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 # 1322
SLYBOOTS: If We Could Let Go
Much of this week's show was programmed in anger, and in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Minneapolis. We opened with Slyboots' "If We Could Let Go," a gorgeous, life-affirming declaration of gaze fixed forward in the face of life's casual (and institutionalized) cruelty. It's become one of my favorite songs, and it was the only song I considered for this week's first spin. In September, I posted a Greatest Record Ever Made! appreciation of the track. As we kick off our own statement of dissent and resolution, I'm going to quote that piece in its entirety:
"If We Could Let Go." I'm trying. Honest, I'm trying.
Slyboots are a great, great group from New York, and they're deserving of much wider notoriety. Their 2024 single "If We Could Let Go" is heartbreaking in all the best ways, a song full of hope and ache, empowered with an awareness of how far we fall short in pursuit of peace, love, and understanding, and driven by determination to overcome that gap and collectively become the better people a burning world needs us to be. Not merely my favorite track from last year; it's a legit contender for my all-time Hot 100.
The song's title offers a path forward in troubled times, even if it's a path I'm not sure I'm ready to take. Yet. As close to throwing a gauntlet as an earnest plea for peace can be, the songwriting for "If We Could Let Go" is credited to the group. Lead singer Tiffany Lyons imbues the lyrics with an implied weariness bolstered by strength of passion and clarity of purpose. Guitarist KG Noble, bassist Margaret LaBombard, drummer Ted Marcus, and keyboardist Gregorio Lozano surround Lyons with bounce and determination, a steel-willed grace battalion buoyed by angelic backing vocals courtesy of Noble and Lozano.
As we sing along, and as we ponder the salvation in letting go of prejudice and distrust, there are things we should not relinquish. Hold fast to belief in something better. Hold each other up. Hold on. Stand and hold on. Draw strength from our passions, our delights, our embrace of art and family and community. Take comfort in what we love, and commit to fight on behalf of what we love. Pray and work for a future better than today. One foot in front of the other.
How can one hold on to hope in hopeless times? I guess the best we can do is keep pushing forward. Music turned up louder than our doubts. Hands held or raised as we see fit. Eyes on...well, if not on the prize, at least on our next step in the direction of the prize. We may feel like we'll never arrive, and that fear may prove correct.
But let go of that fear. There are so many reasons to lose heart, to lose focus, to lose our way in the darkness all around us. There are so many reasons to just give up. With "If We Could Let Go," Slyboots gently--firmly--urge us to let go of the darkness that surrounds us.
Let go of the hate. Let go of the hurt. If we could let go. Let go of the if. We can. We will. Slyboots make their case. Let's go, Slyboots.
THE RAMONES: I Believe In Miracles
It would be impossible to overstate the importance of music in my life. From listening to my Aunt Anna's Chubby Checker 45 in the early '60s through co-hosting a little mutant radio show six decades later, music has moved me, inspired me, and built me. With the possible (probable) exception of the Beatles, no musical act has had more pervasive and prevailing impact upon me than the American Beatles, the greatest American rock 'n' roll band of all time, the Ramones. And not even the Beatles can annex and fortify my sovereign POV to the sublime extent that the Ramones can. It's true in good times. It's equally true in times like these. Gabba Gabba, man. Gabba Gabba.
From a previous post:
In times of trouble, when we find ourselves caught at the crossroads of moral quandary and indecision, we must always ask ourselves one question:
What would the Ramones do?
I doubt many people think of the Ramones as avatars of hope. Maybe they shouldn't...but maybe they should? If ever there was a band that persevered, endured, and just kept on doing, popular resistance be damned, it was the Ramones. They were a cult act. They became legitimate pop culture icons, through sheer force of will. A miracle, indeed.
The song "I Believe In Miracles" came late in the Ramones' career. 1989. It was a mere seven years before their final concert, a good fifteen years after the Bowery birthed them; thirteen years after their debut album, eleven years after their final Hot 100 single, nine years since the last Ramones album to (barely) breach the upper 50 in Billboard's LP chart. They had continued to make records. Sales--modest to begin with--diminished further. There were no miracles in their foreseeable future.
The determinedly uplifting lyrics of "I Believe In Miracles" were written by Dee Dee Ramone, and they offer a stunning affirmation of faith in the face of dismally long odds. The song was on Brain Drain, an album which also contained "Pet Sematary," the title tune from a then-new film based on Stephen King's novel of the same name. I even heard "Pet Sematary" on commercial radio once or twice--there's your miracle!--so maybe a belief in better fortune wasn't entirely groundless.
Just, y'know, mostly groundless. "Pet Sematary" did well (# 4) on the Modern Rock Tracks chart, but never troubled the Hot 100. Brain Drain peaked at # 122. It was the Ramones' final studio album for Sire Records. And it was Dee Dee's last record as a Ramone.
Dee Dee's abrupt departure from the brudderhood was startling, and his decision to jump ship seemed to stand in contrast to the resolute dedication implied by what he wrote in "I Believe In Miracles." Perhaps sometimes a song is just a song.
