10 SONGS: 4/4/2026

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 # 1330

THE KINKS: Lola

The Kinks' 1970 hit "Lola" reentered the public discussion in March. Gee...thanks, Moby.

As easy as it would be to rag on Moby for completely misunderstanding "Lola" and misinterpreting the song as some kind of jokey anti-LGBTQ+ embarrassment, I'll give Moby an eensy bit of benefit of doubt. I can see how someone could read the lyrics, reflect on the song's tale of a man besotted by an encounter with Lola, a presumed woman who (it's implied)  turns out to be a male transvestite, but the besotted bloke remains in love with Lola nonetheless. He's glad he's a man, and so is Lola. I suppose one could conceivably hear snark or scorn in the narrative. 

I don't hear it. And I don't think it's there.

Excerpted from a previous post:

"I'm gonna go out on a limb here and speculate that AM radio Top 40 playlists in the early '70s didn't generally include an awful lot of songs about transvestites, at least not in regular rotation. There was Lou Reed's 'Walk On The Wild Side' in 1972, of course, but beyond that? I can only think of one other example, from a couple of years before Reed's Holly came up from F-L-A. In 1970, she spelled her name L-O-L-A, Lola.

"Girls will be boys, and boys will be girls
It's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world 
Except for Lola
Lo lo lo lo Lola
Well I left home just the week before
And I'd never ever kissed  a woman before
Lola smiled and took me by the hand
And said, "Little boy, I'm gonna make you a man"
Now I'm not the world's most masculine man
But I know what I am
And I'm glad I'm a man
And so is Lola

"The ambiguity is deliberate; in its context, the phrase 'so is Lola' allows the possibility that Lola isn't necessarily a male in female guise, but perhaps is a woman, and she's glad that the singer's a man. No one interprets the song's meaning in that way. The clear consensus is that Lola's a dude.

"Not that there's anything wrong with that.

"I was oblivious to all of this. I was just a clueless li'l adolescent during Nixon's first term, and 'Lola' was a great song I heard on the radio. Its distinctive guitar opening, its lyrical imagery of a Soho nightclub where the champagne tastes just like cherry cola, and its irresistible singalong chorus made my radio yearn for greater volume to accommodate the song's pop power...

"...Within a few days after the Kinks' [1977] Saturday Night Live spot, I was speaking on the phone with my friend Lissa DeAngelo. As grizzled, mature high school students, we now understood the meaning of 'Lola' 's lyrics, and Lissa wondered if that meant Kinks leader Ray Davies was gay. I shrugged--yes, one can shrug over the phone--and said basically, I dunno, don't think so, but whatever. The previous year, a guy in the Class of '76 had brought a male companion to the Senior Ball; attitudes were changing--slowly, incrementally, at a glacier's breakneck pace, but changing nonetheless, and changing for the better. There was still a long way to go, and there's still a long way yet to go. The Kinks don't deserve much credit for that. But 'Lola' was undeniably a factor in my own evolving realization that gay rights were human rights. Years before Seinfeld made it a punch line, 'Lola' demonstrated that yeah, there wasn't anything wrong with that...."

We live in a time when LGBTQ+ rights are in constant peril, under constant attack. That's always been true, but right now feels worse than it's been in decades, and the situation shows no promise of immediate improvement. It's a serious, serious problem, and it must not be taken lightly.

It's ludicrous to think that the Kinks' "Lola" is in any way a part of that problem.

SLYBOOTS: If We Could Let Go

For yesterday's imaginary playlist of songs this messed up-world needs right now, I said:

"I will say that my # 1 choice in this subject is most definitely the 2024 clarion call 'If We Could Let Go' by the fab NYC group Slyboots. I wrote about that sublime track here, and you can buy yourself a digital copy of the song here. Given the troubles of our times, there's a decent shot "If We Could Let Go" is gonna rack up additional spins on almost every TIRnRR for the rest of the year. As I've written elsewhere, 'As the country and the world seem increasingly eager to leap into the abyss and take us all with it, I've been trying to draw strength from my current favorite phrase: The audacity of joy. It takes a lot--a lot--to even attempt any kind of positive outlook. But we can't give up on hope. That would mean giving in, and that's what the bad guys want us to do. I refuse. We need to do much more than just hold hands and sing "Kumbaya"...but we DO also need to hold hands and sing "Kumbaya." If we lose joy, we lose everything.' "

I am not letting go of that.

THE SHIRTS: I Wanna Be A Rocker

Wanna be a rocker? Worthy goal! As part of the 1970s NYC rock 'n' roll scene centered at CBGB and Max's Kansas City, the Shirts pursued that goal with determined flair. The Shirts recorded three albums for Capitol Records, but the group doesn't get mentioned often enough alongside storied scenemates like the Ramones, Blondie, Talking Heads, Television, and the Heartbreakers. They should be. The Shirts were the real deal.

