Ranking 220-211 So far, 162 of the 290 songs on the RS 500 (56%) are at least worthy of consideration for my Favorite Things series. The past 10 generally weren't bad at all. --- Group 1 are songs that are, or some day will be, on a volume of A Few of My Favorite Things. 1. Paint It, Black (vol. 65, track 9) 2. Jailhouse Rock (future use) 3. In the Midnight Hour (vol. 12, track 20) 4. Bizarre Love Triangle (vol. 25, track 13) 5. With or Without You (vol. 46, track 16) 6. Edge of Seventeen (vol. 50, track 11) Group 2 are songs that may go on a future CD of A Few of My Favorite Things. 7. More Than a Feeling Group 3 are those that will not be used in the future. 8. Free Fallin' 9. Shook One, Part II 10. Deacon Blues
"One Nation Under a Groove" Two different, contradictory origin stories have been told about this song. One of them, spread by former Parliament-Funkadelic "minister of information" Tom Vickers, claims that the phrase "one nation under a groove" was uttered by a woman who had witnessed an impromptu performance in front of the United Nations building in New York. The second, and more likely, story came from P-Funk master George Clinton. He told The Guardian in 2018, "We’d played a gig in Washington, D.C., and afterwards two young girls, LaTanya and Darlene, came up to the car and told us it was was the best concert they’d ever seen. They said: ‘It was like one nation under a groove.’ As soon as I heard that, I knew it had to become a song." He later said that their names are hidden among the hundreds of credits on the One Nation Under a Groove album cover. Co-writing the song with Clinton were Garry Shider, guitarist and member of P-Funk since 1972, and Walter "Junie" Morrison, who had been with the Ohio Players until the group moved from Westbound to Mercury in 1974; Morrison was mostly responsible for the Players' first big pop hit, "Funky Worm" (1973). When he entered the studio, the only lyrics Clinton had were "one nation under a groove / gettin' down just for the funk of it." He basically ad-libbed the rest. Many of the phrases he used came from his memory: "So high you can’t get over it, so low you can’t get under it" was cribbed from "Psychedelic Shack" by the Temptations, but that song adapted it from an old spiritual that, when I was young, I learned as a verse in "Rock-a my soul in the bosom of Abraham" but also exists as its own song. "Feet, don't fail me now" came from a Charlie Chan movie. "We shall all be moved" was the opposite of another line from a spiritual, "We shall not be moved." And the line "one nation under a groove" was a play on "one nation under God" from the U.S. pledge of allegiance to the flag as modified in 1954. Clinton later said that "One Nation Under a Groove" could just as well have been a Parliament song, but Funkadelic needed a hit. In the years before this song, Parliament had become the more successful of the two. Historically, Funkadelic had been the more rock-oriented of the two entities and Parliament the more R&B version, but as time went by, the distinctions became fewer. --- In 1978, when "One Nation Under a Groove" became a hit, the song had three basic lengths: -- The album version is 7:33 -- The 7-inch single version, labeled as "Part I," is 4:12 -- The 12-inch single version is 11:26 In addition, two other edits exist: -- The B-side of the 45, labeled as "Part II," is 5:24. -- The B-side of the 12-inch single, labeled as "Instrumental," is 5:48. In the U.S., the 45 was released as Warner Bros. WBS 8615 in July 1978. At the time, WB was undergoing a transition in labels from the "Burbank" palm trees label, first used in 1973, to a grayish white "notepad" label with fine horizontal lines, or in some cases, no lines at all. The pressing plants Warners used most often in 1978 for 45s, Capitol and Specialty, were the first to convert. But CBS (Pitman, N.J.) and PRC (Richmond, Ind.), which pressed 45s on styrene and were used by WB mostly as overflow by then, continued to use the old labels until stock ran out. Thus one can find 45s as late as "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?" by Rod Stewart and "Sultans of Swing" by Dire Straits on Burbank labels, though most copies have the newer variation. "One Nation Under a Groove" was popular enough that it exists in both versions. Here's a "Burbank" palm-trees label variant: Unusually for WB in 1978, the 45 was released with a picture sleeve: As mentioned in passing, Warner Bros. also issued the song as a 12-inch single. It was released as a promo (PRO-A-766) and stock copy (WBSD 8803); the contents of both are the same. The latter exists both with and without "promotion not for sale" print on the labels. I think the 12-inch has been counterfeited. All three A-side versions have been issued on CD over the years. --- If you've been following these posts for the past few months, you'll notice that, though songs may peak at different positions in different U.S. trade magazines, they are usually fairly close, especially once songs make the top 40. "One Nation Under a Groove" was a big exception. First, one place where the charts agreed was on the R&B charts, as it was one of the biggest hits of the decade. In Billboard, it was #1 for six weeks; in Record World, it also was #1 for six weeks; and in Cash Box, it spent eight weeks at #1. On the disco charts, "One Nation Under a Groove" was a modest hit; it peaked at #27 on the Cash Box chart and #31 in Billboard. (The Record World Disco File chart was only 20 positions, and it never made that chart.) The pop charts? Here's where it gets interesting. In Billboard, the song peaked at #28 and in Cash Box #22. But in Record World, "One Nation Under a Groove" got all the way to #7. The single was certified Gold by the RIAA as it sold more than a million copies; it's possible that the Record World Top 100 weighed sales more heavily than the other two did. Even so, this is an unusually large discrepancy. In Radio & Records, which had no sales element to its surveys, the song did not make its pop chart. Outside the U.S., the song peaked at #9 in the UK and #71 in Canada. --- In the fall of 1978, I am almost certain that I first heard "One Nation Under a Groove" on American Top 40, probably on Sunday, November 5. Unlike when I first heard "Flash Light," I was in a new environment, a freshman at Notre Dame rather than a senior in high school. And frankly, maybe because of peer pressure, maybe because I was genuinely getting tired of dance music, I didn't exactly have a high opinion of the song. But listening to it now, the song just moves. The single version is going on to my "maybe" list for A Few of My Favorite Things, with a strong possibility of making the "definitely yes" list. "Do you promise the funk, the whole funk, and nothing but the funk?" "I do!"
