This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio # 1258: BREAK THE GLASS! (This ceiling won't just shatter itself)

Woman. Hear her roar.

We all have some work to do. Break the glass! This goddamned ceiling won't just shatter itself.

Vote. In numbers too big to ignore.

VOTE.

This is what rock 'n' roll radio sounded like on another Sunday night in Syracuse, as we pray we're on the edge of making history.

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 all about this show's long and weird history here: Boppin' The Whole Friggin' Planet (The History Of THIS IS ROCK 'N' ROLL RADIO). 

TAX DEDUCTIBLE DONATIONS are always welcome.

TIRnRR # 1258: 11/3/2024

BREAK THE GLASS!

MARTI JONES: I Love The Sound Of Breaking Glass (Sugar Hill, My Long Haired Life)

AIMEE MANN: Superball (DGC, I'm With Stupid)

THE BURNS SISTERS: I Am A Patriot (Philo, Close To Home)

AMY RIGBY: Too Old To Be So Crazy (Tapete, Hang In There With Me)

HOLLY AND THE ITALIANS: Youth Coup (Wounded Bird, The Right To Be Italian)

BLONDIE: Sunday Girl (Chrysalis, The Platinum Collection)

--

SLYBOOTS: If We Could Let Go (single)

BLUE ANGEL: Take A Chance (Hip-O Select, Blue Angel)

PATTI ROTHBERG: Dish It Out (Double On Tundra, Candelabra Cadabra)

boygenius: Leonard Cohen (Interscope, The Record)

THELMA HOUSTON: Jumpin' Jack Flash (Motown, Best Of Thelma Houston)

MERRY CLAYTON: Gimme Shelter (Columbia, VA: 20 Feet From Stardom OST)

--

BIG MAMA THORNTON: Hound Dog (Ace, The Original Hound Dog)

CINDY LEE BERRYHILL: Ballad Of A Garage Band (Rhino, Who's Gonna Save The World?)

THE PANDORAS: It's About Time (Voxx, It's About Time)

CARLENE CARTER: Love Is A 4-Letter Verb (Demon, Musical Shapes/Blue Nun)

MARYKATE O'NEIL: I'm Ready For My Luck To Turn Around (n/a, 1-800-Bankrupt)

CYNDI LAUPER: She Bop (Portrait, She's So Unusual)

--

sparkle*jets u.k.: Make Something Happen (REDACTED)

TRACEY ULLMAN: Breakaway (Rhino, You Broke My Heart In 17 Places: The Best Of Tracey Ullman)

KID GULLIVER: Forget About Him (Kool Kat Musik, VA: This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 5)

DAR WILLIAMS: It's Alright (Razor & Tie, Many Great Companions)

THE CYNZ: Woman Child (Jem, single)

DARLENE LOVE: River Deep, Mountain High (Real Gone Music, The Many Sides Of Love)

--

BETH PEABODY: Don't Play (single)

THE ANGELS: My Boyfriend's Back (Mercury, VA: Growin' Up Too Fast: The Girl Group Anthology)

ANNY CELSI: Empty Hangers (Ragazza, Little Black Dress & Other Stories)

LITTLE EVA: The Loco-Motion (Collectables, VA: Great Ladies Of Rock & Roll: The 60s)

THE GRACES: Lay Down Your Arms (A & M, Perfect View)

JANE WIEDLIN: World On Fire (EMI, Tangled)

--

JOAN ARMATRADING: Eating The Bear (A & M, Walk Under Ladders)

JOSIE COTTON: Sheena Is A Punk Rocker (Cleopatra, Everything Is Oh Yeah)

BIG HELLO: Today Will Be Yesterday Tomorrow (Parasol, Apple Album)

LAURA NYRO: California Shoeshine Boys (Columbia, The First Songs)

SUSAN COWSILL: River Of Love (Threadhead, Lighthouse)

LAURIE AND THE SIGHS: Face To Face (Wounded Bird, Laurie and the Sighs)

--

The Greatest Record Ever Made!

HAYLEY MARY: Like A Woman Should (I Oh You, The Piss, The Perfume)

LETTERS TO CLEO: Cruel To Be Kind (Big Beat, VA: Girls Go Power Pop!)

THE ARMOIRES: We Absolutely Mean It (Big Stir, Octoberland)

LUCINDA WILLIAMS: I Just Wanted To See You So Bad (Rough trade, Lucinda Williams)

ARETHA FRANKLIN: Respect (Atlantic, The Atlantic Singles Collection 1967-1970)

PATTI SMITH: Because The Night (Arista, Land [1975-2002])

--

CARLA OLSON AND TALL POPPY SYNDROME: Is It True (Tres Melo Musique, single)

THE GREAT SOCIETY: Someone To Love (Sundazed, Born To Be Burned)

IN DEED: Peace & Quiet (Kool Kat Musik, VA: This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 5)

THE MUFFS: That's For Me (Omnivore, No Holiday)

TAMMY AND THE LORDS OF MISRULE: Kind Of Girl (Her Highness Porcupinus, King Maker)

