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 # 1127.
THE BABLERS: You Are The One For Me
England's phenomenal pop combo the Bablers commence a new series of digital singles for the mighty Big Stir Records with "You Are The One For Me." You remember in That Thing You Do! when Mr. White tells teen sensations the Wonders that their single is snappy? "You Are The One For Me" is snappy, and it just so happens that I want something snappy. And I just happen to co-host a radio show built of all things snappy. Maximum snappiosity. We look forward to future snaps from the lads.
RONNIE SPECTOR: Something's Gonna Happen
The late, great Ronnie Spector recorded a handful of collaborations with Marshall Crenshaw about thirty years ago. They recorded five Crenshaw songs together in the late '80s or early '90s, though the public didn't get to hear them until 2003. I wasn't even aware of these until after our dear Ms. Spector passed in January. But this is just fantastic stuff, and we are poorer for not having the opportunity to experience them when they were new. And the record industry is a big moronhead for not embracing the project and demanding an extended Spector-Crenshaw team-up.
As is: working with Marshall Crenshaw, Ronnie Spector accomplished a minor miracle. Her renditions of Crenshaw's songs are even better than his already-incredible original versions, and they're on a par with the best recordings she ever made. The Ronettes' "Be My Baby." Ronnie Spector and the E Street Band's "Say Goodbye To Hollywood." Ronnie and Marshall's "Something's Gonna Happen." Pretty good company to keep. It's happening, all right.
LUCINDA WILLIAMS: Passionate Kisses
I think "Passionate Kisses" is probably best-known via Mary-Chapin Carpenter's 1992 cover. Carpenter does a very nice reading, but my heart belongs to Lucinda Williams' 1988 original. I first heard it in a mix tape compiled by my friend Andrea Ullman, part of a flurry of cassette exchanges I had in the late '80s/very early '90s with her and with her future husband Greg Ogarrio. Ah, the mix tapes of our lives!
THE WALKER BRIGADE: Shake Shimmy
The above-mentioned Andrea Ogarrio was a member of the SoCal pop band the Bunny Rabbits, and Andrea and her fellow lepus janglus comrades co-wrote an ace 'n' angry pop tune called "Fallout." The Walker Brigade covered "Fallout" as a Big Stir single in 2020, and that same track now serves as the opening salvo on the Walker Brigade's new album If Only. We'll be playing the Walker Brigade's "Fallout" again on a very near-future show.
But this week, we felt we oughtta pound the console on behalf of If Only's release by spinning something we ain't played before. That honor fell to this boppin' li'l number "Shake Shimmy," which we will also be playing again on a very near-future show. The way we Walker is just the way we...never mind.
SCOTTY GRAND, JACOB YOFFEE, AND ROAHNE HYLTON: All I Know (The Wonder Years Theme)
In writing my long-threatened book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1), the many entries I completed but then removed from the book's Table of Contents include three songs associated with TV series: the Dandy Warhols' "We Used To Be Friends" (a track known by many--me included--as the theme song for Veronica Mars), "The Batman Theme" by Nelson Riddle, and "The Green Hornet Theme" by Al Hirt. As a more recent TV theme song (from ABC's current reboot of The Wonder Years) makes its way to the TIRnRR playlist, these paragraphs from the Nelson Riddle chapter seem relevant:
"I grew up in a time when TV theme songs routinely entered the public consciousness. The catchy ditties that opened shows like Gilligan's Island, F Troop, The Beverly Hillbillies, The Patty Duke Show, and Car 54, Where Are You? weren't hit records in the usual sense, but within our shared pop culture they were nonetheless as big as any 45 spinning on the radio.
"Many theme songs were sufficiently hook-laden to prompt release as a single, sometimes by the original artist and sometimes in cover versions, and sometimes to chart success. The Cowsills' swell cover of 'Love American Style' wasn't a hit, but it should have been, and it remains a staple of their live act. The Ventures, Perry Como, Henry Mancini, and Johnny Rivers all made the Top 40 with their respective renditions of themes from Hawaii Five-0, Here Come The Brides, Peter Gunn, and Secret Agent Man. Television tunes continued to maintain a radio presence throughout the '70s and '80s. In June of 1995, the Rembrandts' 'I'll Be There For You,' the theme from the NBC sitcom Friends, was the # 1 song on radio the week my daughter was born. I thought that was appropriate, and pretty cool...."THE MONKEES: Terrifying
This week's show marked the sixth anniversary to the day of our first spin of "She Makes Me Laugh," the first advance single from the Monkees' 2016 album Good Times! The album was one of the highlights of a miserable year. And one of its best individual tracks was "Terrifying," a digital bonus track that has still not been issued on CD, nor in any physical form outside of limited-edition vinyl. The situation remains terrifying.
GLADYS KNIGHT AND THE PIPS: Midnight Train To Georgia
The Greatest Record Ever Made!
DAVE COPE AND THE SASS: Julee
Don't ever let anyone get away with trying to tell you there's no worthy new music. That's nonsense. Maybe the good new stuff doesn't reach your ears as effortlessly as it did when you were younger. But it's out there, and it's worth the effort to find it. Every week on TIRnRR, Dana and I try to do our part to mix the great new stuff with the great familiar stuff. Right now is always the best-ever time to be a fan of rockin' pop music.
"Julee," the title tune from a 2022 Kool Kat Musik release by Dave Cope and the Sass, is my favorite new track of this year so far. That's saying something, because as crappy as the year has been in general terms, there's been a rush of fabulous new music, courtesy of Kool Kat, Big Stir, Red On Red, Jem, Rum Bar, and so many others. In my head, "Julee" conjures a million different influences I can't quite isolate or identify; I hear some kind of mid/late '60s British vibe, which may be imaginary, but I don't care. Can't play this one enough.
BARBRA STREISAND: Stoney End
I do believe this is the first time we've ever played Barbra Streisand on TIRnRR. I didn't check with our intrepid stats man Fritz Van Leaven, and it wouldn't shock me if I turned out to be wrong about this, but I'm pretty sure about it. I loved the Funny Girl soundtrack LP when I was a kid, but neither it nor most of Streisand's pop hits are the sort of thing I'm terribly likely to play nowadays, either for myself or for others. I mean, my top Streisand moment is her co-starring role in the 1972 comedy What's Up, Doc?, a non-musical flick that is absolutely one of my all-time favorite films.
Streisand's 1970 Top Ten hit "Stoney End" popped into my head last week. I have no idea how or why it got there, but as I sang along silently (or not) with its virtual spin in my pop-obsessed brain, I knew we needed to include it in the ol' playlist. Dana has certainly played the song's author Laura Nyro on occasion, and I think we may have played Nyro's own version of "Stoney End"...maybe? I dunno. It's a fabulous tune in either incarnation. And it's ALL pop music. Yesterday I learned that June Millington of Fanny played on Streisand’s recording. That makes it even cooler, I say.
CAROLYNE MAS: In The Rain
Great, great, great track by Carolyne Mas. It's out of print. For now.
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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
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