She--and others like her--is the future of our party
In several interviews this week as her worthless ass exits the Senate, former Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill has taken pot shots at incoming New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, calling her a "bright shiny object," wondering what she did to deserve all the attention she's getting, and giving the usual republican lite Democrat warning about the party moving too far to the left to appeal to white working class voters (who aren't going to vote for us anyway).
Not really sure what McCaskill did to earn her soapbox...can't think of a single thing she accomplished while in the Senate other than being a DINO, a wishy washy vote for Democratic policies, and absolutely getting her ass handed to her last November by Josh Hawley in the biggest Democratic wave election since 1974. Heck of a job, McCaskill!
Thankfully, Ocasio-Cortez isn't one of those wishy washy Democrats, and fired back at McCaskill, specifically faulting her for supporting Trump's agenda and getting beat badly while progressive policies were passing in her home state of Missouri. And I believe we are going to see a lot more striking back at centrist Democrats, who have played a crucial role in where the country is today due to their lack of fortitude and political cowardice. About goddamn time.
Ocasio-Cortez and those like her are the future of our party, and one need only look at how scared republicans are of an incoming freshman to appreciate the scope of what she's accomplished--which is to get people talking about our policies and how much good they do for ordinary Americans in comparison to the republican (and McCaskill like Democrats) agenda of fealty to the wealthy elite and Corporate America.
As for McCaskill, I'd be willing to bet she's angling for one of those Fox News Democrats Who Toe the Republican Line pundit jobs.
And as to the loss of her in the U.S. Senate, frankly it's good bye and good fucking riddance.
It's been said that when one makes a mistake more than once, the first one can be an accident but by the second one it begins to look like carelessness.
For the second time in less than a month, a child whose family was seeking asylum here in the U.S. has died under the care of the Department of Homeland Security. At best, this looks like indifference on the part of the Trump Administration. At worst, it's out and out cruelty. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen issued a statement which sounded a lot like she was more bothered by having to issue the statement than she was by the child's death. Donald Trump predictably blamed the Democrats for our immigration policies, ignoring, of course, that republicans have controlled the federal government for the last two years and could have implemented their horrid policies at will (and faced an even worse backlash at the polls than they did last November).
Anyone want to imagine the republicans reaction had either of these children died under the Obama administration? It would have been the first and second time that republicans ever cared about people of color, and it would have been more about scoring political points than the loss of the children.
Anyway you slice it, two families have now suffered the most horrific nightmare a family can suffer, and the Trump administration bears all of the responsibility. And whatever evil should befall those whose indifference and cruelty allowed the two deaths will be richly deserved.
At first glance, I thought this week's tune wasn't ending 2018 in a very positive manner here on Friday Night Jukebox, but as I thought more about it, it dawned on me that it is very human (and in a way, somewhat hopeful) to chronicle tragedy to channel our empathy, even if, as this week's tune acknowledges, there really are no reasons for said tragedy. Our tears, so to speak, pull us together.
The Boomtown Rats (truly one of rock's great band names) formed in 1975 in their native Ireland and had a fine bit of success through 1985 when they broke up, but it has largely been overshadowed (probably rightfully so) by the charitable work of lead singer Bob Geldof. Over the course of those ten years, the Rats released six LPs, three of which reached the top ten in the UK. They also had nine singles reach the top twenty on the UK charts, including two of which went to #1. The Rats did reunite--and are still together minus a player or two--in 2013. The band's musical work, though, pales in comparison to Geldof's tireless devotion to making Africa and her many peoples a better place to live. Geldof, with Midge Ure of Ultravox fame, wrote the now classic Christmas tune "Do They Know It's Christmas" to aid with the famine in Ethiopia in 1984 and it would go on to sell over eleven million copies and raise more than ten million dollars. Geldof would also stage Live Aid, a star studded concert across the continents, a little later to raise even more money for Africa, and has worked tirelessly through the years for debt relief and numerous other programs to help the continent. Sometimes jokingly referred to as "St. Bob" for his work, Geldof does have a demon side and has been criticized for numerous comments throughout his life. Still, the tale of the Boomtown Rats shows that while pop music has its decadent and its silly side, it is also capable of quite a bit of good--as many in the nations of Africa will readily attest.