The two Capitol records are long out of print (though available digitally), but the visionary Think Like A Key Music label has returned the classic Shirts sound to retail with a pair of exquisite archival live releases: 2025's Live Featuring Annie Golden (recorded live in the studio in 1981) and 2026's Live At Paradise 1979. Collectively, these two records are the next best thing to being near Bowery and Bleecker at precisely the right time to experience the rush of the Shirts in live performance.

From Live At Paradise 1979, last week's TIRnRR spin of "Starts With A Handshake" and this week's spin of "I Wanna Be A Rocker" serve up ace in-concert renditions of Shirts songs we've never played before. On our next show, we're turning to a Live At Paradise 1979 performance of a Shirts song already well-known to our listeners.

I'm telling you: Those are our plans.

THE HIVES: Tick Tick Boom

I first heard the Hives around 2002, when I saw them gloriously lip-sync "I Hate To Say I Told You So" on Top Of The Pops. At the time, this long-running British TV music program was carried Stateside on BBC America, and I watched its weekly cablecast whenever I could. Watching that day with my seven-year-old daughter, the sight and sound of the Hives had us dancing gleefully in the living room--cool memory, that. Visually, the Hives reminded me of Paul Revere and the Raiders (albeit without the Revolutionary  War costumes), and the music suggested a herky-jerky blend of punk, pop, and Nuggets-approved '60s garage. I loved it.

A few weeks ago, our pal Fritz Van Leaven emailed me: "You've played the Hives, but never this cut. Curious to hear what you think of it." Well, "Tick Tick Boom" (from the group's 2007 work The Black And White Album) immediately reminded me of why I fell in love with the Hives' music in the first place. I bought the track and put it on the radio at my first opportunity. Thanks for the tip, Fritz!

THE BARRACUDAS: (I Wish It Could Be) 1965 Again

The Greatest Record Ever Made!

P. P. ARNOLD: Angel Of The Morning

EVIE SANDS: Any Way That You Want Me

THE BOBBY FULLER FOUR: Julie

THE TROGGS: Wild Thing

THE HOLLIES: I Can't Let Go

This week's show had already been programmed when we heard of the passing of songwriter Chip Taylor. At least some modest tribute to Taylor's work and legacy felt imperative, so we made the playlist changes necessary to accommodate five songs from the Chip Taylor songbook.

We went with two of Taylor's hits in their familiar renditions: "Wild Thing" by the Troggs and "I Can't Let Go" (co-written with Al Gorgoni) by the Hollies. We wanted to include singer/songwriter/guitarist Evie Sands, who was a friend of Taylor; she recorded several of his songs in the '60s, and we chose her 1969 single of "Any Way That You Want Me" as representation. We went with P. P. Arnold's cover of "Angel Of The Morning," and the Bobby Fuller Four's album track "Julie." Amazing songwriting talent; the world is poorer for the loss, but richer for having been able to hear Taylor's work in the first place.

If you like what you see here on Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do), please consider a visit to CC's Tip Jar. You can also become a Boppin' booster on my Patreon page.

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.

10 SONGS: 11/22/2024

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 # 1260.

THE COWSILLS: Shine

For years now, I've been proudly declaring that the Cowsills' under-heard and underrated 1998 work Global is my favorite album of the '90s. Its track "She Said To Me" is a TIRnRR standard; the Cowsills themselves allowed us its use on our compilation This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 2, and the song has its own chapter in my current book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1). The rest of Global is just as good.

The original album has been out of print for decades, limiting chances for its discovery by potential new fans. During the course of interviews I've done on behalf of my GREM! book, radio host Jim Monaghan expressed his delight that I cast a spotlight on a track from Global, whereas journalist Jeff Tamarkin (who knows more about music than I'll ever know) wasn't familiar with it at all. My favorite album of the '90s, but for most music lovers the album may as well have never existed in the first place.

Omnivore Records' new deluxe reissue of Global remedies that. You can read Jeff Tamarkin's discussion with Bob Cowsill about Global and its reissue here, and you can get with it awready and buy your own copy of Global here. 

The updated Global includes three previously-unreleased tracks from the same era. Each of the three deserves to be part of the Global experience, and we're pleased to open this week's radio extravaganza with one of them. We'll hear another one on Sunday night. Global is as Global does.

DONNA SUMMER: She Works Hard For The Money 

When Donna Summer's "She Works Hard For The Money" hit big in the '80s, I wanted to hear how it would sound in the hands of a rock band, emphasizing the song's Kinks-like riff. I also wanted to hear a hard rock version of Summer's disco smash "I Feel Love." I don't think I was looking for capital-R ROCK! validation of the songs--I liked both songs just fine as they were--but I was, I dunno, imagining how they could cross over into a different market.