"One Nation..." is a groove, but it's not much of a song in the pass the sheet music around sense at all. Nor is it meant to be, I suppose. But I do enjoy and admire the repurposing of stock phrases in a folk process manner. And, of course, I'm not the target audience and that's ok too.
208. Hole, ‘Doll Parts’ 1994 WRITER(S):COURTNEY LOVE, ERIC ERLANDSON, KRISTEN PFAFF, PATTY SCHEMEL Courtney Love said she wrote “Doll Parts” in 20 minutes in a bathroom in Boston. “It was about a boy, whose band had just left town, who I’d been sleeping with, who I heard was sleeping with two other girls,” she explained years later. “It was my way of saying, ‘You’re a ****ing idiot if you don’t choose me, and here is all the desire and fury and love that I feel for you.’” Guitars stagger forward but never lose their footing; Love’s obsession builds slow, then erupts in erotic threats. Oh, and the upshot of Love’s story: “I married that guy.”
One Nation Under A Groove (Funkadelic) I never heard this specifically as a song when it came out, though I certainly am familiar with parts of it. Enjoyable enough dance music. Not top 500 for me, though I can see how someone might put it there. RATING: 3/5 Boys Of Summer (Don Henley) Hard to picture that this rates higher than Hotel California! Boys Of Summer is OK, but this is a great example of a 3 minute song padded needlessly to almost 5 minutes in length. Not top 500 for me. RATING: 2.5/5 Doll Parts (Hole) I'm not sure I've ever heard this before. OK, but nothing special. Celebrity Skin would be my choice for the top Hole song and one I might consider close to top 500. RATING: 2.5/5 My Current top 100 List: 1. Eleanor Rigby-The Beatles 2. Won't Get Fooled Again-The Who 3. Time Of The Season-The Zombies 4. Fortunate Son (CCR) 5. A Whiter Shade Of Pale-Procul Harum 6. Rosalita-Bruce Springsteen 7. Light My Fire-The Doors 8. My Generation-The Who 9. Penny Lane-The Beatles 10. Wouldn't It Be Nice-The Beach Boys 11. Help-Beatles 12. Lola-Kinks 13. Mr. Tambourine Man-The Byrds 14. In The Midnight Hour-Wilson Pickett 15. California Dreamin-Mama's & Papa's 16. Tears Of A Clown-Smokey Robinson & the Miracles 17. Loser-Beck 18. House Of The Rising Sun-The Animals 19. Rock Lobster-The B 52's 20. Hotel California-The Eagles 21. Free Bird-Lynyrd Skynyrd 22. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For-U2 23. White Rabbit-Jefferson Airplane 24. Purple Haze-Jimi Hendrix 25. Criminal-Fiona Apple 26. September Gurls-Big Star 27. More Than A Feeling-Boston 28. Go Your Own Way-Fleetwood Mac 29. Lean On Me-Bill Withers 30. Don't Fear The Reaper-Blue Oyster Cult 31. Stop! In The Name Of Love-Supremes 32. Layla-Derke & the Dominoes 33. You're So Vain - Carly Simon 34. Buddy Holly-Weezer 35. Father And Son-Cat Stevens 36. Surrender-Cheap Trick 37. Cannonball-Breeders 38. Gloris-Them 39. Peggy Sue-Buddy Holly 40. Ripple-Grateful Dead 41. Under The Bridge-Red Hot Chili Peppers 42. Heat Wave-Martha & the Vandellas 43. Up On A Roof-The Drifters 44. Under Pressure-Queen & David Bowie 45. Dreaming-Blondie 46. Just What I Needed-The Cars 47. Suite Judy Blue Eyes-Crosby, Stills & Nash 48. Jailhouse Rock-Elvis Presley 49. I'm A Believer-The Monkees 50. Papa Was A Rollin Stone-The Temptations 51. Both Sides Now-Joni Mitchell 52. Scenes From An Italian Restaurant-Billy Joel 53. Wish You Were Here-Pink Floyd 54. School's Out-Alice Cooper 55. Ever Fallin In Love-Buzzcocks 56. Heart Of Gold-Neil Young 57. Help Me-Joni Mitchell 58. Get Lucky-Daft Punk ft. Pharell Williams 59. Dancing Queen-Abba 60. Bad Reputation-Joan Jett 61. She's Gone-Hall & Oates 62. Heavy Metal Drummer-Wilco 63. Enter Sandman-Metallica 64. Unchained Melody-Righteous Brothers 65. Stan-Eminem ft. Dido 66. Hungry Like The Wolf -Duran Duran 67. Paranoid-Black Sabbath 68. Alive-Pearl Jam 69. Summertime Blues-Eddie Cochran 70. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised-Gil-Scott Heron 71. Green Onions-Booker T & the MG's 72. Everlong-Foo Fighters 73. 1999-Prince 74. All I Have To Do Is Dream-Everly Brothers 75. Ain't No Sunshine-Bill Withers 76. Chain Of Fools-Aretha Franklin 77. Night Moves-Bob Seger 78. With Or Without You-U2 79. Jungleland-Bruce Springsteen 80. Portions For Foxes-Rilo Kiley 81. It's Too Late-Carole King 82. Allison-Elvis Costello 83. Killing Me Softly-Roberta Flack 84. Free Fallin-Tom Petty 85. Leader Of The Pack-The Shangri-Las 86. Bo Diddley-Bo Diddley 87. Summertime Sadness-Lana Del Rey 88. I Can't Help Myself-Four Tops 89. Move On Up-Curtis Mayfield 90. Oy Como Va-Santana 91. You Keep Me Hangin On - Supremes 92. Without You - Nilsson 93. The Boys Are Back In Town-Thin Lizzy 94. Rapper's Delight-Sugarhill Gang 95. Fade Into You-Mazzy Star 96. Come As You Are-Nirvana 97. God Save The Queen-Sex Pistols 98. Get Up Stand Up-The Wailers 99. Da Doo Run Run-The Crystals 100. Merry Go Round-Kasey Musgraves Other worthy songs: Heartbreak Hotel-Elvis Presley, Passionate Kisses-Lucinda Williams, Our Lips Are Sealed-Go Go's Crying-Roy Orbison,Midnight Train To Georgia-Gladys Knight & PipsSheena Is A Punk Rocker-Ramones, I Wanna Be Your Dog-the Stooges, You Shook Me All Night Long-ACDC, Baby Love-Supremes, Karma Police-Radiohead, Never Tear Us Apart-INXS, Everybody Wants To Rule The World-Tears For Fears, Only Love Can Break Your Heart-Neil Young, Coal Miner's Daughter-Loretta Lynn, Shout-Isley Brothers, Can I Kick It-A Tribe Called Quest, Straight Outta Compton-N.W.A., Ooh La La-Faces, Great Balls Of Fire-Jerry Lee Lewis, I Wanna Dance With Somebody-Whitney Houston, Single Ladies-Beyonce, This Land Is Your Land-Woody Guthrie, Bennie And The Jets-Elton John, Limelight-Rush, Little Red Corvette-Prince, Black Hole Sun-Soundgarden
