A history of popular music as told by 100 one-hit wonders (part 8)

30. 5000 Volts –•– I’m on Fire — (Peaked: December 13, 1975 at # 26)

Two guitarists in matching satin bell-bottoms and a singer named Tina Charles who pushes everyone out of the way and belts "I'm On Fire" as if she were. A one-hit wonder twofer, as the song plays off the riff of “Black is Black” by Los Bravos (#4, October 1966). Somehow this song wasn’t a bigger hit. 

29. Buffalo Springfield –•– For What It’s Worth — (Peaked: March 25, 1967 at # 7)        

A strong case can be made for Buffalo Springfield as the American Beatles. Two brilliant, if mercurial, singer/songwriter/instrumentalist triple threats. A third partner who led a pioneering country-rock band. A catalogue that covered an eclectic range of styles and a reputation as a dynamic live band. Unlike the Beatles, who understood the nature of band dynamics, the Springfield splintered pretty quickly: a little more than a year after "For What It's Worth" they were done.  

28. Anita Ward –•– Ring My Bell — (Peaked: June 30, 1979 at # 1)          

Not a song about the Avon Lady. 

27. The Monotones –•– Book of Love — (Peaked: April 21, 1958 at # 5)

The Monotones were six kids from a Newark housing project, one of whom couldn’t get the Pepsodent jingle out of his head (You’ll wonder where the yellow went/when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent), so he wrote and structured "Book of Love" around it. 

26. Carl Perkins –•– Blue Suede Shoes — (Peaked: May 19, 1956 at # 2)

Having once owned a pair of gray suede Hush Puppies, I can tell you that they get scuffed easily. And forget about wearing them in the rain or snow. "Blue Suede Shoes," which Carl Perkins wrote, was the first million-selling country song to cross over to both the R&B and pop charts. When Elvis Presley covered the song, first cut on his first album, it became what passes for a rock & roll classic. 

25. Hurricane Smith –•– Oh, Babe, What Would You Say? — (Peaked: February 17, 1973 at # 3)  

Our kitchen radio was locked on 1130 WNEW AM and it was always on, so even as a kid I knew my way around the “Great American Song Book” – although back then it was only a bunch of old records that nobody but WNEW played. Its deejays were dismissive of Top 40 radio, but occasionally the station would allow an exception like "Oh Babe" into the palace. As someone who knew the lyrics to Barbra Streisand’s “Secondhand Rose” when he was eight years old, I was probably predisposed to liking the jaunty “Oh Babe” right from the start. Hurricane Smith’s real name was Norman Smith, an Abbey Road engineer who worked on all the Beatles’ sessions up to Rubber Soul, then produced three very trippy early Pink Floyd albums. 

24. Debby Boone –•– You Light Up My Life — (Peaked: October 15, 1977 at # 1)  

Debby Boone was two years younger than me (and born at Hackensack Hospital!) but projected 15 years older. "You Light Up My Life", sat flat and lifeless at #1 for ten weeks at the end of 1977. Its presence threw a wet blanket over the radio, the same way Debby’s father Pat did in the 50s with his Wonder Bread covers of black R&B like “Blueberry Hill” and “Tutti Fruitti.”  

23. Brian Wilson –•– Caroline, No — (Peaked: April 30, 1966 at # 32)

The story goes that when Capitol Records executives first heard “Pet Sounds” – an album ostensibly by the Beach Boys but more of a solo Brian Wilson record if anything – they had no idea how to market it. Where were the songs about girls and summer fun? Why were these songs all so downhearted? Convinced they had a teenage version of Frank Sinatra’s bittersweet bummer “September of My Years” on their hands, they considered releasing “Pet Sounds” as a Brian Wilson record (hence this single listing Wilson as the artist) before doing an about-face and crediting the band instead – then sank any chance it had to succeed by putting out a Beach Boys greatest hits record a month later to compete against it. By Beach Boys sales standards, “Pet Sounds” and "Caroline No" tanked. Today, “Pet Sounds” is generally accepted as one of the great rock albums; the elegiac “Caroline No,” ending with the midnight sound of dogs barking at a passing train, is one of Wilson’s best. 