Even if those versions had happened, though, I'm confident Donna Summer's originals would have remained definitive.

We play Donna Summer on TIRnRR, perhaps not a lot, but enough that listeners aren't surprised when a "Hot Stuff" or an "I Feel Love" finds its way to our sovereign airwaves. I love both of those records, and frankly I'm surprised we've never gotten around to playing "She Works Hard For The Money" before this week. It's come close on a few previous occasions,  and it was specifically in our initial programming blueprints each of the two previous weeks. Yes, it worked hard for the airplay.

And it deserves it. 

SLYBOOTS: If We Could Let Go

NYC combo Slyboots made their TIRnRR debut on May 19th of this year with a cover of Meat Puppets' "Oh, Me." In June, we started playing their original tune "Blindsided," and that track's now a likely lock for the year-end countdown show of our most-played tracks in 2024.

As superb as "Blindsided" is, the new Slyboots single "If We Could Let Go" is somehow even better, and easily one of my favorite tracks of this year. The title offers a path forward in troubled times, even if it's a path I'm not sure I'm ready to take. Yet. But we'll play the song, again and again. Another great record from a great group.

THE ARMOIRES: Ridley & Me After The Apocalypse

I don't think we've quite reached the "after the apocalypse" stage. We might not even be into the thick of its spiraling malaise. We're approaching the onramp. The onramp to Armageddon. Road trip! We'll face the apocalypse with rings on our fingers, bells on our toes, chips on our shoulders, and a song by the Armoires in our hearts.

CARLA OLSON AND TALL POPPY SYNDROME: Is It True

With this turn on the ol' virtual turntable, Carla Olson and Tall Poppy Syndrome's cover of Brenda Lee's "Is It True" makes its seventh consecutive weekly appearance on the TIRnRR playlist. We'll go for eight in a row on Sunday. 

THE PALEY BROTHERS: Come Out And Play

Earlier this month, we received news that the great Andy Paley was nearing the end of his life. The information was not meant to made public at the time, so we paid unspoken tribute with another spin of "Come Out And Play," the 1978 pure pop gem from the Paley Brothers, Andy and Jonathan Paley. We circled back later in the playlist for "Come On Let's Go," the Paley Brothers' collaboration with the Ramones to render the definitive cover of that Ritchie Valens classic. We toasted amongst ourselves in appreciation of the life and gift of one of pop music's good guys.

Andy Paley passed this week. We mourn along with those who knew him better, including some mutual friends who are experiencing a personal loss far beyond what we feel as fans. Others are better suited to eulogize him, and to celebrate the pervasive breadth and depth of his legacy, a wide-ranging c.v. of heart and substance, inspiration and accomplishment, craft and artistry. 

Our suns only shine upon us for the briefest of times. While we are here, we are together. Come out and play.

LESLEY GORE: You Don't Own Me

The Greatest Record Ever Made!

THE BOBBY FULLER FOUR: I Fought The Law

Realizing that this week's show was TIRnRR # 1260, it felt important to celebrate the importance of that number in my life: 

1260 WNDR!!

1260 WNDR was (along with The Big 15 WOLF) one of the two Syracuse Top 40 AM radio stations that shaped so much of my development as a pop music fan in the '60s and '70s. We devoted the entirety of this week's closing set to songs Dana and/or I used to hear on WNDR and/or WOLF.

And the set began with a song I remember hearing on the radio when I was six years old. From my book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1):

"In 1966, my brother Art had a red Alfa Romeo. I'm told it was a shitty car, and I remember its ignominious final days in his possession: A scarlet husk parked, prone, lying in state beyond the shed at the end of our back yard. Collecting dust, collecting rust. A tow truck came to whisk this luckless red shell to its final reward.

"But my prevailing memory of this doomed vehicle is a happy one. The memory involves the consumption of Royal Crown Cola, or possibly a root beer and Teen Burger at the nearby A & W Drive-In. The memory absolutely involves the car's one true immortal virtue: 

"Its radio. 

"That radio? When I was six years old, I thought that radio was magic.

"I mean, it must have been magic. There were songs I heard on that car's radio that I never heard anywhere else. But it was a different magic than I imagined; it was Syracuse's 1260 WNDR-AM. Set to 1260, the Alfa Romeo played 'I Like It Like That' by the Dave Clark Five, a record that--to me--only existed in Art’s star-crossed Alfa Romeo. Even better, it played--often!--another irresistible exclusive: 'I Fought the Law' by the Bobby Fuller Four. 

