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Friday, Jan 25 2019, 6AM
Good morning and happy Friday. We're playing your requests today, so keep sending them in! Bono wrote the lyrics of this song about his wife Ali. The quiet verses are him telling her the words, the loud guitar pieces at the end of the verses is her reaction. At the end when he screams "All I want is you" 4 times, the Edge solos for that amount of time, as her reaction.
That incredible final chord was achieved at a special overdub session at which roadie Mal Evans, John, and Ringo Starr sat at three pianos, simultaneously striking E major. This took nine takes to get right, because the players had a hard time hitting the note at the exact same moment. The last take was dubbed best, and then overdubbed thrice, so the effect is that of nine pianos played by 12 men. Engineer Geoff Emerick kept lifting the volume faders, and it is possible to hear the studio’s heating system on the finished recording.
Dylan's original draft of the song's lyrics were written on four sheets of headed note paper from the Roger Smith Hotel in Washington, DC. The quartet of handwritten pages fetched over $2 million at Sothebys New York in June 2014, setting a new price record for a popular music manuscript. The previous record was John Lennon's handwritten lyrics for the 1967 Beatles track "A Day In The Life," which cost $1.2 million.
Did you know that, on this date in 1977, The Clash signed to CBS Records in the UK for 100,000 pounds? Be sure to listen to KEXP's International Clash Day event, live from London, February 4th-7th, 2019.: www.kexp.org
"‘Mexican Standoff’ details the awkward meeting between you, your partner and your partner’s ex in a gargantuan flurry of flamenco handclaps and flutes." Read a review of "Leaders of the Free World," "their best LP yet.":www.nme.com
Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart wrote this, but intended it for Paul Revere And The Raiders. Boyce and Hart also wrote The Monkees hits "Last Train To Clarksville" and "Valleri."Monkees drummer Micky Dolenz sang lead, and was the only Monkee to perform on the song. In their later years, The Sex Pistols performed this with Sid Vicious singing lead.
Someone wrote, "I also love how much the video looks like pretty much everything you saw on MTV for its first year. Which is to say, really weird, and a little awkward, and so awesome anyway.": www.kungfugrippe.com
For (maybe) more information about the production and engineering of this track than you thought you ever wanted to know, here's a terrific article: www.soundonsound.com
In an interview with Q magazine (February 2008) the band were asked to respond to the criticism that their videos "sold a lifestyle." Singer Simon Le Bon replied: "No! Rio wasn't a lifestyle, it was total fantasy. You don't wear a silk Anthony Price suit on a boat with some painted chick running around. It was a comedy video. None of us had boats. It was a greedy reaction to the hard times that had gone before.": www.youtube.com
You can catch The Cure in Roskilde, Denmark in July. They've announced some live dates for 2019 (and promising others): www.thecure.com
This song was R.E.M.'s first single, released in 1981 before they signed to a major label.There was a good reason for Michael Stipe's infamously indecipherable lyrics on this song: he hadn't finished them by the time they recorded it. In a 1988 NME interview, Stipe described the lyrical content as "complete babbling.": www.youtube.com
Whew! Joe Jackson's 20th studio album, "Fool," was released last weekend, January 19th, 2019.: joejackson.com
Freddie Mercury loved this track. Brian May recalled to Mojo: "Freddie sung until his throat bled on 'Another One Bites The Dust.' He was so into it. He wanted to make that song something special." Watch him in this live performance: www.youtube.com
In 2012, this song was named the greatest hip-hop song of all time by Rolling Stone. What do you think?:www.ft.com
Songwriter Bobbie Gentry said, “The song is sort of a study in unconscious cruelty. But everybody seems more concerned with what was thrown off the bridge than they are with the thoughtlessness of the people expressed in the song. What was thrown off the bridge really isn’t that important.
“Everybody has a different guess about what was thrown off the bridge—flowers, a ring, even a baby. Anyone who hears the song can think what they want, but the real message of the song, if there must be a message, revolves around the nonchalant way the family talks about the suicide. They sit there eating their peas and apple pie and talking, without even realizing that Billie Joe’s girlfriend is sitting at the table, a member of the family.”
