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A musical Valentine’s story for Valentine’s Day tomorrow — 26 Comments

  1. Love that Turtles song. Neo’s done much on the topic of vocal harmonies, but it is so nice to hear that yet again. I also like that subtle yet gutsy bass guitar line. I think my belated enthusiasm for the band Rush of the last ten years or so makes me attuned to the bass.

    It’s interesting that most pop tunes of that era used a sizeable amount of reverb. Bands that spanned from the mid 60’s into the late 70’s generally learned or struggled with giving up some or all of that reverb (echo chamber sound).

  2. neo has a surprise lined up in the first clip, which I’ll try not to spoil.

    However, I will say that many people have found strength and solace in songs. When the going gets tough, the tough recall a strong song and get going.

    In the 90s my song was Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down.” Turns out that’s a song for many people.
    _______________________________________________

    Of all his many, many hit songs, the one that Tom Petty said had the most direct and powerful impact on his fans was “I Won’t Back Down.”

    Well, I won’t back down
    No, I won’t back down
    You can stand me up at the gates of hell
    But I won’t back down

    The song was released in 1989 on Petty’s solo album “Full Moon Fever.” The artist told interviewers that people would come up to him all the time, or would write to him, sharing stories of how this song — with its plainspoken message of resilience and empowerment — helped steer them through difficult times.

    “He told me that he heard, or read somewhere, that it brought a girl out of a coma,” recalls his widow, Dana Petty. “It was her favorite song and they played it and she came out of a coma, which blew his mind.”

    https://www.npr.org/2019/05/08/721228788/tom-petty-i-wont-back-down-american-anthem-resolve

    –Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers – I Won’t Back Down
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvlTJrNJ5lA

  3. Here’s my contribution to the Valentine’s Day motif. The Cars playing “It’s All I Can Do.”

    This one has an ersatz music video to go with.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOJNbcYKsDk

    It’s got youthful lust, angst, and at least partially unrequited love(?). It strikes me as fitting in with comic-book boy’s story up top. I did not know Benjamin Orr was singing here, or what a pretty boy he was (See Beato Ep.99 below).

    The combinations of sounds is amazing. The opening bell tones, the child-like lyrical melody, adding the guitar power cords, harmonizing vocals, and finally the powerful lead guitar solo. Can you feel the angst in that solo?

    Rick Ocasek always wrote the lyrics and they were always unusual.

    One too many times I fell over you
    Once in a shadow I finally grew
    And once in a night I dreamed you were there
    I cancelled my flight from going nowhere

    It’s all I can do
    To keep waiting for you
    It’s all I can do
    It’s all I can do

    One too many times I twisted the gate
    When I was crazy I thought you were great
    I kept my renditions of you on the wall
    Where holiday romance is nothing at all

    It’s all I can do
    To keep waiting for you
    It’s all I can do
    It’s all I can do

    You wait in the wing like a Saturday flirt
    Protecting the judge, you don’t want to get hurt
    Once in a moment it all comes to you
    As soon as you get it you want something new

    It’s all I can do
    To keep waiting for you
    It’s all I can do
    It’s all I can do
    Etc.

    Poetry is not my thing, but … “I finally grew” Into or out of love? Matured?

    “Renditions of you on the wall” Is this guy stalker level obsessed? Is the love completely unrequited?

    “Holiday romance is nothing at all” So he did have a romance, but it was disposable?

    “Protecting the judge, you don’t want to get hurt” Who’s the judge? Parents?
    ______

    Here’s Rick Beato’s favorite love song by The Cars. “Just What I Needed.”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44NUPu7cVfI

  4. Eddie and Flo from The Turtles had a rather odd denouement when they joined Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention in their “500 Motels” tour way back in, I’m pretty sure it was, 1969 or 70. I know because I saw them in concert in Vancouver. Amazing concert.

    And yes, I have always liked Happy Together as being a nearly perfect pop song.

  5. TommyJay:

    The Cars have always been my go-to band for screwed-up, ambivalent love songs!

