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psychicdeath

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

You’ve Got a Friend – James Taylor

Sunday song of the day: Today’s song was recorded by two different artists just days apart using several of the same musicians.




Yesterday we talked about It’s Too Late, which appeared on Carole King’s Tapestry album. Today’s song was also written by Carole King and appeared on Tapestry. Like It’s Too Late, it also reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, but the version that was a hit was recorded by King’s friend James Taylor, who was a bigger star at the time it was recorded.

When King was recording Tapestry in January 1971, James Taylor was in the same studio facility recording his album Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon. Taylor performed on five tracks on Tapestry, and Carole King performed on seven tracks of Taylor’s album. Both recorded versions of You’ve Got a Friend, with several of the same musicians performing on both versions, including James Taylor and Joni Mitchell. Taylor actually recorded his version first, with King recording You’ve Got a Friend a few days later, but the Tapestry album was released in February 1971, two months before Taylor’s album, so the Carole King version is the first to hit the market.

The James Taylor version was released as a single in May 1971 and proved to be a big hit. It rose to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, a month after King’s It’s Too Late had topped the chart. The Carole King version was not released as a single in most markets and remained an album track in the United States. Taylor’s single earned him a Grammy for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male, while as the songwriter, Carole King won a Grammy for You’ve Got A Friend for Song of the Year.


View: https://youtu.be/nKaWQxlTsRM


Tomorrow: Feel sick and dirty, more dead than alive
 

psychicdeath

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

I’m Waiting for the Man – The Velvet Underground

Monday song of the day: Today’s song is about scoring heroin.




The oft-quoted saying about the Velvet Underground is that they didn’t sell many records, but that everyone who bought one went out and started a band. There is some truth to that, in that the Velvet Underground was hugely influential despite not being a commercial success at the time. Their music was experimental and it dealt with some dark subjects at a time when the more popular themes in music were happier in the “peace and love” hippie era.

Several of the band’s songs dealt with drugs, but not the psychedelic LSD influences that were popular in music at the time. One of their early signature songs was Heroin, and another, I’m Waiting for the Man, told of a junkie going to Harlem to buy heroin. I’m Waiting for the Man went through the steps of the process: going to see your dealer with the money while feeling terrible and in bad need of a fix, waiting in a dodgy and dangerous part of town, then the actual buy, and lastly, shooting up and feeling “oh so fine”, but knowing that you’ll have to do the same thing tomorrow. The song was written by Lou Reed, who went on to a long and successful solo career after leaving the Velvet Underground in 1970.

The band had formed in 1964, and the two main creative forces were Lou Reed, who wrote most of the songs, and John Cale who brought a more experimental edge to the music. Along the way, they became associated with Andy Warhol, who promoted the Velvet Underground as part of his multi-media show The Exploding Plastic Inevitable. Warhol also added German model and “chanteuse” Nico to the band. While she was listed as a member, the reality was that she sang a few songs on the first album with them at Warhol’s insistence. That album, The Velvet Underground and Nico, was recorded in 1966 and released in 1967. As mentioned, it did not sell well at all, but the Velvet’s music was highly influential in later years.

Included on the album was I’m Waiting for the Man. Naturally, it did not chart at all. As a matter of fact, it was not even released as a single until 1971, after Lou Reed had left the band. Even then, it was not released in most markets – including the United States – and was credited to “Andy Warhol’s Velvet Underground” in hopes that the Warhol connection would spur sales. It didn’t. Even in 1971, the band was too far ahead of its time.

I’m Waiting for the Man was recorded a few times before the sessions for The Velvet Underground and Nico. The first was a demo that the band recorded itself in their loft on Ludlow Street in New York. This early version from July 1965 uses a more bluesy guitar and has Lou Reed singing in a Dylanesque whine. Almost a year later, they recorded the song at Scepter Studio, engineered by Norman Dolph. By the time of this recording in April 1966, the folk/blues musical arrangement was gone, replaced by a more experimental droning music. Reed had also dropped the Dylan affectation and was singing in a more natural voice. On this version, Reed still uses the line “waiting for the man” in the first verse, then changes to the more personal “waiting for my man” in the later verses. The “my man” variant of the line would be used in the official album version that they recorded in May 1966, and in most subsequent performances. Both of these versions later turned up on bootlegs, or eventually in the Velvet Underground box set, Peel Slowly and See.

