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Pop Rock Nation

Author: David Middleton

  • FORTY-FIVE REVOLUTIONS PER MINUTE #29: Pump Up The Valium

    THEM's classic single, "Gloria"

    THEM  “Gloria” b/w “Baby, Please Don’t Go” (Parrot Records #9727,  1964-65)

    I’m pressed for time, so this installment will have to be brief, but this record doesn’t need a whole lot of words anyway.  We are gathered here today, my friends, to celebrate one of the hands-down greatest, purest rock ‘n’ roll singles of all time:  “Gloria” (also known as “G-L-O-R-I-A!”) by early-’60’s Irish rockers Them.  Written by the band’s singer, a then-unknown young upstart named Van Morrison, this track was actually the B-side of this release, but my Parrot pressing (whether it’s original or not I’m unsure) doesn’t make that distinction.  No matter, let’s just rock.

    Play GLORIA by THEM

    The single hit the Top 100 in ’64 and again in ’65, but it was Chicago garage-rock group The Shadows Of Knight who would bring it into the Top 10 in April of ’66.  Since then it’s become the quintessential rock classic, covered by everyone in the universe.  Learn to play the E, D & A chords on the guitar, and you can cover it too.

    Play BABY, PLEASE DON\’T GO by THEM

    The B-side, which is really the A-side, is Them’s blistering take on Joe Williams’ blues classic, “Baby, Please Don’t Go.”  Also revered as a rock staple and also covered zillions of times, always using Them’s arrangement.  B’cause, as the old saying goes, if it ain’t broke — don’t fix it.

    Them released a handful of great singles and albums, and had a couple brilliant Top 40 hits stateside with “Here Comes The Night” and “Mystic Eyes.”  After Morrison left to pursue a solo career in ’66, the band attempted to soldier on without him, to no avail.  And, as everyone knows, Van Morrison’s solo career never amounted to much.

    NEXT WEEK: Ho ho!  Ha-haa!  He-hee!

  • FORTY-FIVE REVOLUTIONS PER MINUTE #28: No More Mr. & Mrs. Nice Guy & Gal

    Warren Zevon's classic single "Werewolves Of London"

    WARREN ZEVON  “Werewolves Of London” b/w “Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner”  (Asylum Records #45472, April 1978)

    A key feature in my hometown Sunday paper was a little syndicated column that published the lyrics and musical accompaniment to a current popular song.  I clipped it every week, even if it was a song I didn’t necessarily like (the ability to take requests always comes in handy, right?), and kept a little musical scrapbook.  One week in ’78, the featured tune was none other than THEE most badass song ever written, Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves Of London.”

    See the video for Werewolves Of London by Warren Zevon

    Zevon, who got his first big break in the music business playing piano behind The Everly Brothers, recalls the song’s origin in the liner notes to his 1995 anthology, I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead:  “Phil Everly said, “I’m making another solo album.  Why don’t you guys write a song for me — a dance song.  Call it, ‘Werewolves Of London.’ “  I was at LeRoy (Marinell)’s house a few days later, and he was playing that little V-IV-I figure when (guitarist) Waddy (Wachtel) walked in.  “What are you doing?” he asked, and we answered, “We’re doing the Werewolves Of London.”  Waddy said, “You mean, Ahhooo — those Werewolves Of London?””  And obviously, the rest is history.

    I'll Sleep When I'm Dead  

    Of course, from the perspective a young kid growing up on a steady diet of Dr. Madblood’s Movie, Forrest J. Ackerman’s Famous Monsters Of Filmland magazine and 3-D triple-features at The Suburban, nothing could be cooler than this 3-chord D/C/G stomper, with drums & bass provided by Fleetwood Mac’s rhythm section and lyrics like, “Little old lady got mutilated late last night.”  Anyone who could push a track like this into the Top 40 was my hero, and so Zevon remained until his untimely death from lung cancer in 2003.

    The Jackson Browne-produced track spent 6 weeks in the Top 40, peaking at #21.  It has since become a ubiquitous classic, popping up in hit films and being either sampled or covered by nearly everyone under the sun.  And of course the rock and oldies stations still crank it up once in a while, most notably on Halloween. 

