Moscow Girls Got Soul

A good song is a good song is a good song.

Over at Echoes in the Wind today, Whiteray dug through the Billboard charts from this week in 1969. Not so much the top of the charts (dominated by two songs from Hair, Glenn Campbell singing Jimmy Webb, Tommy Roe, the Temptations, the Zombies, and Blood Sweat & Tears), but the rest of the Hot 100.

Including an unlikely coulda-woulda-shoulda-been hit by Chubby Checker.

Certainly by 1969, it must have looked like Chubby Checker's best days were far behind him. Hell, even in his heyday, Checker seemed predestined to be a soon-to-be-forgotten novelty.

His stage name was a play on Fats Dominoe. In his first record, he imitated Alvin and the Chipmunks. And his signature song ("The Twist") was a dance-crazy novelty record.

A quick look at his career shows him going back to the same well over and over (with singles like "Let's Twist Again," "Twistin' USA," "Slow Twisting," "Twist It Up," and "Yo Twist"), then trying to "expand" his repertoire with other novelty dance songs ("Do the Freddy," "Dance the Mess Around," "Limbo Rock," "Pony Time," etc.).

By 1969, he was mostly forgotten in the U.S. (although he toured extensively throughout Europe).

Still, a good song is a good song is a good song.

And one of the signs of a good song is that you can rearrange it, put it into another style, and it's still a good song. Maybe it's an even better song in a different style because listeners bring with them the memory of the original, creating a hybrid experience when they hear a substantially reworked version.

And if there's one thing the Beatles knew well, it was good songs.

Whose idea was it to take the Chuck Berry-ish rocker "Back in the USSR" (with it's Beach Boys-inspired bridge) and rework it in a horn-fueled soul groove? Tom Sellers, who played in a pre-Oates band with Daryl Hall, arranged the song. And both Sellers and Hall played and sang on the record.

In a more just world, it would have been a hit and it might have given Chubby Checker the type of career rebirth Tina Turner enjoyed in the 1980s. But the record skimmed the bottom of the charts, peaked at number 82, then vanished.

And, up until this morning, I'd never heard it. Or even heard of it.

But now (with thanks to Whiteray and because a good song is a good song is a good song), here's Chubby Checker's comeback-that-never-was:

XTC Demos

Just a few songs for a Monday morning:

Your Truth, Our Lies

They barter your impunity

"There's stuff I'm not supposed to talk about," she said.

I know this. And she's said it before. And she knows I know.

And yet...

"But I'm dying to talk about it."

So I wait. Because either she'll tell me or she won't.

And I know well enough to know that she'll make up her own mind.

She starts to speak several times. Clears her throat. Plays with her hair.

Then stops.

I know what this is about. It's the company she keeps. And the horrible, horrible secrets they keep. The things they do for money.

"I worry," she says, "that I'm destroying my soul. At least I don't still believe in it. I know the difference between what they say and what's real."

She wants reassurance. Wants to know that she can still hold onto what's right even in a world where so much is wrong. A world where she has to pretend that the people doing the evil aren't so bad... just because they're in charge.

That's all she wants.

And I want to give her that reassurance. But I can't even give it to myself. And every time I try all I can hear is this:

Punk/Uke

It's the Scottish Accents, Really

History repeats itself...


...first as tragedy...


...then as farce.

Too Many Dreamers

What's Not to Love About This?

From the upcoming album Move Like This by the Cars (not to be confused with the New Cars):



and...



Is it just me or is it seeming a lot like 1985 in here? (In a good way...)

What to They is The God of Their Own Choice

From 1993

Hard not to love this:


ART GARFUNKEL the breakup by orpheus4u

For the Weekend or the Winter...

I Think I Lived a Year Today

In the brochures, back when you took the time to read the brochures, they talked about the different climates, different zones you pass through.

A hundred years ago, it would take months to travel through those zones. Every yard hard-earned, not with money, but with sweat and blood, animals and death.

Today, it's quicker. Today, it's literally a day.

You think this when you leave Oklahoma. And again when the sun goes down, 300 miles away.

Driving all night, not wanting to talk, not wanting to wake her.

Through the forests. Climbing into the mountains. Into the snow.

Past where the other cars go, on a winding road up to a mesa. You glance over to her, wondering if she remembers the brochure about the mesa.

But you don't want to ask, don't risk waking her.

So you drive. Until the muscles of your leg cramp. Until you need to stretch your arms after a dozen hours at 10 and 2.

The only lights are the lights from the stars. And the only sounds are the wheels on the snow.

And as the snow falls harder and harder, you can hear it in its silence as it lands on your windshield.

The snow is only knowable in its absence. Just like your car is only notable by the absence of other cars. And maybe the two of you are only knowable by not quite being there.

And when you pass into the high desert and the sun peaks over the horizon behind you, you know you're not in Oklahoma anymore. Maybe you'll never be in Oklahoma again.

You hear her yawn and you turn to her. And she stretches and smiles for you.

"In another life," she says.

And you stop the car. And you both watch the sun come up as several deer cross in front of you.

And you know exactly what she means. But have no idea how to get there.