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Fell On Black Days Black Hole Sun Album: Superunknown (1994) by Soundgarden Soundgarden lead singer Chris Cornell wrote Fell On Black Days about how he suffered from a severe case of depression during his teenage years, rarely leaving the house. At one point, he spent a whole year without leaving his house, during which time he would play drums and guitar. It was released as a single in different versions, each with different B-sides. Cornell told Artist Direct in a 2012 interview that the song is "about waking up and realizing you're in a dark period of your life." Cornell had the idea for this song - and the title - about three years before he completed it. The delay came because he couldn't get in "the right musical mood to support the lyrics," until one day he was playing his guitar and came up with the riff he was looking for. In 1994, Chris Cornell spoke to Melody Maker about creating the song and the meaning behind it. "'Fell On Black Days' was like this ongoing fear I've had for years. It took me a long time to write that song. We've tried to do three different versions with that title, and none of them have ever worked," he said. "It's a feeling that everyone gets. You're happy with your life, everything's going well, things are exciting - when all of a sudden you realize you're unhappy in the extreme, to the point of being really, really scared. There's no particular event you can pin the feeling down to, it's just that you realize one day that everything in your life is f--ked!" The band is named after a sculpture in Seattle called "Soundgarden," and longtime speculation was that Black Hole Sun got its name from another Seattle sculpture called "Black Sun" by the artist Isamu Noguchi. (The piece is located in Volunteer Park on Capitol Hill. It looks kind of like a huge, black doughnut and is aimed so you can see the Space Needle through the middle of it.) Chris Cornell stated in a 2014 interview with Entertainment Weekly that the title came from something he heard on the news - he thought the anchor said "black hole sun," but he really was saying something else. Cornell started thinking about the phrase and decided to write a song around it, as he felt it was a thought-provoking title. He wrote the lyrics first, then composed the music based on the images he came up with. Black Hole Sun was written entirely by Chris Cornell. "If I write lyrics that are bleak or dark, it usually makes me feel better," the Soundgarden frontman said. Black Hole Sun is certainly bleak, with references to snakes, a dead sky, and the summer stench. It's one of the more morose songs to get consistent airplay, and it helped associate the grunge sound with depression and angst. Cornell, however, was simply expressing some dark thoughts in song - he was not suffering or crying for help in the manner of Kurt Cobain. In an interview with Soundgarden guitarist Kim Thayil, he said of this song: "We'd had singles before. But that was easily our biggest hit. That was more singer/songwriterish. Chris went that direction of singer/songwriter guy, and the band was more accepting because of the success of singer/songwriting stuff as opposed to more guitar oriented rock. It was more vocal accompaniment rock, some guitar. So we started utilizing a little bit more of that." This song got a lot of radio play because the Alternative format and grunge sound were popular at the time and Top 40 radio stations were playing a lot of songs by artists like Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, and Stone Temple Pilots. It didn't make the Hot 100 because it wasn't released as a single and therefore ineligible for the chart (it did make #24 on Billboard's Airplay chart). Holding back singles was a common ploy around this time, as it encouraged fans to buy the albums. Accordingly, Superunknown went to #1 in America, far better than the #39 peak of their previous album, Badmotorfinger. Black Hole Sun won a Grammy for Best Hard Rock Performance. They also won Best Metal Performance that year for "Spoonman." The song was covered by Peter Frampton on his 2006 instrumental album Fingerprints. The lyrics were replaced by Frampton on guitar, playing through his trademark "talk box," through which he simulated the pitch of the vocals, but not the words. The only distinguishable words (played through the talk box) in the rendition are "Black hole sun, won't you come," which can be heard in the verses after the bridge/guitar solo. Fingerprints won the 2007 Grammy for Best Pop Instrumental Album. The surreal Howard Greenhalgh-directed video finds the band performing the song in an open field as a suburban neighborhood are swallowed up by a black hole. Speaking with Artist Direct in a 2012 interview, Cornell said that at the time he had made a number of videos with directors who didn't understand where the band was coming from and he was disillusioned with the whole process. "We just read treatments for it, and Howard Greenhalgh's treatment just read weird as the video turned out," he recalled. "I suggested we just pick one that we want, try to find a great one, and let the guy do whatever he wants," continued Cornell. "We should just be there and not emote, not pretend to be excited to play the song, deadpan, stand there, and do absolutely nothing. We chose his treatment because it seemed interesting. I told him on the phone, 'We're not going to do anything. You're not going to get anything out of us. We're just going to stand there because we don't want to do this anymore.'. Somehow, for whatever reason, he loved that. I love the video because it worked. It just happened to be a guy with a great idea who happened to believe in our notion that we're reluctant video stars who are going to give you nothing. The contrast of us giving you nothing and your vision is actually going to be better than if we're jumping around acting like crazy rock people and you're doing these flash jump-cut edits and crazy lighting. We're weird enough as it is, and we're tired of trying to not be. It worked. It was a big lesson. If you get out of somebody's way, or collaborate in the right way, a good thing can come out of it." Chris Cornell got the idea for Black Hole Sun while driving home from Bear Creek Studio, near Seattle, where Soundgarden were recording a version of "New Damage" for a charity album. He recalled to Uncut magazine August 2014: "I wrote it in my head driving home from Bear Creek Studio in Woodinville, a 35-40 minute drive from Seattle. It sparked from something a news anchor said on TV and I heard wrong. I heard 'blah blah blah black hole sun blah blah blah'. I thought that would make an amazing song title, but what would it sound like? It all came together, pretty much the whole arrangement including the guitar solo that's played beneath the riff." "I spent a lot of time spinning those melodies in my head so I wouldn't forget them," he continued. "I got home and whistled it into a Dictaphone. The next day I brought it into the real world, assigning a couple of key changes in the verse to make the melodies more interesting. Then I wrote the lyrics and that was similar,a stream of consciousness based on the feeling I got from the chorus and title." Cornell reflected on the song's lyrical content to Uncut: "What's interesting to me is the combination of a black hole and a sun," he said. "A black hole is a billion times larger than a sun, it's a void, a giant circle of nothing, and then you have the sun, the giver of all life. It was this combination of bright and dark, this sense of hope and underlying moodiness." "I even liked the way the words looked written down," Cornell added. "I liken it to Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd, where there's a happy veneer over something dark. It's not something I can do on purpose but occasionally it will happen by accident."

One Trick Pony God Bless The Absentee Album One-Trick Pony (1980) by Paul Simon One-Trick Pony is the fifth solo studio album by Paul Simon released in 1980. It was Simon's first album for Warner Bros. Records, and his first new studio album since 1975's Still Crazy After All These Years. His back catalog from Columbia Records would also move to Warner Bros. as a result of his signing with the label. Paul Simon's One-Trick Pony was released concurrently with the film of the same name, in which Simon also starred. Despite their similarities, the album and film are musically distinct: each features different versions of the same songs, as well as certain songs that appear exclusively on either the film or the album. The title track was released as a single and became a U.S. Top 40 hit. Two of the tracks (the title song and "Ace in the Hole") were recorded live at the Agora Theatre and Ballroom in Cleveland, Ohio in September 1979, while the rest are studio cuts. Several session musicians appearing on the album also appeared in the movie as the character Jonah's backing band: guitarist Eric Gale, pianist Richard Tee, bassist Tony Levin and drummer Steve Gadd. Simon toured Europe and America in 1980 with this band in support of the album, with one concert from Philadelphia recorded on video and released on VHS under the title "Paul Simon in Concert", then subsequently on DVD under 2 different titles for the same concert footage ("Live at the Tower Theatre" and "Live from Philadelphia"). In 2004, One-Trick Pony was remastered and re-released by Warner Bros. Records. This reissue contains four bonus tracks, including "Soft Parachutes" and "Spiral Highway" (an early version of "How the Heart Approaches What It Yearns") both of which were featured in the film but were missing from the original album release. Also included in the re-release were the outtake of "All Because of You" (an early version of "Oh, Marion" that would also spawn "God Bless the Absentee") and "Stranded in a Limousine", which originally appeared on the 1977 compilation Greatest Hits, Etc... The title is a colloquial American expression meaning a person specializing in only one thing, having only one talent, or of limited ability. Paul Simon – vocals, nylon string guitar, electric guitar, percussion Eric Gale – electric guitar Richard Tee – Fender Rhodes, piano on "God Bless the Absentee" Tony Levin – bass guitar on all songs except where noted Patti Austin – vocals Bob Friedman – horn and string arrangements Lani Groves – background vocals Dave Grusin – horn and string arrangements Ralph MacDonald – percussion Hugh McCracken – acoustic guitar

In honor of the Eclipse I give you For Whom The Bell Tolls Album: Ride The Lightning (1984) by Metallica The rules change April 8th. 04/08 2024 Forty-eight is the double factorial of 6 The number of symmetries of a cube. The number of Ptolemaic constellations. According to the Mishnah, Torah wisdom is acquired via 48 ways (Pirkei Avoth 6:6). In Buddhism, Amitabha Buddha had made 48 great vows and promises to provide ultimate salvation to countless beings through countless eons, with benefits said to be available merely by thinking about his name with Nianfo practice. He is thus hailed as "King of Buddhas" through such skillful compassion and became a popular and formal refuge figure in Pureland Buddhism. On Tool's album Ænima, there is a song named "Forty-Six & 2", the sum of which is 48. 48 Hours is a television news program on CBS. '48 is an alternate history novel by James Herbert. The number 48 in ASCII is what you add to any single digit integer to convert to its ASCII value. In my world, a 48 is an Incomplete Sequence Relay / Blocked Rotor The lyrics are based on the 1940 Ernest Hemingway novel of the same name. The book is about an American who is given the job of taking out a bridge held by the Fascist army in the Spanish Civil War - the precursor to World War II. He fell in love and then found out very disturbing things about life and death. The phrase "For Whom The Bell Tolls" originated in a 1623 poem by the Englishman John Donne, who wrote: Send not to know For whom the bell tolls It tolls for thee Hemingway's book used the title. This song is a commentary on the futility of war. The last few lines of the song diverge from the book to make this point. >> This is another song in which Cliff Burton's unique lead bass style is often mistaken for a guitar solo. Burton played the intro using light distortion on his bass. According to Kirk Hammett, Burton regularly played the intro bass riff when the pair of them were hanging out in their hotel room. The guitarist recalled to Rolling Stone in 2014: "He used to carry around an acoustic classical guitar that he detuned so that he could bend the strings. Anyway, when he would play that riff, I would think, 'That's such a weird, atonal riff that isn't really heavy at all.'" "I remember him playing it for James (Hetfield, vocals), and James adding that accent to it and all of a sudden, it changed," Hammett added. "It's such a crazy riff. To this day, I think, 'How did he write that?' Whenever I hear nowadays, it's like, 'OK, Cliff's in the house.'" Burton, Hetfield and Lars Ulrich are the credited writers on the song. Ride The Lightning is the second Metallica album, and the first co-produced by Flemming Rasmussen, who worked on their next two albums as well. He came on board when the band decided to record the album in Europe, where studio time cost much less than in America thanks to a favorable exchange rate. They chose Rasmussen's Sweet Silence Studios in Copenhagen and used him as engineer and co-producer (along with the band). On this song, they tried something new. "'For Whom the Bell Tolls' was the first song we ever did to a click track," Rasmussen said in a Songfacts interview. "That was kind of tricky. That was also Lars learning how to play to a click." The song opens with the tolling of a bell, which rings throughout the first minute of the song before gradually fading out. It's the second-most famous rock song to do this, placing behind AC/DC's "Hell's Bells," from their 1980 album Back In Black. The bands got their bell sounds in very different ways; AC/DC ordered a custom, one-ton bell from a foundry and recorded it using a mobile unit and 15 microphones. Metallica used a sound effects reel. "We edited in the bell effect so it would fit and be in tempo," Flemming Rasmussen told Songfacts. "I copied it and cut it in where it was supposed to come. So, once we got that tape started at the right spot, it simply played itself, and then dumped it into 24-track."

