"There's a time in life for Hoagy Carmichael. There's a time in life for Claude Debussy. There's a time in life for Jerry Lee Lewis. There's a time in life for Destiny's Child. All these things have their moment." ~Elvis Costello
The cover of “Bella Donna,” Stevie Nicks’s first solo album, shows the artist looking slender and wide-eyed, wearing a white gown, a gold bracelet, and a pair of ruched, knee-high platform boots. One arm is bent at an improbable angle; a sizable cockatoo sits on her hand. Behind her, next to a small crystal ball, is a tambourine threaded with three long-stemmed white roses. Nicks did not invent this storefront-psychic aesthetic—it is indebted, in varying degrees, to Hans Christian Andersen’s Thumbelina, de Troyes’s Guinevere, and Cher—but, beginning in the mid-nineteen-seventies, she came to embody it. The image was girlish and delicate, yet inscrutable, as if Nicks were suggesting that the world might not know everything she’s capable of.
This intimation is newly germane: a vague but feminine mysticism is in. Lorde, Azealia Banks, FKA Twigs, CHVRCHES, Grimes, and Beyoncé have all incorporated bits of pagan-influenced iconography into their music videos and performances. Young women are now embracing benign occult representations, reclaiming the rites and ceremonies that women were once chastised (or worse) for performing. On runways, on the streets, and in thriving Etsy shops, you can find an assortment of cloaks, crescent-moon pendants, flared chiffon skirts, and the occasional jewelled headdress.
While Nicks’s sartorial choices have been widely mimicked, it’s rare to hear echoes of her magnanimity in modern pop songs, which are frequently defensive and embattled, preaching self-sufficiency at any cost. It’s difficult to imagine Nicks singing a lyric like “Middle fingers up, put them hands high / Wave it in his face, tell him, boy, bye,” as Beyoncé does in “Sorry,” a song from her newest album, “Lemonade.” Nicks’s default response to betrayal is more introspective than aggressive. Her music has long been considered a balm for certain stubborn strains of heartache; her songs are unsparing regarding the brutality of loss, yet they are buoyed by a kind of subtle optimism. It’s as if, by the time Nicks got around to singing about something, she already knew that she would survive it…
McCartney pulls off a difficult songwriting feat by placing the verses and the choruses in neighboring keys (the verses are in B and the choruses are in A). At the end of the song, McCartney writes a key change so that the final chorus is in B, bringing the song full circle. Yet, it’s in the verse that McCartney injects a magical chord that helps make “Penny Lane” a case study in great songwriting. I’ll let you in on McCartney’s secret in this video.
We’ve all heard these classic pop and rock hits a thousand times. But even if you know all the words, do you know what they were about?
1. “You’re So Vain,” Carly Simon
“You had one eye in the mirror as you watched yourself gavotte.”
The gavotte is a French folk dance that was popular in the late 16th century. It was somewhat majestic and pose-y, long before vogueing came into … well, vogue. Simon has stated in interviews that she pictured the character in her song making a dramatic entrance, one hand raised and the other on his hip, much like those elegant pantaloon-wearing Baroque folks did back in the day.
8. “Hotel California,” The Eagles
“Warm smell of colitas rising up through the air”
According to the Eagles’ then-manager, “colitas” was explained to Don Henley and Glenn Frey as literally meaning “little buds” by their Mexican-American road manager, and further as Spanish slang for “marijuana.”
14. “Brass in Pocket,” The Pretenders
“Got brass in pocket, got bottle, I’m gonna use it” “Been driving, Detroit leaning”… “Got a new skank, so reet”
Even though lead singer Chrissie Hynde grew up in Akron, Ohio, she picked up some local slang when she moved to London in 1973 to form a new band. “Brass in pocket” is British slang for money (it originally referred to the color of the gold coins), and “bottle” means courage. The “Detroit lean” refers to the Motown habit of driving with one hand on the steering wheel while slouching slightly to the right. “Skanking” is a dance step in which the body moves from side to side, and “reet” means cool, or righteous.
