I love Manchurian Candidate and Miracle Worker, but I admit to never having seen Mockingbird, and have always waited to see Lawrence for the first time on a big screen (they show it periodically on the Cinerama screen here in Seattle, but it's always sold out by the time I find out about it!). I saw My Fair Lady and How the West Was Won for the first time on that screen, and it was worth the wait.
Here's my 'I like this song but not as much as X by the same artist' post. As I said with Satisfaction, this period of the Stones is not my favorite. I just never got into this song, either. Weirdly, the songs by them from around this time that I do like didn't make as much hay in the States. Mother's Little Helper, for instance (I think that's a trifle later, but not much). Or Heart of Stone. Or Under My Thumb. Or 'Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow?'. That last song has got a really weird vibe; it sounds like it was recorded in a bathroom with poor acoustics. But for some reason it seems really decadent in a way that some of the other early Stones songs don't. Maybe it's because I always associate it with that jarring photo from the record sleeve where they are dressed as women. (Interestingly, that song got to #9 in the US in September, 1966. I don't think I've EVER heard it on oldies radio. And it's a kick butt tune, too!).
Hell, I could say the same about ANY era of music (although for me, the quality of Top 40 radio dips around 1976). On the other hand, I could name quite a few subgenres Sunspot 42 didn't name that were kicking butt during that time.
I originally said Brenda Lee was a convincing rock & roller when she wasn't doing the ballads. Then: "Too Many Rivers" is a straight-up ballad, IIRC - not rock & roll - but she handled that tune with serious authority.
"Get off my Cloud" is a pretty good song with a really good chorus. The verses remind me of "Louie, Louie" sped up and played fairly sloppy. It doesn't sound good at all as a recording and a fair amount of the lyrics are unintelligible. Since the kids liked songs with "a good beat that are easy to dance to," that wasn't much of a problem to the teen audience. Where it excels is in the chorus. Saying "hey you get off of my cloud" is a terrifically inventive and catchy way to say "leave me the hell alone you wankers." When you sing it with the cool call and response "you, you" it really grabs you. The chord progression of the chorus is simple, but I'm not sure it was every used in a pop song before this and it's really cool. Someone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about this.
I agree with all of your post. The world truly needed a darker girl group of "bad girls," and they were perfect for it. Never heard them called the Shangs, but I LIKE it! Now, back to your regularly scheduled programming.
I don't particularly care for comments like "this song sounds a bit dated." Like these people were around when the songs were first released (and soared to No. 1 ) I notice some disfavoring of songs like Help Me, Rhonda, which some claim sounds more like "...an older era..." There have always been songs that harken back to older eras. A few: -Crocodile Rock (Elton John, 1973) -Old Days (Chicago, 1974) -Harry Truman (Chicago, 1974) -Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (Elton John, 1974) -I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do (Abba, mid-late 1970s) -You're the One That I Want (Olivia Newton John, 1978) -Grease (Franki Valli, 1978) -Dance Hall Days (early 80s) -Putting on the Ritz (Taco, early 80s)
Get Off My Cloud is fantastic, one of my Stones top six. The other five are Mother's Little Helper, 19th Nervous Breakdown, Dandelion, The Last Time and Have You Seen Your Mother Baby Standing in the Shadow. For reasons completely unclear to me now I didn't even like Get Off My Cloud when it came out. I've seen some people call it a Satisfaction clone; while I like Satisfaction, it was never quite my go-to Stones or even go-to '60s track like the world made it later, so it wasn't a comparison for me. I'm not sure when I reappraised Get Off My Cloud but I certainly did.
Get Off My Cloud is a favorite for sentimental reasons - it was one of the first singles I ever owned as part of a handful of scratched up hand-me-downs from an uncle when I got my first record player as a little kid in the 70s. Luckily, it's a pretty good song, too. PS - the Swan She Loves You was in there, too.
Yeah, and I played a bunch of them on YouTube, hearing them for the first time ever. Like I said, they were gone down the memory hole by '74 or so, when I first began listening to "oldies" radio and became aware of "older" music. Hearing them, I can see why. Boy I sure did. I thought "Have You Seen Your Mother" was a killer song, even when I was a little kid, very odd and punchy, and the cover of the single (which my uncle had) was something else. You don't need to be around at the time to hear in retrospect that a given track was extremely dated compared to its contemporaries, and sounded more like something from 3-5 years earlier (or more). There's a massive difference between something that's intentionally retro ("Crocodile Rock", or "It Ain't Over 'Till It's Over") and something that just sounds tired and dated.
You can blame oldies radio for not hearing a lot of things with they way they always picked and chose their playlists. As someone mentioned before, what's all this mess about something being dated? They should sound dated. I want oldies to sound dated. They're from a different era with different aesthetics. I don't want everything to sound like it came out yesterday.
Fantastic song, and I still quote it occasionally. Now I see it as unfelt anger at storing personal data in The Cloud. And alluding to Cloud 9, just found this on-line - state of perfect happiness (usually in the phrase on cloud nine). Origin of cloud nine Expand. ... by 1950, sometimes also cloud seven (1956, perhaps by confusion with seventh heaven), American English, of uncertain origin or significance.
I first saw "Lawrence" in a Wisconsin Avenue theater in DC upon its original release. I saw it again several years later at Ft. Belvoir.
While I agree with the point you're making here, most of those songs don't really "harken back to older eras". "Crocodile Rock" and "I Do" are the only ones I'd say fit into that category. The two songs from Grease are set in 1958-59 but they sound like they're from two decades later (which after all they are). The Chicago songs are about earlier times but don't sound like they're from that era at all. "Putting on the Ritz" was written in the 1920s, but Taco's version couldn't sound any more '80s. "Help Me Rhonda" really is reminiscent of a decade before its time in a way most of the songs on your list are not.
Here are some other noteworthy songs that sound like they're older (intentionally): -Uptown Girl (Billy Joel) -Tell Her About It (Billy Joel)
And neither of these, or the ones mentioned earlier, fooled me. The sound quality was too good for me to be fooled.
Not for nothing, but I think the original comments about songs sounding "dated" were in reference to songs released (for example) in 1963 that sounded - because pop music was progressing at such a clip - like they were recorded (for example) in 1959 or 1960. Not songs intentionally made to sound like "oldies." Of course people listening to songs recorded in 1964 expect them to sound like 1964 and wouldn't call them "dated" in that context.
The fuzz guitar tone is amazing and unique and the song sounds so different from other tracks of that era -- although, to be fair, the same should be said of Mr. Tambourine Man.
That's pretty much why I stopped contributing to this thread. It seems to me- I could be wrong- that most of people involved here are pretty young and can't seem to understand the songs within the context of the times. I reckon that the basic musical language and structure these songs were created with are not within current musical vocabulary. And I understand that, but if one is going to start or contribute to a thread that starts in 1958, you have to know and appreciate context and what made a song work. Most of these songs sound "dated" because they're 50+ years old! That shouldn't even be present in the comments. Also there doesn't seem to be very much sticking to the topic/song being discussed. Sorry to be negative about this. I'm glad some agree.
