and wonderful world of rockin' pop. But...but...
...CHANG!! It's been a hard day's night, and I've been workin' like a dog....
There. That instant. Beatles, take us away.
While I've long realized the importance of A Hard Day's Night in my pop music story, I've been unforgivably slow to recognize the casual brilliance of "I'm Happy Just To Dance With You." I've described it as a pleasant throwaway--which it is--but one of pop's intrinsic gifts is its alchemic ability to make the (seemingly) disposable essential and unforgettable. This song's starry-eyed promise makes it easy to underestimate. Its unerring charm makes it impossible to ignore.
I'm happy just to dance with you. That's the beguiling dream that pop music provides. It's why we have records, and it's why we have records on the radio. The mania, the fervor and the abandon--that feeling is its own reward. Eyes closed. Hands held. Radio playing.
Dance with me.
DOLPH CHANEY: My Good Twin
East Coast kids like your intrepid Dana & Carl did not grow up listening to Rodney Bingenheimer on the radio. Nonetheless, I did know of Rodney via his column in Phonograph Record Magazine, which I absorbed with vigor when I was a 17-year-old high-school senior in 1977. I became aware of the importance of his weekly SoCal broadcast Rodney On The ROQ some time thereafter. To this day, I have never actually heard it; it currently airs on Sirius/XM's Underground Garage channel on Sunday nights, directly opposite This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio. I acknowledge the fact that, whatever it is we do on our own little mutant radio show, Rodney was pursuing a similar rockin' pop format before we got around to doing it. TIRnRR predates Underground Garage, and its host Little Steven owes us a beer or two; Rodney On The ROQ predates us all.
That said, we're kinda jazzed to realize that no less then four recent tracks that debuted on Rodney's show this week are tracks we've already been playing on TIRnRR: The Shang Hi Los' "Sway Little Player," The Gold Needles' "Billy Liar" and their cover of The Hollies' "Have You Ever Loved Somebody," and Dolph Chaney's "My Good Twin."
We're doing something right!
Yeah, first time for everything. Alert the media. We may have been the first show to recognize that "My Good Twin" is a natural-born radio hit. We're not the last. And Rodney Bingenheimer likewise knows a hit when he hears one.
THE GO-GO'S: Skidmarks On My Heart
One of my favorite albums of the 1980s, The Go-Go's' 1981 debut LP Beauty And The Beat is very nearly a perfect record. I confess I've never cared for the track "Automatic," but otherwise? Love at first spin. Aside from that one exception, every track on Beauty And The Beat is simply stellar, and it bugs me that the album (and the group!) remain so criminally underrated. I'm delighted that The Go-Go's have finally been nominated for induction into The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. They deserve to be honored.
The hit singles "We Got The Beat" and "Our Lips Are Sealed" are Beauty And The Beat's best-known songs. Their album-track sisters "This Town," "Can't Stop The World," "How Much More," "You Can't Walk In Your Sleep (If You Can't Sleep)," and "Fading Fast" all maintain a comparable level of sheer fantasticness, and the same can be said of "Skidmarks On My Heart." Underrated album, underrated band.
K7s: Strength To Endure
It's become increasingly clear that singer/songwriter/musician/debonair man about town Kurt Baker does not sleep. Like, not even a catnap or something. He always seems to have a zillion projects going on, including this new release on Kool Kat Musik. Recording with like-minded amigos under the nom du bop K7s, Baker and buds have assembled a song-by-song remake of The Ramones' 1992 album Mondo Bizarro. Baker summons his inner Joey Ramone for most of K7s' Mondo Bizarro covers. But "Strength To Endure" was originally sung by C. J. Ramone, so Luis Sanchez puts his poison heart and soul into that track, all to righteous effect. Don't know where Baker and his brudders get the strength to endure without ever resting, but whatever they're doing, it obviously works.
ANN PEEBLES: I Can't Stand The Rain
1973's "I Can't Stand The Rain" was the only Top 40 hit for soul singer Ann Peebles. My head was all but surgically attached to AM radio throughout the first half (and then some) of the '70s, so I must have heard it at the time. But I don't really remember it at all, nor do I have any recollection of where or when I ultimately got to know it. I was already familiar with it by the time The Burns Sisters made it a staple of their live act in the '90s, but hearing them perform the song cemented its appeal in my brain.
ELVIS PRESLEY: Kentucky Rain
From the time he burst into the national scene in the mid '50s until he left the building in 1977, Elvis Presley was as big a star as the world had ever seen. His impact was unparalleled. His levels of fame and fortune were beyond reproach, unquestioned. King Elvis I. It was a crown he had earned, a crown he would never need to surrender.
But he had strayed from the incendiary ways that had warranted his ascension. He was a star of stage and screen, sure, and an inspiration to rock 'n' roll groups that followed him. Even those long-haired British Invaders knew who was King. And yet...he had strayed nonetheless.
In the '60s, as sounds grew heavier, Elvis kept on keepin' on, making lightweight movies of no consequence, and providing an inoffensive soundtrack to match. This is an oversimplification, but it's also pretty much true. Just over a decade after "Heartbreak Hotel" notched Elvis's first # 1 pop hit in 1956, the King wasn't dead; he he had merely become old-fashioned. Establishment. Kids weren't listening to Elvis. Beatles fans, Rolling Stones fans, Jimi Hendrix fans, Motown fans, Otis Redding fans, Doors fans, rock and soul fans...few of them were listening to Elvis. Elvis was for people nearing thirty, or even older. And one couldn't trust anyone over thirty...could one?
