EVERY Billboard #1 hit discussion thread 1958-Present

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by alphanguy, Jan 29, 2016.

  1. sunspot42

    sunspot42 Forum Resident

    Location:
    San Francisco
    Here's what a posted the other day over in the #1 R&B hits thread about "Let's Stay Together", where it also topped the chart:

    This one really established Al Green as a superstar, and the distinctive sound of his productions you could practically trademark. Tina Turner would begin her solo superstar comeback in the '80s with a fantastic cover of "Let's Stay Together", so the composition proved to have staying power as well.

    The birth of one icon, the rebirth of another. Landmark song. Legend.
     
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  2. Black Thumb

    Black Thumb Yah Mo B There

    Location:
    Reno, NV
    And they covered TWO more of the songs coming up in our '72 lineup!

    What intrigues me about their "American Pie" cover is that the producer put them at the Charles Manson / Altamont section rather than the seemingly more appropriate "dancing in the gym" part.

    It's a wee bit unsettling to hear them chirping stuff like "Helter Skelter" and "no angel born in hell could break that Satan's spell" in junior high assembly style.

    And what a weird idea to put the girls in one stereo channel and the boys in the other.
     
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  3. alphanguy

    alphanguy Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Missouri
    I had completely forgotten to mention this when I should have, but at this time, this song was dropping off the charts (It peaked first week of December 71) that had some of the most bizarre chart action in history. This song was recorded by 2 different artists, in 3 different versions, and charted a total of FOUR times between 1968 and 1974. First with the Original Caste in 1968, then with coven in 1971, and a re-recorded version in late 73, and then again with a re-release of the 71 version soon after. Title track from the movie Billy Jack.
     
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  4. Juggsnelson

    Juggsnelson Senior Member

    Location:
    Long Island
    I dig Brand New Key. A girl I was friends with years ago left this song on my answering machine as a way of telling me that she wanted to be more than friends. It worked out for awhile:)
     
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  5. Black Thumb

    Black Thumb Yah Mo B There

    Location:
    Reno, NV
    That just reminded me that the charts we just covered (Jan/Feb '72) had two competing versions of the Coke jingle ("I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing") in the Top 15 at the same time.

    I once heard a flashback rebroadcast of one of those AT40s, and Casey sounded quite amused by it.
     
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  6. Grant

    Grant Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me!

    HEY! I have that on CD!:mad:




    :D Seriously, I really do.:agree:
     
  7. Grant

    Grant Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me!


    I have all three versions on CD, too!
     
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  8. AppleBonker

    AppleBonker Forum Resident

    Location:
    Seattle
    Yeah, and you think I don't? :wiggle:
     
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  9. czeskleba

    czeskleba Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    Reportedly they cut the entire song (with the earlier verses just featuring Barry Wiiliams solo) but it was decided that an edit was more than enough. The full-length version is the "30 minute Helter Skelter" of the Brady's recording career.
     
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  10. AppleBonker

    AppleBonker Forum Resident

    Location:
    Seattle
    American Pie

    There was a time when I thought American Pie was the greatest song ever written. I was in high school - though not a lonely teenage broncing buck by any means - and I was a little in awe of the song. My friends and I prided ourselves on the fact that we had learned all the lyrics without ever buying the record, just from hearing it on the radio and filling in the gaps by talking it out. On athletic road trips back then, we would always have our moment when we would do a rendition of the entire damn thing, start to finish -- a tradition that our teammates would no doubt have gladly done without.

    Don McLean set out to write nothing less than a definitive statement on the sixties. Once upon a time I thought he had pulled it off. Now I'm not so sure. There's more to say about the decade than just to complain that music ain't what it used to be, which is the tack the parents of the sixties generation would be more comfortable with, and which lends the entire exercise a sour quality. McLean himself grew to resent how much the song had overshadowed everything else he ever did, and as you probably guessed, there were times he refused to play it live.

    [​IMG]

    My doubts and my original passion for the song both arise from the same source: the lyrics. Where once I thought they were cryptic and fascinating in a good way, now I sometimes wonder what McLean was blathering about. Yes, I'm about to take a crack at doing what many high school kids across America tried in '72: to make sense of the unfathomable. And to make it fun, I'm not going to consult any actual theories about the song. Every idea that follows arises from my own dim attempts to interpret the ginormous word salad that is American Pie.

    The first two verses are pretty straightforward, but the song really starts to get interesting when he begins using poetic figures to stand in for actual people. I've heard that the Jester is supposed to be Bob Dylan, but I find this image to be one of the more unsuccessful ones he attempts. Was Dylan supposed to be funny/goofy? Is that why he's a jester? Is McLean jealous of Bobby D and thus assigning him the role of the fool?

    And why does the jester wear a 'coat he borrowed from James Dean?' Dylan didn't have a Dean vibe at all. And a voice that came from you and me? Bob Dylan? The guy with the famous nasal twang? He doesn't sound much like most people. And if that line is supposed to mean he was 'one of the people', well, to me that doesn't jibe with the guy who wrote It's All Right Ma (I'm Only Bleeding).