22. Mike Oldfield –•– Tubular Bells — (Peaked: May 11, 1974 at # 7)                    

This single, edited down from its original, album-side length of 48 minutes, was written and recorded by 19-year-old Mike Oldfield (who played all the instruments). When Richard Branson heard a demo, he signed Oldfield to his new Virgin Records label. Thanks to its use in The Exorcist, the record took off and provided Branson with capital that helped launch an empire that today includes a space tourism outfit. 

21. Nena –•– 99 Luftballons — (Peaked: March 3, 1984 at # 2)

20. World Party –•– Ship of Fools (Save Me from Tomorrow) — (Peaked: April 25, 1987 at # 27) 

The conservative policies of Reagan and Thatcher, and a growing gap between the wealthy and everybody else, triggered a brief blast of political protest music (“Rockin’ In the Free World” by Neil Young, “Born in the USA” by Bruce Springsteen, “Land of Confusion” by Genesis) that included "99 Luftballoons" and "Ship of Fools." The former was an anti-nuclear song recorded in English and German in the face of rising international tensions. The latter was more of a temperature check of humankind. Thirty-three years later, the patient hasn’t flatlined, but it’s close.

 

 

Hey, look what’s on television! Loving (1970)

“Loving” falls into place within a long line of literary works (from Allen Ginsburg, John Cheever and John Updike, among many) and films (like “The Ice Storm” and “The Stepford Wives”) painting sinister portraits of life in suburbia.

Darker than any of Dante’s nine circles of Hell, every bi-level and split-level -- all seemingly located in Connecticut -- hides a pit of desperate drinking, screwing, social climbing and scandal. In “Loving,” George Segal plays a freelance commercial artist burdened with the educated white-guy, middle-class blues: endless work deadlines, conflicted feelings about commercialism vs. art, a cramped house his family has outgrown, an affair with a younger woman in the city. He lies to clients, is a serial flirter and one drink always leads to a dozen more. It’s a life skidding off the Merritt Parkway until the inevitable crash occurs during a neighbor’s cocktail party.

Segal’s character acts like such a jerky frat boy that it’s impossible to muster any sympathy for him – why is he cheating when he’s married to a doting Eve-Marie Saint for Christ’s sake – and when he reaches the embarrassing end of his downward spiral, it feels like redemption for the viewer.

The end comes at a December cocktail party (suburban parties are also pivotal to the plots of Cheever’s “The Swimmer” and “The Ice Storm”) that seems to include most of the characters in the movie, including the girlfriend from the city and another girl Segal’s character tried to hit up earlier. Feeling no pain and rejected by the girlfriend when he corners her in a pantry, he leaves the party with a neighbor who’s been dropping hints about her availability. After a quick encounter in a car backseat – we see their silhouettes behind a snow-covered back windshield and the exhaust from the idling engine – they move on to where it’s warmer, a playhouse belonging to their host’s daughter. What they’ve forgotten is that their creepy host has closed-circuit cameras throughout his property, including the playhouse, connected to his television.

When a bored partygoer starts going through the channels, guess what he comes across? Drunken, half-dressed groping in a playpen, surrounded by stuffed animals as nursery rhyme songs play on a child’s record player (providing a soundtrack of double-entendres: “Did you ever see a lassie go this way and that way” and “pussy in the well”).

Like the partygoers who gather around the television, I unexpectedly came across this scene a million years ago on the Channel 7 4:30 weekday movie at my wife’s parent’s house (we weren’t married yet). Thankfully, her father left the room a couple of minutes earlier (I don’t think he was watching the movie but had fallen asleep on the couch) and I watched alone, dumbfounded. It’s cringeworthy and compelling at the same time.

Two other points about this film. Sterling Hayden channels Captain Ahab in look and attitude during his brief role as a conservative Midwestern trucking magnate building a new headquarters in Manhattan. When Segal visits the construction site to finalize a deal, it’s the skeletal beginnings of the World Trade Center where the scene takes place. As they speak, with the Brooklyn Bridge framed in the background, it’s a reminder that some folks had a spectacular view from their offices.

The film’s director, Irvin Kershner, started his career making quirky, independent dramas like Loving. Within ten years his career had taken a complete about-face and he was directing “The Empire Strikes Back,” “Never Say Never Again” and “RoboCop 2.”

