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 :-)

Adriano Celentano - Prisencolinensinainciusol

You can file this tongue-twister next to other 'big beat' tunes on this blog such as Crazy Horses, I'm So Crazy and Neanderthal Man but I believe that I first heard this in a scene in the TV series 'Fargo'.

Adriano Celentano was an already-established pop star and film director in his native Italy when he wrote 'Prisencolinensinainciusol' in 1972. The song, if you hadn't realised already, is written in total gibberish but made to sound as if it was an American rock song to Italian ears. Celentano stated "Ever since I started singing, I was very influenced by American music and everything Americans did. So at a certain point, because I like American slang—which, for a singer, is much easier to sing than Italian—I thought that I would write a song which would only have as its theme the inability to communicate. And to do this, I had to write a song where the lyrics didn't mean anything."

Here's an appropriately 70s Italian TV performance from the great man himself:

Bonus Clips: there are some other great contemporary TV performances of 'Prisencolinensinainciusol' that can be found online:

Prisencolinensinainciusol RAI from Bronx Zoo on Vimeo.

... another school-themed performance:...

... the official video with Adriano on acoustic guitar(!)...

and a skit where Celentano attempts to teach the chorus to, um, Will Smith of all people...

2022 Update: OMG I've just found out that Mike Reid (British actor/comedian, probably best known as Frank Butcher in Eastenders and Doug The Head in Snatch) covered this back in 1974 as 'Freezin' Cold in 89 Twoso'! What it lacks in the gibberish lyrics and rhythm is more than made up by the cockney Reid's 'triffic' performance. BTW I discovered this from a Twitter thread started by none other than Tim Burgess (him from The Charlatans). Cheers Tim! 

The Bees - Chicken Payback

Oh come on! How can you not listen to this without breaking out in a huge grin? :-)

The Bees (or Band of Bees if you're in the US) come from the Isle of Wight, of all places (yes, that's a real place) and released a few albums in the early 2000s but seem to have been pretty much dormant for the last decade or so. A shame really as they were quite fun...

Bonus Clip: Their cover of 'A Minha Menina' by Jorge Ben/Os Mutantes (who I may do a feature on in the near future).

The Weird Middle Eastern Fascination With Heaven On Their Minds (Or JCS Part 2)

Remember way back when when I posted a blog entry on Jesus Christ Superstar? Many years ago, when I was first searching for JCS related material, I came across a number of videos of Middle Eastern pop songs from the 70s, all of which appeared to be based on the main riff from 'Heaven On Their Minds'!

Here is 'Heaven On Their Minds' as performed by Murray Head from the original JCS concept album (the Carl Anderson version taken from the film can be found on the JCS blog linked above):

And now here is 'Soyle Beni' by Grazia. Grazia Peretz was an Israeli from a family with a Turkish background who began performing at Turkish weddings and Mediterranean nightclubs. Her father paid for an album session with the Jaffa record label, Koliphone, for her 16th birthday and the album was released in 1978. 'Soyle Beni' is a traditional song with added Moog and the funky bassline riff.

Next up: 'Talagh' by Googoosh, an Iranian pop singer from the 70s. Here the riff is slightly slowed down and they also seem to have lifted part of the verses too:

Finally, back to Turkey with 'Yali Yali' by Neşe Karaböcek, a singer and actress with a career stretching from the late 1960s to the 2010s.

Why was this riff incorporated into several Turkish/Persian songs from the 70s? Answers on the back of a postcard to the usual address!

Bonus Tracks: a great live version of 'Yali Yali' by the contemporary Dutch Anatolian band, Altin Gün.

... and Tim Minchin singing 'Heaven On Their Minds' from the recent arena tour.

Wayne Smith - Under Me Sleng Teng

 'Under Me Sleng Teng' (also known as 'Under Mi Sleng Teng') has the notoriety of being the first reggae riddim that was fully computerized. Apparently it was taken from a slowed-down sample of the 'Rock' sound from a Casio keyboard (itself allegedly based on Eddie Cochran's 'Somethin' Else'.

Bonus Clip: There have been many other songs and cover versions that use the 'Sleng Teng' riddim. Here's a 90 minute mix of 55 of them!

SL2 - On A Ragga Tip

Ah the heady days of early 90s UK rave! SL2 were the duo of DJs Matt "Slipmatt" Nelson and John "Lime" Fernandez - the S & L coming from their nicknames and the 2 because they were a duo, duh.

Note: every time I play this I end up with 'Dey da dey da wot la dun dey' going round my head for the next few days... and now you will too!

Bonus clip: SL2 only had one other charting single, a remix of 'Way In My Brain' which had been the B-Side of their previous single 'DJs Take Control' and features a sample of Wayne Smith's 'Under Me Sleng Teng'. Talking of which...