    Below: Do you find me funny? Do I amuse you?

    [​IMG]

    Dylan did have the famous motorcycle accident in '66, so the jester on the sidelines in a cast would seem to cement him as that character, but otherwise, the symbolism is dodgy.

    It seems like McLean's trying to make statements about important moments in the 60s, but I can't figure out what the blazes he references, and I would say I'm more acquainted with the history of that time than most people my age. 'When the Jester sang for the King and Queen'. The King is Elvis? No, cause who would be the Queen, Ann Margrock? Is he Jack Kennedy? But Dylan and Kennedy had nothing to do with each other. Dylan never sang for either of them, in a James Dean coat or anything else. The King may as well be Fred Flintstone.

    OK, some of the references are clear. The girl who sang the blues is obviously Janis Joplin. Satan is probably not Neil Diamond. Although there were no famous Rolling Stones concerts that ended up with flames leaping high into the night, Jagger was famous for having sympathy for Beelzebub (woo woo!), so he must be the devil. In that verse, McLean really comes off like a bit of a prig. Imagine going to a Stones concert and seeing some dude there with his fists clenched, glaring at the stage. I think you'd inch slowly away from that guy and take another hit of blue sunshine.

    Below: What could break that Satan's spell?

    [​IMG]

    I like the line 'Lenin/Lennon read a book on Marx", because it has several possible meanings: Lenin and Karl Marx, or Lennon becoming left wing, or Lennon and the Beatles acting like the Marx Brothers in their first film.

    But are the Beatles the sergeants playing a marching tune? Or are they the quartet practicing in the park? Or both? "Do you recall what was revealed?" he sings. NO I DON'T!!!! @#$#$@^ This sounds like he means that line to be important, but if no one can figure it out, it ends up being actively irritating.

    [​IMG]

    So, I think you can see why my attitude towards the song started to turn as I got older. I can handle Dylan or Lennon writing nonsense lyrics, because even if they don't entirely mean something, they still are evocative and interesting. McLean's stuff is too literal to have that effect. He seems to actually be trying to communicate a story, but I begin to suspect he is being obscure for the hell of it. He could have just as easily written the entire song as literally as 'Helter Skelter in the summer swelter/the Byrds flew off with the fallout shelter/eight miles high and falling fast'. I understand those references at least, although I still couldn't tell you why he decided to conflate those images.

    Which brings me to the chorus. Bye bye Miss American Pie sounds a bit dirty to me. And this song does not sound like it's about 'good old boys' driving in Chevies to the levy (while drinking the brew that is true from the vessel with the pestle). If you're going to sing a lament about a 'generation lost in space', why pick that particular image? Is he implying that generation had a choice between being the Dukes of Hazzard or Timothy Leary? And that they chose wrong?

    Oh well, I give up. I gave it a valiant effort! But if even the Bradies couldn't conquer this number, what chance did I have?

    [​IMG]

    The thing is, I still like the song, a lot actually, but have come to accept that it's kind of a mess that doesn't really hang together. I still like that he had the guts to try it, and if I have eight minutes to kill, I enjoy listening to it. And yes, I still remember all the lyrics to this day, but fortunately these days innocent bystanders will no longer need to hear me sing the whole thing to prove it!
     
    Last edited: Jan 3, 2018
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  11. EdogawaRampo

    EdogawaRampo Senior Member

    I read somewhere that McClean was a big folkie going way back and that, somehow, the King and Queen were like Pete Seeger and Joan Baez or something...so could that Jester singing for the King and Queen be something like Dylan singing at one of the '63 folk festivals or something? I could be wrong.

    I couldn't listen to American Pie for decades due to overplay/overkill, but some years back I picked a copy of the LP again and quite like it.
     
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  12. W.B.

    W.B. The Collector's Collector

    Location:
    New York, NY, USA
    Actually, both Coven versions of "One Tin Soldier" were out at the same time in both 1971 and 1973. The Warner Bros. version (originally issued on single #7509, green label w/ shield) was rather sedate if compared with the version they recorded for the label they were signed to, MGM:
    [​IMG]

    As you say, bizarre . . . MGM's stereo mix was a bit louder and somewhat narrow compared with Warners'. About a month later, a future Number One would be issued by MGM. We'll get to it a few Number Ones from now.
     
  13. Mylene

    Mylene Senior Member

    When Dylan was first signed to Columbia he was referred to by Columbia executives as "John Hammond's Folly" Being called a jester is a couple of steps up from that.
     
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  14. Joey Self

    Joey Self Red Forman's Sensitivity Guru

    I fell behind on this.