#213 Rolling Stones - Paint it Black For a long time this was the only Stones song I owned. It is excellent; dark and sinister. The sitar and the meaty drum bring a lot to the occasion. #212 Boston - More Than a Feeling Nothing against it, but overexposed and I can't envisage actively wishing to play this. #211 US - With or Without You Thoroughly unenthused, both by the song and U2 as a band. Rank somewhere adjacent to Coldplay in the bottom of the barrel. #210 Funkadelic - One Nation Under a Groove Not my favourite song from One Nation Under a Groove; that honour goes to 'Who Says a Funk Band Can't Play Rock?'. However, this is a body-shaker too. Another highlight from the George Clinton stable of excellence. #209 Don Henley - Boys of Summer I do like this song. It is redolent of hot days and road trips and has nostalgic, heartwarming qualities too. I don't even mind the dubious cover versions that proliferated in the early '00s! #208 Hole - Doll Parts This is not a song I would naturally associate with the RS500. Not captivating either lyrically or melodically, mopey angst by numbers. Against the grain, but for a song to represent Hole in my own 500, I'd be looking squarely towards something from Pretty on the Inside. That's a properly earthy and grimy record, rather than the emoting on Live Through This or Celebrity Skin. No changes to my Top 30.
I just want to add my two cents and state that "Hound Dog" by Big Mama Thornton is in MY top 500! Also, Youtube has an even better version (imho) than the one posted here earlier.
207. Rage Against the Machine, ‘Killing in the Name’ 1992 WRITER(S):TIM COMMERFORD, ZACK DE LA ROCHA, TOM MORELLO, BRAD WILK A killer riff can arise at any time — even during a guitar lesson. That’s when Tom Morello, who was teaching on the side, came up with the start of the song that would become RATM’s breakthrough anthem. “I stopped the lesson, got my little Radio Shack cassette recorder, laid down that little snippet, and then continued with the lesson,” he said. Rage’s bludgeoning rhythm section bolstered that riff, and Zack de la Rocha contributed sharp critiques of the police (“Some of those that work forces/Are the same who burn crosses”) as well as the universally anti-authoritarian mantra “**** you, I won’t do what you tell me.”
Rage Against the Machine - "Killing in the Name" If we're talking rap rock funk metal then I much prefer Faith No More to Rage Against the Machine. Patton's voice is so much better than De La Roche's and musically it's more interesting imo. Anyway, while I don't dislike "Killing in the Name", it wouldn't appear on my list, whereas one or two Faith No More songs ("We Care A Lot", "Midlife Crisis") just might.
"The Boys of Summer" Aa noted in the original blurb, the song originated with Mike Campbell of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers playing a haunting guitar figure over a Linn drum backing track in 1984. Petty, who at the time was working on the album that became Southern Accents, felt Campbell's demo didn't fit in with anything he was working on for the album. Meanwhile, Jimmy Iovine, who was helping Petty with the album, heard Campbell's demo and steered Campbell toward Don Henley, who was working on his first solo album in more than two years at the time. Campbell and Henley had not even met yet, though they both had separately worked with Iovine on Stevie Nicks' Bella Donna album in 1981. Iovine gave Campbell Henley's contact information; Henley liked what he heard, got a cassette tape of the demo, and wrote lyrics as he listened to the tape in his car. When he went into the studio to record the song, he wanted to re-create the sound of the demo as closely as possible, so Henley added Campbell to the small assortment of musicians on the song, which also included studio pros Danny Kortchmar, Steve Porcaro, and Larry Klein. The sessions were fraught with snafus. Campbell brought his Linn drums with him to the sessions, and he attempted to play the pattern he had saved on an attached cassette, but multiple times, he received an "error" message on the machine. Finally, the device read the cassette on what was going to be Campbell's last attempt, and the demo was quickly recorded onto studio tape before it could malfunction again. Next, after a version had been recorded, complete with overdubs, Henley changed his mind; he decided it would work better for his voice if the song were pitched up by half a step. So the first version was scrapped, and they started over. That is the version that was released. But it, too, almost didn't happen; during mastering, as Campbell related in a video on the making of the song, "we put the tape up, and as it was rolling by, I looked over, and I saw the back of the analog tape peeling off onto the floor in a pile. And I said, 'Stop the tape!' ... And some guy went over there and painstakingly got some glue and [attached] the backing back onto the tape. We got it to play through one time for the mastering, and that was the record." Henley cribbed the song title "The Boys of Summer" from the best-selling 1972 book of the same name by Roger Kahn, which, like the song, was about the passing of time. In Kahn's case, The Boys of Summer was about the Brooklyn Dodgers, who won their first and only Major League Baseball championship in 1955, only to break hearts by moving to Los Angeles after the 1957 season. Kahn, in turn, had taken his title from a 1939 Dylan Thomas poem that starts, "I see the boys of summer in their ruin." Perhaps the best-remembered line in the song is "Out on the road today, I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac." That was based on real life; in 1985, Henley told New Musical Express, "I was driving down the San Diego Freeway and got passed by a $21,000 Cadillac Seville, the status symbol of the right-wing upper-middle-class American bourgeoisie – all the guys with the blue blazers and the crests and the gray pants – and there was this Grateful Dead "Deadhead" sticker on it." The