"My visceral memory of that terrific song remains inextricably linked to those moments in my brother's Alfa Romeo, of drums, guitars, and a singer bemoaning his fate of breakin' rocks in the hot sun, all pouring forth from the little car's speakers as my big brother cruised suburban streets with his pesky kid brother on board. It's indelible, and I embrace and cherish its vivid image...."

FREDA PAYNE: Band Of Gold

While my ears were stapled to WOLF and WNDR in Syracuse, my future wife Brenda was a little girl listening to WABC in New York. Also from The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1):

"Brenda also grew up listening to the radio. Jesus, didn't everyone our age do that? As a little girl originally from Brooklyn, living from school-age to young adulthood on Staten Island in a government housing project--an environment dramatically more racially- and culturally-diverse than my vanilla childhood surroundings--she was immersed in a lot more black music than this suburban kid was exposed to during the same time frame. 

"But Top 40 radio was an equal-opportunity rush. I heard Motown, just like she did. I heard the Honey Cone, Isaac Hayes, the Spinners, the Stylistics, the O'Jays, Rufus, Curtis Mayfield, and more, all pop music, offered for interracial, interfaith radio worship along with the Partridge Family, Three Dog Night, the Carpenters, Alice Cooper, and John Denver. It was the soundtrack of the seventies, in the city and the suburbs alike. Brenda heard more of it, and she heard it more often; but the soulful sounds certainly reached my ears sometimes, too.

"At the end of 1970, when Brenda was eleven years old, she listened to the year-end countdown on New York's WABC, the home of iconic NYC DJ Cousin Brucie. 

"Cousin Brooooooooooocieeee! 

"Ahem. As she listened to the radio's proclamations that New Year's Eve, as '70 became '71, Brenda knew exactly which great record would be anointed # 1 for the Year Of Our Lord Nineteen Hundred And Seventy. And she was right. Number ONE! ONE! ONE! ONE! ONE! Freda Payne, 'Band of Gold.' Brenda's belief was validated. And the hits just kept on coming...."

THE BEATLES: I Want To Hold Your Hand

Pop mania's Ground Zero. In Syracuse, we heard it on WNDR. Tweeeelve-sixty, double-you-enn-dee-ARRRRRRRE! 

I think you understand.

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.

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.

THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE: The Bobby Fuller Four and Merle Haggard

Both of these chapters from my proposed book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) have already appeared separately on this blog. They're combined here today as they will appear in sequence in the book.

In memory of my oldest brother. Safe travels, Art.

THE BOBBY FULLER FOUR: I Fought the Law
Written by Sonny Curtis
Produced by Bob Keane
Single, Mustang Records, 1965

In 1966, my brother Art had a red Alfa Romeo. I'm told it was a shitty car, and I remember its ignominious final days in his possession: a scarlet husk parked, prone, lying in state beyond the shed at the end of our back yard. Collecting dust, collecting rust. A tow truck came to whisk this luckless scarlet husk to its final reward.

But my prevailing memory of this doomed vehicle is a happy one. The memory involves the consumption of Royal Crown Cola, or possibly a root beer and Teen Burger at the nearby A & W Drive-In. The memory absolutely involves the car's one true immortal virtue: Its radio. 

That radio? When I was six years old, I thought that radio was magic.

I mean, it must have been magic. There were songs I heard on that car's radio that I never heard anywhere else. But it was a different magic than I imagined; it was Syracuse's 1260 WNDR-AM. Set to 1260, the Alfa Romeo played "I Like It Like That" by the Dave Clark Five, a record that--to me--only existed in Art’s star-crossed Alfa Romeo. Even better, it played--often!--another irresistible exclusive: "I Fought the Law" by the Bobby Fuller Four. 

My visceral memory of that terrific song remains inextricably linked to those moments in my brother's Alfa Romeo, of drums, guitars, and a singer bemoaning his fate of breakin' rocks in the hot sun, all pouring forth from the little car's speakers as my big brother cruised suburban streets with his pesky kid brother on board. It's indelible, and I embrace and cherish its vivid image.

A decade and change passed. In 1978, I was finishing my freshman year in college, and immersing myself in the rockin' pop of the sixties and the then-contemporary sounds of punk, new wave, and power pop. In this joyous crucible of discovery and rediscovery, "I Fought The Law" was ripe to reclaim. 

I don't know if it occurred to me that the Bobby Fuller Four might have had more than just one great song. Nor did I know that Bobby Fuller himself was dead, and I didn't know anything at all about the suspicious circumstances surrounding his demise. The opportunity to learn about all of this would not present itself until after I graduated from college in 1980.