Mother Goodbye Blue Sky Album: The Wall (1979) by Pink Floyd Pink Floyd's album The Wall is mainly the creation of founding member Roger Waters. It's a semi-autobiographical story about a young boy who loses his father in the war and is raised by his overly protective mother, who is the focus of this song. The child grows up alone as an outsider that absolutely does not fit in. He feels trapped by his overly protective environment while being shunned by the men around him. Waters told Mojo that the mother portrayed in the song has some similarities to his own mum. He said: "My mother was suffocating in her own way. She always had to be right about everything. I'm not blaming her. That's who she was. I grew up with a single parent who could never hear anything I said, because nothing I said could possibly be as important as what she believed. My mother was, to some extent, a wall herself that I was banging my head against. She lived her life in the service of others. She was a school teacher. But it wasn't until I was 45, 50 years old that I realised how impossible it was for her to listen to me." When Mojo asked Waters if his mother saw herself in the song, he replied: "She's not that recognizable. The song is more general, the idea that we can be controlled by our parents' views on things like sex. The single mother of boys, particularly, can make sex harder than it needs to be." The main character in the song and throughout The Wall is named Pink. In this song, he's portrayed by Roger Waters, who asks his mother a series of questions: Mother, do you think they'll drop the bomb? Mother, do you think they'll like this song? Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour is the voice of the mother telling him the world is terrifying, but she'll protect him: Mama's gonna put all of her fears into you Mama's gonna keep you right here under her wing Unlike many of the songs on The Wall, "Mother" works well when extracted as an individual song, making it suitable for airplay. The songs on the album all flow together, so most don't have clear starting and stopping points, but "Mother" follows "Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2)," which ends with the sound of a phone ringing. There's then a brief silence before we hear Roger Waters take a deep breath and sing the first line of "Mother." The song is the last track on Side 1 of the double album, so it has a clear ending on the line, "Mother, did it need to be so high?" Radio stations took advantage and gave the song lots of airplay, playing it right off the album because it wasn't released as a single. It endured for many years on classic rock radio. The Wall was made into a 1982 movie starring Bob Geldof as Pink. There are animated sequences throughout the film created by Gerald Scarfe, who visualized the mother as a huge monstrous woman with a brick-wall bosom. Roger Waters told Mojo magazine December 2009: "The song has some connection with my mother, for sure, though the mother that Gerald Scarfe visualises in his drawings couldn't be further from mine. She's nothing like that." Pink Floyd's drummer Nick Mason didn't play on this track. According to Roger Waters, this was because Mason had trouble with the 5/4 time signatures and other changes, as "his brain doesn't work that way." Jeff Porcaro, who was a session drummer and also a member of the band Toto, took his place. Mason was also replaced on drums (this time by Andy Newmark) on the track "Two Suns in the Sunset" from the album The Final Cut. Roger Waters came up with the idea for The Wall after Pink Floyd's 1977 tour. Over the next year, he developed the idea, and when the band reconvened, he had a 90-minute demo with just his voice and guitar to lay out his vision. With help from producer Bob Ezrin, Waters and the band expanded the songs and tied them all together with sound effects and musical transitions. Many of the songs changed drastically from Waters' demo, but "Mother" hewed close to the original. Other songs that remained pretty much intact include "Is There Anybody Out There?" and "Don't Leave Me Now." Roger Waters took over most of the songwriting in Pink Floyd starting with their 1975 album Wish You Were Here. By the time they recorded The Wall, there was a great deal of tension in the band. They pulled off one more album (The Final Cut in 1983) before Waters left, which he assumed would be the end of the group. He was wrong. Gilmour and company carried on without him as Pink Floyd, releasing their first Waters-less album, A Momentary Lapse Of Reason, in 1987. Waters wasn't done performing The Wall though. In 1990 he staged an ambitious concert in Berlin to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall, enlisting famous singers to help out. On "Mother," he was joined by Sinéad O'Connor and three members of The Band: Garth Hudson, Rick Danko and Levon Helm. Pearl Jam performed "Mother" on September 30, 2011 as part of a week-long Pink Floyd tribute on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. The Shins, Foo Fighters, MGMT, and Dierks Bentley all played Pink Floyd songs on the show that week. Dixie Chicks lead singer Natalie Maines recorded a cover version in 2013 which was the title track to her first solo album. She decided to cover the song after hearing Roger Waters perform it on his The Wall Live tour, which ran 2010-2013. Waters loved her rendition, telling Rolling Stone, "I get goosebumps just talking about it." "Goodbye Blue Sky" is part of Pink Floyd's seminal album The Wall, the creation of founding member Roger Waters. It's a concept album centered on the character Pink, who is in many ways an outcrop of Waters' psyche. The song finds Pink in early adolescence, already beset by fear in the aftermath of World War II in England ("Did you hear the falling bombs?"). He's getting ready to set out on his own, leaving behind any childhood innocence - the "blue sky." On the vinyl version of the album, "Goodbye Blue Sky" is the first track on Side 2 (The Wall was a double album). In an interview around the album's release, Roger Waters described the song as being a recap of the first side of album one, summing up Pink's life to that point. As Waters says, in it's most simplistic form "it's remembering one's childhood and then getting ready to set off into the rest of one's life." The child who says the line, "Look mummy, there's an airplane up in the sky" is Roger's son Harry, who was only two years old at the time. Harry, like his father, also became a musician. The lead vocal on this one is by Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour, who in various spots on the album shows up as the voice of someone addressing Pink. For instance, he's the voice of Pink's mum in "Mother." The Wall was adapted into an movie in 1982 starring Bob Geldof as Pink. "Goodbye Blue Sky" plays in one of the many sequences animated by Gerald Scarfe. The sequence starts with a dove transforming into a vulture and ends with a cross dripping blood - scary stuff! Roger Waters left Pink Floyd in 1985 but that didn't stop him from performing The Wall in Berlin in 1990 after the Berlin Wall fell. He used guest vocalists to fill David Gilmour's parts. For "Goodbye Blue Sky" he got a good one: Joni Mitchell. Waters did an entire tour for the album that ran from 2010 to 2013.

It's a Mother Beautiful Bridge

Somebody Told Me Album: Hot Fuss (2004) by The Killers As the Killers strolled onto the rock scene in the early ’00s, their unique blend of classic rock and ’80s flavored dance beats took a minute to catch on—but once it did, it spread like wildfire. Their heavy-on-the-synthesizer debut was preceded by several hit singles, including “Mr. Brightside,” “All These Things I’ve Done” and “Somebody Told Me” that defined rock music of the era. “Somebody Told Me” was not an instant success. Cowering in the colossal shadow of the lead track “Mr. Brightside,” the song didn’t quite measure up. However, after the group shared a revamped version of the track, it rose in the ranks, settling in comfortably beside its predecessor atop the charts. The song’s meaning has long been debated amongst fans with many thinking a deeper metaphor lies underneath the pulsing club rhythm. When you first listen to the Bowie-Esque disco of “Somebody Told Me,” the lyrics seem to point to a man trying his darndest to get the attention of a girl in a club—a typical unrequited love tale for the rock outfit. However, the lyrics also seem to point to the ever-growing challenge for a songwriter to reach their audience. Whether it’s a romantic connection or fame frontman Brandon Flowers craves, he lays it all out in this song. Breakin’ my back just to know your name Seventeen tracks and I’ve had it with this game A breakin’ my back just to know your name But Heaven ain’t close in a place like this Anything goes but don’t blink, you might miss In the first verse, Flowers sings about being in a dance club and hearing 17 songs come and go while trying to capture the attention of a woman he’s interested in. Many Killers fans also point out that the “Seventeen tracks” line could also point to creating oodles of music without reward, leading Flowers to “be done with this game. Well somebody told me you had a boyfriend Who looked like a girlfriend That I had in February of last year It’s not confidential, I’ve got potential Inside the chorus, the double meaning continues as he sings both about the couple being attracted to similar-looking people—so it must mean they fit together well too. Conversely, when reading between the lines, it could point to someone having written a song that is similar to one Flowers has penned. When talking about this track, Flowers has only ever said, “We were going out to clubs a lot at the time. It speaks to a young man’s frustration, the difficulty of picking up girls.” However, the song was released as part of the group’s debut studio album, Hot Fuzz, and was little noticed by the industry. So much so that this single had to be released in two separate forms to gain traction. The first iteration of the track was released with the above pink single cover, but due to poor sales, production stopped altogether. A newer version, featuring a blue background, was re-released which then began to garner some buzz. Breakin' my back just to know your name Seventeen tracks and I've had it with this game A breakin' my back just to know your name But Heaven ain't close in a place like this Anything goes but don't blink, you might miss 'Cause Heaven ain't close in a place like this I said Heaven ain't close in a place like this Bring it back down, bring it back down tonight (hoo hoo) Never thought I'd let a rumor ruin my moonlight Well somebody told me you had a boyfriend Who looked like a girlfriend That I had in February of last year It's not confidential, I've got potential Ready let's roll onto something new Takin' it's toll then I'm leaving without you 'Cause Heaven ain't close in a place like this I said Heaven ain't close in a place like this Bring it back down, bring it back down tonight (hoo hoo) Never thought I'd let a rumor ruin my moonlight Well somebody told me you had a boyfriend Who looked like a girlfriend That I had in February of last year It's not confidential, I've got potential A rushing, rushing around Pace yourself for me (for me) I said maybe, baby, please (please) But I just don't know now (baby, baby) When all I want to do is try Well somebody told me you had a boyfriend Who looked like a girlfriend That I had in February of last year It's not confidential, I've got potential A rushing, rushing around Now somebody told me you had a boyfriend Who looked like a girlfriend That I had in February of last year It's not confidential, I've got potential A rushing, rushing around Somebody told me you had a boyfriend Who looked like a girlfriend That I had in February of last year It's not confidential, I've got potential A rushing, rushing around