song also included a reference to the Ray-Ban Wayfarer sunglasses, which were introduced in 1952 but were almost discontinued in the early 1980s. After Ray-Ban started paying for product placement -- celebrities began wearing them, and they showed up in such films as Risky Business and The Breakfast Club -- the brand was revived and became a 1980s pop-culture fad. After "The Boys of Summer" was released as a single, but before the Petty album was finished, Petty and Campbell were in a car planning to listen to a mix of "Don't Come Around Here No More" to see what it sounded like in a vehicle. Before the cassette player kicked in, the radio came on, and "The Boys of Summer" played. Campbell quickly changed the station, but that station also was playing the song. After hearing the final product, Petty took back his initial dislike of the song and wished he could have that one back. Campbell made enough on songwriting royalties from "The Boys of Summer" that he was able to pay off the mortgage on his house. --- In October 1984, "The Boys of Summer" was released as the first single from Henley's album Building the Perfect Beast. In the U.S., the album version and the commercial 45 version are the same length and mix (4:47). Promo copies added a subtitle "(After the Boys of Summer Have Gone)" on both 45s and 12-inch singles; this subtitle was also used on Canadian stock copies. Also, both sizes of promos contain an edited 3:54 version. Unlike some edits, this one is relatively simple: the first 10 seconds are chopped off, and the end of the song is faded early. The stock 45s were pressed at Specialty on vinyl on the East Coast and Allied on styrene on the West Coast. The labels used on the Specialty version were sized as if they were going to be used at one of Capitol's pressing plants, because they left room for the interlocking ridges found on Capitol 45s from 1968 to 1985. But by the end of '85, Capitol stopped pressing its own vinyl and farmed it out, mostly to Specialty and Allied. The first to go were the projects Capitol did for other labels. Instead of wasting all the pre-printed wrong-sized labels, Geffen/WB went ahead and used them at Specialty. In many other countries, the 45 rpm version was the radio edit. This allowed Geffen to call the 12-inch single an "Extended Version" when it reality it was merely the album version and U.S. 45 version. The song was a substantial hit; in the U.S., it peaked at #5 in Billboard and #6 in Cash Box and Radio & Records. It hit #1 on the Billboard Top Rock Tracks and Radio & Records AOR Tracks charts. And it crossed over to Adult Contemporary, where it peaked at #33 in Billboard. Outside the States, "The Boys of Summer" peaked at #3 in Australia, #7 in Ireland, #12 in the UK, #15 in Canada, #18 in New Zealand and West Germany, and #26 in the Netherlands. In 1998, for reasons I was not able to discern, "The Boys of Summer" was reissued in the UK as a CD and cassette single, and it got to #12 on the UK singles chart all over again and #23 in Ireland. The front cover and CD erroneously call this "Boys of Summer." --- Two covers are worthy of mention, one in the U.S. and one international. First, DJ Sammy, a Spanish trance artist who had a Top 10 U.S. hit with a dance cover of Bryan Adams' "Heaven" in 2002, made the charts in numerous countries with his version of "The Boys of Summer." It didn't chart in the States except on the dance charts, but it got to #1 in Scotland, #2 in the UK, #3 in New Zealand, #9 in Australia, #15 in Ireland, and in the 20s and 30s in many other European countries. The other was by U.S. band The Ataris, whose version, from the album So Long, Astoria, became a hit in 2003. It made one lyrical change to reflect the band's generation: The Cadillac now had a sticker of 1980s hardcore band Black Flag on it. Mike Campbell said of the Ataris' cover: "I like it a lot. My son's 15, he has a punk band and he was excited about it.... I heard it on the radio three times in one day and I got kind of excited about it." It became the band's only sizable hit, peaking at #10 on the Radio & Records CHR/Top 40 chart and #20 on the Billboard Hot 100. --- When "The Boys of Summer" became a hit, in late 1984 and early 1985, it was a period of some really, really good singles. I think of it alongside another big hit of the same time period, "I Want to Know What Love Is" by Foreigner, which is one of the greatest singles of the 1980s to these ears. During that time in my life, I was living in South Bend, Indiana and, alas, working only sporadically. So I took advantage of my employment status by finding rides back to Pennsylvania, where my family lived, with winter breakers from nearby Notre Dame. This gave me roughly four weeks at home during the Christmas and early New Year period. During that time, I watched a fair amount of MTV, and I got to see the video for "The Boys of Summer" a lot. The things you can never know: I never would have guessed that, when I left the house for South Bend that January, that the next time I would see my younger brother would be six months later, literally minutes before he died. I find myself, way too often, looking back not only at 1985, but to other times, with a haze of nostalgia that they perhaps don't deserve. When times are rough, I find myself looking up the names of people who got away to find out what might have happened to them. So yeah, the chorus still resonates with me to this day. As I re-listened to "The Boys of Summer" and re-watched the video, so much came flooding back. So far in my Favorite Things project, the only Don Henley song I've included is "Dirty Laundry," his screed against TV news that, if anything, is even more relevant today than it was 40 years ago. "The Boys of Summer" resonated so deeply within me that I may have to stop ignoring it. Onto the "maybe" list it goes.