In 1981, my girlfriend and I were living in an apartment in Brockport. She would graduate that spring, and I'd already leveraged my Bachelor of Arts degree into full-time employment at McDonald's. Success! And rent money, as well as cash for beer and food and beer, and to keep buying music at Main Street Records. 

I snapped up Rhino Records' Best of the Bobby Fuller Four compilation. By then, I knew two of its songs, “I Fought The Law” and “Let Her Dance.” It was high time to know more: "Only When I Dream," "Don't Let Me Know," Buddy Holly's "Love's Made a Fool Of You," the Eddie Cochran ripof..er, tribute "Saturday Night," and a trifecta of absolute gems--"Another Sad and Lonely Night," "Fool of Love," and "Never to Be Forgotten"--that could rival "Let Her Dance" and "I Fought the Law" as surefire radio-ready triumphs. How in the name of all that's percolatin' could the Bobby Fuller Four have wound up as mere one-hit wonders...?!

I was twenty-one years old in 1981. I lived inside my pop music. I was also living in the (overrated) real world for the first time, trying to reconcile the frequently conflicting promise of art and the demands of responsibility, adulthood. It can be a difficult line to tread, an ongoing balancing act between the dreams we dream and the clocks we punch. Doing what we have to keeps things going; doing what we want to keeps us going.

Bobby Fuller wasn't much older than that when he died in the summer of '66: a pop star three months shy of his twenty-fourth birthday, a West Texas kid who hit the big time, a rising star with a Billboard smash on his résumé and the world at his feet. The liner notes to Best of the Bobby Fuller Four offered my first hint of his tragic story. Bobby had talent. Bobby had good looks. Bobby had a string of pretty young things on his arm. And on July 18th, 1966, Bobby's body was found slumped in his car outside his apartment in Hollywood. He had been beaten. He had been doused with gasoline. The authorities ruled his death a suicide (later amended to "accidental").

Right.

The record business is big and brutal. And where there's money, there is often organized crime. Ask Tommy James. Or ask Miriam Linna, co-author (with Bobby's brother Randell Fuller) of the book I Fought the Law: The Life and Strange Death of Bobby Fuller. The book suggests that Bobby Fuller was killed by the mob. Sound crazy? Really, crazier than suicide by beating oneself and bathing in gasoline? I'm not one for conspiracy theories. Elvis is dead. Paul is alive. Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. 9/11 was a terrorist attack. Oswald may well have acted alone. I find tinfoil hats unbecoming. 

And I also believe the mob killed Bobby Fuller, whether over business (likely) or for revenge on Bobby for dallying with an attractive woman whose dallying allegiance was presumed to already belong exclusively to an underworld boss. Whatever actually happened to Fuller, it's a safe bet it wasn't self-inflicted.

The sordid tale of Fuller's end, as sad and frustrating as it remains, can't dilute the prevailing appeal of his music. Listening to Best of the Bobby Fuller Four was my first real evidence that there could be more--much more--to an act that show biz writes off as a one-hit wonder. 

I no longer own my copy of that LP; it was replaced many years ago by a CD that contained even more great Bobby Fuller tracks, and that CD was replaced by the five discs of Bobby Fuller material that now sit proudly on my shelf at home. Fool of love. Another sad and lonely night. Let her dance all night long. Never to be forgotten.

My road to appreciating the bounty of the Bobby Fuller Four began in earnest with Best of the Bobby Fuller Four in 1981. But the road truly began on the road, literally, back in '66: when the magic radio in my brother's unreliable but valiant red Alfa Romeo played a song I could never hear anywhere else. The law didn't win this one, I fear. I needed money 'cause I had none. No time off for good behavior, no chance for parole. I guess my race is run. Only a record on the radio could set us free.

MERLE HAGGARD: Mama Tried (The Ballad From Killers Three)
Written by Merle Haggard
Produced by Ken Nelson
Single, Capitol Records, 1968

One of the rules of the road is that the driver controls the radio. My brother Art was driving. That meant the radio would be playing country music.

It was 2004. My brother Rob had driven from his home in Albany to meet up with me in Syracuse. I took the wheel of my car (and my radio) to drive us from Syracuse to Columbus, where Art lived. From there, the three of us traveled in Art's car. Contemporary country music provided the soundtrack for our final trip to Missouri.

It wasn't our first trip. We'd been there individually and collectively many, many times over the years. Our mom was born in Southwestern Missouri, and our grandparents had remained there. Art and Rob are older than me, so most of their family visits to the Show Me State occurred before I came along. By the mid-sixties, summer trips to Missouri involved just me, my sister Denise, and Mom, with Dad remaining in Syracuse. Within a few years, it was just Mom and I making that trek, as Dad and all of the older siblings had responsibilities elsewhere. The whole family went to Missouri for Christmas in 1970. It's the only time I remember all of us being there.

