4,212Shows
206,976Spins
Thursday, Mar 10 2022, 10AM
#135
As a UK #1 single, what song did it replace as #1 on the UK charts? "Do the Bartman" by The Simpsons. Speaking of charts, while this song was their only #1 in the UK, The Clash got even less respect in the US; their highest chart on the Billboard was #8 for "Rock the Casbah". Which is amazing considering we now celebrate International Clash Day! Check out this vieo on the birth of the holiday and remember to donate to KEXP to keep the made up holidays coming!
youtu.be
kexp.org/donate
#133 - Pink Floyd "Time" (1973)
This song is about how time can slip by, but many people do not realize it until it is too late. Roger Waters got the idea when he realized he was no longer preparing for anything in life, but was right in the middle of it. He had just turned 28.
When the band came up with the concept for the album, the idea was to explore the pressures of life throughout the songs. This song takes on the topic of mortality.
bit.ly
youtu.be
#132 - Jeff Buckley "Lover, You Should Have Come Over" (1994)
Jeff Buckley was somewhat underwhelmed by his own songwriting skills, yet there is evidence on 'Grace', particularly on the transcendently anguished “Lover, You Should’ve Come Over,” that Buckley was as adept at crafting words and melodies as he was at performing them.
bit.ly
Jeff Buckley performing "Lover, You Should've Come Over" live at Cabaret Metro, Chicago:
youtu.be
#131 - Massive Attack "Protection" (1994)
After the departure of their vocalist Shara Nelson, the Massive Attack trio concluded they could never replace her, so they chose to bring a new diversity to their sound with a selection of rotating guest vocalists. For their sophomore album's title track and lead single they recruited Everything but the Girl's Tracey Thorn, who penned the haunting love song's lyrics.
Tracy Thorn had competing feelings after she received the tape of this song's backing track. She recalled to Mojo in 2016 her thinking at the time: "'On their one hand, 'I don't understand this at all.' On the other hand, 'I understand this completely. This is minimalism. I do minimalism. I get it.' And yet, it was being done in such a different format. I had to listen to it maybe ten times with complete bewilderment before I suddenly went, 'I know how to do this.'"
bit.ly
For more about "Protection":
bit.ly
youtu.be
www.massiveattack.co.uk
#130 - Bee Gees "Stayin Alive" (1977)
This was one of five songs the Bee Gees wrote specifically for Saturday Night Fever. Like the film, the song is about much more than dancing and having a good time. It deals with struggle and aspiration; making your way in the world even after you've been kicked around. John Travolta's character in the movie is a young man working a dead-end job who feels alienated by his parents. Dancing is his form of expression, and weekends are his time to let loose.
bit.ly
youtu.be
#129 - Iggy Pop "Lust For Life" (1977)
David Bowie co-wrote this song with Iggy Pop, with Bowie composing the music on a ukulele. Musically, it was inspired by the opening to the American Forces Network News, which the pair listened to in Berlin. Iggy recalled: "Once a week the Armed Forces Network would play Starsky & Hutch and that was our little ritual. AFN would broadcast an ID when they came on the air, a representation of a radio tower, and it made a signal sound, 'beep-beep-beep, beep-beep-ba-beep.' And we went, 'Aha we'll take that!'. David grabbed his ukulele, worked out the chords, and away we went."
bit.ly
youtu.be
#128 - Joy Division "Transmission" (1979)
Greil Marcus has a chapter on this song in his book "The History of Rock 'n' Roll in Ten Songs." According to Marcus, "'Transmission' is not an argument. It's a dramatization of the realization that the act of listening to the radio is a suicidal gesture. It will kill your mind. It will rob your soul." Marcus also quotes the band's bassist Peter Hook about the importance of this song: "We were doing a soundcheck at the Mayflower, in May, and we played 'Transmission': people had been moving around, and they all stopped to listen. I realized that was our first great song."
bit.ly
#127 - Amy Winehouse “Rehab” (2006)
Winehouse was backed by they Brooklyn band The Dap-Kings on this track - longtime fan Mark Ronson hired them. The group, who typically recorded with vocalist Sharon Jones, ended up joining Winehouse on her 2007 US tour. Jones seemed to be left in the lurch, but the wave of interest in Winehouse drew attention to Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, earning them many new fans.
bit.ly
The official music video for Rehab by Amy Winehouse, directed by Phil Griffin and released in September, 2006. This video was nominated for Video Of The Year at the 2007 MTV VMAs. The track itself won the Ivor Novello Award for Best Contemporary Song in May 2007, as well as three Grammy Awards the following year for Record Of The Year, Song Of The Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.
youtu.be
#125 - Postal Service “Such Great Heights” (2003)
The Postal Service was a project by Seattle singer Ben Gibbard (Death Cab for Cutie), producer Jimmy Tamborello (Dntel), and Jenny Lewis (Rilo Kiley). They released their one and only album in 2003, aptly named 'Give Up.' The song's genesis came together "incredibly quickly," according to Gibbard, who felt it "seemingly came out of nowhere. It did feel that there was some sort of spiritual transcendence happening and the song being beamed down to me."
bit.ly
youtu.be
#124 - Nine Inch Nails “Hurt” (1994)
Trent Reznor stated that “Hurt” was written as an afterthought, that it was originally demoed on piano, and that the vocal was sung quietly and intimately in order to ensure that it sounded sincere.
bit.ly
Nine Inch Nails - “Hurt” (Live: Beside You In Time):
youtu.be
#123 - Modern Lovers “Roadrunner” (1972)
Jonathan Richman wrote this two-chord garage anthem in his father's car in 1972. During the summer of 1977 when Punk and New Wave music were finding a wider audience in Britain, this song became a hit.
bit.ly
#122 - Arcade Fire “Neighborhood # 1 (Tunnels)” (2004)
Fronted by the husband-and-wife team of Win Butler and Régine Chassagne, the Arcade Fire's emotional debut -- rendered even more poignant by the dedications to recently departed family members contained in its liner notes -- is brave, empowering, and dusted with something that many of the indie rock genre's more contrived acts desperately lack: an element of real danger.
""Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels),"" the first of four metaphorical forays into the geography of the soul, follows a pair of young lovers who meet in the middle of the town through tunnels that connect to their bedrooms. Over a soaring piano lead that's effectively doubled by distorted guitar, they reach a Lord of the Flies-tinged utopia where they can't even remember their names or the faces of their weeping parents. Butler sings like a lion-tamer whose whip grows shorter with each and every lash. He can barely contain himself, and when he lets loose it's both melodic and primal, like Berlin-era Bowie.
bit.ly
youtu.be
"#121 – Nirvana “All Apologies” (1993)
Kurt Cobain rarely talked about this song, but he did say that it was dedicated to his wife, Courtney Love, and daughter, Francis Bean. The song deals with everything that was expected of him and the changes he had been through, which weren't all pleasant judging by the lines, ""Married... Buried.""
bit.ly
Nirvana - All Apologies (Live And Loud, Seattle, 1993):
youtu.be
#119 - REM ""Fall on Me"" (1986)
""Life's Rich Pageant"" released in July, 1986, marked a change for R.E.M. "" Their folk-rock influences were still there -- the song has one of Peter Buck's most memorable jangly guitar parts -- but the real changes were in Bill Berry's big snare drum sound and, most surprisingly, Michael Stipe's vocals, which were front-and-center in the mix and sung in a clear voice.""
bit.ly
youtu.be
#118 - The Cure ""Fascination Street"" (1989)
""Fascination Street"" is a fan favorite, but it was released as a single only in the United States.
In an interview with Select magazine, Cure vocalist and primary songwriter Robert Smith said: ""I was thinking of Bourbon Street in New Orleans when I wrote it - I was getting ready to go there and I thought: what the f--k do I think I'm going to find? It's about the incredulity that I could still be fooled into looking for a perfect moment.""
bit.ly
Live in Berlin 2002:
youtu.be
#117 - Radiohead ""Let Down"" (1997)
Lead singer Thom Yorke: ""I was pissed in a club, and I suddenly had the funniest thought I'd had for ages - what if all the people who were drinking were hanging from the bottles... if the bottles were hung from the ceiling with string, and the floor caved in, and the only thing that kept everyone up was the bottles? It's also about an enormous fear of being trapped.""
bit.ly
Radiohead - “Let Down” (Live @ Lollapalooza Chicago 2016)
youtu.be
#116 - Peter Gabriel ""In Your Eyes"" (1986)
This was featured in the 1989 movie Say Anything in a scene where John Cusack plays this from a Boom Box he holds over his head to win the heart of Ione Skye. Cameron Crowe, who directed the film, was going to use Billy Idol's ""Got To Be A Lover,"" but it didn't work with the scene. Crowe got the idea to use this when he played a tape from his wedding which had the song on it. Because it was a deeply personal song, Gabriel did not want to let him use it, but when Crowe called and sent him a tape of the movie, Gabriel loved it and gave his approval.
bit.ly
From Peter Gabriel's 'Secret World Live' concert film:
youtu.be
#115 - Echo & The Bunnymen ""The Killing Moon"" (1984)
“The Killing Moon” has often been described as the best song the Bunnymen ever recorded, and the band isn’t likely to disagree with that assessment. Indeed, lead singer Ian McCulloch once said of the track, “When I sing ‘The Killing Moon,’ I know there isn't a band in the world who's got a song anywhere near that.”
bit.ly
Echo And The Bunnymen perform ""The Killing Moon"" live at the Bat Bar in Austin, TX during the 2007 SXSW music festival:
youtu.be
#114 - David Bowie ""Ashes to Ashes"" (1980)
In 1980, David Bowie was in the middle of a new kind of transformation. After launching himself to stardom in 1969 with his first hit single, ""Space Oddity,"" he spent a decade morphing from Major Tom to Ziggy Stardust to Aladdin Sane to Halloween Jack to The Thin White Duke — a series of characters that also emblemized radically different approaches to rock music, from sci-fi glam to stark experimentalism. By the end of the '70s, however, he dispensed with such alter egos. Instead, he absorbed them all into a single if mercurial persona, one known simply as David Bowie. And that persona hinged on ""Ashes To Ashes.""
n.pr
vimeo.com
Happy Thursday and welcome to The Afternoon Show with the wonderful Larry Mizell, Jr. and the equally wonderful Evie! Thanks for being here!
--
#113 in our countdown of listeners' favorite songs from the last 50 years.
--
In 1972, Motown legend Marvin Gaye composed the soundtrack for the film, "Trouble Man." Many critics say it was one of his finest musical achievements. This song was the title track of that blaxploitation film. Gaye performed all the vocals himself, singing most of the song in falsetto. The album’s “second voice” was that of saxophonist Trevor Lawrence, the only musician credited on the album aside from Gaye himself.
--
Here's an interview about the music with saxophonist Trevor Lawrence and director Cameron Crowe.: www.npr.org