After over two decades, The Velvet Underground re-formed for a brief reunion tour in 1993. During these live shows, John Cale provided the singing on I’m Waiting for the Man, rather than Lou Reed. Reed sang most of the other songs, except those that had been sung by Nico on the first album. Since Nico had died five years earlier, Cale sang those songs.

From The Velvet Underground and Nico, 1967


View: https://youtu.be/YbigVkiAe0s


Ludlow St. loft demo, July 1965


View: https://youtu.be/GIJPA8Srac8


Scepter Srudios recording, April 1966


View: https://youtu.be/4j8Uk4FbXQ8


Live, 1993


View: https://youtu.be/rZrW1ENhLsY


Tomorrow: Turn my blue heart to red
 
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psychicdeath

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

Bad Case of Loving You (Doctor, Doctor) – Robert Palmer

Tuesday song of the day: The singer who covered today’s song heard the original version in a car on the way to a show.




Singer/songwriter Moon Martin was liked by the critics but never really hit it big as a performer. He wrote and recorded Bad Case of Lovin’ You in 1978 and included it on his first studio album, Shots from a Cold Nightmare. The record did not chart.

Not long after, English singer Robert Palmer was on the way to perform a show, and the label representative who was driving him there played the Moon Martin recording. Palmer liked it and began performing the song in his live shows. When working on his album, Secrets, he recorded a cover version. His rendition, with the title changed to Bad Case of Loving You (Doctor, Doctor), was released as the first single from the album in July 1979. It was a hit, and climbed to #14 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was Palmer’s biggest hit at the time, until he had two Top 10 songs with the band Power Station in the mid-1980s, and then followed up with several big solo hits, including the iconic #1 song Addicted to Love in 1986.

Robert Palmer, 1979


View: https://youtu.be/aYm8HYi5tIk


Moon Martin, 1978


View: https://youtu.be/bw8HtRYYYHU


Tomorrow: I took her to a supermarket
 

psychicdeath

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

Common People – Pulp

Wednesday song of the day: Today’s song was written about a comment by a wealthy classmate.




The band Pulp was big in their native England, but never quite caught on in the United States. Their biggest hit, and the song that is most associated with the group, was 1995’s Common People. It was inspired by a remembrance of Pulp’s singer Jarvis Cocker from his college days. While he was attending Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, he overheard a rich Greek student there mentioning that she wanted to know how the “common people” lived. In other words, she wanted to go slumming and mix with people that she saw as her inferiors.

Common People was Cocker’s response to this elitist sentiment, basically telling the girl that while she could pretend to be one of the poor disadvantaged, she could always have her rich parents bail her out. The “common people” that she fetishized had no option, and that this was their real life.

The song was released in May 1995, a few months before the album on which it was included, Different Class. Common People was a hit in England, placing at #2 on the UK singles chart. It was also a hit in several other European countries. In the United States, it was very popular with music critics, but didn’t get much attention from the general record-buying public, failing to chart at all.

Over the years, people have tried to identify just who was Cocker’s snooty classmate, and a few identities have been proposed. Cocker has always refused to identify the girl, and has even shot down the theories of who it might be, saying “On that BBC Three documentary, the researchers went through all the people who were contemporaries of mine at St Martins and they tried to track her down. They showed me a picture and it definitely wasn’t her. I dunno. Maybe she wasn’t Greek. Maybe I misheard her.”

In 2004, William Shatner included a cover version of Common People on his album Has Been. Shatner’s typically weird version was more of a spoken word performance, with Joe Jackson providing backing vocals.