Turn Blue Fever Album: Turn Blue (2014) by The Black Keys It was reported in February 2013 that Black Keys frontman Dan Auerbach and his wife Stephanie Gonis were in the midst of divorce proceedings. Many of the lyrics on the Turn Blue address the breakdown of his marriage and the moody title track finds the vocalist battling depression as he struggles to "stay on track just like Pops told me to." The arrival of Turn Blue on May 13, 2014 was announced using Mike Tyson's Twitter. The idea to have the boxer unveil the album originated after he called the band to thank them for licensing a song for use in a documentary he was making and he offered to do them a favor in return. The title is based on a catch phrase used by Ghoulardi, a Cleveland TV host of a late night horror movie presentation between 1963-66. The Black Keys were asked by the BBC what made this appropriate as the title track? Auerbach replied: "We just liked the phrase, first off. We liked the association with Ghoulardi, this kind of weird freak from Ohio from the early 60s - that was phrase he used to use. And then so much of the album was lyrically melancholy and introspective and personal, so it was very blue. I guess it just made sense." He added: "We also liked how we could translate Turn Blue into artwork for the cover." After the Black Keys had finished touring El Camino in January 2013, the pair headed to the Key Club studio in Benton Harbor to record an album's worth of songs on Sly Stone's old console. "We left the building once in two weeks," guitarist Dan Auerbach recalled to NME. "It felt like we were on a ship in the ocean." The band felt that they'd unnecessarily rushed the process and only retained two cuts from the sessions for their Turn Blue album "Fever" and "Gotta Get Away." This was released as the first single from Turn Blue. The Black Keys gave the song's first UK airing on XFM's Evening Show with Georgie Rogers. "Ultimately I think it's something different than anything we've done before," drummer Patrick Carney told Georgie. "It's a pretty diverse album and a little bit more psychedelic than the last record." "It always feels strange releasing a single because you have to separate the song from the whole album and you kind of listen to a song out of context for a few weeks," he added. "That's the part I have always had trouble wrapping my head around because for Dan and I, our albums are meant to be listened to as albums. I'm excited for people to hear the song. I'm more excited for people to hear the whole album." The song's music video features Dan Auerbach as a televangelist, whilst Patrick Carney nods along approvingly on the side. The clip was directed by photographer Theo Wenner, who is the son of Rolling Stone co-founder and publisher Jann Wenner. Auerbach urges his followers to call his donation hotline number - 1 (646) 397-6172 , which flashes at the bottom of the screen. Try dialing it for a largely indecipherable pre-recorded message, which turns out to be Patrick Carney, posing as New Age act Quartzazium, prank-calling the Black Keys' own label, Nonesuch. The Black Keys felt freed of the need to write hit singles for Turn Blue, but this still became radio hit. Auerbach told the BBC: "We made five albums without once ever thinking about a single and then we wrote 'Tighten Up' and it got played on radio and changed our career. So from then we started looking at it as a challenge." "So when we were writing 'Fever,' we wanted it to be catchy," he continued. "We weren't thinking 'this is a radio hit' but it was like 'the melody is catchy, let's do things that would make it even catchier.'"

Arizona Album Blackout (1982) Always Somewhere Album Lovedrive (1979) Scorpions Lovedrive is the sixth studio album by the German rock band Scorpions, released in 1979. Considered by some critics to be the pinnacle of their career, Lovedrive was a major evolution of the band's sound, exhibiting their "classic style" that would be later developed over their next few albums. Lovedrive cemented the "Scorpions formula" of hard rock songs combined with melodic ballads. Lovedrive was the band’s first album to be released by Harvest Records in Europe and Mercury Records in the United States and Canada following the band's departure from RCA. This is the first album to feature Matthias Jabs on lead guitar, and thus the first record to feature the band's "classic" lineup. Jabs replaced Uli Jon Roth who went on to form his own band, Electric Sun. Michael Schenker, younger brother of rhythm guitarist Rudolf, had just split from UFO. He recorded lead guitars on "Another Piece of Meat", "Coast to Coast", "Holiday", "Loving You Sunday Morning" and "Lovedrive". At the beginning of the Scorpions' German tour in February 1979, Michael rejoined the band and the group reluctantly parted ways with Matthias Jabs. However, in April 1979 while the band was touring in France, Michael quit, which led to Jabs' immediate return after intense negotiations. The original album cover depicted a well dressed man and woman seated in the back of a car, with the woman's right breast exposed and connected to the man's hand by stretched bubblegum. The back cover featured the same man and woman, but holding a photograph of the band, and with the woman's left breast completely exposed without any gum. It was created by Storm Thorgerson of the design firm Hipgnosis. It caused some controversy in the US upon the album's release, with later pressings of the album bearing a simple design of a blue scorpion on a black background. The original uncensored art was restored for the remaster series. Recalling the cover photo with the woman and the car, Thorgerson remarked: "Not exactly the most politically correct scene you've ever seen. I thought it was funny, but women read a different inflection into it now." In a 2010 interview, singer Klaus Meine commented on the album cover, stating: "We just did not know it would be a problem in America, it was just sex and rock 'n' roll. It is odd that in America some of these covers were a problem, because in the '80s when we would tour here, we always had boobs flashed to us at the front of the stage. Nowhere else in the world, just here. We just did not think it would be a problem to put out a record like Lovedrive in America." Blackout is the eighth studio album by the German rock band Scorpions. It was released in 1982 by Harvest and Mercury Records. After losing his voice during the writing of the album, lead singer Klaus Meine had to undergo surgery on his vocal cords and was uncertain as to whether or not he would be able to record. Demos of the material were recorded with singer Don Dokken from Dokken, a then-unknown band from Los Angeles. However, none of those recordings are featured on the album and Dokken is only credited with backing vocals. A self-portrait of artist Gottfried Helnwein is featured on the cover of the album. Schenker portrays this character in the "No One Like You" music video.

Dazed and Confused (The Yardbirds in '68 - Live at the BBC and Beyond) by The Yardbirds Led Zeppelin’s self-titled debut album came out 50 years ago today. But if you’ve purchased it more recently, you might have seen the following writing credit under the song “Dazed and Confused”: “By Jimmy Page; Inspired by Jake Holmes.” Those seven words may seem pretty innocuous on the page, but that phrase is the result of decades of controversy and litigation. Those words reveal questions of what counts as a cover song, how an artist needs to credit a songwriter from whom they draw material, and where the line lies between homage and theft. Jake Holmes wrote “Dazed and Confused” for his debut album, “The Above Ground Sound” of Jake Holmes. A young California singer-songwriter, Holmes was hotly tipped by the industry to be the next breakout star in the folky Donovan vein. When he wrote “Dazed and Confused,” he knew immediately that it would be a big song. He just thought it would be a big song for him. On August 25, 1967, Holmes was promoting his new album with a concert at New York’s Village Theater. Also on the bill were two bands with similar names: the Youngbloods (best known for their hit “Get Together”) and the Yardbirds. The latter band may have been the best training ground for budding guitar hotshots in history. Their first guitarist, a young buck named Eric Clapton, had left the band by this point, as had his replacement, Jeff Beck. The Yardbirds had recently hired the third guitarist in this incredible run, a promising session musician named Jimmy Page. Though the Yardbirds’ series of guitarists seems amazing now, at the time of the show with Jake Holmes it felt like a drag. Tired from all the turnover, the band was struggling to find a rhythm with their newest member. “We were quite stale and stuck creatively” when Page joined, Yardbirds drummer Jim McCarty remembers today. “We were still playing really similar things as we had with Jeff Beck. We had very few new things and running a bit low on ideas of songs to cover or songs that we wanted to do.” Inspiration finally struck at that Village Theater show. Before his band’s set, McCarty stood at the side of the stage watching Holmes play. (Page may have stood there with him; memories differ.) “Now and then you go up and you see who’s playing with you,” McCarty says. “Jake Holmes was playing with two other guys. They were playing sort of jazzy things. I thought the music was quite pleasant, but didn’t think much of it. Then all of a sudden they started to play this riff. And I thought, oh that’s a very good riff, very haunting, quite interesting.” The riff was Holmes’ new song “Dazed and Confused.” “The following day I went down and got his album at Bleecker Bob’s record store,” says McCarty. “I had a little record player on the road and I played it to Jimmy and the guys and then we said, we should work out a version.” The band agreed, mesmerized by that same guitar line. “The song had all the feeling of our old material,” McCarty says. “That descending riff is very haunting; it creates an atmosphere. That’s the sort of music we liked, music that’s a little bit dark.” Hoping this song would stir them out of their creative funk, the Yardbirds worked up a cover of “Dazed and Confused” at their next rehearsal. It was clear from the start this would be an opportunity for Jimmy Page to shine. As a replacement for both Clapton and Beck, the new guitarist had massive shoes to fill. On “Dazed and Confused,” he could show he was equal to the task. “Anything with a riff like that would be a guitar showcase,” McCarty says. “We worked it up and added other bits. Jimmy added that other riff in the middle [a bridge borrowed from another Yardbirds track, ‘Think About It’]. He played all those nice little wah-wah things. It had all the trademarks of the Yardbirds sound.” Their arrangement of the song also added something new to the band: a violin bow. Page had begun experimenting with running a bow over his guitar strings in the studio for an ethereal, swirling effect, and found the technique worked perfectly with such a trippy song. What would later become such an iconic part of Led Zeppelin was then just a young and unproven guitarist trying to bring something new to his instrument. The Yardbirds quickly added “Dazed and Confused” to their live shows and even performed it once on a French TV show. But, in one of music history’s great missed opportunities, they never recorded the song. Though they enjoyed playing it, ultimately the song had not inspired the rejuvenating spark they’d hoped for. They never recorded another album with the Jimmy Page lineup, abandoning a session in New York after only three songs due to exhaustion.