In this cultural DMZ between mainstream success and artistic relevance, the King shrugged and reasserted his reign. The 1968 comeback TV special was amazing, a potent reminder of the pure and undeniable power of Elvis Presley. In 1969, the stunning single "Suspicious Minds" became Elvis's first # 1 hit since "Good Luck Charm" in 1962. Never count the King out. The King is out when the King says he's out.
"Kentucky Rain" followed in 1970, peaking at # 16, but arguably an even better record than "Suspicious Minds." Alas, the King chose to turn away from this path. Vegas beckoned. Show biz beckoned. The King moved his kingdom to those lucrative lands instead. The King had nothing to prove.
But man. Can you imagine what Elvis could have done if he had thought he did have something to prove? "Kentucky Rain" is lasting evidence that a King walked this earth. Long live the King.
THE RAMONES: Touring
Speaking of Mondo Bizarro: this track from that album has a history that well predates its release. "Touring" was written by Joey, and it was first recorded for The Ramones' 1981 album Pleasant Dreams. It was left off that album because it was deemed too similar to The Ramones' 1979 classic "Rock 'n' Roll High School," a charge which is both absolutely accurate and absolutely irrelevant. Grrr. I like Pleasant Dreams more than some do--Johnny Ramone himself dismissed it outright when I interviewed him for Goldmine in 1994, criticizing producer Graham Gouldman's slicker approach by saying, "The guy from 10cc producing The Ramones? 10cc sucks, and it's not right for Ramones"--but "Touring" would have been its best track if it had been included on the original LP.
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| To be fair, Gouldman also wrote some incredible songs for The Yardbirds, The Hollies, and Herman's Hermits. But that 10cc thing.... |
Instead, the song first saw daylight in a 1982 cover version by The Mystics, a group best known for the 1959 smash "Hushabye." Well...all right! Since The Mystics were structurally more suited to sing about girls rather than the fast-paced lifestyle of rock bands on tour, the song's title and lyrics were modified: "Touring, touring is never boring" became the titular "Doreen Is Never Boring." Ah, an interesting girl, that Doreen! I loved it.
But I woulda loved it more as a Ramones record. (And, um...I kinda agree with Johnny's disinterest in 10cc.) The '81 version of "Touring" was finally released on Rhino's expanded CD version of Pleasant Dreams in 2001. We played the Mondo Bizarro take on this week's show.
THE REDUCERS: Let's Go
The Rave On Records label recently released Live: New York City 2005, a way-fab document of a live set from Connecticut's Phenomenal Pop Combo The Reducers. We approve of this message. And it's all the motivation we need to spin us some live Reducers. "Let's Go" is the group's enduring classic; it's not their only great track--we owe ourselves a refresher course and a deeper dive into essential Reducers--but when given an opportunity to spin a classic, well, ya can't resist a classic. I had the good fortune to see The Reducers open for The Ramones at an outdoor show in Buffalo circa '85 or so, so I can give first-hand affirmation that the group kicks it live. Live: New York City 2005 proves The Reducers retain that ability into this shiny new century. Let's GO!!
STAR COLLECTOR: Rip It Off
All respect to a band that shares its name with a Monkees song. Venerable Vancouver pop combo Star Collector has been plyin' the ol' janglebuzz trade for a couple of decades, producing records that don't suggest an audible comparison to The Monkees but do sound quite cool on the radio. Star Collector's current album Game Day fills that bill, so...hey, whaddaya know? We played it on the radio!
It's what we do.
THE STYLISTICS: Betcha By Golly, Wow
A song on the radio. I was 12 years old in 1972, just over one year removed from an abrupt and difficult transition from grade school to middle school. Fourth grade was good; skipping fifth grade to lurch mug-first into sixth grade had been bad. Seventh grade may have been worse. But: songs on the radio. Thank God I had songs on the radio.
I had no particular affinity for The Stylistics. "Betcha By Golly, Wow" was just another song on the radio in seventh grade, playing in my bedroom on WOLF-AM and WNDR-AM, mingling with "Baby Blue" by Badfinger and "Lean On Me" by Bill Withers. It was a declaration of love; for me, it was just like all of the other songs my radio provided: the sound to chase away my own loneliness and longing, to fulfill my wish to fit in, my dreams of being...something.
And with someone.
Betcha by golly, wow.
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This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, and on the web at http://sparksyracuse.org/ You can read about our history here.
The many fine This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio compilation albums are still available, each full of that rockin' pop sound you crave. A portion of all sales benefit our perpetually cash-strapped community radio project:
Volume 1: download
Volume 2: CD or download
Volume 3: download
Volume 4: CD or download
Waterloo Sunset--Benefit For This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio: CD or download
Carl's writin' a book! The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1)will contain 165 essays about 165 tracks, 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). My weekly Greatest Record Ever Made! video rants can be seen in my GREM! YouTube playlist. And I'm on Twitter @CafarelliCarl
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