Loving gets some airplay on TCM usually when the channel features a George Segal retrospective, which often includes two other movies where he suffers with the educated, white-guy middle-class blues: “Blume In Love” and “California Split.”

 

 

A history of popular music, as told by 100 one-hit wonders (part 7) 

40. Doris Troy –•– Just One Look — (Peaked: July 27, 1963 at # 10)

Doris Troy cowrote "Just One Look," so her payday came 15 years after it charted with Linda Ronstadt’s cover, followed by its use in Mazda and Pepsi commercials. Troy later became an in-demand backup vocalist, singing on Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” and the Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” among many other early 70s rock stuff. 

39. Mason Williams –•– Classical Gas — (Peaked: August 3, 1968 at # 2)                            

"Classical Gas" won three Grammy Awards for Mason Williams, a moonlighting writer for the Smothers Brothers Show. On The Tonight Show, Albert Brooks performed a “tribute to the animal kingdom” during which he frantically held up nature books and stuffed animals trying to keep pace with “Classical Gas.” Unfortunately, it didn’t survive to make it to YouTube. 

38. Julie London –•– Cry Me a River — (Peaked: December 17, 1955 at # 9)                       

Quite sure this is the only song on this list, maybe ever, that includes the word “plebeian” in its lyrics. 

37. The Honeycombs –•– Have I the Right? — (Peaked: November 14, 1964 at # 5)         

36. The Tornados –•– Telstar — (Peaked: December 22, 1962 at # 1)     

Often working in a makeshift studio in his apartment, or flat as the Brits like to call it, Joe Meek built a reputation as a pioneer in sound recording, developing everyday studio tricks like overdubbing, reverb and sampling. His records had a unique sound: the hammering-heart bass drum and broken-spring guitar of "Have I The Right" and the instrumental "Telstar" with its futuristic keyboards and rocket-blast sound effects (and the first British rock record to reach #1 in the US). But Meek suffered with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia; was being blackmailed at a time when homosexuality was a crime in the UK; and was convinced Buddy Holly was communicating with him from beyond the grave. When another songwriter accused Meek of plagiarizing “Telstar,” he fatally shot his landlady, then himself, in 1967. The “Telstar” issue was resolved in his favor three weeks later. 

35. Timmy Thomas –•– Why Can’t We Live Together — (Peaked: February 10, 1973 at # 3)

Radio deejays who prided themselves on their ability to “hit the post” – talking over the instrumental introduction of a song and timing it to end as the singing began – had a broad canvas to work with on "Why Can't We Live Together" a record that began with 1:30 of journeyman R&B singer Timmy Thomas playing the organ with some sort of metronome keeping the beat – enough time to give the weather, news and, if it was a winter storm, every school closing in the tri-state area. Philosophically, lyrically and vocally “Why Can’t We Live Together” feels like everything Marvin Gaye wrote and sang during his “relevant” phase in the early 70s. 

34. The Youngbloods –•– Get Together — (Peaked: September 6, 1969 at # 5)                 

The Youngbloods moved from hip Boston to hipper San Francisco and released the groovy "Get Together" in 1967. The song faced a lot of competition from similarly themed Summer of Love songs, like “All You Need Is Love” and “San Francisco (Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair)” and peaked at #62. The song began getting airplay again in 1969 when it was being used in a popular radio public service announcement and this time it clicked. Two years later the very 1967 raga guitar solo still worked. 

33. Preston Epps –•– Bongo Rock — (Peaked: June 29, 1959 at # 14) 

You proved your musical chops in elementary school by banging out the drum solo to “Wipe Out” on your desktop. Being able to keep time to "Bongo Rock" put you in the master class.  

32. Neal Hefti –•– Batman Theme — (Peaked: March 12, 1966 at # 35)                 

Almost moronically simple and memorable. 

31. Billy Swan –•– I Can Help — (Peaked: November 23, 1974 at # 1)

Nashville musician Billy Swan sounded a lot like Ringo Starr, leading people to at first believe this was a solo Beatles record. Further supporting the misconception was the song’s message, which made it a country cousin to “With A Little Help From My Friends.”