NORMA TANEGA: Walkin' My Cat Named Dog (Real Gone Music, Walkin' My Cat Named Dog)

--

THE GO-GO'S: We Got The Beat (IRS, Beauty And The Beat)

THE STONE PONEYS: Different Drum (Rhino, LINDA RONSTADT: Greatest Hits I & II)

LULU: To Sir, With Love [museum outings montage] (Retroactive, VA: To Sir, With Love OST)

JUNIPER: Baby Doll (Confidential Recordings, She Steals Candy)

JOAN JETT AND THE BLACKHEARTS: Light Of Day (Blackheart, Flashback)

SKEETER DAVIS: I Can't Stay Mad At You (Real Gone Music, VA: Honeybeat: Groovy 60s Girl-Pop)

THE BANGLES: Hero Takes A Fall (Columbia, All Over The Place)

LESLEY GORE: You Don't Own Me (Mercury, It's My Party: The Mercury Anthology)

--

FIRST AID KIT: America (Columbia, America)

LINDA RONSTADT: Rivers Of Babylon (Asylum, Hasten Down The Wind)

Tonight on THIS IS ROCK 'N' ROLL RADIO

She rises. She steps to the mic. She sings. We listen. Sunday night, 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, https://sparksyracuse.org/, streaming on the Radio Garden app as WESTCOTT RADIO. The weekend stops HERE!

THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE! Hayley Mary, "Like A Woman Should"

This is not part of my book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1), but it seems a likely candidate for the hypothetical Volume 2.

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!

HAYLEY MARY: Like A Woman Should

Written by Hayley McGlone and John Took

Produced by Scott Horscroft

Single, I Oh You, 2020

What should a woman do? If that's not a loaded question, it is at least rhetorical. This song doesn't ask that question. It merely answers it.

Australian singer Hayley Mary was a member of the Jezabels, an indie group from Sydney that (per Wikipedia) released three albums and a stack of singles from 2009-2017. The group hit the pause button in '17, and Mary embarked on a solo career. Her first single was "The Piss, The Perfume" in 2019. 

Her third single was "Like A Woman Should." If ever a song could be described as a defiant shrug, "Like A Woman Should" would be that song. Its lyrics are...well, maybe not quite wistful, but fueled by a longing for something better.

Specifically: It longs for something better for women. Specifically, the singer wishes she could be born in the future, to see her daughters born in a world where they could walk the street safely. Like a woman should. And not like the world we live in now.

Yet it's not a dark song. Mary plants her feet and delivers a confident performance, a hopeful performance, a commanding performance that takes back the night, if only for the four minutes of its spin time. Empowerment for the 21st century? I suppose it is, even though I keep dreaming we're past the need for such empowerment. Sadly, we are not past the need. We don't even seem to be close.

But what should a woman do? What can a woman do? What can a woman be? There is only one acceptable answer:

Anything she wants. 

Butcher, baker, candlestick maker. Doctor, lawyer, district attorney. Senator. Vice-President. President. She should for damned sure be able to walk without fear, right now, and then forever after in the future.

I'm gonna screw up the quote, but I believe Syracuse's own Karen DeCrow once defined feminism as the radical idea that a woman is a person, an individual. For too many, that simple truth remains a dangerously subversive notion. The naysayers are on the wrong side of history...but the future ain't quite here yet. 

For now, we're left with a determination to make that future happen faster. Hayley Mary models her own determination with a defiant shrug, and with a compelling song that inspires belief. "Like A Woman Should" is a pop record, not a polemic. It offers hooks and beauty, stirring melody, and the palpable thrill of something irresistible we can all sing together. 

As we should. Fists raised, ballots cast, eyes fixed on the prize. We're not going back.

If you like what you see here on Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do), please consider a visit to CC's Tip Jar. 

My new book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) is now available, and you can order an autographed copy here. You can still get my previous book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones from publisher Rare Bird Books, OR an autographed copy here. If you like the books, please consider leaving a rating and/or review at the usual online resources.

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.

10 SONGS: 11/1/2024

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 # 1257.

LIBRARIANS WITH HICKEYS: Listening

We've been looking forward to the new Librarians With Hickeys album How To Make Friends By Telephone since...yeah, since their last album, 2022's Handclaps & Tambourines. The 2022 record gave us two full-on TIRnRR Fave Raves with "I Better Get Home" and "Can't Wait 'Till Summer," and the teaser singles from How To Make Friends By Telephone ("Hello Operator" and "No More Goodbyes") have likewise brightened our airwaves and compelled our volume controls to reach for magnetic North. We are indeed listening. 

And we like what we hear.

THE CYNZ: Woman Child

With this week's spin, "Woman Child" by the Cynz has scored its fourth consecutive appearance on the TIRnRR playlist. It will notch Week # 5 this Sunday. More to come. Let us be your "Woman Child" resource.

CARLA OLSON AND TALL POPPY SYNDROME: Is It True

With this week's spin, Carla Olson and Tall Poppy Syndrome's supergroovy cover of Brenda Lee's irresistible "Is It True" has scored its fourth consecutive appearance on the TIRnRR playlist. It will notch Week # 5 this Sunday. More to come? That's probably true. The Cynz, Carla Olson and Tall Poppy Syndrome, and all of the stars of our little Play-Tone galaxy. We play the hits.