Weirdly, Led Zeppelin wasn’t named by anyone in Led Zeppelin. Rather, the band’s name was inspired by a crack made by Keith Moon, drummer of The Who. In a recording studio, Moon and several other musicians who went on to great things, like Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page, laid down a new song. Moon remarked:”Yeah. We’ll call it Lead Zeppelin. Because it will go over like a f***ing Lead Balloon.” Two years later, when naming a new band, Jimmy Page remembered that story and spiced it up a little bit, changing the spelling to Led so people wouldn’t be confused and pronounce it Leed Zeppelin.
Guns N’ Roses
This one’s simple enough. Tracii Guns and Axl Rose were in a band together called LA Guns. Axl left to start Rose, which became Hollywood Rose. Tracii joined that band, and they named it Guns N’ Roses. Tracii and Axl didn’t get along so he left to reform LA Guns. Slash replaced Tracii, and the name stayed. OK, maybe not so simple.
Primus
The story of how Primus was named is one of the best ones on this list. Les Claypool once used a Primus grill. Once when out at the beach grilling up some fish, Claypool remarked to the fish, and those around, “Now you’re cookin’ with Primus, you bastard.” The grill immediately ran out of gas, and his friends never let Les live that moment down. Les Claypool has great friends.
Behind every great man with a guitar there’s a guitar tech, roadie or coke dealer who “sets him up”, as it were. And behind many of pop music’s stars and megastars there’s often someone with a less familiar name doing much of the artistic heavy lifting as well.
Today we pay tribute to a few of those whose names tend get lost as the credits roll–pop music’s “unsung” heroes.
1. Maury Muehleisen: I Got a Name
As a tribute website attests, “Maury Muehleisen was Jim Croce’s One Man Band. He was the heart and soul behind Jim’s music. Maury was the quiet friend who was rarely recognized for his influence on the beautiful guitar duets that changed the way many guitarists played and wrote songs.”
He was also the guy who enabled Croce to look into the camera or the audience during performance, rather than fretting (so to speak) over the finger work on his guitar. Maury’s lyrical playing style made Croce ballads such as “Operator” and “Time in a Bottle” things of understated beauty.
On September 20, 1973, after a concert in Natchitoches Louisiana, Maury Muehleisen was killed with Croce in a plane crash. And you probably didn’t even know his name.
2. Andrew Gold: Not all that’s Gold Glitters
As a solo artist, Andrew Gold is known basically as a two-hit wonder, his big moments in the bright lights being perennial (and Golden Girls theme) “Thank You for Being a Friend” and the more interesting “Lonely Boy”, a song in that idiosyncratic 70’s style of a tragic lyric set to an irresistible hooky tune (see Gilbert O’Sullivan, Terry Jacks, ABBA, et al).
Elsewhere in this blog I theorize that one plausible explanation for Linda Ronstadt’s long-time exclusion from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (as if it matters–a Hall of Fame for Rock and Roll being a farcical idea in the first place) is the team effort behind the music was that issued forth under Ronstadt’s name. “Linda Ronstadt” was, for all intents and purposes, a band. And Andrew Gold was that band’s leader.
Significantly, it’s Gold taking the iconic solo in this performance of “You’re No Good”, while no less a guitarist than Jeff “Skunk” Baxter plays bongos:
Andrew collaborated on most of Ronstadt’s albums during her peak years in the 70’s and arranged hits for her such as “Heatwave” and “When Will I Be Loved”.
And “Thank You For Being a Friend” isn’t the only TV theme to Gold’s credit. He also sang “The Final Frontier”, the theme from Mad About You. “Final Frontier” was actually used as the wake-up call for the Mars Pathfinder space probe in 1996, thereby earning Gold the distinction of being the first human voice heard on planet Mars.
The list of artists he lent his vocal, instrumental, performing and/or arranging talents to the work of is almost wearisome in its length. It includes: Celine Dion, Carly Simon, 10cc, James Taylor, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, John Lennon, Brian Wilson, Jackson Browne, Don Henley, Diana Ross, Cher, Art Garfunkel, Trisha Yearwood, Wynonna Judd, Jesse McCartney, Eric Carmen, Jennifer Warnes, Stephen Bishop, Nicolette Larson, Eric Carmen, Maria Muldaur, Neil Diamond, Juice Newton, Leo Sayer, Vince Gill, Aaron Neville, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and Japanese superstar Eikichi Yazawa.
Put simply, you most likely hear Andrew Gold’s work every day of your life and don’t know it.