1. Tom Petty - Free Fallin' 2. Tears For Fears - Everybody Wants to Rule the World 3 Peter Gabriel - Solsbury Hill 4 Gladys Knight & The Pips - Midnight Train to Georgia 5. Fleetwood Mac - Go Your Own Way 6. The Killers - Mr Brightside 7. Abba - Dancing Queen 8. U2 - With or Without You 9. Don Henley - Boys of Summer 10. Prince - Little Red Corvette 11. U2 - I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For 12. Bruce Springsteen - Jungleland 13. The Crystals - Da Doo Ron Ron 14. The Pretenders - Brass in Pocket 15. Procul Harum - Whiter Shade of Pale 16. Bill Withers - Lean on Me 17. Bruce Springsteen - Atlantic City 18. The Police - Every Breath You Take 19. Boston - More Than a Feeling 20. The Smiths - There is a Light That Never Goes Out 21. The Beatles - Help! 22. Queen and Bowie - Under Pressure 23. Carly Simon - You're So Vain 24. Phil Collins - In the Air Tonight 25. INXS - Never Tear us Apart 26. Marvin Gaye - Let's Get it On 27. Cyndi Lauper - Time After Time 28. Neil Young - After the Gold Rush 29. Supremes - Baby Love 30. Pixies - Where is My Mind
206. Glen Campbell, ‘Wichita Lineman’ 1968 WRITER(S):JIMMY WEBB Inspired by the isolation of a telephone-pole worker he saw on the Kansas-Oklahoma border, Jimmy Webb wrote this in 1968 for Campbell, who had asked if Webb could come up with another “By the Time I Get to Phoenix.” “I just tried to take an ordinary guy and open him up and say, ‘Look there’s this great soul, and there’s this great aching and this great loneliness inside this person, and we’re all like that,’” Webb told the BBC. Campbell added a guitar part and kept the organ from Webb’s demo; the chiming sound at the fade, evoking telephone signals, was done on a massive church organ.
"Doll Parts" Even before she decided to mostly focus on music, Courtney Love had an interesting, multi-faceted life. Among her many and varied activities in the 1970s and 1980s, she had supporting roles in two films, Sid and Nancy and Straight to Hell. In 1989, she placed an ad in a newspaper called The Recycler, which was the opposite of weekly shoppers found in most U.S. locations at the time; here, you placed an ad for free, but people bought the newspaper instead of the other way around (bought an ad, and the paper was free). Love's ad read, "I want to start a band. My influences are Big Black, Sonic Youth, and Fleetwood Mac." Eric Erlandson, a local Portland, Ore., guitarist, answered the ad, and he and Love formed the nucleus of Hole throughout most of its existence. Love said the band name came from three things. As she told Jools Holland in 1995: "In Euripides' Medea, when she kills the bride and her own child, she says 'There's a hole that pierces my soul.' [And] my mother's this kind of new age psychologist, and I said 'You know, I had this terrible childhood,' and she said 'Well, you can't have a hole running through you all the time, Courtney.' You know, and then [there's] the genital reference, go ahead and make it if you will." In the early days, the band members behind the two primaries came and went frequently. Before it settled down a bit, Hole made two early singles, with prominent indie labels Sympathy for the Record Industry and Sub Pop, both of which remained in print for years. Those were followed by the 1991 album Pretty on the Inside on the Caroline label, which received mainstream critical acclaim and led to Hole garnering attention from major labels. The first to woo Hole was Maverick, Madonna's new label that was lauched in April 1992, but Love wasn't interested. Meanwhile, she and Erlandson in 1992 began writing more material for a second album. One song, it turned out, already existed. --- Love already had been married and divorced once (in 1989 to James Moreland of band The Leaving Trains), had had a year-long relationship with Erlandson that went beyond bandmates, and had briefly dated Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins by the time she started dating Kurt Cobain of Nirvana. Sources differ as to the location and circumstances of their first meeting, but they became re-acquainted in late 1991 through Jennifer Finch, a friend of Love's who was in the band L7. Very quickly, they became a couple. At first, Love didn't think Cobain loved her, and especially when word got back to her that he may have been sleeping with other women during Nirvana's November 1991 tour of England, "Doll Parts" was her response. She wrote it on November 6, 1991, in the bathroom of music executive Joyce Lineham, with whom she was staying in Cambridge, Massachusetts. "I had to write most of the lyrics on my arm in Sharpie because I ran out of paper," she said later. "People were pounding on the door as I wrote it ... Good songs don't always come in 20 minutes, but the force was strong, and that one did." The lyrics were inspired by several things. Most of it came from a present of a heart-shaped box Love gave Cobain as a token of her love, inside of which were a porcelain doll, three dried roses, a miniature teacup, and shellac-covered seashells. (The same artifact would inspire the later Nirvana song "Heart-Shaped Box.") The "dog beg" came from a dog in the apartment begging Love for food. And once the song came out, none other than Joni Mitchell praised the line "I fake it so real, I am beyond fake" as having an element of truth and revelation in it. Later that same day (November 6), Love debuted the song at a six-song Hole concert at Tower Records in Cambridge, possibly under the name "I Am"; the band also performed it at the Rathskeller in Boston on November 7, 1991. (Audience recordings exist of both.) Within two weeks, "Doll Parts" had reached its final form; when Hole went to England later that month, the band recorded it for the BBC on DJ John Peel's radio show on November 19, 1991. The year 1992 was mostly inactive for Hole as a band. Love had married Cobain and become pregnant with their child. She also wanted to change musical direction, so the band's drummer and bassist left; they went through the year with no bassist. But Hole did sign with DGC Records, the Geffen subsidiary that also was the home for Nirvana, later in 1992, and they recorded three songs that became a single in early 1993. With a reasonably stable lineup at last, after adding drummer Patty Schemel and bassist Kristen Pfaff, Hole