    See Warren Zevon perform Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner

    Again from Zevon himself:  “In 1974 I ran off to Spain and got a job in an Irish bar called the Dubliner, in Sitges, on the Costa Brava.  The proprietor was a piratical ex-merc named David Lindell.  He and I wrote this song at the bar one afternoon, over many jars.” 

    Enjoy Every Sandwich  

    Sucked into the Irvingesqe mythology of this B-side’s fictional title character, I borrowed my older brother’s copy of Excitable Boy to see what other great gems lay waiting.  I listened in amazement as the LP swung from the caustic title track (a meditation on rehab more disturbing than “Alice’s Restaurant”) to the broken-hearted sorrow of “Accidentally Like A Martyr,” hitting all points in between.  Zevon’s songs, sometimes built around narratives resembling miniature noir films, proved to be the kind that you could enjoy in the moment, and appreciate further as time passed.  A rare find in the pop world. 

    Over the ensuing years, Zevon scored many points both high and low, and though he never managed “Werewolves…”-caliber chart success again, he left behind probably one of the most challenging, beautiful, and brutally honest song catalogs in American history.

    NEXT WEEK:  Gee, El…Oh, are eye!  Eh?

  • FORTY-FIVE REVOLUTIONS PER MINUTE #27: Sleepy Doctors

    Laurie Anderson's classic single "O Superman"

    LAURIE ANDERSON  “O Superman (For Massenet)”  b/w “Walk The Dog” (Warner Bros. Special Products #49876, 1981)

    On the rare occasions big publications canonize women in rock, Laurie Anderson usually gets stuffed down near the 100 mark, if not left off completely.  This is because few rock listeners were ever really able to understand where she was coming from (be it the pop world, the art world, or the pop art world), and understandably so.  It’s far easier for the average listener to laud Janis Joplin, in all her bluesy, boozy, downtrodden and junked-out glory, than the highly-educated and eloquent Anderson, oozing early-’80’s downtown New York cool and bony, quasi-masculine elegance.  Considered extremely minimalist even by post-punk standards, it seemed Anderson’s music was approached on the outset, as now, with a sense of fear and trepidation.  Astounding when you consider that, when all is said and done, Anderson is ultimately a storyteller, a master of the most ancient art in the world.

    Play O Superman (For Massenet) by Laurie Anderson

    “Have you heard that song?” a school friend asked when we read that “O Superman” had hit the top of the charts in the UK, “It’s just one note!” Well, maybe it is.  But once you’ve absorbed (or should I say been absorbed into) the full scope of this eight-plus minute track, you can see that it’s far more than just a one-note samba.  Paraphrasing a concept from Jules Massenet’s 1885 Napoleonic opera Le Cid and crafting a sonic bed inspired by the shimmering vocal cues from Phillip Glass’ Einstein On The Beach,  Anderson, clearly mirroring Cold War and Middle Eastern tensions, creates her own all-enveloping, claustrophobic universe in which a simple phone-call invokes the end of the world.  Of course, the machine is on and no one’s home.  Sound familiar?  Of course it does.

    Laurie Anderson's "Walk The Dog"

    Now, if all that sounds like a bit too much for you, just flip this disc (which plays at 33 & 1/3 RPM, by the way, obviously to allow for the lengthy A-side;  a 12″ version was also pressed, which spins at 45 RPM) and enjoy the gleeful, cacophonous “Walk The Dog.”  I may be incorrect, but I believe I once heard Anderson herself describe this track as a “country song,” which makes sense when you consider that it is a fiddle-based piece that both namechecks and paraphrases Dolly Parton, but holy shit…no country song ever sounded like this before.  Or since.  Can you imagine some Kellie Pickler-type trying to pull this off on America Idol?  I’d actually tune in.

    Play Walk The Dog by Laurie Anderson

    Both “O Superman” and “Walk The Dog” were parts of a bigger piece of Anderson’s titled United States I-IV.  Other highlights from that performance were boiled down to form 1982’s brilliant Big Science LP (learn about its recent reissue, plus Anderson’s current doings, here), a record so unique and mesmerizing that it has never left my turntable for very long over the past 27 years.  I’ve even heard little bits and samples from it pop up in electronica and hip-hop, which makes me think that younger generations are going to continue to discover Laurie Anderson, and will probably place her name higher in the future pantheons of rock.

    NEXT WEEK: Enjoy every sandwich.