"‘Sweet Thing’ is likely the most eloquent love song ever written. It feels and sounds exactly like what it’s like to be in love—or at least, the blissful honeymoon period in which you constantly feel as though you are floating on some mystical cloud, never to come down." Read a tribute to a song that's "perfect in every imaginable way": songsfortheday.wordpress.com
"I'm gonna kick tomorrow..." According to lead singer Perry Farrell, there was an actual Jane - with an actual heroin habit and an abusive boyfriend named Sergio - who lived with him and nearly a dozen others in a group house in Hollywood as the band was forming in the early '80s. : genius.com
Watch Nada Surf performing this song live at KEXP in 2012: www.youtube.com
This is a cover of The Vapors' classic 1980 song. Watch the original: www.rallypoint.com
Oh, the BBC has lots of content about Haircut One Hundred.: www.bbc.co.uk
Front man Richard Butler had a specific audience in mind when he penned the lyrics to this song. He explained in an interview with Creem in 1982: "It's basically addressed to people who are f--ked up about their sexuality, and says 'Don't worry about it.' It was originally written for gay people."
Thanks, Henry! Ahhh...the Friday song. KEXP's International Clash Day Covers Night will be at Washington Hall on Thursday, February 7th, 2019. For more info and to get tickets, go here: www.kexp.org
This established The Cars as one of New Wave's leading hitmakers and helped get them a deal with Elektra Records. Lead vocals were by bass player Ben Orr (Benjamin Orzechowski), but it was written by lead singer/guitarist Ric Ocasek. Orr died of pancreatic cancer in 2000.
What a fine song! Did you know that (among others) Aretha Franklin, Diana Ross, and Gladys Knight covered this song?:www.smoothradio.com
This is Chaka Khan's first song in over a decade and the first single off a new LP, with details "to be announced soon": mixmag.net
Almost a decade ago, a much younger John Richards chose this song as a KEXP Song of the Day. Get it for yourself here: blog.kexp.org
"Receiving much criticism during its 27 years on the air, MTV has never been as succinctly described as it was by The Buggles' "Video Killed the Radio Star" on the bands album, "The Age of Plastic." Read much, much more about the age of video: consequenceofsound.net
KEXP answered this question by saying, "Go!" We'll be live in London, February 4th-7th for our International Clash Day broadcast.: www.kexp.org
Tarkio, featuring Colin Meloy of The Decemberists, recorded "Goodbye Girl" in 1998. It was released on the Kill Rock Stars record label in 2006.
Hold that boombox high, Lloyd Dobler! According to Peter Gabriel, the lyrics could refer to either the love between a man and woman or the relationship between a person and God.
African musician Youssou N'Dour sang backup. In 1991 Gabriel performed this in N'Dour's native country of Senegal before a crowd of 70,000.
There are millipedes, foxes, frogs, and (oh, yes) musicians in the video for "Life's What You Make It...":www.youtube.com
"I will now sell five copies of The Three E.P.'s by The Beta Band." : www.chronologicalsnobbery.com
Dream Academy members Nick Laird-Clowes and Gilbert Gabriel wrote this song, which is dedicated to the singer Nick Drake, who was 26 years old in 1974 when he died of an antidepressant overdose. Here's an essay about Drake, "the fragile genius": www.telegraph.co.uk
Happy birthday, Mark! "So far... Out of my hand...So close...That I can't find it...":songmeanings.com
Here's a biography of 1980's and 19990's Irish band A House: www.allmusic.com And here's the video for "Call Me Blue": www.youtube.com
Happy birthday to Andy Cox of The English Beat, born on this date in 1956.