    While I was watching Rick B.’s episode on “Just What I Needed,” I marveled at his, as-usual, brilliant exposition on the music but wondered if he had listened as closely to the lyrics.
    ________________________________________________

    I don’t mind you comin’ here
    And wastin’ all my time
    ‘Cause when you’re standin’ oh so near
    I kinda lose my mind

    It’s not the perfume that you wear
    It’s not the ribbons in your hair
    And I don’t mind you comin’ here
    And wastin’ all my time

    I guess you’re just what I needed (just what I needed)
    I needed someone to feed
    I guess you’re just what I needed (just what I needed)
    I needed someone to bleed

    –The Cars, “Just What I Needed”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvy2yqUHLLg

    ________________________________________________

    Mm-yeah. That’s gonna work. That’s got silver wedding anniversary written all over it.

  6. The lyrics on “Just What I Needed” strikes me as being, “I’m very infatuated, and let’s use each other.” Maybe that as close to love as these guys can get. The whole band is kind of a self caricature, so I’m never sure who they really are versus their kitsch band personas.

    I never appreciated that fact that they have two primary vocalists. Orr sings well and very straight, and has a nice tonality. Ocasek’s singing is always some strange combination cynical, plaintive, sneering, and condescendingly half-hearted. I feel I need a thesaurus for him.

    I saw one one of their music videos where they have an impersonator of a young Andy Warhol bartending and serving the band members cocktails. Bizzaro World.

    Having said all that, I find some of their music captivating with top notch musicianship.

  7. Huxley,

    The song that sounds like a love song but actually isn’t is a fun game.

    My favorite is ‘The One I Love’ a great song by R.E.M. (who I’m meh on in general) that is basically a revenge f*** song. ‘A simple prop to occupy my time ‘is a great lyric.

  8. Wow, what a voice Brenda Lee had and her phrasing is very interesting as well. I too love that Turtles song. How much more optimistic and joyful was the music back then…

    The activist left… “debbie downers” one and all.

  9. TommyJay, Griffin:

    It is a great song. I just found it jarring for Rick to refer to it as a love song. (At least I think he did.) We’re not in Paul McCartney country here.

    It’s hard to tell if the characters in the song even like each other, much less love. The best one can say is that the narrator is too immature or wounded to own up to his feelings. In other words teen lust at its most typical. It did seem Ocasek enjoyed subverting (along with the New Wave in general) standard rock lyrics.

    I remember hearing “You’re Just What I Needed” and realizing that classic rock was about to move over. Ric Ocasek had a new bag of tricks for us. All the good Cars songs have some really tasty bits and riffs. It’s not surprising that Ocasek became a record producer after the Cars.

  10. That’s a great song, video, and story jack.

    The girl in the video (Drive) is the model Paulina Porizkova, who later married Rick Ocasek. He was more than a decade older than her, which she liked and they hit it off. Both were of Czech extraction. The ending was messy and bad for her. I wonder if the other Cars love song lyrics can be synched up with Rick’s romantic arc with Paulina.

    Drive one of the few songs by The Cars where the lyrics are not a puzzle.

  11. Girls need some loving too. This is the one-hit-wonder band Bow-wow-wow playing “I want Candy.” The lyric was written by Aaron Carter about a girl, but BWW has a female vocalist and she switched the sex of the love interest.

    You might want to wait until after your morning coffee for this one. I love the high energy rhythms and syncopation. Now the video is on a beach in the summer, but there is this lyric below. So you can pick your season.

    Candy on the beach, there’s nothing better
    But I like Candy when it’s wrapped in a sweater

    I want Candy
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoXVYSV4Xcs

  12. TommyJay:

    Ocasek did write what I consider a true love song, “Dangerous Type,” on Candy-O which was released in 1979 before “Drive.” But the lyrics are so coded that the song is a puzzle that most listeners don’t bother attempting to understand.