SPANKY AND OUR GANG: Sunday Will Never Be The Same

It's hard to believe, but Spanky and Our Gang didn't make their TIRnRR debut until...wait, is this right? Last week?!  We've been running this rock 'n' roll radio dog and pony show since the end of 1998, which means it took us almost twenty-six years to get around to programming Spanky and Our Gang. It's a damned good thing we have tenure.

Now, the merry Spanksters notch up two weeks in a row on this little mutant radio show. Up and coming band! After spinning the group's cover of the Beatles' "And Your Bird Can Sing" last week, we move to one of their own hits this week: "Sunday Will Never Be The Same." I do remember playing the track on our old early '90s show We're You're Friends For Now (the precursor of whatever the hell it is we do on TIRnRR), and I woulda swore we played it here as well...

...but I woulda been wrong. Now we have played it on This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio. Better late than never! Sundays will chart their own independent path from here on out.

THE BINGS: Don't Stop Dancing

I am constantly amazed to discover great decades-old rockin' pop music I never knew about. The Bings are a case in point. I first heard of the Bings when the group's singer and guitarist David Chrenko left this comment on my exhaustive history of power pop:

"Excellent article. Greg Shaw would be proud. I was a staff member of Bomp! Records and Bomp! magazine in the late '70s. The Hollywood scene of which Bomp! was a mover 'n' shaker was not unlike Liverpool in 1962-64. I took all I'd learned from Greg and Suzy Shaw and in 1980 formed the Bings. We took the best music of the club scenes in London, New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles and combined it with our own originals (what is now known as Power Pop) and unleashed it on the Southern California suburbs. In March 2024 Bachelor Records released a vinyl album of our studio and live recordings, which is getting airplay in America, Canada, Europe, Scandinavia, and Asia - 40 years after the Bings packed it in! ...Hope you can still POGO to it!"

The album is called Power Pop Planet (The Lost Tapes), and man, where has this record been all my life? Any record you ain't heard is a new record, and I'm dead chuffed to hear this now. Power Pop Planet has TIRnRR written all over it. Channeling my inner Bruce Brodeen: EXTREMELY highly recommended!

THE COWSILLS: She Said To Me

My favorite album of the 1990s remains the Cowsills' wonderful 1998 release Global. The record never got anywhere near the acclaim it deserves, and it's been difficult (and pricey) for those who missed it at the time to catch up with what they missed. I'm delighted that Omnivore Recordings will be remedying that situation in one week, with a deluxe reissue of Global due out on November 8th. If you're a rockin' pop fan, you've gotta get this. I've had (and loved!) the CD for decades, but I'm buying the reissue for its bonus tracks, and because I like buying Cowsills albums. A world with more Cowsills albums is a better world. (And I would very much like to see the Cowsills record a new album with Christian Nesmith producing; that would be a match made in Heaven.)

The Global track "She Said To Me" has been a frequent fixture on TIRnRR playlists, and the group allowed us to use the song on our 2006 compilation CD This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 2. My book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) includes a chapter about "She Said To Me." I've heard that Bob Cowsill was tickled that "She Said To Me" was given the GREM! treatment, but man, this song absolutely deserves it. Global: My favorite album of the 1990s. And "She Said To Me" is a large part of the reason why that's so.

THE ARCHIES: Get On The Line

The Greatest Record Ever Made!

And I most certainly did get on the line: I voted

THE RAMONES: I Wanna Be Sedated

Given my anxiety about the election, yeah, sedation sounds GREAT, thanks

THE MONKEES: Terrifying

Will there ever be a deluxe edition of Good Times!, the superb 2016 album by the Monkees? The original album (subject of the only record review I've written since deciding I didn't want to write those things anymore) was accompanied by four scattered bonus tracks which have never been available in one package. "A Better World" was only issued on the FYE-exclusive version of Good Times!, "Love's What I Want" was on the Japanese release, and "Terrifying" and "Me & Magdalena [Version 2]" were digital-only. The four tracks were gathered on a Record Store Day vinyl edition, but have not yet appeared together as part of any legit issue of Good Times! "Love's What I Want" and "A Better World" aren't even available for streaming.

I don't buy or play vinyl. I have a CD-R of the whole thing, but I really want an official CD release that presents the entirety of the Good Times! experience, perhaps adding unreleased bonus material if any such thing exists.

Note to Rhino Records: Take my money, awready.

LESLEY GORE: You Don't Own Me

A sneak peek at our next show. Enough with chipping away at the glass ceiling. Let's breach that sucker.

Let's breach that sucker now. We're not going back.

If you like what you see here on Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do), please consider a visit to CC's Tip Jar. 

My new book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) is now available, and you can order an autographed copy here. You can still get my previous book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones from publisher Rare Bird Books, OR an autographed copy here. If you like the books, please consider leaving a rating and/or review at the usual online resources.

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.