Rock Bottom Doctor Doctor Album: Phenomenon (1974) by UFO Rock Bottom is Co-written by vocalist/lyricist Phil Mogg and then lead guitarist Michael Schenker, "Rock Bottom" was recorded initially for the 1974 Phenomenon album, on which it runs to 6 minutes 22 seconds. It was also released as a single - a format that could not possibly do it justice - the live version from Strangers In The Night is unquestionably the definitive. This album was recorded on the band's 1978 US tour and was released on the Chrysalis Label in January the following year. Running to 11 minutes 8 seconds, "Rock Bottom" is the high point, with Schenker demonstrating awesome speed and technique, but this is more than a mere guitar solo; towards the end, Paul Raymond on keyboards provides a thrilling racing effect with the mercurial German, who, incredibly, was said to be unhappy with the recording. Others beg to differ. In 2004, Classic Rock magazine rated UFO's Strangers In The Night double album the #2 live rock album of all time behind only Thin Lizzy's Live And Dangerous. In September 2008, when asked what had inspired the song lyrically, Phil Mogg said it was a horror film, but that he had forgotten its title. It is possible though that he was influenced subconsciously by the traditional song/poem "The Unquiet Grave", which contains the phrase "one kiss of your clay-cold lips." Mogg uses the same phrase "one sweet kiss on your clay-cold lips" (which is likewise to be taken literally) although in a different context. It took a while for Phil Mogg to settle on a set of lyrics for this song. An early performance reveals how he sang completely different words early on. In a Songfacts interview with Michael Schenker, he explained that this song had a very spontaneous conception. "We were just sitting there looking for an additional song, and when I played 'Rock Bottom,' the riff, that's when Phil jumped up and said, 'That's it! That's it!'" said Schenker. "So we started putting it together and putting it into form." Speaking about the freeform nature of this song and how he improvises it during live performances, Schenker told us: "'Rock Bottom' has that piece in the middle of free expression, and it's perfect for me because I love pure self-expression. It's a really, really good part to play over that particular chord there, and it leaves a lot of space to come up with a whole bunch of creative ideas. Over the years, the solos have changed. I keep the basic structure of it, but there is a lot of space to put new 'sparks' on here and there and keep it fresh. It's always enjoyable to play over and over and over, because I can be very creative with it on the spot. That's a very fascinating, enjoyable part of music for me." "Doctor Doctor" is a UFO standard; co-written by lead vocalist Phil Mogg with their new recruit Michael Schenker, it was released as a single in May 1974 backed by "On With The Action" and "Try Me." The album version runs to 4 minutes 10 seconds, and it also appeared on the live double Strangers In The Night. She walked up to me And really stole my heart And then she started To take my body apart What sort of woman does that to a man? Perhaps the same "White Lady" a certain John Lees wrote about in "Hymn." As Phil Mogg told Michael Hann of the Guardian in March 2012: "We must have done a lot for Peru!" This didn't chart when it was first released, but it went to #35 UK in 1979 after a live version was released as a single. Iron Maiden uses "Doctor Doctor" as its entrance music at all their concerts. "Everybody knows we play 'Doctor Doctor' before we go on stage," lead singer Bruce Dickinson explained in his February 11, 2022 spoken-word show at The Vic Theatre in Chicago. "So, before the intro tape, there's five minutes of 'Doctor Doctor.' It's brilliant, so people go, 'Oh, quick.' Stop having a piss, drink the last pint, get to your seats. 'Doctor Doctor' is playing."

Lucky Man Album: Emerson, Lake & Palmer (1970) C'est La Vie Album: Works, Volume 1 (1977) by Emerson Lake & Palmer Greg Lake started writing "Lucky Man" when he was just 12 years old. "I was round my friend's house and he had a broken down old guitar," Lake explained on his Songs of a Lifetime tour. "In fact, it only had one string on it. Luckily, it was the bottom string. With a matchstick, I picked out this tune. It made me think, you know, perhaps I could play guitar. So it came to Christmas and I said to my mom, 'Do you think there's any chance of me having a guitar for Christmas?' And she said, 'No.' You know, we were pretty poor. So that was it. I just accepted it. But anyway, Christmas came, and there it was, the guitar. And of course I was thrilled. The first four chords I learned were D, A minor, E minor, and G. With these chords I wrote this little song. It's a kids' song, really. And it was a medieval fantasy, really. And I never wrote it on a piece of paper. I just remembered the words." Arguably Emerson, Lake & Palmer's best known song, this almost did not happen. On the last day of recording their first album, ELP did not have enough material to fulfill their contract requirements of 21 minutes per album side. Greg Lake explained: "Everybody looked round the studio, you know, 'Has anybody got any more material?' And there was deadly silence. So I said, 'Well, look, you know, I've got this little thing I wrote when I was a kid. And if there's nothing else, maybe that would do.' You know. So Keith said, 'Well, you play it, then, let's have a listen.' So I played it, and nobody liked it. So I said, 'Yeah, but you know, the thing is we've got nothing else.' Keith said, 'Well, you record it on your own and I'm going to go down the pub.' So off he went down the pub. So Carl Palmer and I, we recorded the first part together, just drums and acoustic guitar. And it sounded pretty dreadful. But then I put a bass on it and it sounded a bit better. And then I went and put some more guitars on it, and an electric guitar solo. Then I put these harmonies on, these block harmonies. And in the end it sounded pretty good, it sounded like a record." The guitar chords on the chorus: A minor, E minor, D, then Dsus - just play a regular D chord and add a G played on the first string, according to Greg. The end of this song contains one of the most famous Moog synthesizer solos in rock history. Keith Emerson had just recently gotten the device, and only decided to play on this song after hearing the track Lake and Palmer came up with and realizing it was a legitimate song. "Keith came back from the pub and he heard it and was shocked," said Lake. You know, it had gone from this silly little folk song to this quite big production. And so he said, 'Wow, I suppose I'd better play on that.' And so I said, 'The thing is, I've already put the guitar solo on.' He said, 'Look, I could play something at the end.' He said, 'I've just had this gadget delivered next door. It's called a Moog synthesizer. I haven't tried it before, but maybe there's a sound on there that would work on this.' So I said, 'Okay. Why don't we give it a try.' And so Keith went out into the next room. And he said, 'Run the track, then, for an experiment.' So I flipped it in record and pressed play. And because he was experimenting, we didn't really listen. In fact, we put the speakers on dim. The track went through and Keith experimented, and when it got to the end I turned to the engineer, Eddie Offord. I said, 'Was that me or did that sound good?' And Eddie said, 'I think it did sound good.' And we played it back. And that is the solo that's on the record." This song does not have a happy ending. The "lucky man" has riches and acclaim, but he decides to fight for his country, gets shot, and dies. Greg Lake says that even though he wrote the song when he was very young, the story was always the same. "The lyrics never changed," he said. "But strangely enough, over time the way that people perceived the song changed. Perhaps it was vaguely something to do with the Vietnam War, that period, just at the end of the Vietnam War. Some people associated it with the John F. Kennedy assassination. It had those sort of overtones. So it was connected in a way to an era when there was a lot of war and drama like that. But the lyrics really got interpreted in a way in which I'd never intended them to be, of course, when I wrote it as a young kid." (Here's our full Greg Lake interview.) By Emerson, Lake & Palmer standards, this is a very simple song; they got far more complex on their next albums. "Most tracks recorded by ELP, we would say that the backing track would have to be a killer instrumental before we added any voice, so the music had to stand up on its own without the lyrics," Carl Palmer said in his Songfacts interview. "A very simple lyric like 'Lucky Man' is fine - you can take that, too. But the lyrics did mature as time went by, and I think Sinfield and Lake did a great job." Lake was part of the Mandoki Soulmates, a supergroup assembled by the drummer Leslie Mandoki. Of the many famous songs they played, Leslie says this one was the most challenging to interpret. Works, Volume 1 was a double album with Keith Emerson the focus of the first side, Greg Lake the second, Carl Palmer the third, and the entire band sharing equally on Side 4. "C'est La Vie" was one of the songs Lake wrote for his side with help from lyricist Pete Sinfield, who was his bandmate in King Crimson. Telling the story of the song, Lake said: "I used to live in Paris for a while. A very beautiful city. I sometimes would go out walking in the streets there, and you'd often hear this instrument playing. I don't know what they call it, really, but it's one of these barrel organ things you wind up. It's the sort of sound, it's a bit like a Las Vegas casino. It kind of lives with you. Anyway, I'd heard this barrel organ playing. And I walked on back home towards my apartment. I went past this cafe and I heard the voice of Edith Piaf, the famous French lady singer. And when I got back to the apartment I thought, I really would like to write a sort of French song with some French feeling. I don't really speak French, but I knew this phrase, 'c'est la vie,' that's life. And so I thought, That would make a good idea for a song. So I wrote this song, "C'est la Vie," and we recorded it and put it onto Works Volume I. However, a couple of years later it was covered by a French singer called Johnny Hallyday. And he's a sort of French Elvis Presley. Anyway, he had a #1 hit with it in France, which as an Englishman, of course, gave me a great deal of pleasure."

Boned

Care of Cell 44 Album: Odessey And Oracle (1968) Butcher's Tale (Western Front 1914) Album: Odessey And Oracle (1968) by The Zombies Paul Ashley Warren Atkinson (19 March 1946 – 1 April 2004) was a British guitarist and record company executive, best known as a founding member of the pop/rock band The Zombies. Atkinson was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2019. At St Albans, Atkinson met Rod Argent and Hugh Grundy, and the three formed a band initially called the Mustangs, later changed to The Zombies. Colin Blunstone and Paul Arnold joined the new band in mid 1958, but Arnold soon left and was replaced by Chris White. After the group won a local contest, they recorded a demo as their prize. Argent's song "She's Not There" got them a deal with Decca Records and was a hit in the UK and US. An album, Begin Here (renamed to The Zombies when released in the US) would follow. They would appear on American television for the first time on January 12 1965, when they appeared on the first episode of Hullabaloo. The Zombies would have another chart-topper in 1964 with Tell Her No. The group continued to record successfully through the 1960s, but disbanded in December 1967, reportedly over management disagreements. Care of Cell 44 is an uptempo pop symphony about a guy writing to his girlfriend, who is in prison. The group's main songwriter Rod Argent recalled in Mojo Magazine February 2008: "It just appealed to me. That twist on a common scenario, I just can't wait for you to come home to me again." This was released as the first single from the Odessey And Oracle album in the UK, but it didn't make the charts, which surprised vocalist Colin Blunstone. He said in his Songfacts interview, "It's a wonderfully crafted song. I think it's got an incredible lyric, wonderful chord sequences and a great melody - it's just got everything." Blunstone was shocked by the song's lack of popular appeal, as he thought it was a very commercial track. Soon after it stiffed, the band split up and Blunstone took a job in the Burglary Department of a London insurance office. Bassist Chris White admitted: "We tried to promote 'Care Of Cell 44,' but there was no positive reaction. It was downhill from then on." However the band did have a surprise hit in America a year after their breakup when "Time Of The Season" peaked at #3. Butcher's Tale (Western Front 1914) is written by Zombies bassist Chris White, who recalled in Mojo magazine February 2008 how this dark and chilling war protest number came about: "I'd been reading AJP Taylor on the First World War and my uncle had died at Passchendaele. I was driving to St. Albans and working out that in the first morning there were 60,000 casualties in the Battle of The Somme. The enormity hit me and I had to pull over to the side of the road because I was shaking. That's where that (lyric) came from. 'I just can't stop shaking.' In the flat I had an old American pedal organ with the knee swells. I wrote it on that, but Rod played it so much better in the studio." Despite being the album's least commercial track, this was released as its first US single. White admitted in the same interview: "I was surprised. I think it was the resonance of the Vietnam War." Unsurprisingly the single flopped. There was a printer's error with the title. It was actually called "Butcher's Tale Somme 1916" but they printed it as "Butcher's Tale (Western Front 1914)." This was on top of another error on the album as the designer of the LP cover misspelt the word "Odyssey" as '"Odessey." In our interview with Zombies lead singer Colin Blunstone, he explained why he didn't sing on this track. "I don't know if you've ever listened to the lyric, but it's pretty dark stuff," he said. "People thought it was about Vietnam but really it's about the First World War, and I just couldn't see how it could fit on the album. But I was wrong. Everybody plays the album through, and I've never heard the running order questioned ever. So, originally I was going to sing that, but I thought it was too dark for me, especially at 19. I could handle it now, but at 19 I just thought it was a bit dark."

