music Archives - Page 117 of 265 - Ramblin' with Roger

Music throwback: banned songs?

Here’s a song – and I think it’s a good thing – that you DON’T hear much anymore.

The discussion about whether radio stations should play Baby, It’s Cold Outside heated up in 2018, with some suggesting that the song should go away and others suggesting the song is not a problem. A LOT of people in this discussion argue, “Don’t they have something better to do?”

I commented about the song back in 2017. My basic belief is that I don’t much care – ban it, don’t.

These posts led to some nifty conversations about what ELSE has been banned. To be sure, a radio station choosing not to play a song isn’t an outright ban unless some government entity actually prohibits it. The FBI checked out Louie Louie by the Kingsmen (#2 pop for six weeks, #1 r&b for six weeks in 1963) but couldn’t figure out what was said.

I recall Society’s Child by Janis Ian (#14 pop in 1967) didn’t get played on certain radio stations because of the interracial reference. Even Love Child by Diana Ross and the Supremes (#1 pop for two weeks pop, #2 r&b for three weeks) got yanked by a couple stations.

The more interesting conversation is what songs SHOULD be axed now. More than one person noted Run For Your Life by the Beatles (1965), “I’d rather see you dead, little girl, than to be with another man.” I admit it is one of my least favorite songs by the group, and John Lennon himself has dismissed it. It’s possibly the reason the Revolver album ranks higher with me than Rubber Soul.

What about Hey Joe, by the Leaves (#31 in 1966), famously covered by Jimi Hendrix (1968), about actually shooting someone? Ditto Neil Young’s Down by the River (1969). Or do they belong to the genre of “murder ballads” such as Pretty Polly (1968), famously covered by Judy Collins?

Now here’s a song – and I think it’s a good thing – that you DON’T hear much anymore. The Crystals’ He Hit Me (and It Felt Like a Kiss) (1962) was written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King.

There’s one song that I own a Dr. Demento album that I’ve not heard for decades on the radio. Homecoming Queen’s Got a Gun by Julie Brown (1983) was played on MTV in the early days. School shootings were once a rare event, so this was just an absurd, possibly tasteless, joke in the 1980s. I can’t imagine it being played in the era of Columbine, Sandy Hook, and Stoneman Douglas, and Brown hasn’t performed it in two decades.

What songs, if any, would you ban?

Donna Summer would have been 70 (NYE)

Donna Summer claimed a top 40 hit every year between 1975 and 1984

Donna Summer Those of you too young to remember the days of disco may not understand how truly reviled it was. The teenage son of a friend of mine mocked the fact that I bought, owned and played the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack.

But not everyone thought disco sucked. Another friend bought me the Donna Summer album Live and More, a two-LP collection that featured, on side three, in order, live versions of Love to Love You Baby, I Feel Love, and Last Dance.

Then on side four, there was a 17-minute studio version of the MacArthur Park Suite, starting and ending with the Jimmy Webb song with One of a Kind and Heaven Knows mixed there.

The woman born LaDonna Adrian Gaines was one of the most significant artists in her time. “A five-time Grammy Award winner, Summer was the first artist to have three consecutive double albums reach number one on the United States Billboard 200 chart and charted four number-one singles in the US within a 12-month period.

“Summer earned a total of 42 hit singles on the US Billboard Hot 100 in her lifetime, with 14 of those reaching the top-ten. She claimed a top 40 hit every year between 1975 and 1984, and from her first top-ten hit in 1976, to the end of 1982, she had 12 top-ten hits (10 were top-five hits), more than any other act during that time period.”

Donna Summer had “nineteen Number One dance hits between 1975 and 2008 (second only to Madonna).” Her “success continued throughout the Eighties and into the Nineties. In 1992 Summer was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.”

In 2013, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, described as the Queen of Disco and the Mother of Modern Dance Music. Unfortunately, it was the year after she died of lung cancer in May of 2012.

Listen to multiple versions of Donna Summer songs, shortest take first

@Love to Love You Baby – #2 pop for two weeks, #3 R&B in 1976 – here or here

@I Feel Love – #6 pop, #9 R&B in 1977 here or here or here

Last Dance – #3 for two weeks pop, #5 R&B in 1978 here or here

MacArthur Park – #1 pop for three weeks, #8 R&B in 1978 here or here

Hot Stuff – #1 for three weeks pop, #3 for three weeks in 1979; here; it also won her a Grammy for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance, the first time the category was included.

@Bad Girls – #1 for five weeks pop, #1 R&B in 1979 here or here

No More Tears (Enough is Enough) – with Barbra Streisand – #1 for two weeks pop, #20 R&B in 1979; here or here; four Number One pop hits in a little over a year.

@She Works Hard for the Money – #3 for three weeks pop, #1 for three weeks R&B in 1983 here or here

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

@ co-written by Donna Summer

Donna Summer would have been 70 on New Year’s Eve.

