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Grateful Dude

TMMAC Addict
May 30, 2016
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Dave's Song of the Day

Working Class Hero – John Lennon

Friday song of the day: Today’s song is John Lennon at his most leftist.



In 1970, John Lennon released his first album since the breakup pf the Beatles, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. Included on the album was Lennon’s take on Marxism and class differences, Working Class Hero. At the time, Working Class Hero was not released as a single. Instead, it was only an album track until 1975, when it was released as the B-side to a re-release of the 1971 song Imagine.

The song has been covered numerous times over the years, by artists including Ozzy Osbourne, Marilyn Manson, and Green Day. The cover version included here is by Marianne Faithfull from her brilliant 1979 album Broken English.

John Lennon, 1970



Marianne Faithfull, 1979



Tomorrow: You’re like my yo-yo
Great song. Plastic Ono Band is one of the records I inherited from my father in law, happy to have that one in the collection.

The cover by Marianne is also great. I had no idea about Manson and Green Day covering this tune, kind of hard to imagine what those sound like. Well, I guess I'm off to youtube to find out!
 

psychicdeath

Member
Jan 21, 2015
955
1,521
Dave's Song of the Day

Cloudbusting – Kate Bush

Saturday song of the day: Today’s song was inspired by the relationship between controversial psychiatrist Wilhelm Reich and his son.



English singer/songwriter Kate Bush released her fifth album, Hounds of Love, in 1985. It was her biggest commercial success, with the album selling well over a million copies and yielding four hit singles in the UK.

The second single off the album was Cloudbusting. Bush based the concept of the song on A Book of Dreams, a memoir written by Peter Reich, the son of Austrian psychiatrist/philosopher Wilhelm Reich. Besides his legitimate work in psychoanalysis that presaged the sexual revolution of the 50s and 60s, Reich had some very unconventional ideas. One was that sexual energy, which he named “orgone” could be accumulated and stored, to be used for improving one’s health. He also believed that he could stimulate rainfall by manipulating the orgone energy in the sky with a machine he called a “cloudbuster.”

Reich immigrated to the United States in the late 1930s, and his more bizarre practices and products ran afoul of the Food and Drug Administration, which considered them quackery and fraud. The FDA issued an injunction against interstate sale of Orgone boxes. Reich ignored the prohibition and in 1956 was arrested for contempt and sentenced to two years in prison. He died of heart failure in 1957 while still imprisoned.

Bush read his son Peter’s book and based the song on it. The “Orgonon” in the first section of the lyrics refers to the name Reich gave to his home, and the song describes the attempts at rainmaking, and later Reich’s arrest, from his son’s point of view.

The story was further amplified by the video made for Cloudbusting. Donald Sutherland portrayed Wilhelm Reich, while Kate Bush played his son Peter. The main action was dragging the cloudbuster up a hill and using it to make rain, but this was interrupted by the government arresting Reich and taking him away. Peter then continues the cloudbusting process and succeeds in producing rain as they are driving his father away.



Tomorrow: When you were 21 you had your fun


Edit: Coincidentally, after I selected the song yesterday, 91 year old actor Orson Bean was killed in an accident, in which he was hit by several cars. Orson Bean, Beloved Comic Actor And Performer, Is Dead After A Car Accident

I first heard of Wilhelm Reich in the 1970s, through a book Reich devotee Orson Bean wrote about him and his work called Me and the Orgone. Me and the Orgone - Wikipedia
 
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Filthy

Iowa Wrestling Champion
Jun 28, 2016
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cleaning house, XFL on mute, mostly acoustic and instrumentals on the speakers
 

psychicdeath

Member
Jan 21, 2015
955
1,521
Dave's Song of the Day

Old Maid Blues – Eddie Vinson and his Orchestra

Sunday song of the day: Today’s song was the more successful of a double-sided single.



In 1947 jump blues singer and saxophone player Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson released a double-sided single – that is, a record in which both sides were intended to garner sales and airplay instead of the more common practice of including the intended hit as the A-side with a throwaway song as the B-side. The record was Old Maid Boogie backed with Kidney Stew Blues.

Old Maid Boogie’s lyrics warned a young woman that since she was now twenty-five years old, she must find a man soon or become an old unmarried woman for the rest of her days. Obviously, this is a very old-fashioned concept and was likely meant as hyperbole, but in 1947 there were some parts of the country where the sentiment was still held as being at least partly true.

Old Maid Boogie made it to #1 on the R&B charts and was the biggest hit of Eddie Vinson’s career. The other side of the single, Kidney Stew Blues, later made it to #5 on the R&B chart. Oddly, the lesser hit became the song known as his signature for the remainder of his career.



Tomorrow: My heart needs protection
 

psychicdeath

Member
Jan 21, 2015
955
1,521
Dave's Song of the Day

Lotta Love – Nicolette Larson

Monday song of the day: Today’s song is the first and biggest hit for a former backup singer.



Nicolette Larson began her career singing backup on records by artists such as Commander Cody, Emmylou Harris, The Doobie Brothers, and most notably Neil Young. She sang backup with Linda Ronstadt on Young’s American Stars and Bars album in 1977, and in 1978 she worked with him again on his next record, the great Comes a Time.

One of the songs on Comes a Time was Lotta Love, which was a melancholy song with a simple acoustic arrangement. Not long after the album was completed, Young offered the song to Larson for her own debut album, Nicolette. Oddly, Lotta Love was one of the songs for which Larson had not contributed backup vocals during the Comes a Time sessions.

The Nicolette Larson cover of Lotta Love was much more upbeat and optimistic than the Neil Young original. It had much smoother – some would say overproduced – instrumentation, which was fairly common for late 1970s soft rock. Her version of Lotta Love was selected as the first single from the album and released on October 31st, 1978, just a few months after the song first appeared on Neil Young’s album. It turned out to be a big hit, reaching #1 on the Billboard Easy Listening chart and #8 on the Hot 100.

Larson recorded and performed for many years afterward, switching from pop to country music in the mid-1980s. She never again had a Top Ten single but did have a few minor hits over the years. She passed away in December 1997 after suffering seizures caused by liver failure.

Nicolette Larson, 1978



Neil Young, 1978



Tomorrow: He’s fat and lazy and extremely rude
 

psychicdeath

Member
Jan 21, 2015
955
1,521
Dave's Song of the Day

Swinging on a Star – Bing Crosby

Tuesday song of the day: Today’s song first appeared in a film about a young priest.



The 1944 film Going My Way starred Bing Crosby as a new priest arriving at a New York City church. The musical was the highest earning film of the year and won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture. One of the songs Crosby sang in the film was Swinging on a Star, a light-hearted song that compares the faults of animals with lazy, careless people.

One of the film’s seven Oscars went to Swinging on a Star for Best Original Song. When released on vinyl, the song was the #1 record in the United States for nine weeks and has since been recognized with a Grammy Hall of Fame Award.

Swinging on a Star has been covered well over 100 times, including versions by Eddie Fisher, Doris Day, Tony Bennett, and Frank Sinatra. It also appeared in a massive flop of a film in 1991. In the film Hudson Hawk, Bruce Willis played a thief, and one of the character’s quirks was that he and his partner timed actions during burglaries by singing old songs. One of the songs used was Swinging on a Star, performed by Willis and Danny Aiello. While Going My Way won the Academy Award for Best Picture for 1944, Hudson Hawk won the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Picture of 1991.

Bing Crosby, 1944



Bruce Willis and Danny Aiello, Hudson Hawk, 1991



Tomorrow: Now when your girl is gone and you’re broke in two