Pulp, 1995


View: https://youtu.be/yuTMWgOduFM


William Shatner, 2004


View: https://youtu.be/ainyK6fXku0


Tomorrow: Like a watercolor in the rain
 

psychicdeath

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

Year of the Cat – Al Stewart

Thursday song of the day: Today’s song was inspired by a book about Vietnamese astrology and the movie Casablanca playing on a TV.




Al Stewart had been an established folk-rock singer and songwriter for a decade, but had not yet had a hit record. While on a US tour in 1975, Peter Wood – the keyboard player for another band on the tour – played a certain riff during every sound check. Stewart liked the riff and asked Wood if he could write lyrics to go along with it and turn it into a song. Wood agreed, and Stewart began working on the song. After a few failed attempts, he finally got a title from a book he happened to see. As he explains,

“I was beginning to lose my mind because I had this piece of music forever and I couldn’t think of any words. I had a girlfriend at the time and she had a book on Vietnamese astrology, which was kind of obscure, and it was open at a chapter called ‘The Year Of The Cat.’ Now that’s, I think, the year of the rabbit in Chinese astrology. I’m not too sure. I don’t know a whole lot about a whole lot of things but I recognize a song title when I see one and that was a song title.

But then another problem: what do you do? ‘The Year of The Cat.’ OK, well:

I used to have a ginger Tabby
And now I have a ginger Tom
The first one made me crabby
The new one…


I thought, ‘You can’t write about cats, it’s ridiculous.’ And I was absolutely lost and then the Casablanca movie came on television and I thought, ‘I’ll grab Humphrey Bogart and Peter Lorre and see where it goes.’

Somehow or other, in between all of that and Vietnamese astrology, we came up with this. Thank you, Peter Wood, for writing the music. He’s no longer with us but thank you, Peter.”

Year of the Cat ended up being the title track of his next album in 1976, and also the first single from that album. It was a minor hit in the United Kingdom, placing at #31 on the UK singles chart. Year of the Cat did much better in the United States, peaking at #8 on the Billboard Hot 100 and helping the Year of the Cat album go Platinum. Two years later he topped that with his #1 hit Time Passages, from the Platinum selling album of the same name.


View: https://youtu.be/Ak_MTXQALa0


Tomorrow: I’ll pass almost every penny on to you
 

Hauler

Been fallin so long it's like gravitys gone
Feb 3, 2016
45,415
57,815
Found these dudes on Spotify today. Haven't heard a bad song yet.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3NnjPG1R0w


I'd say they are a mix between Black Crowes & Allman Brothers, and occasionally they get a little country in there and remind me of Blackberry Smoke.

Great shit. Definitely adding their entire library to the rotation.
 

Hauler

Been fallin so long it's like gravitys gone
Feb 3, 2016
45,415
57,815

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y97gX9QSwZk


Billy is so damn good at guitar his lyrics often get overlooked.
Love this tune. Love its message.

Well, it's not so easy now
Though it never was back then
We still can't seem to work this out
But you can still pretend
And these tattered walls and burning bridges
Quickly start to fall
How long until there's nothing left at all?

I've been to California, man
I've seen them city lights
Been stranded in the desert
Scorching days and freezing nights
And I'll never understand
Why people try to walk so tall
How long until there's nothing left at all?

Don't you love what you got used to?
When we used to feel so free
Won't you wait a while in silence, love
Watch it fall with me

Well, the old men said the great Big Apple's
Rotten to the core
With Wall Street skimming from the till
While no one minds the store
And how could someone get so low
In a building so damn tall?
How long until there's nothing left at all?

While chunks the size of Delaware
Are falling off the poles
Our heads are buried in the sand
Our leaders dug the hole
Like junkies hooked on fossil fuel
Headin' for withdrawal
How long until there's nothing left at all?

Don't you love what you got used to?
When we used to feel so free
Come and wait a while in silence, love
And watch it fall with me

Now the answers in our heads
To the questions that were asked
It boils up from underground
And leads us to the past
To a place that's long forgotten
When we had enough for all
How long until there's nothing left at all?