Gold died in his sleep in 2011 at age 59.
The last word on Andrew Maurice Gold goes to Grammy-winning producer Peter Asher, who says:
“Andrew’s talent was almost eerie. He was a self-taught instinctive musician who seemed to be able to play any instrument he had a mind to. He was a brilliant writer, a great singer, and a highly imaginative producer and arranger — on top of being a multi-instrumentalist of the highest order. And he never failed to come up with something extraordinary every time he played.”
3. J.D. Souther: It Used to be His Town Too
Similarly to Andrew Gold, J.D. Souther’s time in pop’s spotlight as a solo act was fleeting. 1979’s “You’re Only Lonely” was his only actual solo top ten hit.
But in a more anonymous way, Souther made a huge footprint in the pop world, especially as a primary architect of the California country rock popularized by the Eagles and the aforementioned Linda Ronstadt.
Quoting his homepage: Mr. Souther has written for and with artists as diverse as India Arie, Brooks & Dunn, Jimmy Buffett, Glen Campbell, Joe Cocker, Tammy Wynette and Tanya Tucker, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Diamond Rio, Dixie Chicks, Don Henley, One Flew South, Roy Orbison, Bonnie Raitt, Lynn Anderson, George Strait, Brian Wilson, Trisha Yearwood, Warren Zevon…His songs have also been recorded by Michael Bublé, Tom Jones, Bernadette Peters, Raul Malo, Rita Wilson, Hugh Masekela, and hit Taiwanese pop girl group S.H.E., to name but a few.
Souther made his first significant impression teaming with ex-Byrd Chris Hillman and ex-Buffalo Springfield member Richie Furay in the Souther Hillman Furay Band, recording two albums of country rock before Furay’s conversion to Christianity caused him to abandon playing “secular” music.
As Linda Ronstadt’s live-in boyfriend, songwriter and sometimes duet partner, Souther contributed to several of her multi-platinum albums.
Souther co-wrote and shared equal billing with James Taylor on the 1981 #11 hit duet “Her Town Too”, which most tend in retrospect to view as just another James Taylor song.
Souther’s contributions to the Eagles catalog were done pretty much in anonymity too. He was co-writer of such classics as “Best of my Love”, “Victim of Love”, “How Long”, “Heartache Tonight” (with Bob Seger sharing credit also) and “New Kid in Town”. He also co-wrote Henley’s solo hit “The Heart of the Matter”. Basically the Eagles’ legacy would be much less without Souther’s contributions. His gently loping melodies gave their multipart harmonies room to breathe; Souther’s songs were the perfect foil for the band’s trademark sound.
Love ’em or hate ’em, Kiss’ isolated vocal track for “Shout it Out Loud” makes for a revelatory listen.
The first thing that stands out–even more for the lack of musical accompaniment–is the puerile superficiality of the lyric. No surprise there. Kiss always did inhabit the edge between an actual rock band and unintentional Spinal Tap-style irony. Their serious treatment of the subject of the need to party (especially the “whoa, yeah!” at 2:29) can either make you want to raise a fist in the air and sing along, or simply elicit a bemused chuckle, depending perhaps on your level of impairment.
But that chorus! Whatever infantile babble surrounds it, that gloriously-harmonized, imminently singalongable refrain is something Alice Cooper would, um, die for. And to a degree it dispels any one-dimensional opinion one might wish to have of the band. Whatever Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons’ shortcomings as vocalists, this is pretty impressive vocal stacking. And I realize much–perhaps most–of the credit goes to Bob Ezrin, who produced and co-wrote the track. But hey, the Beatle’s “Yesterday” would be a much lesser song without George Martin’s baroque ornamentations. The fact is this is still a Kiss song. And one I find myself forced somewhat against my will to like.
This example is microcosmic of how rock and roll can be sublime and ridiculous at the same time. Within a single song–even with one “woah, yeah!”–a fan can identify all of rock’s silliness and pomposity and get shivers at the same time. Go see a Styx concert if you don’t know what I’m talking about. The magic is in walking the tightrope between ambitious and over the top.
Even “Knights In Satan’s Service” believe they can sing like angels. And with the help of the right producer they can.
What makes rock great is its unwillingness to believe in its limitations.
Every Moment Has A Song 