recorded the album that became Live Through This in Marietta, Ga., in October 1993. The first single, "Miss World," was released to radio on DGC and as a 7-inch single on the indie Tim/Kerr label in March 1994. (A 7-inch single on the DGC label purportedly exists, but the only image I could find anywhere on the Internet is blurry and shows only one side of the 45, which raises my suspicions as to its provenance.) And then Cobain killed himself. The album came out as scheduled in April 1994, but most of the direct promotional activity stopped. Yet another blow came in June 1994 as Pfaff died of a heroin overdose, thus canceling Hole's tour until a replacement could be found. Meanwhile, a video for "Doll Parts" was filmed with Finch playing the role of Hole's bassist. Once a new bassist was found (Melissa Auf der Mar), the tour was rescheduled, and in conjunction, DGC released "Doll Parts" as the album's second single to alternative and college radio in September 1994. Because DGC released it as a cassette single in the United States in November 1994, it was eligible to make the Billboard Hot 100. (It was also released by DGC as a 45, and this definitely exists. The images on Discogs and 45cat aren't great, but they are clear; numerous copies have been sold over the years, and I also own a copy.) "Doll Parts" peaked at #59 in Billboard and #61 in Cash Box. On the Billboard Modern Rock chart, it peaked at #4, the same position it reached on the Radio & Records Alternative chart. The song also peaked at #18 in the UK. The U.S. version had a live version of "Plump" on the B-side. In other countries, the B-sides included "The Void," recorded live on the BBC; a live cover of "Hungry Like the Wolf"; and live versions of "I Think That I Would Die" and "Credit in the Straight World." In 2013 and 2014, a series of bootleg 45s of "Doll Parts" were released with blank white labels and on pink vinyl, with "He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss)" on the B-side. Some of these purported to be "Record Store Day" releases, as the bootleggers even bootlegged the RSD logo. --- I don't remember hearing "Doll Parts" in 1994 or 1995. I bought the 45 new, but by that time, I was buying too many at the same time to play them all, and frankly, I was in the midst of one of my periodic depressive episodes during which I was going through the motions of life. (I had left a sportswriting job that had burned me out, and I wasn't sure what direction my life would go next. That wouldn't finally be settled until July 1995.) So I listened to it with fresh ears. And my goodness, it's great! I love the production and performance so much! It's not blatant, but I hear a little bit of Sheryl Crow's later hit "If It Makes You Happy" in it. I also decided to listen to Miley Cyrus' live version from 2020, and in that version, you can hear where Courtney Love was coming from when she said in her original 1989 ad that one of her influences was Fleetwood Mac. If Stevie Nicks had a rasp, that's what it would sound like. "Doll Parts" has to rank among my top 5 pleasant surprises in the RS 500 so far, along with "Ace of Spades" by Motorhead, "Ripple" by the Grateful Dead, "Stan" by Eminem featuring Dido, and "Merry-Go-Round" by Kasey Musgraves. Onto the list for A Few of My Favorite Things it goes.
Glen Campbell - "Wichita Lineman" Totally not my thing. Sugar-coated sentimentality. I struggle to understand why this is in the list and almost in the top 200. Maybe "you had to be there"? Perhaps it has a "deeper meaning"?
Wichita Lineman is lovely. I'm not as crazy about it as some are, but Campbell & Webb were a perfect match. Records don't necessarily have to be cutting edge to be worthy, sometimes just well-crafted is fine.
205. Britney Spears, ‘…Baby One More Time’ 1998 WRITER(S):KARL SANDBERG The song that introduced the world to the most influential female pop artist to come around since Madonna was originally intended for TLC, but the R&B group rejected it. Once Swedish songwriter Max Martin met Spears, a new 15-year-old singer with Jive Records, he thought he had the right person for the track. Spears agreed. “I wanted my voice to be kind of rusty,” she told Rolling Stone years later. “I wanted my voice to just be able to groove with the track. So the night before, I stayed up really, really late, so when I went into the studio, I wasn’t rested.”
Britney Spears, ‘…Baby One More Time’ Probably great for people who are heavily into plastic and bubblegum. But I admit that it's not something I would turn the radio off for.
Killing In The Name (Rage Against The Machine) Rage Against The Machine is a group I respect more than I enjoy. I don't care much for this type of metal music with screaming lyrics, but I have enjoyed reading interviews with Alex DeLaRocha. RATING: 2.5/5 Wichita Lineman (Glenn Campbell) Campbell had a slew of easy listening folk/country type songs in the 60's that were quite enjoyable. "Wichita Lineman" is probably the best and I can see putting one Campbell song in my top 500 and having this be the one. It sneaks into the lower range of my top 100. RATING: 3.5/5 Baby One More Time (Brittney Spears) Like I have said more than a few times. If current teen pop like this is in the top 500, where are the Archies, Partridge Family, Bay City Rollers, etc. This is probably my favorite of Spear's songs, but it wouldn't be top 500 for me. RATING: 3/5 My Current top 100 List: 1. Eleanor Rigby-The Beatles 2. Won't Get Fooled Again-The Who 3. Time Of The Season-The Zombies 4. Fortunate Son (CCR) 5. A Whiter Shade Of Pale-Procul Harum 6. Rosalita-Bruce Springsteen 7. Light My Fire-The Doors 8. My Generation-The Who 9. Penny Lane-The Beatles 10. Wouldn't It Be Nice-The Beach Boys 11. Help-Beatles 12. Lola-Kinks 13. Mr. Tambourine Man-The Byrds 14. In The Midnight Hour-Wilson Pickett 15. California Dreamin-Mama's & Papa's 16. Tears Of A Clown-Smokey Robinson & the Miracles 17. Loser-Beck 18. House Of The Rising Sun-The Animals 19. Rock Lobster-The B 52's 20. Hotel California-The Eagles 21. Free Bird-Lynyrd Skynyrd 22. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For-U2 23. White Rabbit-Jefferson Airplane 24. Purple Haze-Jimi Hendrix 25. Criminal-Fiona Apple 26. September Gurls-Big Star 27. More Than A Feeling-Boston 28. Go Your Own Way-Fleetwood Mac 29. Lean On Me-Bill Withers 30. Don't Fear The Reaper-Blue Oyster Cult 31. Stop! In The Name Of Love-Supremes 32. Layla-Derke & the Dominoes 33. You're So Vain - Carly Simon 34. Buddy Holly-Weezer 35. Father And Son-Cat Stevens 36. Surrender-Cheap Trick 37. Cannonball-Breeders 38. Gloris-Them 39. Peggy Sue-Buddy Holly 40. Ripple-Grateful Dead 41. Under The Bridge-Red Hot Chili Peppers 42. Heat Wave-Martha & the Vandellas 43. Up On A Roof-The Drifters 44. Under Pressure-Queen & David Bowie 45. Dreaming-Blondie 46. Just What I Needed-The Cars 47. Suite Judy Blue Eyes-Crosby, Stills & Nash 48. Jailhouse Rock-Elvis Presley 49. I'm A Believer-The Monkees 50. Papa Was A Rollin Stone-The Temptations 51. Both Sides Now-Joni Mitchell 52. Scenes From An Italian Restaurant-Billy Joel 53. Wish You Were Here-Pink Floyd 54. School's Out-Alice Cooper 55. Ever Fallin In Love-Buzzcocks 56. Heart Of Gold-Neil Young 57. Help Me-Joni Mitchell 58. Get Lucky-Daft Punk ft. Pharell Williams 59. Dancing Queen-Abba 60. Bad Reputation-Joan Jett 61. She's Gone-Hall & Oates 62. Heavy Metal Drummer-Wilco 63. Enter Sandman-Metallica 64. Unchained Melody-Righteous Brothers 65. Stan-Eminem ft. Dido 66. Hungry Like The Wolf -Duran Duran 67. Paranoid-Black Sabbath 68. Alive-Pearl Jam 69. Summertime Blues-Eddie Cochran 70. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised-Gil-Scott Heron 71. Green Onions-Booker T & the MG's 72. Everlong-Foo Fighters 73. 1999-Prince 74. All I Have To Do Is Dream-Everly Brothers 75. Ain't No Sunshine-Bill Withers 76. Chain Of Fools-Aretha Franklin 77. Night Moves-Bob Seger 78. With Or Without You-U2 79. Jungleland-Bruce Springsteen 80. Portions For Foxes-Rilo Kiley 81. It's Too Late-Carole King 82. Allison-Elvis Costello 83. Killing Me Softly-Roberta Flack 84. Free Fallin-Tom Petty 85. Leader Of The Pack-The Shangri-Las 86. Bo Diddley-Bo Diddley 87. Summertime Sadness-Lana Del Rey 88. I Can't Help Myself-Four Tops 89. Move On Up-Curtis Mayfield 90. Oy Como Va-Santana 91. You Keep Me Hangin On - Supremes 92. Without You - Nilsson 93. The Boys Are Back In Town-Thin Lizzy 94. Rapper's Delight-Sugarhill Gang 95. Fade Into You-Mazzy Star 96. Come As You Are-Nirvana 97. God Save The Queen-Sex Pistols 98. Get Up Stand Up-The Wailers 99. Wichita Lineman-Glenn Campbell 100. Da Doo Run Run-The Crystals Other worthy songs: Heartbreak Hotel-Elvis Presley, Passionate Kisses-Lucinda Williams, Our Lips Are Sealed-Go Go's Crying-Roy Orbison,Midnight Train To Georgia-Gladys Knight & PipsSheena Is A Punk Rocker-Ramones, I Wanna Be Your Dog-the Stooges, You Shook Me All Night Long-ACDC, Baby Love-Supremes, Karma Police-Radiohead, Never Tear Us Apart-INXS, Everybody Wants To Rule The World-Tears For Fears, Only Love Can Break Your Heart-Neil Young, Coal Miner's Daughter-Loretta Lynn, Shout-Isley Brothers, Can I Kick It-A Tribe Called Quest, Straight Outta Compton-N.W.A., Ooh La La-Faces, Great Balls Of Fire-Jerry Lee Lewis, I Wanna Dance With Somebody-Whitney Houston, Single Ladies-Beyonce, This Land Is Your Land-Woody Guthrie, Bennie And The Jets-Elton John, Limelight-Rush, Little Red Corvette-Prince, Black Hole Sun-Soundgarden, Merry-Go-Round (Kasey Musgraves)
"Killing in the Name" Trying to piece together the true origin of the song and its inspiration was tough, and I think most of the retrospective histories have at least some of it wrong. Here's my best attempt. First, the band Rage Against the Machine formed in 1991 from the wreckage of several bands. Guitarist Tom Morello, formerly of Lock Up, joined with singer Zack de la Rocha of Inside Out and bassist Tim Commerford, formerly of Juvenile Expression, on the recommendation of former Lock Up drummer Jon Knox, who later was in 1990s Christian rock band White Heart. They joined with drummer Brad Wilk, who had tried to join both Lock Up and an early version of Pearl Jam, but failed both auditions. The new foursome called themselves "Rage Against the Machine," after a song de la Rocha had written for Inside Out, but never officially recorded (live performances of the song have surfaced). The phrase seems to have originated from a 1989 article by Kent McClard in the zine No Answers. Not long after RATM formed, they began recording a cassette that would serve as both a souvenir at the band's gigs and a demo tape. Using Sunbirth Studios in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, the band's first rehearsal, according to Morello, was August 31, 1991. The 12 songs on the self-released tape came together over a period of several months. A friend of the band, Johnny Sabella, was a student at Cal State University-Northridge and also booked bands for lunchtime concerts at the school. On October 23, 1991, Rage Against the Machine played its first live gig ever in front of a small crowd in the student union. Amazingly, a video of the performace exists, and one can see that, as the show goes on, fewer people are merely passing by and more are stopping to take it in. The concert began with a short instrumental version of the song thet became "Killing in the Name." Another song later in the show, the unreleased "Hit the Deck," included the guitar solo that later would adorn the former song. Several sources claim that "Killing in the Name" was inspired by the April 1992 riots in Los Angeles after the cops who beat up Rodney King were acquitted. But this is impossible, as the song already existed by April 1992. It was far more likely to have been inspired by the actual beating, and the amateur footage from it, which took place in 1991. The first version of "Killing in the Name" appeared on the Rage Against the Machine self-published cassette, which was released in either January or February 1992, and not December 1991 as many sources claim. First, the labels of the cassette state "© 1992" on both sides. And second, the front insert shows two stock tables that are fairly clearly dated "Friday, Jan. 17, 1992" -- probably lifted from the Sunday Los Angeles Times of January 19, 1992. Each copy of the cassette came with an unused match taped to the cover; some have white heads and some have red. Anyway, the song was placed as the third song on Side 2 of the tape, as shown: The version on the tape has a different solo, and de la Rocha's vocals are not as strong. The whole thing is also more than a minute longer than the