In 2004, Mom and Dad were already in Missouri as Art, Rob, and I made our way West. Denise had moved to England, too far away to accompany us. Grampa had passed away years before. And now Grandma was gone as well. My brothers and I would be pall bearers. Country music played on the radio. The driver controls the radio.

I hate country music. Sometimes I'm lying (or at least kidding myself) when I say that, and sometimes it's the truth. Three chords and the truth. You'd think a love of country and western would be an innate characteristic of a boy whose mother hailed from the buckle of the Bible belt. 'Tain't so. Art and Rob love country music. Denise and I do not.

It wasn't always like that. As a kid, one of my very favorite records was Ben Colder's "Ring Of Smoke," a broad parody of the Johnny Cash hit "Ring Of Fire." Denise says my incessant playing and re-playing of that MGM Records 45 knocked the country right out of her. I loved it. As a kid in the sixties, I wasn't yet aware of genres, of musical boundaries, of virtual barbed wire fences that suggested if you worked that land and played that music you weren't allowed to trespass on this land and play this music. It was all pop music. You heard it on the radio. The driver controls the radio, but the radio drives us all.

When did it change for me? I used to watch Hee Haw on TV, engaged by the cute country girls, the corny banter, and Archie Campbell's weekly rendition of "PFFT! You Were Gone." Country remained a part of Top 40 radio, so my essential seventies AM atmosphere included Lynn Anderson, Charlie Rich, Donna Fargo, Conway Twitty. My memory may be clouded, but I think I was okay with country music.

Until I wasn't.

What happened? I guess it was some weird combination of introspection, self-image, peer pressure, alienation, and teen reinvention. Being called "farmer" was a popular insult at school, and while I only recall hearing it directed at me when I wore Grampa's hand-me-down overalls, I was aware of its toxic condescension. Country wasn't cool. Neither was I, but while I learned to dig in my heels and stand ground on behalf of comic books and pop music and other things I loved that others mocked, I had also come to think of country as uncool. I wanted to be urbane, witty, sophisticated, fast-paced, and elite, city-slicker rather than shitkicker. New York City, not Nashville or Bakersfield. And, in the post-Watergate world, I had no use for country's jingoism. By the time I fell for punk rock, twang was in my rear-view mirror. Country music? I met another and PFFT! it was gone.

It took a long time for me to appreciate country music again. I knew of rock 'n' roll's roots in country, so I was always okay with the Everly Brothers, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly, King Elvis I. I knew the Beatles' "All My Loving" was a straight-up country song, and I loved it anyway. In the early eighties, I thought Juice Newton's cover of the Dave Edmunds track "Queen Of Hearts" was the best thing on AM radio. By the end of the eighties, a local Syracuse group called the Delta Rays (led by Craig Marshall and Maura Boudreau, the latter now Maura Kennedy of the fabulous Kennedys, with her husband Pete Kennedy) pried my closed mind wide open to Patsy Cline and George Jones, and to Mary-Chapin Carpenter. In the early nineties, I became a regular viewer of a Saturday night video program on CMT that showcased rockin' country. Nanci Griffith. Rosie Flores. The Sky Kings. The Mavericks. Joe Diffie. Jo Dee Messina. This was country music I could support.

For all that, I still can’t listen to country radio. Nails on a chalkboard. When I'm driving, my control of the radio spins the dial elsewhere.

My work as a pop journalist (and my quest for deliverance as a music fan) reminded me of the appeal of classic country, and my respect for that grew by leaps and bounds. Welcome back to my world, Johnny Cash. Hee-Haw and howdy, Buck Owens! And hello, Merle Haggard.

Haggard had always been outside of my realm. I associated him with "Okie From Muskogee," a track I considered a put-down of hippies and peaceniks, a song that seemed the very epitome of the redneck POV I so detested. Years later, I read that Haggard himself claimed an evolving, shifting view of the song, at times cashing it in at face value, at other times thinking of it as a joke or parody, a wink rather than a sneer. Some have suggested the song was meant to provide the counterbalance of a conservative viewpoint in the face of liberal protest. I dunno. I mean, even though he wasn't really an Okie--his parents moved from Checotah, OK to California before Merle was born in 1937--it's likely Haggard mighta smoked some marijuana in or around Muskogee at some point or another, his lyrical claim to the contrary notwithstanding.

In fact, at the time of his early success in country music from 1966 through '68, Haggard hid a skeleton in his closet: he had fought the law, and the law had won. Teen stints in juvenile detention centers gave way to a robbery conviction in 1957, landing him in Bakersfield Jail. A failed attempt to escape there moved him to San Quentin in 1958. He turned twenty-one in prison. It may have appeared likely he'd die there, too.

