THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE! The Bay City Rollers, "Yesterday's Hero"

 Drawn from previous posts, this is not part of my book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1).

An infinite number of tracks can each be THE greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns. Today, this is THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE!

THE BAY CITY ROLLERS: Yesterday's Hero

Written by Harry Vanda and George Young

Produced by Jimmy Ienner

Single, Arista Records, 1976

Musician Binky Philips has written a number of fascinating recollections of his life in and around music. His autobiography My Life In The Ghost Of Planets: The Story Of A CBGB Almost-Was is an essential read, and each of his many other scattered pieces showcases his ability to tell a story and put you at the scene of rock 'n' roll as it happened. 

One of my favorite Binky Philips stories is his account of seeing the Bay City Rollers in 1977. Binky went to the concert with the intent of snickering at this teen-hype boy band; to his surprise, the minute the Rollers began to play, Binky turned to his buddy as they both said, They're GOOD!

And they were. The Bay City Rollers were way, way better than a fresh-faced combo of poster boys had to be. I like them a lot; I've never had any use for their ballads and teen-dream goop, but when they wanted to rock, they could indeed rock. You don't like them? Not my problem. As I wrote recently in a different context: "In the real world, there is perhaps no greater super power than the ability to shrug off the disapproval of others. Dig what you dig. Love who you love. Be who you want to be, not whatever some gray THEY want you to be. Don’t give a damn about your reputation.”

As a college student in the late '70s, lost in a sea of Southern rockers and Deadheads trying to dictate my taste to me, I put a Bay City Rollers poster on the wall of my dorm suite as an act of defiance. In my room, on my walls, the Bay City Rollers joined the Beatles, the Runaways, the Sex Pistols, KISS, the Flashcubes, Suzi Quatro, the Heartbreakers, the Beach Boys, Louise Goffin, and many other graven rockin' pop images (as well as Suzanne Somers and various Playboy centerfolds) as my chosen tokens and talismans. What I liked, not what outsiders told me to like. Get thee behind me, Jerry Garcia.

We want the Rollers! We want the Rollers!

Released late in 1976, the Bay City Rollers' single of "Yesterday's Hero" did not match the American chart success of "Saturday Night," "Money Honey," "Rock And Roll Love Letter," or "I Only Want To Be With You," missing the Top 40 and peaking at a mere # 54 in Billboard. Nonetheless, I'd rate "Yesterday's Hero" with "Rock And Roll Love Letter" and an LP track called "Wouldn't You Like It" as the best of the Bay City Rollers, vibrant proof that the Tartan-clad poster boys were capable of transcending their teenybop image and delivering genuine, exciting power pop. 

In '76 and early '77, I wasn't aware of the phrase "power pop," which had been coined by the Who's Pete Townshend in the '60s but was not yet a part of the everyday rock 'n' roll lexicon. I heard "Yesterday's Hero" on WOLF-AM in Syracuse, and I loved it. 

I was in a transitional period, just starting to transfer my allegiance from AM Top 40 to the wider rock 'n' roll vistas of album-rock WOUR-FM, and about a year away from discovering the transcendence of the Ramones. I didn't know "Yesterday's Hero" was a cover of an Australian hit by John Paul Young, and I didn't know that the song's authors George Young and Harry Vanda had been members of 1960s Australian pop gods the Easybeats, nor that they had written the Easybeats' signature hit "Friday On My Mind." In fact, I didn't know the Easybeats or "Friday On My Mind" at all; that knowledge would come later. I just knew there was a song on the radio that absolutely deserved to be on the radio, but that it disappeared from radio almost immediately. 

I was a senior in high school. Boys weren't supposed to like the Bay City Rollers, and I don't think that girls my age were much interested in the Rollers by that point; although the group would bounce back with two big hits in '77 ("You Made Me Believe In Magic" and "The Way I Feel Tonight"), they were themselves about to become yesterday's heroes.





We don't wanna be yesterday's hero.

Not me. Not yet. As I turned 17 in January of '77, I was already tired of people trying to tell me what I could or couldn't, should or shouldn't. Piss off. Whether it was superhero comics or oldies records, pulp paperbacks or (soon thereafter) punk, the Monkees or the Marx Brothers, Marilyn Chambers or Suzi Quatro, if I was into something, the matter wasn't up for debate. Dig what you dig. AM and FM influences would merge and converge. Catchy singles. Deeper cuts. Varying styles. Folk. Prog. Bubblegum. Metal. Soul. Punk. 

And power pop. We don't wanna be yesterday's hero. Haven't I seen your face before? We want the airwaves. We want the Rollers. When we walk down the street, tomorrow's gonna take yesterday along for the ride. 

It had better. If it knows what's good for it.

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My new book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) is now available; you can see details here. My 2023 book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones is also still available, courtesy of the good folks at Rare Bird Books. 

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, streaming at SPARK stream and on the Radio Garden app as WESTCOTT RADIO. Recent shows are archived at Westcott Radio. You can read about our history here.