Roger Green: a librarian's life, deconstructed.
Continuing with the First Friday music and art series. The church is located at the corner of Willett Street and State Street, across from the northeast corner of Washington Park in Albany. Please enter on the Willett Street side. Light refreshments available.
Police On My Back by The Equals was a track which was only ever released as a single in Europe.
By 1980, I had become a huge fan of the English punk rock band Clash. I’m fairly sure I bought the album Sandinista!, a triple LP containing 36 tracks, as a Christmas present to myself, very shortly after its December 12 release. (I had broken up with my girlfriend on December 1, 1980, and music soothed the soul.) The album won several “best of the year” critics polls in 1981.
The first song on Side 4 was Police on My Back, featuring a guitar part that sounded like a European siren. “A one-LP distillation of the album, called Sandinista Now!, was sent to press and radio”, and it also began with that song.
Police on My Back was written by someone named Eddy Grant, a name I wasn’t familiar with at the time. But I DID know his music, as it turned out.
EDDY GRANT WAS A teenager [in North London] when he formed The Equals in the mid-’60s… Guyana-born Grant assembled a band with drummer John Hall, guitarist Pat Lloyd and brothers Lincoln and Derv Gordon…
The band’s first single – 1966’s Hold Me Close backed with Baby, Come Back… failed to chart in the UK but it topped the charts in Belgium and hit the Top 20 in Germany and Holland…
The band’s overseas success… was finally replicated in the UK in 1968 when Baby, Come Back saw them appear on Top Of The Pops and hit Number 1. An album of the same name swiftly followed and included 11 tracks, including Police On My Back – a track which was only ever released as a single in Europe.
Baby, Come Back by The Equals got to #32 in the US in 1968. Police on My Back by The Clash made it to #21 on something called the US Mainstream Rock Tracks in 1980.
LISTEN to
Baby, Come Back – The Equals HERE or HERE
Police on My Back – The Equals HERE or HERE
Police on My Back – The Clash HERE or HERE
Some time, I need to tell the story when I saw Eddy Grant in concert a few years later.
Bob and Ray’s Slow Talkers.
Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson’s response to rapper B.o.B’s rant insisting that the Earth is flat and we’ve all been lied to.
How 37 Banks Became 4 In Just 2 Decades.
Rebecca Solnit: Men Explain LOLITA To Me. And Amy Biancolli on what women want.
White America’s ‘Broken Heart’.
Weekly Sift: Back to Ferguson.
Say — you want a revolution?“Changing presidents or even changing minds isn’t enough. A real revolution has to change a lot of people’s political identities.”
On Antonin Scalia: On The Death Of A Brilliant Public Servant and Don’t tell me not to be glad.
The Daily Show’s Jessica Williams Shuts Down Beyoncé’s Super Bowl Haters.
Voting in the USA, from overseas.
The Great Dictator Speech – Charlie Chaplin + Time – Hans Zimmer (INCEPTION Theme).
Why People Who Are Scatterbrained Are Actually More Intelligent. Well, duh.
The 100 Jokes That Shaped Modern Comedy. Missing, though, is Bob and Ray’s Slow Talkers. Mr. Bob Elliott died at the age of 92; an appreciation of the duo.
Joe Alaskey, R.I.P. at age of only 63. Boy from Troy, NY made good.
Stupid Phrases for People in Crisis. Or, more politely, the unhelpful things one ought NOT to say.
In Defense of Artist Glenn Brown.
Now I Know: The Crack Tax and Unchecked Baggage and D-N-Nay.
An unfortunate incident on a Friday in the dead of winter.
Why Do Some People Say “Yuge” Instead of “Huge”?
The explanation of the chart below:
Coverville 1111: Dolly Parton and Neil Diamond Cover Stories.
Jaquandor: songs from the movie High Society.
Muppets: Does Dave Grohl Drum Battle Trump Animal vs. Buddy Rich? No, it does not.
Jed Clampett Rocks Out (Beverly Hillbillies Clip).