Black Water Album: What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits (1974) China Grove Album: The Captain And Me (1973) by The Doobie Brothers Patrick Simmons, who is the group's guitarist, wrote Black Water and sang lead. It has the Louisiana swamp rock feel of earlier Doobie Brothers songs like "Toulouse Street" and "Black Eyed Cajun Woman." "Black Water" wasn't seen as having hit potential, so it was relegated to the B-side of "Another Park, Another Sunday" in March 1974. "Black Water" wasn't issued as an A-side until November, and it didn't reach #1 until March 15, 1975. In a Songfacts interview with Tom Johnston, the Doobie Brothers frontman explained how the song became an unlikely hit. Said Johnston: "That's a story that could have happened back then, but never would ever ever happen now: Roanoke, Virginia picked that tune up and started playing it in heavy rotation, and somebody in Minneapolis who I guess knew somebody in Roanoke heard the song and decided to follow suit, and it ended up becoming our first #1 single. That was Pat's first single. And oddly enough, it was never looked at as a single by the record company. I remember when I first heard it was #1, we were in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and we were just getting ready to go on stage, and then I guess Bruce [their manager Bruce Cohn] must have told us. I think we were already aware of the fact that it was getting airplay, but nobody was really paying a lot of attention. And then all of a sudden it became #1 and we were paying attention. I remember I went in and congratulated Pat backstage, and we've been playing it ever since." The band lost lead singer Tom Johnston to illness in 1975, but found a capable replacement in Michael McDonald, who was with them until their split in 1982. When they re-grouped in 1988, Johnston took over as frontman. The Doobie Brothers are one of the few bands with hits sung by three different singers: Johnston, McDonald, and thanks to "Black Water," Patrick Simmons. The Doobie Brothers performed this in a 1978 episode of the TV show What's Happening!! where they teach the characters on the show about the dark side of bootlegging. The United States private security firm Blackwater was named for the dark water swamps of North Carolina, where the company is based. After criticism of the company's conduct during the Iraq War, they changed their name to "Xe" (pronounced "Z") in 2009. China Grove is a small town in Texas, about 10 miles from San Antonio in Bexar county. Did Doobie Brothers singer/guitarist Tom Johnston know this when he wrote the song? Sort of. Here's what he told Songfacts: "The words were written last, and they were made up around this whole idea of this wacky little town with a sheriff that had a Samurai Sword and all that sort of thing. The funny thing was that I found out in 1975 in a cab in Houston that there really was a China Grove, although what happened was in 1972 we were touring in Winnebagos, and we were driving into San Antonio. And there is a China Grove, Texas, right outside of San Antonio. I must have seen the sign and forgotten about it. And when I came up with the term 'China Grove,' I thought I was just making it up because of the words being about this crazy sheriff with a Samurai Sword." Tom Johnston's lyrics were influenced by the oriental piano sound that Billy Payne came up with when they were working on the track. Payne was the pianist for Little Feat, and recorded with many other artists, including Elton John and James Taylor. In his Songfacts interview, Johnston said: "The piano lick went, 'Dadadadun, dadadadadundun.' It was an Oriental sounding lick. And so from there I took off and went to the place I ended up with lyrically. I must have seen that sign and forgotten it. And when the cab driver told me this in Houston, I said, 'You gotta be kiddin' me.' He said, 'There really is a China Grove.' I said, 'No, there isn't.' He says, 'Yeah, there really is. And it is right outside of San Antonio.' I said, 'That's weird.' And it turns out there's one in North Carolina, too." This song has been used in a number of TV shows, including The Simpsons, Entourage and House. It has a very distinctive guitar riff, which makes it perfect for certain scenes. According to Johnston, however, he didn't think one way or another about the riff when he came up with it. Johnston claims that the only time he know a guitar lick was going to become a hit was the one he came up with for "Listen To The Music." The late Keith Knudsen, drummer for The Doobie Brothers, had quite a culture shock when traveling with Al Kooper (of Blood Sweat & Tears fame) in Japan. As related in Kooper's memoir Backstage Passes and Backstabbing Bastards, Knudsen was dry and asked the bass player to score him marijuana - and was taken aback when informed that Japan was both a police state and very drug-free. The naive bass player tried anyway and brought back a tiny amount, wrapped in a paper packet as if it were a much higher-caliber substance. Knudsen casually lit up in the hotel room, and the bass player freaked out, stuffing towels under the door and carrying on like he thought they were going to be shot.

Barracuda Album: Little Queen (1977) Magic Man Album: Dreamboat Annie (1975) by Heart Barracuda was written by Ann and Nancy Wilson together with guitarist Roger Fisher and drummer Michael DeRosier. According to the band, the song is a statement about the record industry in general. It was written at a time when there was friction between the band and their label. Little Queen was the first album Heart released for the CBS-Portrait label. Their old label, Mushroom Records, sued the band and in 1978 released Magazine, an album made up of previously recorded material that Heart did not want released. (Thanks to Sovereign Records for this information.) The Wilson sisters revealed in various interviews that the song was about Heart's anger towards an ad Mushroom Records placed in trade publications implying that Ann and Nancy were lesbians having an affair. The song focuses on Ann's rage towards a promoter who came up to her after a concert in Detroit asking how her "lover" was. She initially thought he was talking about her then-boyfriend - band member Michael Fisher. After the promoter revealed he was talking about her sister Nancy Wilson, Ann became angry and went back to her hotel room to write the song. Nancy put suitably angry music to the words to complete the song comparing the sleazy side of music to a dangerous fish. This song can be heard in the movies Wag the Dog (1997), Charlie's Angles (2000), Roll Bounce (2005), You Again (2010), The Campaign (2012) and Identity Thief (2013). TV series to feature the song include The Sopranos, Chuck and My Name Is Earl. It was also used in a 2009 episode of Glee where it was performed by Lea Michele and Adam Lambert. Fergie performed this with Heart at the 2008 Idol Gives Back charity special on American Idol. During the 2008 presidential campaign, this song was used as the as the unofficial theme song for Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin. The Alaska governor originally earned the nickname "Sarah Barracuda" when she played basketball in high school, because of her fierce competitiveness. The name was revived after Palin became mayor of her hometown, Wasilla, in 1996 and it was played at the 2008 National Republican Convention, after she gave a speech. The next day, Ann and Nancy Wilson issued a statement that said: "The Republican campaign did not ask for permission to use the song, nor would they have been granted that permission. We have asked the Republican campaign publicly not to use our music. We hope our wishes will be honored." Their wishes were not honored, and the song was played at the convention that night after their presidential nominee John McCain spoke and Palin joined him on stage. As the Republican campaign pointed out, they had obtained the proper performance rights to the song and were under no obligation to get further permission to use it (they would have if they wanted to use it in a commercial or video). With no legal recourse, the Wilson sisters retaliated in the media, telling Entertainment Weekly: "Sarah Palin's views and values in NO WAY represent us as American women. We ask that our song 'Barracuda' no longer be used to promote her image. The song 'Barracuda' was written in the late 70s as a scathing rant against the soulless, corporate nature of the music business, particularly for women. While Heart did not and would not authorize the use of their song at the RNC, there's irony in Republican strategists' choice to make use of it there." The song's co-writer Roger Fisher was also anti-Palin, but he saw things differently, telling Reuters he was "thrilled" that the song was being used as it was a win-win situation. He explained that while Heart gets publicity and royalties, the Republicans benefit from "the ingenious placement of a kick-ass song." He added that he would use some of the proceeds in a donation to the Obama campaign, and thus, "the Republicans are now supporting Obama." When Heart entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2013, they played "Barracuda" last in a 3-song set. By this time, the Wilson sisters were the only original members still with the band, but it was the Little Queen lineup that got inducted: Roger Fisher, Howard Leese, Michael DeRosier and Steve Fossen. There was some bad blood between the Wilsons and their former bandmates, and at first, Ann and Nancy ruled out a reunion. In the end, they appeased fans by performing "Crazy On You" with the classic lineup, but did "Barracuda" with their current band along with some of their Seattle-based friends: Chris Cornell (who inducted them), Mike McCready (Pearl Jam) and Jerry Cantrell (Alice in Chains). While contributing guest vocals to Alice in Chains' 1992 Sap EP, Ann Wilson refused the bands' request to sing the "Barracuda" chorus on the song "Right Turn." She told them they wouldn't find it funny when people were still hounding them to play "Man In The Box" 10 years later. "Barracuda" soundtracks the 2024 Hyundai "Conquer the Weekend" Vikings Commercial for their Santa Fe SUV. The "Magic Man" is Mike Fisher, Heart's original guitarist. He was Ann Wilson's boyfriend, and she followed him to Canada during the Vietnam War years so he wouldn't get drafted. In 1974, Nancy Wilson (Ann's sister) joined the band and Fisher became their manager and sound engineer. The song is about being madly in love to the point where you are not thinking clearly. The line, "Come on home girl..." relates to Ann Wilson's mother. The line, "Try to understand, Mama, he's a magic man" is Ann's response. Wilson says her mother helped keep her grounded when she was being rather irrational and acting under the spell of her "magic man." According to Ann and Nancy Wilson's autobiography Kicking and Dreaming, this hit climbed the charts thanks to a radio publicist who offered DJs drugs and prostitutes in return for airplay. "When we were out of the way he'd pass the DJ a gram of cocaine," recalled Nancy, "or the number of a hooker and say, 'She's yours, on Heart.'" Heart built their following in Canada, where they were waiting out the Vietnam War. When their debut album, Dreamboat Annie, was released there in 1975, some radio stations picked up the song as the band toured the country. When they returned to America in 1976, they had to start the promotional cycle again, but it worked: "Crazy On You" got airplay around the country and generated a buzz for the band. When "Magic Man" was released, more radio stations were familiar with Heart and added it to their playlists, helping send the song to #9 and push Dreamboat Annie Platinum. They were off and running in a career that landed them in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2013. In a 2022 interview with Ann Wilson, she talked about what "Magic Man" means to her when she sings it. "Now, it's like looking back on a love affair of the past from this great distance," she said. "It's pretty interesting to look back on all that naiveté and just what it's like when you fall in love for the first time. It's so powerful, it becomes a lifestyle. That song is a 'leaving home' song. So, I sing it as my 21-year-old self, just taking off into the world." Dolly Parton covered "Magic Man" for her 2023 rock album Rockstar. Her version is a duet with Ann Wilson and is dedicated to Parton's husband, Carl. "Nobody can out-sing Ann, but I gave it my darndest, and we added a few lines that were not in the original," said Parton. "We wanted to have a few things that made it seem like ours."