Paradox of Christmas: For unto us a child is born

And his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace

Keep Christ in Christmas In the sermon for the first Sunday in Advent, one of my pastors hit on something that I could relate to. My takeaway is that there is a paradox of Christmas.

A child is born, yet the Scripture that day was of the adult Jesus anticipating the cross. So Christmas is about the infant AND the Savior.

That message is encapsulated in the Hebrew text from Isaiah, in what is usually called the Old Testament:

Chapter 9, verse 6 reads: For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

A lot of potentiality in that kid.

Merry Christmas.

Unsurprisingly, For Unto Us A Child Is Born from Handel’s Messiah

Sir Colin Davis conducts the London Symphony Orchestra and the Tenebrae choir

A more sprightly take

I’ve listened to the entire Messiah this autumn and was newly enthralled by the piece that reportedly took only three weeks to compose. If you are so inclined, the whole magilla:

Collegium 1704, director Vaclav Lucs

London Philharmonic

Music throwback: Nowell Sing We Clear

The Cutty Wren

When I first came to Albany in the late 1970s, I saw a quartet called Nowell Sing We Clear perform two or three times. Here’s a description of the group:

“In the summer of 1975, dance musicians Fred Breunig and Steve Woodruff moved to southern Vermont and teamed up with the singing duo of John Roberts and Tony Barrand. Nowell Sing We Clear was first performed in December of that same year…

“The program explores and reveals the active and still vital themes of the birth of Jesus and the celebration of the return of the light at the winter solstice. The combined interests and skills of the performers in contra and morris dancing and in ballads and bawdry afforded an unusual approach to Christmas music.”

I bought a couple of their LPs, and I played them regularly until the albums went into storage. I didn’t think about Nowell we Sing Clear until this month. A local group called the Helderberg Madrigal Singers performed at my church on December 7. One of the songs in their repertoire was The Cutty Wren. I knew instantly where I knew that song from.

And I’m told they’re still performing, with Andy Davis replacing Woodruff. From a 2013 Slate article: “Nowell Sing We Clear celebrates an older, and perhaps more pagan, Christmas as it was known for centuries in Britain and North America.”

Listen to Nowell We Sing Clear

The Cutty Wren
The Holly And The Ivy
Green Grow the Rushes-O
Rise Up Jock

And since this the last Saturday before the big day:

Jaquandor’s Daily Dose of Christmas

Coverville 1243: The Coverville 2018 Christmas Episode

Little Drummer Boy (African Tribal Version) – Alex Boye’ ft. Genesis Choir

12 Days of Christmas Cookies – Cookie Monster and friends

Jingle Bells – The Fab Four, in the style of Tomorrow Never Knows by The Beatles

Every Valley – Handel’s Messiah, A Soulful Celebration

The Christmas Song – Nat King Cole

White Christmas – the Drifters

Linus and Lucy – Vince Guaraldi

The Coventry Carol – Alison Moyet

Christmas All Over Again – Tom Petty

What Christmas Means To Me – Stevie Wonder

The Bells of Christmas -Julie Andrews at 17:05

R.O. Blechman – CBS Christmas Message (1966)

Christmas music in November

A typo augers a special appearance, for naughty boys and girls

The Boston Globe had a story in mid-November: Are you crazy for Christmas music in November – or does it make you crazy?

“Is there anything that can summon the Scrooges quicker than early-onset Christmas music? ‘If you listen to Christmas music in November, you are a psychopath,’ one person recently wrote on Twitter.

“Yet, for a small but dedicated contingent, the jeers and eye rolls offer little deterrence. Yes, the jack-o’-lanterns might still be perched on doorsteps. True, Thanksgiving might be weeks away. They just can’t help themselves.”

I’ll admit being in the “made crazy” category for much of my adulthood. But I’ve found that finding my own soundtrack, in my own mind if necessary, works reasonably well so that I’m not totally bored by seasonal music by the Ides of December.

Still, the fact that Thanksgiving in the United States in 2018 is the earliest it can be is slightly problematic. It seems to invite turning to the “all-Christmas music all the time” radio station in the car. Not by me, and not by my daughter. Fortunately, the Hamilton soundtrack or some K-pop usually wins the day, at least until December 1.

That said, the fact that Arthur posts Christmas ads in his blog in November, from the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and the United States. I find interesting and charming because I don’t tend to see them otherwise.

Here’s something I’ve known for decades: Santa’s Elves Live in … Schenectady? Schenectady is near Albany, so this is required information. But this story about the Christmas transit transfer was new to me.

A typo augers a special appearance, for naughty boys and girls.

Finally, frankincense has been proven to be a psychoactive antidepressant. I’ll keep that in mind the next time I hear too much Christmas music in November. Or October, fercryinoutloud.

(X is for wanting to X out Xmas music in November, for ABC Wednesday)