    Recently, I was involved in a countdown on Facebook where eight of us counted down our favorite 750 songs. (Why 750? The group had done 250 and 500 before I joined, and 1000 is set to start next year.) As I started to put my list together, I had "American Pie" in my top 20, knowing it would be unlikely to be any lower than that. The placing and sorting continued, and it was in the top 10. When it came time to start posting that last 10 days, I kept bumping "American Pie" a notch or two higher. I finally posted it at #3, leaving only "Hey Jude" at #2 and "A Day In The Life" as my top pick. I never tire of hearing it on the radio or on my MP3 player.

    "Let's Stay Together" was at #162 on that list, my highest placement of four Al Green songs. I was 13 when this was out, and I liked it, but didn't buy the single; I was into Grand Funk and Deep Purple type of music at this time, and didn't buy everything I liked with my limited funds. I became a fan of the 70's soul sounds a bit later when I could buy some of the greatest hits comps (EWF, War, Al Green) and oldies radio started playing it.

    JcS
     
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  15. Grant

    Grant Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me!

    I guess John Hammond showed 'em!
     
  16. Zeki

    Zeki Forum Resident

    I don't get where you're at on this at all. Sympathy for the Devil and Jumpin' Jack Flash and Altamont and it's quite clear this is about the Stones. A prig?
     
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  17. alphanguy

    alphanguy Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Missouri
    Now see... it was so convoluted, even I was confused. I had thought the only time they were both out at once was 73. I personally like the Warner version best, wider stereo, as you stated, a TINY bit faster, and the tambourine more prominent.
     
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  18. CliffL

    CliffL Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sacramento CA USA
    Great post, this song (the Original Caste version) is one of my all time favorite songs. I used to hear it in my junior high school art class, the teacher was a cool young guy who kept the radio on in class to an FM top 40 station that was really good, and in late 1969-early 1970 "One Tin Soldier" was getting lots of airplay. I just liked its peaceful vibe. Years later I found the song on 45, and later still found a copy of the Original Caste LP that featured the song.

    I also heard the Coven version when it was on the radio, it's OK but it's the Original Caste version that I like best! I also found some earlier Original Caste singles (on the Dot label from 1968) and one of them, a cover of Dylan's "Tom Thumb's Blues" is terrific but it isn't online, unfortunately.
     
  19. AppleBonker

    AppleBonker Forum Resident

    Location:
    Seattle
    Well, this is just my opinion, but I'm complaining about McLean's condescending attitude. He's the prig, not Jagger:

    And as I watched him on the stage
    My hands were clenched in fists of rage
    No angel born in hell
    Could break that Satan's spell

    Of course it's supposed to be Jagger he's talking about, as I think I made clear (you got that I was joking about Neil Diamond, right?). But boy, is McLean sanctimonious in those lines. Imagine someone at a Stones concert overreacting to Jagger prancing around like McLean claims he did while watching him perform; it's patently absurd, and I called him out on it, that's all.

    (yes, someone died at Altamont and it was a major disaster, but there were no 'flames leaping high into the night' like McLean would have it. This is easily the worst, most overwrought part of the song, although at least you can actually understand what he's talking about for once).
     
    Last edited: Jan 3, 2018
  20. AppleBonker

    AppleBonker Forum Resident

    Location:
    Seattle
    You're guess is as good as mine. But why did Pete Seeger have a 'thorny crown'? Or Elvis, or JFK, or whoever? Ach, my head's starting to hurt again! :laugh:

    (yeah, I like the song, too. I say what I say out of affection! :) )

    PS - OK, seriously: maybe it's a reference to the 65 Newport Folk Festival where Dylan went rock, and Seeger was reported to have been very displeased; but if so, I would argue that Dylan 'stole the crown' of Most Important Folk Singer from Seeger years before that.
     
  21. Grant

    Grant Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me!

    What's a "prig"?
     
  22. AppleBonker

    AppleBonker Forum Resident

    Location:
    Seattle
    You had to do this to me! You realize I have a new Holy Grail I must acquire now, don't you? :agree:
     
  23. AppleBonker

    AppleBonker Forum Resident

    Location:
    Seattle
    According to the dictionary:

    'a self-righteously moralistic person who behaves as if superior to others'. I would say it applies to his attitude in that particular stretch of the song, your mileage may vary!
     
  24. czeskleba

    czeskleba Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    Unfortunately for you (and perhaps fortunately for the rest of the world) it (to my knowledge) does not circulate. It is mentioned in the liner notes for the Rhino CD compilation:

    Possibly the most talked-about track on Meet The Brady Bunch was Don McLean's "American Pie" as performed by the Bradys. Although an edited version appeared on the album, the entire song was actually recorded. Lost in the vaults at Paramount is a six-plus minute rendition of the pop epic featuring Barry Williams solo first and last verses.
     
  25. Zeki

    Zeki Forum Resident

    Wow, yep I couldn't be farther away in viewpoint. Yes, I knew you were referring to McLean as a "prig". He's providing quite clever social commentary on what is frequently referred to as the end of the 60's. That's not "priggish". "No angel born in hell", I trust you get the Hells Angels reference.
     
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