    The key verse:

    Museum directors with high shaking heads
    They kick white shadows until they play dead
    They want to crack your crossword smile
    Oh can I take you out for awhile, yeah

    What is the most enigmatic smile found in a museum? Only one answer to that. The Mona Lisa.

    So in my interpretation Ocasek falls into a reverie while looking at a reproduction of the Mona Lisa and addresses her in the verses. It’s confusing because he’s reflecting on their different realities — he’s a 3D human, she’s a 2D painting. He loves her and fantasizes about bringing her into real life. Then in the choruses he switches to addressing his real lover:

    She’s [Mona Lisa’s] a lot like you
    The dangerous type

    She’s a lot like you
    Come on and hold me tight

    I enjoy imagining Ocasek in love with his girlfriend as a gentle, smiling yet enigmatic Mona Lisa — rather than a femme-fatale which was how I first heard the song. His risk is falling ever more deeply in love, not abuse.

    Then with repeating, ever-more-layered choruses Ric and the boys take you to rock’n’roll heaven. Great song.

  13. TommyJay,

    The ending was worse for Ocasek as he died a few months ago while Porizkova is posting nude photos of herself on Instagram.

  14. What is essentially a “kind of” love song that deeply impresses me is Semisonic’s “Closing Time.

    It’s impressive as hell that, there’s a 99.99% chance (unless you’ve been told) that you have NO IDEA what the song is actually about…

    The lead singer, Dan Wilson, of Semisonic’s GF (later wife) got pregnant. He started to write a new song to use to close the band’s sets, and halfway through the song he made a connection, and, as she came to term, he WROTE THE SONG ABOUT THAT.

    Yes. The song is about a baby coming into this world.

    Once you know that, suddenly a LOT of the lyrics make even MORE sense to the point that you realize the almost Godlike inspiration for the song. It is an amazingly subtle piece of work, and nothing short of brilliant how it says so many things so subtly that most everyone just misses it entirely if favor of the “obvious” meaning…

    https://youtu.be/xGytDsqkQY8

    P.s., that child is about 23 now…

  15. Re: I Want Candy…

    TommyJay:

    Oh, I like that song. A lot of Joan Jett too, which is in the ballpark. “Cherry Bomb,” “Do You Wanna Touch Me? (Oh Yeah!)” I’m not proud.

    I ran into a great quote a couple years ago from a singer-songwriter I hadn’t heard of:
    ___________________________________________

    When I read critical reviews of the latest Radiohead release, I start thinking that maybe rock-n-roll has strayed a bit too far from “My Baby Does The Hanky Panky” for my taste.

    –Todd Snider
    ___________________________________________

    Amen.

  16. Happy Together was for a while the opening number for The Lords of T.O.N.K., our Philly-area 60s group. We worked all the time, made good $$, even cut a couple 45s. The chords of the song come easily to mind…Am, G, F, E7, etc. Next up was Lady Jane, featuring a recorder solo by our drummer Murphy. Another Murphy, our rhythm guitar, introduced me thus: “And on keyboard, good buddy Frank, who has a 42 pound organ…..” Which I did, a so-called Farfisa mini compact that folded up like a suitcase. We played Margate, NJ all summer long, in a club flush by Lucy, the well-known house-size elephant landmark, and my droll internist father, between sips of scotch and soda, enjoyed summoning me onto the summer house patio and announcing to his fellow tipplers, “Here’s my son Frank, currently pursuing his career under the anus of the elephant in Margate.” A dad’s support is so crucial. Anyhow, good times in a vanished world.

  17. OK … got Mrs jack some candy. Also slipped into box a bunch $5 scratch offs.

    I’ll get some of the candy but I won’t get any of the scratch offs! forgetaboutit

  18. huxley,
    I never attempted to understand the lyrics in The Dangerous Type. I always assumed some modern girlfriend topic. That’s an interesting take. I’ve got that album on CD, and I believe I had the first album on vinyl and transferred it to cassette for driving music, in the day.

