Stories had a number one hit with “Brother Louie” in 1973, a song that you probably either remember or you don’t know.
You see, there are two kinds of 70’s songs: there’s the “Take it Easy” kind of song, which never left radio playlists and resultingly many are sick to death of. Then there’s the “Baby Blue” kind, which were on the radio airways then but faded from collective memory. (For more such examples, search “Forgotten Hits” on this site for dozens of memory triggers)
“Brother Louie” was a ubiquitous four-minute piece of the soundtrack of the Summer of ’73. Kind of surprising then that the band responsible for it didn’t issue a follow-up single from the album that spawned it. And in truth, there were no more “Brother Louies” on the record, but there was this gentle little ditty that wouldn’t sound out of place on one of McCartney’s first couple solo albums–or one of Badfinger’s from the same era.
Yukon Blonde are a Canadian Indie rock band who may bring fellow Canucks Sloan to mind. This is 70’s-style pop rock with sweet harmonies, a nice biting guitar solo and reverb that carries echoes of transistor radio days.
If Bad Religion are a punk band, or a hardcore band, as is commonly asserted, they aren’t a typical one. Let’s start with the fact that they’ve been together for more than 30 years. Punk bands have a life expectancy of next Tuesday.
Also, punk bands don’t tend to use wall of sound harmonies to back up strong melodic hooks–unless they’re latter-day Social Distortion. And they don’t typically have the vocabulary and wordplay skillz that Greg Graffin and Brett Gurewitz put on display:
Modernistocrat Horatio Alger…ever waiting for that canticle of manacles abating…he’s a mourning star with a champagne heart at his curtain call…you better redress the level of the cowardice rising to drown you…
A little more Elvis Costello than Ramones in the lyric department. Actually, this band sounds to me like a power pop band slapped up against chugging hardcore guitar and punk drumming–a pretty thrilling combination to me when you throw in intelligient lyrics.
I really always thought smart punk–or at least snarky punk–was more powerful than the dumbed-down kind anyway. Elvis Costello was more artful than the Ramones, and therefore spoke more directly even to my visceral receptors. (I’ll have to check to make sure I have visceral receptors, but I feel like I do…)
Mike Viola and his New York power pop band Candy Butchers. Although their catchier material draws comparisons to Neil Finn and Crowded House, Viola can be acerbic and Graham Parker-esque at other times:
Heaven knows, but Hell knows better/I wear my heart like bells on a leper
And if his voice sounds vaguely familiar, it’s because Mike Viola is the voice of the lead singer of these one-hit Wonders:
So if you want you can fantasize that “You Belong to Me Now” is a solo single released by lead singer Jimmy sometime after the breakup of the band…or not.
On the heels of top five smash albums like Talking Book, Innervisions and Fulfillingness’ First Finale (and their accompanying Grammy awards) Stevie Wonder was actually thinking of retiring from the music business in 1975. (I know!) Disenchanted with the U.S. government’s running of the country, he’d nearly decided to emigrate to Ghana to work with handicapped children, and had even planned a farewell concert.
Fortunately for us (if not the children of Ghana) he changed his mind, signed a new contract with Motown that gave him complete artistic control, and set to work on his masterwork, Songs in the Key of Life. Songs… was number 1 for fourteen weeks–a stupendous feat for a double album. Not only did it spawn the number 1 hits “I Wish” and Sir Duke” and the classic track “Isn’t She Lovely”, which became a radio staple despite never never having been released as a single; but the double album included a bonus 7-inch, 4-song EP inside its jacket, a fact lost on many who’ve bought the record for the first time in CD format or as a digital download.
And these “extra” songs weren’t throw aways either. One was “All Day Sucker”, which probably could have been a top twenty single. And another was “Saturn”, which can only be described as Sci-Fi soul. After four album sides of songs about inner city life’s loves, trials and tribulations, “Saturn” serves as denouement, closing argument and counterpoint all at once. It’s one of his best articulations of his frustrations with government wrapped in a fantasy about life in a more idyllic setting:
Packing my bags, going away/To a place where the air is clean/On Saturn There’s no sense to sit and watch people die
We don’t fight our wars the way you do/We put back all the things we use/On Saturn There’s no sense to keep on doing such crimes There’s no principles in what you say/No direction in the things you do/For your world is soon to come to a close
Through the ages all great men have taught/Truth and happiness just can’t be bought or sold/Tell me, why are you people so cold? I’m going back to Saturn where the rings all glow/Rainbow, moonbeams and orange snow/On SaturnPeople live to be two hundred and five
Going back to Saturn where the people smile/Don’t need cars ’cause we’ve learned to fly/On Saturn Just to live to us is our natural high We have come here many times before/To find your strategy to peace is war/Killing helpless men, women and children That don’t even know what they’re dying for
We can’t trust you when you take a stand/With a gun and Bible in your hand/And the cold expression on your face Saying, “Give us what we want or we’ll destroy” I’m going back to Saturn where the rings all glow/Rainbow moonbeams and orange snow/On SaturnPeople live to be two hundred and five
Going back to Saturn where the people smile/Don’t need cars ’cause we’ve learned to fly/On Saturn Just to live to us is our natural high
Richard & Linda Thompson: “A Heart Needs a Home” (1975)
If you like folk-inflected British rock and intelligient songwriting, and aren’t yet familiar with the work of Richard Thompson, he’s like a treasure waiting your discovery.
Not only is the man among rock’s great lesser-known (especially in America) songwriters, but he’s also an absolute god of guitar, equally adept and captivating on electric or acoustic. (Don’t look for him to show off on this song, though)
Here’s a duet with then-wife Linda, who herself was on the “Queen of British Folk” short list, among the likes of Shirley Collins, Sandy Denny and Maddy Prior. Linda’s plaintive unadorned, everywoman voice suited the mournful quality of much of the material Richard wrote for her to sing.
Fans of modern-day boy-girl folk duos like The Swell Season and The Weepies, take note: you’re looking at one of the templates here.
Every Moment Has A Song 