And perhaps sometimes--most times?--a song can be more than just...well, just anything. I used to be on an endless run, believed in miracles 'cause I'm one. Our art is a lifeline to our aspirations, a potential guidebook to what we want to be, what we could be. If reality falls short of our intentions, that failing doesn't negate the audacity to hope, nor indicate that we should deny ourselves the opportunity to rise: we have been blessed with the power to survive, after all these years of being alive.
One could have expected Dee Dee's exit, his act of packing up and taking his miracles home, to signal the Ramones' death knell. One woulda been wrong. A young bassist dubbed C. J. Ramone joined Joey, Johnny, and Marky in the final leather-clad incarnation of this Gabba-Gabba heyday. C. J. is in the video for "I Believe In Miracles." The Ramones kept on going. That's what the Ramones did, always. Their three post-Dee Dee studio albums in the '90s carried flashes of brilliance. And Dee Dee, bless 'im, continued to write songs for his former group.
That wasn't a miracle. That was family. The few, the proud. Semper Fi.
Should we believe in miracles? Well, what would the Ramones do? It's a simple answer: 1-2-3-4. Get on with it. Hey-ho, let's GO! It doesn't always work out. But sometimes, every now and again, miracles are there for those who believe.
THE LEGAL MATTERS: The Message
It's like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder how I keep from goin' under. Although the Legal Matters' new single "The Message" shares its title with a hip-hop classic by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, it is most assuredly its own message. As the group's Andy Reed explains, "In today’s political landscape, I’ve grown frustrated with the hypocritical, religious types. It’s not aimed at religion specifically, just those who weaponize it.”
We get the message, and we approve. The single's out now; the new album Lost At Sea is due February 27th. Message received.
THE CLASH: Clampdown
The popular meme is correct: These are the times Joe Strummer trained us for. Let fury have the hour. Anger can be power.
ELVIS COSTELLO AND THE ATTRACTIONS: (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding
The Greatest Record Ever Made!
MELANIE WITH THE EDWIN HAWKINS SINGERS: Lay Down (Candles In The Rain)
All around us, the world gives us an eternal supply of reasons to give in and give up. We counter the thud and drone with...well, with whatever we can, with any means or method capable of marshalling our spirits. Music is one of many such methods, a favored go-to when we need nurturing or inspiration, consolation or spark. In 1970, Melanie with the Edwin Hawkins Singers provided a song that still serves that purpose for me. From my book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1):
...What a terrific, uplifting song, with the sanctified might of the Edwin Hawkins Singers lifting Melanie up to soar as high as the angels above. I'd had no real use for the straight black Gospel sound of the Edwin Hawkins Singers' huge 1969 hit "Oh Happy Day" when I was nine, but "Lay Down" effortlessly mingled their celestial sound with Melanie's folk-singer vibe, and it all wound up as pop music. Irresistible pop music. Forget the damned roller skates. "Lay Down (Candles In The Rain)" is the key, right here.
"We were so close/There was no room/We bled inside each other's wounds." Well, the lyrics pin this one to the Viet Nam War era. "Lay Down (Candles In The Rain)" was inspired by Melanie's performance at Woodstock, a song written to express how it felt for her to see this massive crowd--perhaps not really a half a million strong, but giving the impression of a large, large number--as she sang and played her own songs of peace. The rain came down. You can hear her on the Woodstock Two album, performing "My Beautiful People" and "Birthday Of The Sun," dedicating her music with a giggle to the beautiful, wet people. You can hear her smile. You can hear her belief.
After Woodstock, Melanie took all of what she'd seen, all of what she felt, and turned it into "Lay Down (Candles In The Rain)." Raise the candles high. If you don't we could stay black against the night. The Edwin Hawkins Singers provide amazing grace, immortal soul, an oh-happy-day's journey into night. Raise them higher again. We could stay dry against the rain...."
THE JAM: In The City
In the city there's a thousand men in uniform/And I've heard they now have the right to kill a man
Those lines cut deep in 1977. They cut even deeper now.
APOLLO 100: Joy
Classic Top 40 is fine, but let's raise a glass to classical Top 40. In 1971, Apollo 100 took an electric pop-rock arrangement of Johann Sebastian Bach's "Jesu, Joy Of Man's Desiring" into the Top Ten and onto AM radios everywhere. "Joy." The song's title describes its effect. As we said on the radio Sunday night:
"We acknowledge that when things go wrong, playing pop music on the radio doesn't do much of anything to correct what's wrong. But we channel our outrage, our dedication, our belief that we CAN change, for the better.
"Belief is hope. Hope is joy.
"On this show, and in this life, we embrace the audacity of joy."
THE BEATLES: Revolution
We do not know that it's gonna be all right. And it won't be all right any time soon enough. We ain't givin' up just yet. 1-2-3-4!
MICHAEL SIMMONS: America
From his exquisite covers album Fun Where You Can Find It, Michael Simmons covers Simon and Garfunkel. All come to look for America. I swear it's out there. Keep the faith, baby. Keep the faith.
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I compiled a various-artists tribute album called Make Something Happen! A Tribute To The Flashcubes, and it's pretty damned good; you can read about it here and order it here. 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. You can read about our history here.
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