    This may somewhat obvious, but I wasn’t to me. I was listening to “My Best Friends Girl” yesterday (I’ve heard it a great many times) and it struck me. It’s very derivative of Buddy Holly; a post modern Buddy Holly perhaps. And I think Ocasek’s unusual vocal style is at least a little bit derivative of Holly. The song has some more of the powerful modern guitar cords and fuller vocal choruses than Holly, and it tricks you into hearing it as modern era rock and roll. Strip out those cords and a couple voices, and it is Holly. I’ll intentionally skip the lyrics.

  19. TommyJay:

    Prof of Rock has an episode on the Cars’ “Drive” with an interesting exploration of the lyrics:

    –“This 80s Hit by The Cars Should’ve Been A #1 | Professor of Rock”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfA2Q1GFKiE&t=15s

    I hadn’t considered it, but there’s a lot of Buddy Holly in Ric Ocasek. The skinny guy in glasses, still sexy, with a truck load of talent, an eye for boy-girl pop songs and a slightly nasal voice. Both wizards in the studio.

    Thanks for considering my “Dangerous Type” riff. I may get carried away at times, but I don’t think song lyrics are as arbitrary as people tend to assume.

  20. huxley,
    The Professor of Rock video was good. I still think the lyric is not so puzzling. A girl is in trouble and the writer/singer wants to help her. I guess the finer details are interesting, not terribly so for me.

    So Timothy Hutton directed that video for Drive, which made watch it again carefully. I was fascinated by the fact that the only real people in it are Orr, Porizkova and Ocasek. Some scenes have rooms full of people who are mannequins or automatons, except for the three persons.

    It reminds me of the film noir classic “Niagara” with M. Monroe, Joseph Cotton and Jean Peters. I like it better every time I watch it. It was conceived as big budget trash by the studio, but the screenwriter Charles Brackett could not resist making it into a good movie. Except viewers don’t seem to get it.

    Everybody in the film is either a jerk or a automaton or a non-entity, except for Jean Peters and Joseph Cotton who are married to other people. It is a commentary on society in the 50’s, IMO.
    _____

    I found the Prof. of Rock’s comment that Ocasek said that his song writing is sometimes an expression of his fantasies very interesting. If that applies to “It’s All I Can Do” it suggests that it is an entirely imagined romance.

  21. TommyJay:

    I do like old B&Ws, but Marilyn is holding her value on Amazon — $4 to rent a colorized version of Niagara.

    Songwriters vary in how true their songs are to material from their lives. It doesn’t surprise me that Ocasek includes fantasies.

    A few nights ago I went down a rabbit hole from Leonard Cohen to Joni Mitchell and then to Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.

    With the exception of Marianne, the woman Cohen lived with on Hydra, and Janis Joplin, Cohen tended to transform personal material so it’s not clear who the songs were about and how much was fiction.

    Joni Mitchell’s songs were closer to her life, though usually cloaked in metaphor. According to one account, she broke up with David Crosby by singing “That Song About the Midway” to him. “Blue Boy” was about Graham Nash with whom she lived for two years. “Rainy Day House” and “A Case of You” were about Leonard Cohen.

    After Mitchell broke up with Graham Nash, he wrote the most broken-hearted lover song I know — “I am a Simple Man.” In sympathy Neil Young wrote “Only Love Can Break Your Heart” for Nash.

    The LA singer-songwriter crew wrote a lot of songs for each other in the 70s.

  22. Brenda Lee had a terrific voice. She seems to have studied Patsy Cline’s style and makes excellent use of it in this song.

  23. Re: The Turtles
    There’s a quirky little movie called “My Dinner with Jimi” that focuses on The Turtles UK tour just after “Happy Together” was a hit. Howard Kaylan, one of the Turtles’ singers, wrote the screenplay about his run-in with some of British rock royalty and his….ummmm…interesting dinner with Jimi Hendrix. Justin Henry, who I always picture in his “Kramer vs. Kramer” role, plays Kaylan. Definitely worth the 90 minutes to see the insecurities of these stars just as they were hitting it big.

    (If you’ve already mentioned the movie in a previous post, my apologies.)

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