What’s the point of music? Ask Peter Gabriel.
New Ways Into the Brain’s ‘Music Room’.
NY State Senate’s Bowie resolution.
That’s the Way of the World – Earth, Wind and Fire.
[Top image per IISC.]
Introduce your heart to mine
And be my valentine
One of my very favorite albums of the 1990s, and indeed in my top 100 or so all time, is Across the Borderline by Willie Nelson, a 1993 release, produced by Don Was, Paul Simon, and Roy Halee. It is filled with a bunch of covers by Paul Simon, John Hiatt, Peter Gabriel, Bob Dylan, Lyle Lovett, plus songs by Willie himself, including Valentine.
It’s a very simple lyric:
Valentine, won’t you be my valentine
And introduce your heart to mine
And be my valentine
Summertime, we could run and play like summertime
With storybooks and nursery rhymes
So be my valentine
Candy heart, if anyone could, you could have a candy heart
You’re the sweetest of all sweethearts
Won’t you give your heart to me, can’t you see
This was not a terribly successful album commercially, getting only to #15 on the U.S. Billboard Top Country Albums, and #75 on the U.S. Billboard Top 200, though it fared better in Norway and Canada, where it was a Top 5 album. It had only one charting single, Graceland, a duet with Paul Simon, that only got to #70 on the country singles charts.
The album was, I thought, out of print for the longest time, but now is currently available on Amazon at a reasonable price. I found that the more I listened to it, the more I enjoyed the collection; it washed over me, emotionally.
Less romantic is Heartland, written and sung by Nelson and Bob Dylan, where an “American dream fell apart at the seams.”
Listen to
Valentine here or here.
Heartland here.
Also, read (and listen to)
Is an ex’s photo worth ten chicken wings?
“Look at them guys looking at me like I’m a fool
Ah but deep down inside they know I’m cool… “
For whatever reason, I just never much a singles (45) buyer when I was growing up. I preferred albums, LPs, some of which I have to this day. The infrequent 45 purchase was of songs by groups I didn’t know, when the song was SO infectious, I just HAD to have it.
Such was the case with the song Cool Jerk by the Capitols, a group out of Detroit. One thing I did not know: “The backing track for this song was actually recorded (secretly) by the Motown house band The Funk Brothers.”
It was released on tiny Karen Records and was likely distributed by Atco (Atlantic Records) because it was the group’s only Top 20 record. “Released in 1966, it reached No. 2 on the American R&B chart, No. 7 on the pop chart, and No. 9 on the Canadian Singles Chart.”
But what did it MEAN? “Per one of the Funk Brothers, the song was originally to be called ‘Pimp Jerk.’ This was taken from watching neighborhood pimps, who would dance in the clubs, but were too ‘cool’ to do the jerk [a popular dance] like regular folks… The producer was afraid that a song with the word pimp in the title would be banned or not receive much positive attention, and had the title changed…”
There’s some disagreement about the lyrics, but one source says:
“When they see me walkin’ down the street
all the fellas they want to speak
on their faces they wear a silly smirk
‘cause they know I’m the king of the cool jerk”
“Look at them guys looking at me like I’m a fool
Ah but deep down inside they know I’m cool… “
The song was written by the trio’s guitarist Donald Storball, and was later covered by several artists. Unfortunately, lead singer Samuel George was stabbed to death in 1982 at the age of 39.
I have this CD collection of soul oldies that is quite disappointing, actually. It’s the original artists, but it’s mostly rerecordings. Cool Jerk, though, is the original track.
Listen to Cool Jerk:
The Capitols; The Capitols; The Capitols
The Go-Go’s, whose version hit #60 on the UK charts
Todd Rundgren, in 7/8 time, of course
The Coasters, with a Latin flavor
Bootsy Collins and the Funk Brothers, from the film Standing in the Shadows of Motown
A version of the song with different lyrics (“Do the Cool Whip”) used in Cool Whip commercials, c. 1999
