The Hollies - The Air That I Breathe

Many, many years ago, when I was first learning to drive, I raided my parents' cassette tape collection so I would have music to play on the car tape deck. This was due to me haven gotten into vinyl in the preceding years and swapping my cassette albums for their vinyl counterparts. Many of these were compilations of UK classic rock acts e.g. The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, 10cc, and included '20 Golden Greats' by The Hollies.

This compilation, released in 1978, heavily lent on my preferred Graham Nash line-up from the 60s but the first track, however, was 'The Air That I Breathe', a 1974 No.2 hit from the Terry Sylvester line-up and their last significant single. At the time, I found this to be fairly saccharine and mostly ignored or skipped it (my deck had a seek feature which came in handy for this) for one of the more poppy numbers such as 'Just One Look' or 'Jennifer Eccles'.

Over the years, my opinions have changed and I'm now rather fond of this song. Alan Parsons (he of 'The Project' and the engineer on both this and Pink Floyd's 'Dark Side of the Moon') once claimed that Eric Clapton believed that the first note of 'The Air That I Breathe' had more soul than anything he had ever heard! I'm not sure that I would go that far but it does have a rather lovely arrangement and production.

Bonus Clips: 'The Air That I Breathe' was first written and recorded by the British/Gibraltarian singer-songwriter Albert Hammond (him of 'It Never Rains in Southern California' and father of The Strokes' guitarist) for his 1972 album...

... and was then covered by Phil Everly the following year in an arrangement that was heard by The Hollies' producer Ron Richards who suggested to the band that it would be a huge hit if they recorded it...

... unfortunately the publishers of 'The Air That I Breathe' sued Radiohead for copyright infringement due to similar sounding elements being used in the song 'Creep'. Have a listen to this mash-up for a comparison.

F.R. David - Words

While browsing through past entries on this blog, I realised that I had not yet posted this track, which I've always thought of a counterpart to John Miles's 'Music', though it was actually released 6 years later!

F.R. David (born Elli Robert Fitoussi in Tunisia) is a French singer who had been a member of a number of psych and rock bands throughout the 60s and 70s and had worked at one point with Vangelis. 'Words', released in 1982, was his only major hit reaching No. 2 in the UK, apparently beating out a version recorded by The Tremeloes.

Bonus Clips: The Tremeloes version...

... and, of course, one of the follow-up to 'Words' was a track called 'Music' (though not the same as the John Miles song)!

Ween - Piss Up A Rope

(Warning: NSFW lyrics - as if the title didn't give it away...)

Truth be told, I thought twice about posting this as the lyrics are rather crass and somewhat misogynistic... but, hey, it wouldn't be a Guilty Pleasure otherwise I guess. So, here is 'Piss Up A Rope' in all it's glory.

For the uninitiated, Ween is an alternative rock band formed in the mid-'80s by pretend brothers Gene & Dean Ween (Aaron Freeman & Mickey Melchiondo respectively). They have released many albums on both independent and major labels containing their own strange brand of humour, some of which have an overarching concept or theme e.g. The Mollusk (nautical, the track 'Ocean Man' playing over the end credits of The Spongebob Squarepants Movie) and, the album that the track in question comes from, 12 Golden Country Greats (country music, which only has 10 tracks natch).

Unlike their other albums, the musicians on 12 Golden Country Greats were mostly well-respected Nashville session musicians, a couple of whom declined participation due to the 'blue' nature of the lyrics. Lyrics aside, the production is straight country resulting in its incongruous nature. Apparently, this alienated most of their fans and they returned to their alternative roots for their next album, The Mollusk.

Bonus Clips: My favourite non-GP track from 12 Golden Country Greats 'You Were The Fool'...

... and the aforementioned 'Ocean Man' from The Mollusk.

Zager & Evans - In The Year 2525

Written in 1964 by one Rick Evans but not recorded until 1968 with his mate Denny Zager, 'In The Year 2525 (Exordium & Terminus)', its full pretentious title, tells the story of mankind in 1,010 year intervals from 2525 past 10,000 (like we're all likely to last that long) and reached No.1 in most English-speaking markets. However, this is such a one-hit wonder that, according to Wikipedia, the duo remains the only act to have a chart-topping hit on both sides of the Atlantic and never have another chart single in Billboard or the UK! Another interesting tid-bit: the song was recorded primarily in one take in 1968, at a studio in a cow pasture in Odessa, Texas.

Bonus clip: Their follow-up non-charting single 'Mr. Turnkey'. Charmingly inoffensive, but you can probably see why it bombed. It appears to be about a rapist and includes the lyric 'she was lovelier than oil rights'!

The 4 Seasons - Opus 17 (Don't You Worry 'bout Me)

One of my favourite 4 Seasons tracks. This single from 1966 is notable for the following reasons:

• '17' in the title is supposed to represent both the elements from classical music (according to co-writer Denny Randell) and the 17th single released by The 4 Seasons (although they had released singles under a permutation of names and Frankie Valli solo releases by then)
• This was the first 4 Seasons single with Joe Long singing bass. He had replaced original member Nick Massi. Unfortunately, Joe passed away from COVID-19 earlier this year
• Has the most number of chromatic key changes in a Top 40 song, tied with Bobby Darrin's 'Mack the Knife'

Bonus tracks: if we are looking for 4 Seasons related tracks that are somewhat silly, look no further than those released in the mid-60s under the nom-de-plume, The Wonder Who?, starting with this Bob Dylan cover...

... followed up by a cover of 'On the Good Ship Lollipop"...

... and seeing as it was mentioned above, here is 'Mack the Knife'

Credit To The Nation - Pay The Price

Credit To The Nation was one M.C. Fusion aka Matty Hanson with a couple of dancers. If you know of them at all, it is probably from their 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' sampling track 'Call It What You Want' released at the height of mid-90s 'Brit Hop' or their association with Chumbawamba on 'Enough Is Enough'/'The Day The Nazi Died'.

This, however, was their first release on Chumbawamba'a 'Agit Prop' label in 1991 and, somewhat similar to 3rd Bass's 'Pop Goes The Weasel' released the same year, is a Vanilla Ice diss track!

Bonus Clips: 'Call It What You Want'...

... 'Enough Is Enough'...

... 'The Day The Nazi Died'...

... and for comparison, here's 3rd Bass with the Peter Gabriel sampling 'Pop Goes The Weasel'

Dil Dhadakne Do OST - Gallan Goodiyaan

Longtime readers of this blog may know that I get some of inspiration from songs that I have heard on TV e.g. from commercials or music heard as background. Today's selection is also from TV - however, this one was actually used in a Bollywood routine on 'So You Think You Can Dance' (Season 14, Episode 13 for those interested). Realising that this songs 'slaps' (I believe that is the correct term from my kids), I turned to the internet to find out more...

... and came across the scene from the 2015 movie 'Do Dhadakne Do' where it originated and fell in love. Now, I have not seen the entire film so have absolutely no context about this scene but a couple of things are apparent:

1. The scene was (allegedly) filmed in a single shot and;
2. It looks like every Jewish wedding or bar mitzvah that I have ever attended!

You may recognise some of the actors in this movie e.g. Priyanka Chopra (Mrs Nick Jonas), Anil Kappor (Slumdog Millionaire, 24) etc. However, as is usual with most Bollywood movies, none of the actors here sing and instead 'playback singers' are used. In this case, the song was composed by the trio Shankar–Ehsaan–Loy and features Shankar Mahadevan, Yashita Sharma, Manish Kumar Tipu, Farhan Akhtar, and Sukhwinder Singh.

Enjoy... and, yes, I do know all the steps :-)