10 SONGS: 2/24/2022

10 Songs is a weekly list of ten songs that happen to be on my mind at the moment. The lists are usually dominated by songs played on the previous Sunday 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 # 1117.

WRECKLESS ERIC: Whole Wide World

A classic gets its due! Or at least a payday, we hope. Wreckless Eric's new wave pop perennial "Whole Wide World" (aka "[I'd Go The] Whole Wide World") was first released in 1977. I didn't hear it until at least '79, on a fantastic various-artists soundtrack LP called That Summer! But it was a fave rave for me from that point on.

And I just figured everyone knew the track. How could they not? I always presumed it was a British hit, though I'm told it didn't actually chart. Shoulda. The Monkees covered it in 1987, and I was surprised to discover that many Monkees fans thought it was written for Micky, Davy, and Peter (not Mike; Michael Nesmith did not participate in the reunited Monkees' 1980s recordings). Even as a proud Monkees fan, I say Wreckless Eric's original version remains definitive.

And we're delighted that the track got a little bit of exposure on this year's Super Bowl. The song appeared at the climax of an Expedia commercial aired during the big game, prompting Eric to note, "A song I wrote, a record I made...just aired to somewhere in the region of 150 million people. I'm thrilled to bits and not a little scared, and right now I'm just a dot in the universe."

And in 2022, that dot has gone the whole wide world. A hit? It is now. But I say it always was.

PAUL DAVIE: Grow Old With Me

Local musician and promoter Paul Davie--you know him, you love him, you can't have a BeatleCuse without him--has just released his first solo album, Half And Half. Writer John Tierney has already pounded the console on behalf of Paul's record, and we played its opening track "Kiss Me Softly" a few weeks back. Half And Half is a not-quite 50-50 split of four covers (of the Rolling Stones, the Pretenders, Leonard Cohen, and the Alan Parsons Project) and six Davie originals, with a lovely cover of John Lennon's "Grow Old With Me" serving as a closing bonus track. Our Paul gets by with a little help from his friends, and he enlists none other than Joey Molland of Badfinger to lend a little help on "Grow Old With Me." See, that's the sort of friend to have. And growing older doesn't mean we have to grow up.

DOLPH CHANEY: I Wanted You

Offered here as evidence that TIRnRR can play a Dolph Chaney song that isn't "My Good Twin." Like a dog with a bone, we often become fixated on a single song by a given artist, playing that Chosen One over 'n' over with the manic fervor of...y'know, us. From Dolph's album This Is Dolph Chaney, "My Good Twin" was TIRnRR's # 3 most-played track in 2021, surpassed in our breathless thrall only by Kid Gulliver's "Forget About Him" and Kelley Ryan's "The Church Of Laundry." Listen, man: obsession is its own reward. 

Nonetheless, we broadened our righteous myopia to play a different Dolph Chaney number this week. Like "My Good Twin," "I Wanted You" also comes from This Is Dolph Chaney, and is also great. Will this be the start of a new beautiful obsession? Ya never know with us. We never know with us.

THE FOUR TOPS: If I Were A Carpenter

We've touched on the appeal of repeating certain songs from week to week. The process of assembling selections for each TIRnRR playlist also generally involves Dana and I separately trying to think of some cool songs we've never played before. We like to have new stuff, of course, and we also like to dig out older tracks, searching for worthy sides from artists both obscure and familiar. I've always loved Tim Hardin's "If I Were A Carpenter" in performances by a few different artists (particularly the familiar hit by Bobby Darin). It's possible I'd heard the Four Tops' compelling performance of "If I Were A Carpenter" prior to February of 2022, but I stumbled across the track while looking for something else last week. Magic. The Four Tops' "If I Were A Carpenter" is now THE "If I Were A Carpenter" for me.

LED ZEPPELIN: Good Times Bad Times

Is TIRnRR the only avowedly rock 'n' roll radio show where a spin of Led Zeppelin can be viewed by listeners as a radical departure from the expected? Probably not. But while we've certainly played the occasional Zep track in the past, der Zeppenwülff is hardly a staple of whatever it is we do. I've written elsewhere of my love-hate (or really sorta like-don't give a damn) relationship with Led Zeppelin:

"I was never much of a Led Zeppelin fan; they were just there, everywhere, like inflation or TV sitcoms or halter tops, symptoms of my 1970s. (I was, incidentally, in favor of halter tops.) In the days of my youth, there were good Led Zep times, and there were bad Led Zep times. Sometimes I liked them, sometimes I didn't. And some times I thought there okay, but that I just really didn't need to hear them anymore. Good times, bad times, I know I had my share.

"It's not a band's fault when their music gets overplayed. I can't imagine ever getting sick of the Beatles, but I do sort of comprehend the feeling of those who hear 'Yeah Yeah Yeah!' and answer 'No! No! NO!!!' I don't have much affinity for most of the tracks favored by classic rock radio formats; I wonder if I would have retained a greater appreciation of the music of Led Zeppelin, the Doors, Pink Floyd, or later Rolling Stones (each of whom I do like to some degree) or even Lynyrd Skynrd or Eagles (whom I generally do not) if they were all obscurities I discovered in the vinyl underground, rather than ubiquitous fixtures on every stereo except mine."

For all that, Led Zeppelin's "Communication Breakout" is part of the blueprint for my long-threatened (and possibly stillborn) book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1), and a positive passing mention of "Good Times Bad Times" was part of my first attempt at rock journalism when I was 17. Even during the times when I didn't care much about Led Zeppelin, I thought "Good Times Bad Times" was a monster. In a good way.