This is a cover of a song by Toots and the Maytals. Frederick "Toots" Hibbert said, "When I got out of jail, I had a sense of injustice and a desire to make up for lost time....Pressure Drop just came to me on guitar. It’s a song about revenge, but in the form of karma: if you do bad things to innocent people, then bad things will happen to you.":www.theguardian.com
Electric Avenue is a shopping area in the Brixton section of London, named because is was the first street in the area to get electric lights. Brixton was the setting for riots between police and protesters in 1981, which Grant refers to in the opening line, "Down in the street there is violence." Read about the making of this song: www.theguardian.com
At 109 Beats Per Minute (BPM), this was one of the fastest rap songs of its era. Chuck D said: "Rap comes from the idea of a deejay working a party. A lot of our decisions are still based on that structure. We figure the thing that makes people really respond is changes in beats-per-minute. At one time, most of the rap music coming out was around 99 to 102 beats per minute, and that's what made us do 'Bring the Noise,' where we jetted it up to 109. We changed the whole approach to rap by putting a different rhyme style over it. We tried to make that album like Marvin Gaye's 'Let's Get It On' in a fast, hectic rhythm. Then once we'd established that pattern, everybody followed. Young MC and all those guys started getting up there."
8:58 AM
53rd spin
This was written by Nick Lowe and originally recorded by his band Brinsley Schwarz in 1974. Lowe said that this song started out as a joke: "I wrote the song in 1973, and the hippie thing was going out, and everyone was starting to take harder drugs and rediscover drink. Alcohol was coming back, and everyone sort of slipped out of the hippie dream and into a more cynical and more unpleasant frame of mind. And this song was supposed to be an old hippie, laughed at by the new thinking, saying to these new smarty-pants types, 'Look, you think you got it all going on. You can laugh at me, but all I'm saying is, 'What's so funny about peace, love, and understanding?' And that was the idea of the song. But I think as I started writing it, something told me it was too good an idea to make it into a joke. It was originally supposed to be a joke song, but something told me there was a little grain of wisdom in this thing, and not to mess it up."
"We will not retreat...this band is unstoppable...": www.youtube.com
Go back to 1981 for a 10-minute live version of this wonderful song: www.rollingstone.com
Royksopp describe themselves as "a two-headed Norwegian monster, dealing within the realm of contemporary electronic music.": royksopp.com
This article on the classic old songs hidden inside seven LCD Soundsystem tracks says that there's a fairly obvious reference to Kraftwerk‘s “The Robots” in this song. "Though you might immediately assume we’re talking about that hissing mechanical rhythm that serves as an intro, the truth is that it’s actually the chunky, arped-out bassline.": www.electronicbeats.net
It's tough to be unhappy when you hear this song. Thanks for that great note, Mr. R. :www.youtube.com
Almost sixty years after it was written, "King’s original version still wields the kind of emotional heft that can reduce people to tears, and get others on their feet at weddings.":www.theguardian.com
Songwriter Paul Williams said, [When Kermit sings], 'Why are there so many songs about rainbows?' it means, obviously, he's heard a lot of songs. This is a frog that's been exposed to culture, whether it's movies, or records, or whatever. And I also like the fact that it starts out with the negative: 'Rainbows are only illusions, rainbows have nothing to hide.' So the song actually starts out as if he's going to pooh-pooh the whole idea, and then it turns: 'So we've been told, and some choose to believe it. I know they're wrong, wait and see.' And again, he doesn't have the answer: 'Someday we'll find it.'"
A commentator wrote, “Raconte-Moi une Histoire” by M83 is a work of transcendence and beauty.": www.youtube.com
Read the improbable story of Bill Withers, who reused to play along with the recording industry and carved out his own success: www.rockhall.com
"Well you didn't wake up this morning...
'Cause you didn't go to bed...
You were watching the whites of your eyes turn red..." is followed by "This is the day...
Your life will surely change...
This is the day...
When things fall into place...": genius.com
Karl Wallinger, who records as World Party, was live in the KEXP studio in 2012: www.youtube.com
Watch the Queen of Soul performing this song live at the Kennedy Center in 2009: www.youtube.com