familiar major-label recording (some language NSFW): The entire 12-song demo was released as part of the 20th anniversary edition of their major-label debut. It didn't take long for Rage Against the Machine to get noticed by a record label. After either the second or third gig the band played once the tape was available, Epic Associated, the label of Spin Doctors and Pearl Jam, expressed strong interest, as did Atlantic. They ended up signing with the former, which gave the band almost complete creative control. The major-label version of "Killing in the Name" didn't come together until Rage invited some friends into the studio and played it live. That performance served as the basic track onto which overdubs and alterations were made. Even so, there were issues. Epic A&R man Michael Goldstone wanted to cut the song in half and thought the way the song stopped and then resumed didn't work. The band and their producer, Garth Richardson, who went by "GGGarth" on the album credits, refused to budge. In the end, RATM won that battle. But Morello told Spin magazine in 2012, "Before Michael Goldstone is disparaged as some sort of a record-company shill, trying to commercialize the band: He’s the one that suggested that it be the first single without editing it for lyrical content." And that's exactly what happened. Epic sent "Killing in the Name" to radio in November 1992 unedited, uncensored and without warning advisories. Promos exist as a CD single (ZSK 4791), 12-inch single (ZAS 4831), and cassette (ZAT 4842), the latter with "Bullet in the Head" on Side 2. Naturally, no one played it. And no one bought it, either, as Epic did not release a commercial single in the U.S. Instead, it, and the album, built a reputation by word of mouth. The album, released in November 1992, didn't finally make the Billboard chart until the May 1, 1993 edition. It then stayed on the chart for more than a year. Reports in the trade paper Radio & Records noted that about a dozen and a half AOR radio stations started playing "Killing in the Name Of" (sic) in September 1993, 10 months after the song was first serviced. Either they played it extremely late at night, or they made in-house edits. Outside the U.S., "Killing in the Name" has a more interesting relationship with the charts. It was issued as a 45, 12-inch single, cassette single, and CD single in many European countries and Australasia. In several countries, a promo edit was sent out that was 4:20 in length; presumably, it cut out all the frenetic profanity toward the end of the song. It gave radio stations something to play, and it certainly helped it to chart in several countries. Every once in a while, though, a station would accidentally on purpose slip up and play the full version, thus allowing the moral guardians of that nation to get their knickers in a twist, and also allowing the song to gain more publicity, thus more sales. Anyway, the commercial copies all had the F-you version on them, including the 45 from the UK: In early 1993, "Killing in the Name" hit #7 in Australia, #8 in New Zealand, #13 in the Netherlands, and #25 in the UK. But the story doesn't end there. In the UK, there is an annual obsession with the #1 song at Christmas. This seems to date from 1973, when three classic Christmas songs battled for the top spot: "Merry Xmas Everybody" by Slade; "I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday" by Wizzard; and "Step Into Christmas" by Elton John. Ever since, the Christmas #1 has been the biggest focus of the year on the UK charts. One of the plots that weaves through the film Love, Actually involves a washed-up singer who is making one more cynical bid to get the Christmas #1 over the latest boy band. This phenomenon is utterly foreign to the U.S.; indeed, from 1976 through 1991, Billboard took the week off between Christmas and New Year's and simply "froze" the charts that week. (The other trade papers sometimes took even more time off during the Christmas season.) Today, with a rules change in Billboard, the week between Christmas and New Year's has become one of the most interesting Hot 100 charts of the year, because classic Christmas songs can re-enter the charts. But back to the UK: By 2009, the #1 at Christmas had gone to the first single by the winner of The X Factor for four straight years, and a British DJ and his wife decided enough was enough. So in early December 2009, they started a Facebook group called "Rage Against the X Factor," promoting "Killing in the Name" as an alternative for the Christmas #1. Their little protest snowballed to the point where Simon Cowell denounced it, which only gave it more momentum. Word got to Morello, who encouraged the group even more, telling the BBC that achieving the Christmas number one would be "a wonderful dose of anarchy" and that he planned to donate the unexpected windfall to charity. And it worked! "Killing in the Name" became the coveted Christmas #1 based entirely on sales of downloads, the first song ever to hit the UK #1 spot without a currently available physical single. It also hit #2 in Ireland and Scotland. --- I am of several minds about "Killing in the Name." First, the limited lyrics are every bit as relevant today as they were in 1991, perhaps even more so. The band even changes some of them in concert to reflect current realities. And who hasn't at least thought about shouting at the top of their lungs the last 16 lines or so of the song? Second, the style was influential on the nu-metal sound of the late 90s and early 00s. None of those bands was ever as strident or political as RATM, but you can hear the sound in those bands. Third, I don't like this very much. I do like the lyrics; I just wish they were repeated less often. One of the strange things I hear with all the repeated lines and heavy backing is one of the 1990s' silliest hits, "Three Little Pigs" by Green Jelly (1993). If I am going to listen to a hard-rock protest song, I'll put on "School's Out" by Alice Cooper, which already made the RS 500. There's a woman who sings/raps this about once a month at my regular karaoke spot. She relishes doing it and puts her all into it. More power to her! Does "Killing in the Name" belong on a list like this? Probably. But certainly not this high. And it's not something I like listening to frequently.