WENDI DUNLAP: Season Of Loss

With this week's spin, Wendi Dunlap's irresistible "Season Of Loss" (from her album Looking For Buildings) is one of TIRnRR's most played tracks in 2022. Given that we're only eight shows into the year, that stat is meaningless in the long run. BUT! I really, really like this song, and you can bet on hearing it reprised in at least some of our upcoming shows. Obsession rewards itself again.

LINNEA'S GARDEN: Looking

The Red On Red Records label has been a reliable resource for new thrills and fresh kicks, and our Red On Red fascination has manifested in a mess o' airplay for Kid Gulliver, Justine and the Unclean, the Chelsea Curve, Andrea Gillis, Cold Expectations, and other stars of the Red On Red galaxy. 

Linnea's Garden is for damned sure a part of that galaxy, and new single "Looking" is a pumpin' li'l pressure cooker that somehow manages to gaze at its shoes while heading down the highway to the new wave dance spot across town. Look all you want. But get out of the damed way--Linnea's Garden is comin' through!

THE FLASHCUBES FEATURING SHOES: Tomorrow Night

It's a HIT! We like hits. Buy it here.

THE MONKEES: Nine Times Blue

My favorite version of Michael Nesmith's "Nine Times Blue" is an unfinished one, or rather one not properly recorded for commercial release. Before we talk about that, some history of "Nine Times Blue" is in order. It was first recorded (but originally unreleased) a few times under the Monkees aegis, including a version with Davy Jones singing lead, but none of these versions was made public until decades after the fact. One of those missing links Monkees renditions is what we played on this week's show.

The song's first appearance at retail was on The Wichita Train Whistle Sings, a 1968 LP of instrumentals produced by and credited to Nesmith. Nesmith later re-recorded and released "Nine Times Blue" on his 1970 album Michael Nesmith and the First National Band. More recently, Nesmith's prime mate Micky Dolenz included his own take of "Nine Times Blue" on the 2021 album Dolenz Sings Nesmith.

That's the basic history. My favorite "Nine Times Blue" is a 1969 TV appearance by the Monkees, Micky, Davy, and Michael (not Peter; Peter Tork had left the Monkees by then). The Monkees Three were guests on The Johnny Cash Show, their spot introduced by the Man in Black hisself singing a snippet of the made-for-TV combo's first hit "Last Train To Clarksville" before ceding the spotlight to the Monkees themselves. Our heroes did some schtick about how old and moldy that 1966 song was in the far-future era of 1969, and how it would be better for them to perform something new instead: "Nine Times Blue."

They introduced the unnamed (and still then-unreleased) song as something from their new album; maybe they thought it was. Whatever they thought is eclipsed by what they did, which was a stunning, simple, and breathtaking live performance of "Nine Times Blue," just the three of them, Nesmith on acoustic guitar and lead vocal, Dolenz and Jones providing exquisite harmonies. After the song was done, Cash joined them for more schtick, and a collective run-through of Cash's novelty number "Everybody Loves A Nut."

But...dang, that song, that performance. "Nine Times Blue." Gooseflesh. Whenever some nimrods try to demonstrate their own chuckleheaded cluelessness and insist that the Monkees didn't have talent, you should place said nimrods in front of YouTube to watch this video that proves them wrong, baby, wrong. Man, get me the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on the phone. NOW!!

I wish this version of "Nine Times Blue," this arrangement, had been given a proper studio treatment. Michael, Micky, and Davy, their voices, Michael's acoustic guitar, nothing else. But it was just a TV gig. It should have been on a then-new Monkees album in 1969. 

And it should have been a hit.

THE BANDWAGON: On The Day We Fall In Love

And just to prove that I don't love everything the Monkees did, lemme tell ya that the 1967 More Of The Monkees LP track "The Day We Fall In Love" is all YUCK! all the time. Hey, if you like it, well, dig what you dig, always dig what you dig. I can't stand it. Its sickly-sweet morass isn't even real sugary syrup; it reminds me of what happened on an episode of the Batman TV show, when the Joker turned Gotham City's water supply into strawberry jelly. Taste-testing the Clown Prince of Crown's sinister handiwork, Robin the Boy Wonder declared, "It looks like strawberry jelly! But it tastes like strawberry axle grease!"

The Monkees' "The Day We Fall In Love" is like the Joker's strawberry axle grease. Except not as good.

A year later, the wonderful, underrated soul group the Bandwagon (aka Johnny Johnson and the Bandwagon) executed the unlikely alchemy of remaking the song into something shiny and gold. Eschewing the smarmy teen puppy-love pandering of the original, the Bandwagon's slightly retitled "On The Day We Fall In Love" is chirpy and still a bit juvenile, but far less cloying and much, much more satisfying. To paraphrase the four kings of EMI: the Bandwagon took a bad song and made it better. It served as a B-side to the Bandwagon's non-hit "Baby Make Your Own Sweet Music." Syrup need not apply.

Mind you: I still believe the Monkees should be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I'm not holding "The Day We Fall In Love" against them. But I tell ya, Johnny Johnson and his Bandwagon clearly did the better version here.

Your mileage may vary. Your mechanic should not recommend the use of strawberry axle grease.

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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.

I'm on Twitter @CafarelliCarl