American Dream Album: American Dream (1988) by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young Time Travel and 88s In 1970, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young released the incendiary single "Ohio," written by Neil Young in the aftermath of the Kent State shootings. The quartet didn't release another single until 1988, when they put out "American Dream," the title track to their first album together since Déjà Vu, also in 1970 (Crosby, Stills & Nash released three albums without Young in the interim). Like "Ohio," it's written by Neil Young and deals with the political climate of the day, which in 1988 was a lot less urgent than in 1970 when American soldiers were killing students on a college campus. "American Dream" is a satire on the Iran-Contra Scandal and, to a lesser degree, the downfall of presidential candidate Gary Hart, who was caught with his mistress. The video, which includes news footage of the satired events, got some airplay on VH1, but the single didn't chart in America and the album was widely panned and remains remembered as one of the group's less noble efforts. They started in 1968 as Crosby, Stills & Nash, formed from former members of three prominent 1960s groups: The Byrds (David Crosby), Buffalo Springfield (Stephen Stills) and The Hollies (Graham Nash). After releasing their first album in 1969, another Buffalo Springfield alum, Neil Young, joined the band. Joni Mitchell is a huge part of CSN&Y history. She was romantically involved with Crosby before taking up with Graham Nash. She also wrote their song "Woodstock" and did the artwork for their first greatest hits album, So Far, released in 1974. Mitchell's first album was produced by Crosby. The Crosby, Stills & Nash performance at Woodstock is well documented, but many don't know that with Young, they played the ill-fated Altamont concert headlined by The Rolling Stones. The band left right after their set - before it got violent - because they had another gig that night. Crosby and Nash have released albums together, and Stills and Young teamed up for one called Long May You Run in 1976. The two who really didn't get along were Stills and Nash, both of whom battled for the affections of Rita Coolidge. Stills got together with Jimi Hendrix in March 1970, six months before Hendrix' death. They jammed together at a London club called The Speakeasy, and Hendrix added guitar to Stills' song "Old Times, Good Times," which appears on his debut album. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young are the only group to top the US albums chart with three consecutive LPs where one was a studio album (Deja Vu), one was a live album (4 Way Street), and one was a greatest hits album (So Far). They espoused peace and love but made lots of money, which put them at odds with some in the hippie community. This came to a head on September 15, 1969, when Stills got into a fistfight with an audience member at a festival in Big Sur, California that was being filmed as a showcase for good vibes. Each band member has been inducted twice into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: Crosby with The Byrds, Stills with Buffalo Springfield, Nash with The Hollies, and Young as a solo artist. From 1972-1981 they released just one studio album - CSN in 1977 (without Young) - but each member was active outside the group with solo albums and other collectives. The group was somewhat unique in that each of the members were recording solo albums at the height of their success as a group. Other configurations included Crosby-Nash (they made eight albums together) and the Stills-Young Band, which made one album in 1976. They were successful from the start, beginning with their first album in 1969 and continuing through the early 1970s. CSN&Y was one of the few groups selling as many albums as the Beatles. Young left the group in 1976, returning long enough to record an album in 1988 after Crosby finished a jail term on drug and weapons charges, fulfilling a promise Young had made to record with CSN if Crosby could beat his drug addiction. Graham Nash told The Guardian in a 2015 interview that it was a very difficult decision to leave his former group the Hollies. He said: "They were my friends for many, many years, but when I heard myself singing with David and Stephen that first time in Joni's [Mitchell] living room, my life changed dramatically. I needed to sing those songs." Nash is both a keen photographer and collector of photographs. When he sold his 2,000-print collection through Sotheby's in 1990, it set an auction record for the highest-grossing sale of a single private collection of photography. Stephen Stills underwent successful surgery for prostate cancer on January 3, 2008, which was his 63rd birthday. In a 2022 interview with Crosby, he talked about his relationships with his former bandmates. "I still really love Stephen Stills," he said. "I just can't help it. There's something about his music, something about the way he plays that just thrills me. It always has. But I don't get along well with Neil or Graham, either one." 1969-2015 David Crosby (Van Cortland) Vocals, guitar 1968-2015 Stephen Stills Vocals, guitar, keyboards, bass 1968-2015 Graham Nash Vocals, guitar, keyboards 1968-2015 Neil Young Vocals, guitar 1970-2015 I used to see you on every T.V Your smiling face looked back at me I used to see you on every T.V Your smiling face looked back at me Then they caught you with the girl next door People's money piled on the floor Accusations that you try to deny Revelations and rumors begin to fly Now you think about reaching out Try to get some help from above Now you think about reaching out Try to get some help from above Reporters crowd around your house Going through your garbage like a pack of hounds Speculating what they may find out It don't matter now, you're all washed up You wake up in the middle of the night Your sheets are wet and your face is white You tried to make a good thing last How could something so good, go bad, so fast? American dream, American dream American dream, American dream Don't know when things went wrong Might have been when you were young and strong Don't know when things went wrong Might have been when you were young and strong Reporters crowd around your house Going through your garbage like a pack of hounds Speculating what they may find out It don't matter now, you're all washed up Don't know when things went wrong Might have been when you were young and strong American dream, American dream Don't know when things went wrong Might have been when you were young and strong American dream, American dream

Voodoo Child (Slight Return) Album: Electric Ladyland (1968) by Jimi Hendrix This was recorded after Jimi Hendrix finished the long, slow blues of "Voodoo Chile," a 15-minute jam that appears earlier on the Electric Ladyland album. An ABC film crew came into the studio to do a piece on The Experience and told them to "make like you're playing, boys." Jimi said, "Okay, let's do this in E." The TV footage was lost, but their impromptu jam gave them the song "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)." Stevie Ray Vaughan covered "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)" on his Couldn't Stand the Weather album, and numerous guitar virtuosos carry out extended versions at their own concerts. Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, and John Petrucci played a version on their G3 2001 tour. This was one of several standout wah-wah popularized songs, alongside Cream's "White Room" and Isaac Hayes' "Theme from 'Shaft'." Hendrix was considered a master of the wah-wah pedal, and this track earned him the #1 spot on Guitar World's greatest wah solos of all time list in 2015. In 1970, this was released as a single in the UK a week after Hendrix died. It became his only #1 hit. "Voodoo Child" was the last song Hendrix performed live. On September 6, 1970, which was 12 days before his death, he played it at a concert in Germany. Hendrix dedicated the album to his groupies, who he called "Electric Ladies." Steve Winwood played organ on this. He was a member of the band Traffic, and often played on the same bill with Hendrix. When Jimi was recording this in New York, he had Winwood come by and play. The legendary jazz artist Miles Davis admits being influenced by this song when he made his album Bitches Brew in 1969. One of the songs on that album is called "Miles Runs His Voodoo Down." On the Live at Fillmore East version, Jimi says: "This is the Black Panthers' national anthem." In 2012, "Voodoo Child" was voted the best guitar riff in rock and roll history by readers of MusicRadar. The website wrote: "From its wah-wah into the rhythm parts and the astonishing solo, this is still regarded by many as the high watermark of electric guitar expression." Guns N' Roses' "Sweet Child o' Mine" came second in the poll and Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love" third. The original album cover was adorned with naked women, but the ensuing controversy prompted the label (Reprise Records) to swap it out for a photo of Hendrix. The musician wasn't pleased with either version; he wanted to bring in photographer Linda Eastman, who would be more famously known as Linda McCartney, to shoot the cover, but the label nixed the idea. Thanks to a studio engineer's error on the master tape's label, the album was nearly called "Electric Landlady." This was used in a 2023 commercial for Acura's electric vehicles. There's no voiceover in the spot, just the song and some driving sounds. Well, I stand up next to a mountain And I chop it down with the edge of my hand Well, I stand up next to a mountain Chop it down with the edge of my hand Well, I pick up all the pieces and make an island Might even raise a little sand, yeah 'Cause I'm a voodoo child Lord knows I'm a voodoo child, baby Want to say one more last thing I didn't mean to take you up all your sweet time I'll give it right back to you one of these days I said, I didn't mean to take up all your sweet time I'll give it right back one of these days, yeah And if I don't meet you no more in this world Then I'll, I'll meet you in the next one Now don't be late, don't be late 'Cause I'm a voodoo child, voodoo child Lord knows I'm a voodoo child, hey, hey, hey I'm a voodoo child, baby I don't take no for an answer Just want you to know