Bastard Pop/Mash Ups

Long time, no blog! Apologies for the absence which was mostly due to a change of job and family life but I'm back with a special single topic posting of a genre that was briefly popular almost 20 years ago but left an impression on the popular culture we know of today. Back in 2001, thanks to the advent of P2P file-sharing technologies such as Napster and Audiogalaxy, a new form of 'mash up' - that is, the laying of musical elements from one track over elements taken from another - was being created and distributed firstly online and then as bootlegs and white-label pressings. This genre was referred to as 'Bastard Pop' thanks to its DIY underground and somewhat illegal status and was popularized via websites such as Boomselection and Get Your Bootleg On. 'Bastard Pop' did have its antecedents e.g.

• Buchanan & Goodman's novelty 'The Flying Saucer' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7RXRLao17k
• DNA's remix of 'Tom's Diner' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXg5pOF2PvY
• The Source - You've Got The Love http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnwFepoE3l8
• John Oswald's Plunderphonics http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHY--X-r7To

and many other examples such as Negativland, Double Dee & Steinski, Coldcut, EBN & ECC.

Here are a few of my favourites from the early 00s:

Freelance Hellraiser - A Stroke Of Genius (Christina Aguilera - Genie In A Bottle/The Strokes - Hard To Explain)

One of the most successful 'Bastard Pop' creations, this got quite a bit of airplay at the time. Freelance Hellraiser actually did remix work of Aguilera and also wrote & produced for the likes of Little Boots and Ladyhawke.

Girls On Top - We Don't Give A Damn About Our Friends (Adina Howard - Freak Like Me/The Tubeway Army - Are 'Friends' Electric?)

Girls On Top was the alias under which Richard X produced bastard pop. Other tracks included 'Being Scrubbed' (TLC - No Scrubs/The Human League - Being Boiled) and 'I Wanna Dance With Numbers' (Whitney Houston - I Wanna Dance With Somebody/Kraftwerk - Numbers). 'We Don't Give A Damn About Our Friends' was covered by The Sugababes and Richard X went on to work with Liberty X on 'Being Nobody' their mash-up of the aforementioned 'Being Boiled' and Chaka Kahn's 'Ain't Nobody'. The link to the original is above, plus here's The Sugababes re-recording and "Being Nobody' by Liberty X.

CigarRos Vs Sealion Dion - Bium Bium Bambalo (Celine Dion - My Heart Will Go On/Sigur Ros - Bium Bium Bambalo)

An anonymous release on the Unbearable Recordings related English Muffin Records (so I would guess it was either Gamers In Exile or Goodiepal), this works far better than it should!

Kylie Minogue 'Can't Get Blue Monday Out Of My Head' (Kylie Minogue - Can't Get You Out Of My Head/New Order - Blue Monday)

This originally appeared on the 2 Many DJs (an alias for the Belgian band Soulwax who popularized Bastard Pop with their Radio Soulwax and 2 Many DJs mix sets) album as a hidden track and was then performed by Kylie live at the Brit Awards in 2002.

Bonus Tracks:

Osymyso - Intro-Inspection

One of the best UK artists who came out of the Bastard Pop scene, Osymyso put together this track that used 101 song intros.

Girl Talk - Feed The Animals

One of the few artists to actually get a fully-released album out there (instead of releasing a bootleg), Gregg Gillis' latest release is an excellent example of the plunderphonic/mash-up scene. It's pay-what-you-want to boot! http://illegal-art.net/shop#release117

DJ Danger Mouse 'The Grey Album'

In 2004 Danger Mouse (a.k.a. Brian Buton) took some Jay-Z a cappella's from The Black Album and mixed them with some unauthorized samples from The Beatles' White Album to create The Grey Album. Unsurprisingly, EMI were not too enamoured with the results and sent him a Cease & Desist letter - by then it had been downloaded over a million times! Brian went on to Gnarls Barkley and Broken Bells.

Hello Again... Almost A Decade Later

I realised that I had completely forgotten about this blog until it popped up on my Facebook Memories today! It seems that many of the links have (unsurprisingly) expired. I'll take some time to do some cleanup... and then may actually get round to updating new entries on a quasi-regular basis :-)

Labi Siffre - Too Late

Truth be told, the only two Labi Siffre songs I knew until fairly recently were the original of 'It Must Be Love' (a hit for Madness over a decade later) and the heartfelt, albeit a bit too saccharine for me 'Something Inside So Strong'. However, listening to Mark Ronson's 'Here Comes The Fuzz' album (his debut before 'Versions' and 'Back To Black' made him a far more household name) a while back, I was struck by the River Cuomo sung 'I Suck' which appeared to be heavily based on a sample I needed to find out more about. A couple of Google clicks later led me to 'Too Late', the first track of Siffre's debut album from 1970 and an excellent slice of R&B-inflected acoustic pop.

