friday random ten, 1972 edition
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Artist:
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Track:
1. Timmy Thomas, "Why Can't We Live Together." If you think Prince's "Kiss" is minimalism, you need to hear this one. Organ, drum machine, vocals. That's it. The lyrics match the music. "Tell me why, tell me why, tell me why, why can't we live together? Tell me why, tell me why, why can't we live together? Everybody wants to live together. Why can't we be together?" The Ramones couldn't match this.
2. Al Green, "Love and Happiness." OK, I'm partial to Otis, but all votes for Al Green as greatest soul singer of them all are accepted. Yet on this great track, even more than usual, it's the whole thing, in particular the great guitar riff and how the organ wheezes its way into the mix. And then here comes the backup singers. I swear, this is one great record.
3. Billy Paul, "Me and Mrs. Jones." Brief Encounter with grits.
4. Harry Nilsson, "You're Breaking My Heart." Hard to match this one's opening salvo: "You're breaking my heart, you're tearing it apart, so fuck you."
5. Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks, "I Scare Myself." I don't know what other people mean when they say "they're playing our song," but in my case, I mean something very specific, because at my wedding almost 36 years ago, I read the lyrics to this song, thus establishing a lifetime of commitment and neurosis.
6. The O'Jays, "Love Train." Back Stabbers is one of the great albums, not just a place for the hits to hang out.
7. Bill Withers, "Lean on Me." Different from Al Green, but not worse.
8. Deep Purple, "Smoke on the Water." One of the first apartments we lived in after we got married had really thin walls. The guy who lived in the next room worked nights, and he'd come home every midnight and play this fucking song over and over. Stupid lyrics, too ... but the hook is unstoppable. Just ask that guy in the next apartment.
9. Randy Newman, "Sail Away." You really think I'm going to summarize this song in a flippant sentence or two? I'm pretty sure there's only one person who could/would have written it (the song, not the flippant sentence, although he'd probably pull that off, as well).
10. Liza Minnelli and Joel Grey, "Money Money." As great a movie as Sail Away is an album, and in its own way equally disturbing.
Locating MOG account...
Comments (7)
Just this week I started watching DVDs of the "new" Battlestar Galactica, so I finally know who your avatar is.
Wow, this is a blockbuster of a list, Masoo. I think if I was running a restaurant I'd have a Brief Encounter with Grits on the Menu. :-) Love your wedding story. This tells us volumes about you - in a very good, weird way. Happy Friday to you.
Dermhrk - Man, you need a haircut! :-)
In Harry Nillsson's "Personal Best" he is quoted as saying that he got so much hate mail for "Your Breaking My Heart" that he just stuffed the price of the album into an envelope and sent it to one disgruntled fan. It is possibly the best opening line of any song.
I guess this is one of those "the world is made up of two kinds of people" things ... either ya like "You're Breaking My Heart" or ya don't.
Right in my wheelhouse, '68-'72. A lot to choose from here. Those first two Bill Withers records do a lot with little too. Not as minimal as Timmy Thomas though. Was that one of the first drum machines?
I think you're right about the drum machine ... almost Casio-like.
They must've just bought it down in Florida..there's a ton of records from Harry Stone's TK that feature that same sound. They make it work though.