Happy Together Album: Happy Together (1967) It Ain't Me Babe Album: It Ain't Me Babe (1965) by The Turtles Happy Together is not a song about a couple in love. According to Gary Bonner, who wrote the song with Alan Gordon, the song is about unrequited love. Our desperate singer wants the girl to "imagine how the world could be so very fine," proposing what would happen "if I should call you up." The line in the fadeout, "How is the weather?" is when he realizes they will never be more than passing acquaintances, as he resorts to small talk to keep from bursting into tears. The song's composers Gary Bonner and Alan Gordon were the bass player and drummer of the Boston area group The Magicians. Bonner became a regular member of Kenny Vance and the Planotones. Gordon, who died in 2008 at the age of 64, had songs recorded by Alice Cooper, Frank Zappa and The Lovin' Spoonful. Talking about how the song came together, Alan Gordon said: "I had nearly half a song already written, mostly lyric ideas, but couldn't find the right melodic concept. The Magicians were in the middle of a week-long engagement at the Unicorn Club in Boston, and one early morning I was visiting my divorced father in nearby Ayer, Massachusetts after being up all night. I had stopped to have breakfast at the Park Street Diner in the town and was miserable with no sleep, the endless dumb gigs we were playing and having a songwriter's block. About the only melody that was throbbing in my tired, fried brain at that hour was the time-immemorial repeated open string pattern that Allen (Jake) Jacobs, the Magician's lead guitarist, would use as he incessantly tuned and retuned after, before, and frequently during each piece we played. Suddenly, some words began to fit and literally minutes later music and lyrics started to take shape. I excitedly and in fairness asked Jake to complete the song with me as co-writer, but he refused, saying it was all 'too simple' for him to be involved, so my regular partner Gary then helped me with the finishing touches. When Gary Klein at the Koppleman/Rubin office heard the result, he immediately knew the song would be perfect for the new and upbeat image being created for The Turtles, and it was his continued enthusiasm that convinced the group to record it." After the song was turned down by a number of groups, Bonner and Gordon recorded a demo at Regent Sound Studio with some session musicians, including guitarist Ralph Casale and bassist Dick Romoff. It was Casale who came up with the main figure which set the groove for the song. He told us: "A chord sheet was placed in front of the musicians and we immediately proceeded to put this song together. I came up with what I considered and called a Lovin' Spoonful feel. I created the figure and all the other musicians including Bonner and Gordon immediately understood the direction. The vocal arrangements fell into place very nicely. Regent Sound was an excellent studio so the demo sounded like a finished product. I later told everybody, 'I just heard a hit record.' As Aunt Flo put it, the original demo was phenomenal. In fact the Turtles' recording sounds as though they used the basic demo track and overdubbed horns. The Bonner/Gordon vocal arrangement sounded a lot like the hit record also." The Turtles were formed by Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan. They were saxophone players who did whatever was trendy in order to make a living as musicians. They played surf-rock, acoustic folk, whatever was big at the time, and in addition to their own bands, played backup for The Coasters, Sonny And Cher and The Righteous Brothers. After a while, they gave up sax and became singers, signing a deal with White Whale Records as The Crosswind Singers. When British groups like The Beatles took over America, they tried to pass themselves off as British singers and renamed themselves The Tyrtles. The record company made them change the name to The Turtles, and tried to make them sound like The Byrds, who were leaders of the folk-rock trend. Like The Byrds had done before, The Turtles recorded a Bob Dylan song for their first single - "It Ain't Me Babe." They had a few more minor hits, and recorded the original version of "Eve Of Destruction," which became a #1 hit for Barry McGuire. They recorded some gloomy songs that completely flopped, so they decided to try some happier songs. After many other artists passed on "Happy Together," The Turtles decided to record it in an effort to change their image once again. Bonner and Gordon also wrote other Turtles hits like "She'd Rather Be With Me" as well as "Celebrate" by Three Dog Night. In the three years after The Turtles recorded this, they had several other hits, but disbanded in 1970. Volman and Kaylan joined Frank Zappa And The Mothers Of Invention as "Phlorescent Leech and Eddie." After a few years with Zappa, they started recording as Flo And Eddie. They wrote music for the animated movies Dirty Duck, Strawberry Shortcake and The Care Bears, and hosted their own nationally syndicated radio show. They also played on many famous songs by John Lennon, Roger McGuinn, Hoyt Axton, Alice Cooper, Blondie, Bruce Springsteen, The Psychedelic Furs, Sammy Hagar, Duran Duran, and The Ramones. In 1984, they went on their "Happy Together Tour" as The Turtles Featuring Flo And Eddie. The line "If I should call you up, invest a dime" harkens back to a time when telephone calls were often made at pay phones that cost a dime. These days, he would probably just call from his cell phone, which is much more convenient, but far less romantic. Besides The Turtles, three other acts took this song to the US Hot 100: Dawn featuring Tony Orlando [medley] (#79, 1972) Captain & Tennille (#53, 1980) The Nylons (#75, 1987) In the UK, the Australian singer Jason Donovan made #10 in 1991 with his version, and in 1979, T.G. Sheppard made it to #8 on the country chart with his rendition. Other artists to cover "Happy Together" include Mel Torme, The Ventures, Hugo Montenegro, The Vogues, Buck Wild, Vikki Carr, Petula Clark, Melba Moore, Donny Osmond, David Cook, Percy Faith, Frank Zappa and Weezer. This has appeared on the soundtracks to the movies Adaptation, Ernest Goes To Camp, Life Or Something Like It, and Freaky Friday. This has been used in lot of commercials for clients like Burger King, The NFL, Nintendo, Red Lobster, Sony Playstation, Florida Orange Juice, Heineken, Clinique and Nickelodeon. (Thanks, Carlin America publishing for all above.) In 1989, this was used in a movie of the same name starring Helen Slater, Patrick Dempsey and Brad Pitt. This song was used in an episode of That '70s Show. The scene of the song's usage involved the character Fez imagining what his life would be like if his friends were his family. The sequence later transitions into the characters performing the song. This opens the 12 Monkeys episode "45 RPM" (2018) as Cassie prepares to time travel to the '70s to assassinate a villain. "It Ain't Me Babe" was written and originally recorded by Bob Dylan, who released the song on his 1964 album Another Side Of Bob Dylan. The lyrics find the singer telling a girl that he is not her true love, and that she should forget about him as he is just a temporary fix for her loneliness. Dylan is rarely forthcoming about his songs, but this may have been inspired by Joan Baez. This was the first hit for The Turtles, who had several more hits in the '60s, including the #1 "Happy Together." Howard Kaylan of The Turtles explained how they came to record this in the Forgotten Hits newsletter: "When the Turtles first signed our original recording agreements with the tiny label that would become White Whale, we were all under the legal age of 18. Needless to say, the contracts required our parents' approval. This was all done before a judge in the county of Los Angeles who reviewed the paperwork about to be executed and told our parents that, "If you let your sons sign these papers, the court won't be responsible for the outcome. These are the worst contracts that I have ever seen." We didn't care. We wanted to make records and damn the consequences. So we signed. And our parents co-signed. And the judge had been right. It took many years and many thousands of dollars to win back our money and our self-respect. But, in the meantime, we had a record deal. We had originally intended to break up our band, the Crossfires, on one particular evening in 1965, while playing our usual Friday night gig at the a teen club in Redondo Beach, California called the Revelaire. On my way upstairs with our resignation, two shady-looking entrepreneurs stopped me and asked if we were interested in making a record. They loved the way we sounded doing a cover of the new Byrds single (our guitarist had gone out and bought a 12-string guitar earlier that week) and thought that doing folk-rock was the key to our future. It fell upon me to find the tunes to record. The Crossfires had been a surf band in high school, but together with a friend of ours, Betty McCarty, we had also done some folk singing as The Crosswind Singers. In fact, we opened a concert at Westchester High that starred the folk duo Joe and Eddie (a foreshadowing of things to come, many years before the names Flo and Eddie were to become our nom de plumes). I found Dylan's 'It Ain't Me Babe' on an album and, being blissfully unaware that anyone else had ever recorded it, thought that it would make a great rock song. So I literally 'lifted' the Zombies' approach to pop - a soft Colin Blunstone-like minor verse bursting into a four-four major chorus a-la 'She's Not There.' Both of the B-sides to 'It Ain't Me Babe' and 'Let Me Be' were songs that I had originally written for the Crosswind Singers and that we had performed with Joe and Eddie on that most auspicious of occasions. 'The Wanderin' Kind' sounded like a total Byrds cop. I wasn't ashamed then and I'm not ashamed now. It was all jangly guitars and travelin' boot-heels. But, in my defense, it was written well in advance of the Byrds records and, in fact, was a Dylan cop. Hey, we were all doing it. We never said that we were trend setters. Sometimes, the smart follower is perceived as a leader too. 'Almost There,' on the other hand, had nothing to do with the world of folk rock. In fact, if stolen from anyone, it would have to be called a Kinks-style rocker. The guitar lick intro and the incomprehensible "you gettum, boys" mumbled at the start of the solo were stone giveaways. The Turtles' career was always, somehow, intertwined with the that of the Kinks lasting all the way to our final album in 1970, Turtle Soup, which Ray Davies, himself, produced." (Thanks to Kent at the Forgotten Hits newsletter.) Also in 1965, Johnny Cash recorded this with his wife June Carter. The song appears in the 2005 movie Walk The Line, which is about Cash. Other artists to record the song include Joan Baez, Nancy Sinatra and New Found Glory. Dylan's use of the word "Babe" gave Sonny Bono the idea to use the word in his 1965 Sonny & Cher hit "I Got You Babe." Jim Pons (born March 14, 1943) is an American bassist, author, singer, and video director who most notably played for the Leaves (1964–1967), the Turtles (1967–1970), and the Mothers of Invention (1970–1971) and Flo and Eddie (1971-1973). After leaving the music scene in 1973, he worked as a video director for the New York Jets, and briefly the Jacksonville Jaguars. Jim designed the team logo for the New York Jets, which lasted from 1978 to 1997. In 1964, he formed the garage rock band The Leaves. The band was founded by Pons and guitarist Robert Lee Reiner, who were Fraternity students at Cal State Northridge (then known as San Fernando Valley State College). They were originally called The Rockwells, prior to changing their names to The Leaves. They got the name Leaves when one of the members greeted another by saying “What’s happening?”, and the other responding with “The Leaves are happening”. The Leaves eventually secured a regular gig replacing the Byrds as the house band at the popular nightclub Ciro's on the Sunset Strip. They signed with Mira Records after being heard by Pat Boone, who got them the position. The Leaves are noted for recording an early version of the song Hey Joe, which they recorded along with their debut album in 1966. Their version of Hey Joe was #1 on the Los Angeles stations and peaked at #31 on the Billboard pop charts in May 1966. Hey Joe would achieve greater popularity in 1967 when it was covered by Jimi Hendrix. Pons stayed in the Leaves until 1967. Pons joined The Turtles shortly after the Leaves. He played bass on their hit songs She'd Rather Be With Me, Elenore, She's My Girl, and You Showed Me. As a member of the Turtles, he appeared on television on both of their appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, and American Bandstand, among many others. Jim continued to tour with the Turtles until they split in 1970. He played on their albums, Happy Together, The Turtles Present the Battle of the Bands, Turtle Soup and The Turtles Greatest Hits Vols, 1 and 2. Since the 2010s, he has occasionally guest-starred with The Turtles alongside Flo & Eddie. Pons will usually join them on stage if they are performing in Florida, where he lives. Pons was a member of Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention (1970-1971). He played bass on their albums "Live at the Fillmore East", "Just Another Band From L.A.", and "Playground Psychotics". Pons portrayed himself in Zappa's 1971 surrealist film 200 Motels, starring the members of the Mothers Of Invention. In 1973 Pons left the music industry to become the film and video director for the New York Jets football team; he designed the team's 1978–97 team logo. He held this position until around the year 2000. Pons and his family moved to Jacksonville, Florida in 2005, where he did game day video for the Jacksonville Jaguars, until he retired. In 2017, Pons wrote an autobiography titled Hard Core Love: Sex, Football and Rock and Roll in the Kingdom of God which won the 2017 Florida Writers Association BOOK OF THE YEAR award. The book describes his spiritual journey during his careers in the music and sports industries.