But Haggard rewrote his script. Seeing Johnny Cash perform at San Quentin prompted Haggard to play in a country band at the prison. He saw the dead-end roads stretched in nearly all directions around him. One road held the possibility of getting through: the straight and narrow. Haggard was paroled in 1960. He would never be a convict again.

Even the straightest and narrowest of roads may suffer detours, eventual twists and turns. Tolls. As Haggard played, recorded, and began to have hits, he worried that his past would kill his future, that public revelation of his time behind bars could terminate his time in the spotlight. Johnny Cash convinced Haggard to confront the issue. The driver controls the radio, and the narrative. During a 1969 appearance on Cash's TV show, Haggard spoke publicly about seeing Cash in concert at San Quentin, when Merle was an inmate. Haggard's career did not suffer. He was on his way to becoming a legend of country music.

Suddenly, Haggard's 1968 hit "Mama Tried" gained an additional patina of authenticity. It wasn't quite autobiographical--he'd committed robbery, not murder, and wasn't serving life without parole--but the feel was there, the gravitas, the sense of truth. Three chords and the truth. 

Turning twenty-one in prison, leaving only himself to blame, because Mama tried, Mama tried. It's the equal of Dylan, insightful and honest, heartbreaking, real. Country music. The music I disavowed as a teenager, the music I claimed to hate. I guess that leaves only me to blame.

My brothers and I arrived at my grandparents' house in Aurora in 2004. Our parents were there, along with aunts and uncles--including Mom's siblings, about to bid farewell to their own mother--and a representative sample of our cousins from California and Florida. Art and Rob brought fast food from the Starlite Drive-In, including orders of chicken gizzards and chicken livers. We all ate together, talked, laughed, and celebrated a life well-lived. The next morning, with our duties discharged and the funeral concluded, my brothers and I left the cemetery, the car now pointed East. The road awaited us. We were leaving Missouri behind, probably for the last time.

Our thoughts were our own, the memories established and permanent. Country music played on the radio. On a freight train leavin' town, never knowing where I'm bound. 

The radio didn't play any Merle Haggard on that trip. It's okay. The driver controls the radio. That's the rule. I learned rules as a kid in New York, and in Missouri. I learned to swim in Missouri. I learned to drive in New York. I learned about music everywhere. I still have so much more to learn.

10 SONGS: 7/28/2023

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 # 1191. This show is available as a podcast.

JOHNATHAN PUSHKAR: I Gotta Move

Johnathan Pushkar's cover of the Kinks' "I Gotta Move" is the first advance track from the forthcoming tribute album Jem Records Celebrates Ray Davies, and it's a good one. The original was on the American Kinks-Size LP, which was the first Kinks album I ever owned (part of my indoctrination into Kinks fandom during my senior year in high school). It's a pretty basic tune, sure, but Johnathan conveys the necessary dedicated-follower bounce to retain its bop in our newfangled 21st century. We'll play it again next week, and we'll also play another Jem Records Celebrates Ray Davies track, courtesy of the Cynz. We need to! We don't wanna get left behind.

THE SUPREMES: Love Train

Man alive, I've been knocked out by the '70s stuff Dana's been playing by the Supremes. I talked about it a bit in the July 14th 10 Songs, and this material just seems so ripe for rediscovery...or, really, discovery, for the first time. Why weren't these records huge? And why is the two-CD collection The '70s Anthology a high-priced collectible rather than the readily-available essential it oughtta be? I don't why, I don't know how, but I blame Diana Ross.

As I groove vicariously through Dana's spins of '70s Supremes, the group's sublime cover of the O'Jays' "Love Train" satisfies the ol' (Nathan) jones for this week. 

THE WAITRESSES: Square Pegs

It's not punk. It's new wave. Totally different head. Totally.

IYKYK.

THE FLASHCUBES: Forget About You

Awright. As the rockin' pop world prepares its eager self for the release of the Flashcubes' incomparable new album Pop Masters, Big Stir Records' Chief Boppin' Officers Rex Broome and Christina Bulbenko recently had this to say about our own little mutant radio show, the 'Cubes, and Pop Masters:

Rarely have a show, a band, and an album gone so hand-in-hand as This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl, the Flashcubes, and the new record Pop Masters.

We accept that with honor, pride, and humili...okay, scratch the humility part. Let's not get crazy.

It's impossible to overstate the importance of the Flashcubes in my life and in the development of TIRnRR. I ain't kidding: The Beatles. The Ramones. The Flashcubes. For me, all my other favorites come after that Trinity. Pop Masters. Truth in advertising. Album of the year, mate. Album of the year.