Don't you love what you got used to?
When we try to make our stand
The hourglass is growing empty now
Just to leave a pile of sand (watch it fall)
 

psychicdeath

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

I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) – The Proclaimers

Friday song of the day: Today’s song was released in the United States five years after it was a hit in the UK.




Today marks one year since I re-started doing these song of the day posts. Coincidentally, when added to the one year of September 2019 to September 2020 posts, the original crop from 2014 makes this my 500th song of the day. So, for number 500, I’m doing I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) by The Proclaimers.

The Proclaimers are a Scottish duo consisting of twin brothers Craig and Charlie Reid. They started in 1983 as an acoustic folk act, but later added more rock influences to their music. They released their first album, This is the Story, in 1987, and it did well in England. Their second album, Sunshine on Leith, came in 1988 and did even better, earning Platinum certification in the UK.

The first single from the second album was I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles), a heavily accented song about how a man will go to great lengths to be with his woman. The record reached #11 on the UK singles chart, and #1 in Australia.

I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) was not released as a single in the United States at the time, though. The Sunshine on Leith album was released in the U.S. and drew critical acclaim, but very low sales. This changed in 1993 when the Johnny Depp film Benny & Joon used I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) on the soundtrack. This attention caused the record company to release it as a single, and it did quite well, reaching #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and selling over 800,000 copies. A music video for the song was also produced, which interspersed performance footage of the Reid brothers with scenes from the Benny & Joon film. This promotion of the single gave the album a second life, with Sunshine on Leith reaching #31 on the Billboard album chart and selling almost 700,000 copies in the United States five years after its initial release.

And by the way… the word “haver” in the song Scottish slang for “babbling, or talking foolishly.”

The Proclaimers continue to perform and record today, and have had several additional UK hits, although they never again charted in the United States.

Audio, 1988


View: https://youtu.be/aJ9usrpAPao


1993 Music Video


View: https://youtu.be/tbNlMtqrYS0


Tomorrow: You got to find the rhythm within
 

psychicdeath

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

Piss Factory – Patti Smith

Saturday song of the day: Many people consider today’s song the first Punk record.




Patti Smith was raised in Philadelphia and later New Jersey. In 1967 at the age of 20, she moved to New York City and was involved in many different artistic endeavors but was best known for her poetry. Along the way, she wrote several songs for Blue Oyster Cult and was briefly considered to become a singer with that band. Instead, she formed her own band, with Lenny Kaye as guitarist.

In 1974, she released her first record, a cover of the Jimi Hendrix classic Hey Joe. However, it is the B-side of that single that we are concerned with today. That song was Piss Factory. It was one of Smith’s poems that was set to music, with her band’s pianist Richard Sohl credited with writing the music. The Beat-influenced Piss Factory told the story of Smith’s job in a factory during her teenage years. The factory made baby buggies, and Smith did not get along with the other workers. In the quite long and fast-moving poem, she told of being bullied and how she yearned for something better in life. She saw that the women she worked with had accepted their future in the factory, but her ambition was to move to New York and pursue art and “be somebody.”

The record was released in November 1974 on the small Mer record label. It didn’t sell well but was influential in the Punk scene that was developing in New York clubs like CBGB and Max’s Kansas City. Within a year of releasing Hey Joe/Piss Factory, Patti Smith was signed to Arista records and released her landmark album Horses.


View: https://youtu.be/rxJRLwbotFI


Tomorrow: I heard you shot your lady down
 

psychicdeath

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

Hey Joe – The Jimi Hendrix Experience

Sunday song of the day: The origins of today’s song are unknown.




Yesterday’s song was Piss Factory by Patti Smith, which was the B-side of her first single, Hey Joe. That song was a cover of the classic Jimi Hendrix record, which was itself inspired by an earlier version of the song. There are multiple claims on who originally wrote the song, and the actual genesis of Hey Joe will likely never be known.