Mysterious Ways Album: Achtung Baby (1991) Gloria Album: October (1981) by U2 In this song, the main character, Johnny, has an epiphany through an encounter with a mysterious feminine being. To explain, we turn to Into The Heart by Niall Stokes. "It's a song about a man living on little or no romance," Bono says. "It's a song about women - or a woman - but it's addressed to him." Bono talks a bit about theology and about El Shaddai - the third and least used name for God in the Bible, which translates as "the breasted one." "I've always believed that the spirit is a feminine thing," he says. "Mysterious Ways" is not about a particular woman. It is about women in general, and the way they entrance, and often dominate men. Says Bono, "At times I do tend to idealize women. It's easy to fall into the trap of separating them into angels and devils for the sake of the drama. But there's no way that there's ever anything anti-women involved. Our songs are not politically correct. They are written from a man's point of view. He's wrestling with different things, there's a flash of anger and hurt here and there. But I don't think women come out badly." Bono got the idea for this song from a conversation he had with Rev. Jack Heaslip, whom the band met when they were students at Mount Temple Secondary School and he was a guidance counselor. Heaslip became a trusted advisor to the band and a sounding board for questions about spirituality and religion. "He mused on the idea that the gender of God is not clear in the original biblical Hebrew," Bono wrote in his memoir Surrender. "In fact one of the names of God, El Shaddai, means 'the breasted one.' If the greatest creative force in the world is a woman giving birth, then of course the greatest creative force in the universe is likely to be a feminine spirit." While recording this in Berlin, U2 came up with the basis for their song "One." In a rush of creativity, they put together "One" and finished "Mysterious Ways" later. This was very refreshing for the band - they were having a hard time coming up with anything and even considered breaking up. The line, "If you want to kiss the sky, better learn how to kneel - on your knees boy!" is probably a reference to oral sex, although it can have a more innocent religious meaning, like kneeling on a pew. Bono performed this on the Zoo TV tour in character as The Fly, a parody of an egomaniacal rock star, wearing huge sunglasses and leather. This was the second single from the Achtung Baby album. The first single was "The Fly," which did well globally but stiffed in America, reaching just #61. "Mysterious Ways" went to #9 in the US and got lots of airplay on a variety of formats. "One" was the next single, and it was also a big hit in America and around the world. Recording the album was challenging, but ultimately very rewarding. So much so that Daniel Lanois, who produced it with Brian Eno, cites it as his favorite collaboration. "I do appreciate the collaborative feeling that we had on Achtung Baby, which is a U2 record we made in Germany," he told Songfacts. "What was great about that was there were a lot of very talented, smart people in a room wanting the very best for everybody. That is the true meaning of collaboration." Lanois, who has also worked on albums with Neil Young, Emmylou Harris, Bob Dylan and many others, has a long association with U2. He first worked with them on their The Unforgettable Fire album in 1984. Directed by Stephane Sednaoui, the video was shot in Morocco with a belly dancer portraying the woman who "moves in mysterious ways." When U2 embarked on their Zoo TV tour in 1992, they returned to this motif, with a belly dancer appearing on stage when they performed the song. After the first leg of the tour, Morleigh Steinberg, who did some choreography for the band, became the dancer. She ended up taking up with The Edge, whose marriage collapsed while the band was recording the Achtung Baby album. Steinberg and The Edge had two children together and got married in 2002. A dance remix by Paul Oakenfold became popular in clubs. Speaking to American Songwriter, the Edge explained how Daniel Lanois transformed the song. "At the time we were working on it in Berlin, it had no chorus," he said. "It was a groove, a great verse idea, and that was all we had. Bono went into the other room to work on chorus ideas for 'Mysterious Ways.' I came back in and I was showing Adam (Clayton, bass) what the chord changes were, and Danny goes 'Let's play those back to back,' so I played the two chord progressions back to back and we all just went, 'Oh, that's a great combination of sequences. Let's try that out in the room." Gloria is my mother's name. Gloria is Latin for "Glory," and the Latin refrain of "In Te Domine" means "In You Lord." (Did you know: Bono's stage name was originally Bono Vox, which is Latin for "Good Voice"). Like all but the most scholarly among us, Bono is not fluent in Latin. He did know some Latin words - mostly because of church - and with tape rolling, he sang what came to him. The challenge then was to translate what he had sung, so he left the studio to find a Latin dictionary but found something better: a friend who had studied the language and could translate for him. Released on U2's second album, October, "Gloria" is a spiritual song reflecting the Christian beliefs of Bono, The Edge, and Larry Mullen (bass player Adam Clayton was not as devout). Early on, U2 infused worship messages in their songs, and almost broke up the band when they feared it conflicted with their faith. With lyrics like, "I try to stand up, but I can't find my feet," Bono is supplicating to a higher power. He explained to Musician magazine in 1983: "I had this feeling of everything waiting on me, and I was just naked, nothing to offer. So I went through this process of wrenching what was inside myself outside of myself." Some of Bono's lyrics and vocals were inspired by an album of Gregorian chants that their manager, Paul McGuinness, had given him. The music video was the second from U2 (following "I Will Follow") and their first in the MTV era. Directed by Meiert Avis, it shows the band performing the song in Dublin in the same place the October album cover was shot. It was the first U2 video shot outdoors, something they did on many others over the next few years because they liked the lighting. Adam Clayton played a bass solo on this track, something he rarely did. Bono (from the book Race Of Angels): "I actually really like that lyric. It was written really quickly. I think it expresses the thing of language again, this thing of speaking in tongues, looking for a way out of language. 'I try to sing this song... I try to stand up but I can't find my feet.' And taking this Latin thing, this hymn thing. It's so outrageous at the end going to the full Latin whack. That still makes me smile. It's so wonderfully mad and epic and operatic. And of course Gloria is about a woman in the Van Morrison sense. Being an Irish band, you're conscious of that. And I think that what happened at that moment was very interesting: people saw that you could actually write about a woman in the spiritual sense and that you could write about God in the sexual sense. And that was a moment. Because before that there had been a line. That you can actually sing to God, but it might be a woman? Now, you can pretend it's about God, but not a woman! "Gloria" was modestly successful throughout Europe but in America was mostly constrained to college radio stations and didn't chart. Most listeners heard it for the first time on the Under A Blood Red Sky live album, which was released in 1983 after U2's third album, War, took off. "Gloria" was the only track from October included on the album, and along with "Party Girl," one of two songs on the tracklist recorded June 5, 1983 at the Red Rocks amphitheater in Colorado. U2 played this at concerts throughout the '80s, then brought it back in 2005 for their Vertigo tour. Van Morrison released an unrelated song of the same name in 1964. A fellow Irishman who U2 admired, Morrison's "Gloria" is considered a classic. Steve Lillywhite produced this song along with the first three U2 albums. He had form for getting the most out of young bands with audacious lead singers: He also produced the first two Psychedelic Furs albums around this time.

Play On Album: Starting Over (1974) Rock and Roll Mama (1972) by The Raspberries Eric Carmen, the frontman of the powerpop band Raspberries and singer of solo hits including All By Myself, Never Gonna Fall in Love Again and Hungry Eyes, has died aged 74. Carmen’s wife, Amy, announced his death on his official website. No cause of death was given. “It is with tremendous sadness that we share the heartbreaking news of the passing of Eric Carmen,” she wrote. “Our sweet, loving and talented Eric passed away in his sleep, over the weekend. It brought him great joy to know that, for decades, his music touched so many and will be his lasting legacy. After discussions between Carmen and Bonfanti about forming a new group, the first lineup for the Raspberries was Eric Carmen (rhythm guitar, vocals, piano), Jim Bonfanti (drums), Wally Bryson (lead guitar, vocals) and John Aleksic (bass). Aleksic left the group at the end of 1970. In 1971, Dave Smalley (rhythm guitar, vocals), just back from Vietnam, became the fourth member of the original recording lineup with Carmen moving to bass. The Raspberries' demo tape went to the desk of producer Jimmy Ienner, for whom Carmen had previously done session work. After a major-label bidding war the band signed to Capitol Records. This 1st album featured a strong scratch and sniff raspberry scented sticker on the front cover. The Raspberries wore matching ensembles on stage. The group was known for making its stage entrance in tuxedos and large bouffant hairdos which, according to Carmen, "complemented the style of our music". Raspberries bass player Scott McCarl wrote "Play On" with their frontman, Eric Carmen. Most Raspberries songs have Carmen on lead vocals, but McCarl sings on this one. McCarl joined the band for their fourth album, Starting Over, which ended up being their last. He told Songfacts the story behind "Play On." "I'll be honest and tell you that Starting Over is not my favorite of the Raspberries albums," he said. "That would be Fresh, the second one. It kicked off with 'I Wanna Be With You,' a thrilling Raspberries/ Beatles concoction that left me breathless upon my first hearing, in an Arby's as I recall it! So, when I got to join the band a little later, I yearned to bring that same electricity to my own song for us, if I possibly could. I had that opening guitar riff, with the first verse all in place... and then nothing. Eric and I went to McDonalds, grabbed two extra-large Cokes, and went back to his place. I can still see it like yesterday, me playing him ideas on acoustic, and him on piano, back and forth, both of us nudging it further along. The lyrics came rather easily. Not really important stuff perhaps, just the rock 'n roll life we were living. We got to what we thought was a pretty good chorus - though not quite good enough perhaps? - and split up for the day. I lived 10 floors below him in the same building, the Watergate Apartments, of all names. Early the next morning I got a call from him, this wild voice on the other end saying 'you've got to come up - you've got to come up!' And he had tweaked our chorus, re-done as you know it now, the perfect complement to my original verse, with its Beatlesque chorus harmonies reaching higher and higher. Oh man, it was magical. A song like that, you need to have that chorus, you just have to have it. And now we did. From there we went nonstop until we'd finished it. It was fun going from the key of E to the key of C for the bridge - beware, sharp turn ahead! And I dearly like a part I wrote that you may not have ever noticed: the turnaround near the end, A flat minor to A - I 'borrowed' it from 'Nowhere Man.' It's our favorite song that we wrote together." After The Raspberries split, Scott McCarl left the music industry but returned in 1998 with a solo album he titled Play On, after this song. In 2022, the album was re-released with additional material. Taken from the record RASPBERRIES recorded at record plant, new york. Dave Smalley about the song: At that time (1972) the band was gigging around locally and we had a house where we all lived. For a period of time Wally and I and Eric occasionally would drag a bunch of girls home. A gig didn't go by where it wasn't crawling with women. "Rock and Roll Mama" was written about girls who'd come to gigs and party with the band in hopes of a possible romantic scenario. It was a different time back then, we were all single and we all loved women.