THE DONNAS: Wig Wam Bam

My TIRnRR history Boppin' The Whole Friggin' Planet reveals that we've been playing the Donnas since our very first show, December 27, 1998. Lately, we've been dipping back more and more into the Donnas' earliest releases, a period that commenced even before there was any such thing as This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio. 

Our archival source for such grungy transcendence is a Real Gone Music Donnas collection called Early Singles 1995-1999. When Dana programmed the Donnas' cover of Sweet's "Wig Wam Bam" for this week's show, I joked about how the Donnas do, in fact, get a few of Sweet's original lyrics right in their rockin' rendition. Otherwise, they just make it up as they go: Sweet's opening prose Hiawatha never bothered too much/About Minnihaha and her tender touch/'Til she took him to the silver stream is altered by the Donnas into the way more salacious I don't wanna be a bother too much/I just wanna be the girl you wanna touch/You make me cream in my jeans.... And so on.

Dana dismissed the wisecrack. "Girls with guitars," he said. 

And he is correct. Girls, meet the boys. Boys, the girls. Wig-wam, bam sham-a-lam. Or words to that effect.

DAISY JONES AND THE SIX: Regret Me

A band doesn't have to be real to make a radio-ready record. Here on TIRnRR, we offer equal time for fiction and fact. When we feel like it, anyway. SO! The made-for-streaming Daisy Jones and the Six on this week's program, Rumours-era Fleetwood Mac next week. There's no such thing as a guilty pleasure in pop music. We remain regret-free.

THE BOBBY FULLER FOUR: I Fought The Law

The Greatest Record Ever Made!

HAYLEY AND THE CRUSHERS: Jacaranda

We pre-record our shows. It's a coincidence when one of our selections carries a connection to some news headline that splatters forth in between recording the show on Wednesday and airing it on Sunday night. We played Hayley and the Crushers' fantastic "Jacaranda" this week because it's, y'know, fantastic. Its lyrics about ditching tinyville livin' in favor of tropical summer fun in the sun were chosen for turn-it-up status without any real-world context in mind.

But yeah, like Hayley sings: screw the small town.

THE MUFFS: On My Own

THE PANDORAS: I'll Walk Away

Ex post facto programming. We didn't initially intend to make the late Kim Shattuck our featured performer this week. In fact, we were nearly done nailing down this week's song selections when I realized that Dana had included a number of songs in quiet tribute to Kim, recognizing what would have been her 60th birthday on July 17th. These were performances Kim did with the Coolies, the Beards, and three tracks by the Muffs. Dana picked the Muffs' TIRnRR Fave Rave "On My Own" to close the pre-encore portion of the show.

I thought Dana's idea of a tribute To Kim Shattuck was compelling and important, and I wanted to participate. I swapped out several of my song picks in favor of tracks that included Kim, records by Derrick Anderson, Bowling For Soup, one more by the Muffs ("Nothing") to play at the very, very end, and four Shattuck-equipped tracks by the Pandoras. 

"On My Own" comes from the Muffs' farewell album No Holiday. It was released just after Kim passed in October of 2019, and it was TIRnRR's single most-played track in 2020. It's still a frequent treat on our playlists, and probably always will be. 

The Pandoras' "I'll Walk Away" has never been given an official release. It appeared on a collection called Psychedelic Sluts!, a CD of questionable legitimacy and disappointing fidelity. The track was originally intended for Come Inside, a proposed (and completed) 1987 album which would have been the Pandoras' first release for Elektra Records. Come Inside got as far as a test pressing and a listing in the Schwann catalog, but Elektra dropped the Pandoras and scuttled the release. The album has yet to see the light of day.

That's a shame. Come Inside leans hard (HAR!) into single-entendre innuendo and arena rock moves; even its title is a sex joke (come inside the Pandoras--GET IT?). Subtlety wasn't a big thing in the '80s. But the album has its moments, particularly the fascinating power ballad "I'll Walk Away." I'm generally not one for power ballads, unless they're power ballads by the Ramones. I make an exception for the Pandoras' "I'll Walk Away."

In a just world, Come Inside would have been released and hit big. John Hughes would have used "I'll Walk Away" in the climactic scene of one of his teen movies. Missed opportunity. The Pandoras would have made it. Their leader Paula Pierce would have lived longer. Kim Shattuck would have lived longer. But now...

...we walk away.

If you like what you see here on Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do), please consider supporting this blog by becoming a patron on Patreon, or by visiting CC's Tip Jar. Additional products and projects are listed here.

Carl's new book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones is now available, courtesy of the good folks at Rare Bird Books. Gabba Gabba YAY!! https://rarebirdlit.com/gabba-gabba-hey-a-conversation-with-the-ramones-by-carl-cafarelli/

If it's true that one book leads to another, my next book will be The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1). Stay tuned. Your turn is coming.

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