Credit for the song is usually given to musician and songwriter Billy Roberts, who performed the song in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and registered the copyright for Hey Joe in 1962. However, another musician, Len Partridge, claimed that he co-authored the song with Roberts in 1956. Even then, it is probable that the song was created from parts of earlier songs, especially Baby Please Don’t Go to Town, Hey Joe!, and Little Sadie. The Roberts Hey Joe was not a direct copy of any of the three earlier tunes, but did use musical or lyrical elements of all three. Others claim that it was written by Dino Valenti, or that it was mostly taken from a traditional song.

Whatever is true, the first recording of Hey Joe was by the Los Angeles group The Leaves in 1965. They had heard The Byrds play the song live, and promptly recorded a version under the title Hey Joe, Where You Gonna Go? It did not sell very well. They re-recorded it twice more, and the third version was released in 1966 became a minor hit, reaching #31 on the Billboard Hot 100.

While the third try by The Leaves was a hit, the version that inspired the Jimi Hendrix rendition of Hey Joe was a slower Folk version of the song by Tim Rose, which was also released in 1966. Chaz Chandler, who was managing Hendrix, liked the Tim Rose take on Hey Joe and suggested that Hendrix record the song. The Hendrix recording credited Dino Valenti as the songwriter, and not Billy Roberts. It ended up being the first single by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, released on December 16th, 1966 in England, where it rose to #6 on the UK singles chart. It was not released in the United States until May 1st, 1967. The Hendrix release did not chart in the United States but has since become considered as a classic.

The 1974 Patti Smith cover of the song was of course inspired by the Hendrix recording, and she even begins the song by mentioning his guitar playing. Patti Smith being Patti Smith, of course, her Hey Joe - under the title of Hey Joe (Version) - bears little resemblance to the conventional version. She deals more with the then current topic of Patty Hearst and her kidnapping by the Symbionese Liberation Army than with the original version of the lyrics. From a probable traditional folk song, to a minor garage rock hit, to a classic rock song by a legendary guitarist, and finally a Beat poetry protopunk recording, Hey Joe has had a long and convoluted history.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience, 1967


View: https://youtu.be/rXwMrBb2x1Q


The Leaves, 1965


View: https://youtu.be/15jjuosW2xg


Tim Rose, 1966


View: https://youtu.be/BynwqM3gz30


Patti Smith, 1974


View: https://youtu.be/HVbqHNNHx88


Tomorrow: What’s ailin’ me?
 

psychicdeath

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

Good Lovin’ – The Young Rascals

Monday song of the day: The hit version of today’s song has very different lyrics than the original recording.




Songwriters Rudy Clark and Arthur Resnick wrote a song called Good Lovin’ in 1965, and the song was first recorded by Limmie Snell, under the stage name Lemme B. Good. In this original incarnation the song concerns the singer giving his girl a diamond ring because she give him “good lovin’.” The single was released in March 1965, but did not hit the charts.

Just a month later, a group called The Olympics recorded the song. Musically, it was mostly unchanged, but a different set of lyrics had the singer going to a doctor, and the doctor telling him that his problem was that he wasn’t getting enough love. This version made it to #81 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

Not long afterward, Felix Cavaliere of British group The Young Rascals (in 1968 the band removed the “Young” and were then known simply as The Rascals.) heard the Olympics recording, and his band recorded a cover. This version used the same “doctor” lyrics as the Olympics instead of the original “diamond ring” lyrics. The Young Rascals released their recording of Good Lovin’ in February 1966, and it performed much better than the Olympics’ minor hit, rising all the way to #1 on the Hot 100.

The Young Rascals, 1966


View: https://youtu.be/swMzw_e2lJg


Lemme B. Good, 1965


View: https://youtu.be/OSbrBmwJNwo


The Olympics, 1965


View: https://youtu.be/5OECHWapxJ4


Tomorrow: All I need is a pint a day