From 1988, please enjoy wise-ass Texas roots-rockers (heh) The Wild Seeds and their plaintively wistful "I'm Sorry, I Can't Rock You All Night Long."
I actually reviewed the album that's from at The Magazine Formerly Known as Stereo Review when it first came out, and if memory serves I loved it, especially "I'm Sorry." Nevertheless, I seem to have lost my copy, and until I chanced across the above on FB the other day, I had totally forgotten that the song had ever existed, let alone that it was such a pitch-perfect skewering of 80s hair band machismo.
Inspirational verse:
I'm sorry
So sorry
I can't rock you all night long
It's an interesting idea, baby
But it would be wrong
Lord knows, we've all known the feeling as we age, but it's rarely been expressed so eloquently.
Okay kids, as some of you may know, I had a weird freak accident (a fall in my kitchen, no less) two weeks ago, and as a result I've been in excruciating back pain ever since. So today's business is, necessarily, gonna be something essentially tossed off and not up to my usual standard of excellence. (And if truth be told, I've probably done a variant of it sometime in the blog's dim dark past.)
Hey -- how do you say "cut me some slack, Jack!" in Yiddish? 😎
Anyway, by way of introduction, let me note that yesterday marked the 4th anniversary of the arrival of our beloved pussycat Mickey -- a rescue from the Bronx, thus named after Mr. Mantle -- at our digs in Forest Hills.
He's a real sweeteart, and you'll note that he's also polydactyl, i.e. he has six toes on each paw. Pretty cool, no?
In any case, that leads us inevitably and inexorably to the subject at hand. To wit:
...and your favorite (or least favorite) post-Elvis pop/rock/soul/folk record/song
referencing animals either in the lyrics, title, or name of the artist/band is????
Discuss.
In case you're wondering, my nominee is this.
The song itself is sort of a guilty pleasure; it's a tad dated, obviously, but I think I just kinda dig the idea that these guys might possibly have named themselves after the hilarious absurdist play by Ionesco.
Alrighty then -- what would YOUR choices be?
And have a great weekend, everybody! And hope that the Heroin Jr. pills my pain specialist just prescribed for me make my weekend a little more bearable than I'm used to of late.
From 1970 and their sophomore Boppin' the Blues album please enjoy the original five-piece lineup of NRBQ and their hilarious and irresistible "Flat-Foot Flewzy."
As most of you guys know, our good friend Sal Nunziato has been running a "Songs That Totally Rock" sort of contest this week over at his Burning Wood blog and the above song -- which I had not heard or even pondered in five decades -- got nominated. Imagine my pleasured surprise when it turned out to be an absolute unmitigated delight after all these years.
Now excuse me while I go check out both of the Q's first two albums, which I seem to recall as being just chock full of stuff as great as that.
And speaking of one-hit wonders as we were over the weekend, I was reminded of a band who I loved back in the day (I owned both of their albums) but I haven't thought about them in ages. And in any case, they never got the larger kind of critical acclaim I always felt they deserved, probably due to their commercially ill-advised anti-counter-cultural image.
I refer of course to Every Mother's Son, they of "Come On Down to My Boat" fame.
In any event, estimable as that song is, it's not my favorite of theirs.
That would be a cross between this one, from their debut album...
...and this one (from their second and final effort) which was actually a moderate hit in a lot of markets, including my own in the Tri-State area.
I think we can all agree that both of those are exemplary pop/rock confections. The first, I have long maintained, is the greatest Monkees record that the Monkees never made, and it is one of the most poignant regrets of my adult life that the Floor Models never got around to covering it. The second, of course, is merely two-plus minutes of flat-out folk-rock gorgeousness in that sort of baroque/moderately psychedelic style that was one of the genuine pleasures of its period.
I should add that the band's keyboard guy, Bruce Milner, went on to become a very ritzy upscale dentist on NY's Upper East Side; back in the 90s, he was a regular at my then Manhattan watering hole. Very nice guy, but I could never really get him to talk about his days as a minor league rock star.
From 1997, please enjoy the mostly obscure White Town and his insinuating claim to fame "Your Woman."
From Wiki:
White Town auteur Mishra has said, "I'm a mediocre singer, I'm a terrible guitarist, I'm a pretty good keyboardist, I'm a good producer, not amazing, but good."Noting his status as a one-hit wonder, he said it is "better than a no-hit wonder" and elaborated, "To be a professional musician and to be entertaining people twenty years after my biggest hit, I feel like I'm the luckiest person alive. Just to have one song that connects with people—most musicians dream their entire lives of having that."
Which leads us, inevitably and inexorably, to the subject of today's business. To wit:
...and your favorite (or least favorite, however unlikely that may be) post Elvis-20th century pop/rock/soul/folk/or whatever one hit wonder song (and artist) is...???
Discuss.
No arbitrary rules whatsoever, but I've included the 20th century proviso because commercial music in the current era is so built-in forgettable that it just seems unfair to compare to it to an earlier time. White Town being an almost exception that proves the rule.
Oh, and BTW, in case you're wondering, my fave is pretty much this.
I mean, that's so freaking good it kind of boggles the mind they never had another hit.
The good news -- saw my doctor yesterday, and I do not appear to have done any serious damage to my back. The bad news -- I am in serious pain a lot of the time and I'll be getting two MRIs later today. Please forgive ny slacking off on today's post.
Barring the unforseen, regular stuff -- including an amusing Weekend Essay Question -- resumes on the morrow.
An idiosyncratic blog dedicated to the precursors, the practioners, and the descendants of power pop.
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