Bonus clips: Here's Ronson's 'I Suck' - with a cute 'made for a college course' video...

... and Siffre's original version of 'It Must Be Love'.

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Par-T-One - I'm So Crazy

I'm posting this more for the 'Bonus Clips' (see below) then anything else, but this popped into my head after I heard two related things the other day - one was a cover of the entire INXS 'Kick' album by Beck's Record Club project (more info here); the other was a edit of 'Like An Eagle' by Dennis Parker on some mix or other I was listening to.

'I'm So Crazy' is essentially a remix of INXS's 'Just Keep Walking' with a thumping beat and samples of the aforementioned 'Like An Eagle'. I believe Par-T-One were Italian and this example of the short-lived 'Punk House' genre is the only single I'm aware of by them.

Bonus Clips: 'Just Keep Walking' was the second single by INXS originally released in 1980. It's always sounded to me like two completely separate songs jammed together - the undistinguished Simple Minds sounding verse and the much more interesting chorus. It's the latter that was wisely remixed for 'I'm So Crazy'...

... Dennis Parker, an interesting story here - he started out as a porn actor under the name of Wade Nichols, made a disco album for the notorious Casablanca Records in 1979 (of which this is the title track) that was masterminded by the guy behind the Village People (Jacques Morali) and went on to a part in the US soap 'The Edge of Night'. He unfortunately took his own life in 1985 after discovering he had AIDS. This is a disco classic, albeit one with truly atrocious lyrics!

Terry Jacks - Seasons In The Sun

Yet another musical connection from a previous post - this time from Terry Jacks ex-The Poppy Family. Until Westlife massacred it a few years ago, I had always secretly loved 'Seasons In The Sun' ever since I was small and even before I knew about the Jacques Brel connection (see below).

Bonus Clips: 'Seasons In The Sun' has an interesting development story. It started out as 'Le Moribond' by the great Belgian singer-songwriter Jacques Brel, the original French version containing sarcastic lyrics about a dying man's farewell to his friend, his priest, his unfaithful wife and her lover.

... Rod McKuen then provided English lyrics which toned down the sarcasm but still referenced the wife's affair in the final verse. The first English version was recorded by The Kingston Trio...

... after The Poppy Family broke up, Terry & Susan Jacks traveled to California to work on a version of the song with The Beach Boys. That version was never completed and so Terry Jacks re-recorded it for himself and had a worldwide hit.

The Poppy Family - Which Way You Goin' Billy?

Another musical connection from the previous post. Last time, I posted The Poppy Family's cover of 'Different Drum' but here is their biggest hit which got to #1 and #2 in the Canadian and US charts respectively.

Terry & Susan Jacks were married at the time and the band also featured a tabla player (not that you can see him in this clip). After their debut album, The Poppy Family continued as a vehicle for the married couple plus session musicians but never reached similar success outside of their native Canada again. As the marriage foundered, Terry & Susan decided to drop the band name but continued to work with each other for some time after (more on that in the next post). A great compilation CD was released in the mid-90s called 'A Good Thing Lost' - highly recommended.

Bonus Clips: One of The Poppy Family's more psychedelic tracks, 'There's No Blood In Bone'...



... and the later 'Where Evil Grows'.

The Stone Poneys - Different Drum

Musical association time: having posted on Andrew Gold earlier this week brought to mind his association with Linda Ronstadt, who had a hit with this version of the Michael Nesmith-penned 'Different Drum' as part of The Stone Poneys (though it has been covered many times both before and since - more on that later). This is my favourite version, but not the one that first drew me to the song...

Bonus Clips: ... which was the cover by The Lemonheads released in 1990...

... another more recent live version by Susanna Hoffs & Matthew Sweet to plug their cover album from a few years back...

... one more by the Canadian band The Poppy Family featuring Terry Jacks (more on him coming up in a future post)...

... and finally a quick clip by the writer himself from an episode of The Monkees :-) (R.I.P. Mike)

Andrew Gold - Never Let Her Slip Away

I was quite upset to hear Andrew Gold had died last week. Although mostly known for writing the theme song to 2 US sitcoms ('Thank You For Being A Friend' from The Golden Girls and 'The Final Frontier' from Mad About You), he was also an accomplished singer-songwriter having worked with Linda Ronstadt and Art Garfunkel, as well as being half of Wax alongside Graham Gouldman ex-10cc. However, he also released a number of solo albums which spawned a couple of minor hits such as this classic from 1977.

It's amazing what you only find out about people from their obituaries; I never knew that Andrew Gold was the son of Marnie Nixon (who dubbed Natalie Wood in 'West Side Story' and Audrey Hepburn in 'My Fair Lady' amongst others) until I read about it in a tribute piece. R.I.P. Andrew.

Bonus Clips: Here's another great Andrew Gold track, 'Lonely Boy'...

and Wax's 'Building A Bridge to Your Heart'.