Sounds of the Hall in roughly 33 1/3 minutes!
Townsman Slim Jade is back with another edition of Saturday Night Shut-In for your listening and discussing pleasure. Isn’t it time we listen to the music, then compare notes? I think so.
[Note: You can add Saturday Night Shut-In episodes to your iTunes by clicking here. The Rock Town Hall feed will enable you to easily download Saturday Night Shut-In episodes to your digital music player.]
Easter is coming up. I know the holiday is really centered around Jesus and deeply spiritual matters, but the lure for kids is the basket of Easter candy that the Easter bunny leaves on Easter morning. In honor of Easter baskets, I propose a Last Man Standing on Candy Songs, that is, songs specifically about candy or, if not specifically about candy, involving a candy in its song title. Songs that merely mention a candy in passing do not count. Candy must be essential to the song, as is the case with my lead-off entry, Autumn Carousel’s “Lollipop.”
Let’s fill a rock ‘n roll Easter basket!
I’m always amazed by well-crafted story songs. This goes back to one of my original favorite songs from childhood, The Band‘s “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.” I’ve never been much of a story teller. Stories are important. A well-told story set to great music simply dazzles me.
I even appreciate story songs that I can’t stand, such as Don McLean‘s “American Pie” and Billy Joel‘s “Piano Man.” The latter, for all its relative Joel merits, quickly falls prey to the high bar set by telling a story song from the perspective of an old man when the songwriter is, in fact, a young man. That “when I wore a younger man’s clothes” line in “Piano Man,” for instance, is one of the song’s many deal-breakers for me.
Last night, as “Piano Man” played on the radio after a fun dinner out with the family, even our 11-year-old son began cutting up on the lyrics. “The music’s good,” he said, “but the lyrics are stupid.” In the front seat my wife and I began talking about Olde Thyme-themed story songs of our youth. “Midnight at the Oasis” came on next, and we all got a chuckle out of that one, reminding ourselves that it was supposed to be silly.
“‘Mr. Bojangles’!” I exclaimed.
“Yeah,” my wife replied, “what was the deal with ‘Mr. Bojangles’?”
What was the deal with “Mr. Bojangles”?
Real simple, like the poll asks: What’s the best Jesus song in rock?
Loading ...Are there rock ‘n roll Passover songs? It’s one of those Judeo-Christian crossover periods. Peace on earth and good times with family to all!
Sounds of the Hall in roughly 33 1/3 minutes!
I’ve always been into theme shows. I wrestled with many convoluted ideas and settled on a tribute to my favorite night of the week. And it’s partly for selfish reasons as well. I look forward to listening to SNSI during my Sunday morning runs or in some cases a late Saturday night run. Certainly, I’m more than capable of coming up with a playlist.
So, it’s a zippy 30 minutes long. It’s my first experience putting something like this together. So, consider this dipping my toes in the water.
As I may have mentioned a few times over the years, I HATED THE 1980s!
I hated ’80s style and culture in general, but as a music-obsessed person, I especially hated “’80s” music, which I typify as synth-pop featuring Yahmaha DX7s and strained vocals. I hated hair gel and guys with dyed hair. I hated asymmetric hairdos and shirt collars. I hated shirts with shoulder pads and epaulets. I hated puffy socks and women wearing jeans with high-riding waistbands. I even hated Madonna, although stripped of her iconic ’80s style she was my idea of a Hot Woman. Thankfully Madonna provided some opportunities to confirm that suspicion.
I hated what the ’80s did to Michael Jackson. I hated the bright colors. I never aspired to androgyny. I even hated much of the “cool” underground music of the ’80s: hardcore, shitcore, REM, that goth stuff like Bauhaus coming out of England… I even hated bands that were making music fairly similar to my own band’s aspirations because I was jealous of their relative success.
I think I hated myself as much as anything. I grew up in the 1970s, feeling pretty much out of place but certain that I would develop into a well-rounded hipster in my early ’80s college years only to be unleashed in a world where I fit in even less. Damn you, 1980s!
Today, my wiser, kinder, gentler self occasionally hears Human League‘s “Don’t You Want Me Baby” on the radio and thinks to himself, “At least I always liked that song. There must have been another 24 hit songs in the ’80s that I liked, right?”
Well, were there? I am calling on you, my trusted Townspeople, to help me recall whether I liked 25 hit songs from the 1980s. The rules for submission follow…after the jump!
Click for middle-aged-eyes legibility.
RTH is your place and this post is your space to let it all hang out. What are you looking for?