Fun Fact: The Boomtown Rats took their name from a group of children in Woody Guthrie's autobiography, Bound for Glory.
"I Don't Like Mondays" was released in 1979 on their LP, The Fine Art of Surfacing. The single reached number one in the UK, their native Ireland, and the top ten in eleven other nations. Surprisingly (or not), the song only reached #73 (with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100--but I'm not sure if this is because of a lack of cool kids here in the states or because the mass shooting chronicled in the song happened here and some stations were reluctant to play it.
For those not familiar, "I Don't Like Mondays" was written by Geldof in response to a school shooting in January of 1979 by Brenda Ann Spencer in San Diego, CA in which two were killed and nine others injured. When asked why she had done it, Spencer replied, "I don't like Mondays. This livens up the day." As I listened to it in prep for this week's post, I was struck by several things, the first of which is how well it's aged. One could listen to it in comparison to other songs through the years chronicling school shooters, such as Pearl Jam's "Jeremy" from the nineties or Foster the People's "Pumped Up Kicks" from this decade (there are probably others I'm not familiar with or don't remember off the top of my head), and both musically and thematically it would hold its own. I was also impressed by Geldof's compassion for all those involved: the school's students, the school's parents, other parents worrying about their own children, and even, to a degree, the shooter herself. Lastly, I was truly amazed at how much Geldof and the Rats did within the confines of a pop single. From the use of a single piano (there may be strings, I wasn't sure) to convey both the horror and the sadness, to the rat-a-tat hand claps, to the understated backing vocals, to Geldof's vocal performance itself, invoking anger, empathy, and confusion (but never despair), "I Don't Like Mondays" is a testament to what a well written, wonderfully orchestrated, and dexterously performed pop song can accomplish.
Lyric Sheet: "Sweet 16 ain't that peachy keen/No it ain't so neat to admit defeat/They can see no reasons 'cause there are no reasons/What reason do you need..."
Choosing a song from Stevie Wonder's vast (and excellent) catalog of songs to be featured here on FNJ is a bit like looking at a counter full of candy bars when you have the munchies--you finally end up choosing one because you know that eventually you'll be hungry again and you can choose another candy bar later. I'll be amazed if another of his songs isn't featured again somewhere down the road...says the man who wrote posts about 207 songs before finally getting to the inimitable Stevie Wonder.
Writing a one paragraph synopsis of Stevie Wonder's career is a tall task...but I'm going to attempt it anyhow. Starting out in my adopted home of Detroit, Wonder signed his first music contract when he was eleven years old with Motown. Wonder's musical success started slowly as he didn't have his first hit until he was all of thirteen ("Fingertips"--it also made him the youngest person to top the Billboard Hot 100). Wonder added more hit singles throughout the sixties, before coming into his own in the seventies. By the time he was twenty-five, Wonder had won two Grammys for album of the year, and would go on to win three album of the year Grammys in four years. After the seventies, Wonder settled into a more commercial groove, and while he never again reached the artistic success of his earlier works, he sold a shitload of records. Overall, Wonder has released 26 LPs, sold over 100 million records, three of which hit #1 on the Billboard charts, and ten of which hit the top five. He's had ten number one singles and thirty which hit the top 40. He's won twenty-five Grammy Awards (you read that right, 25--the most for any single artist in Grammy history), won an Academy Award for best song, been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, been inducted into the Songwriter's Hall of Fame, and been given an honorary music degree by Yale. He's also been a political activist, fighting against racism, hunger, AIDs, and war, as well as championing Nelson Mandela when it wasn't popular to champion him, and also performed at Barack Obama's first inauguration. Wonder is also known for collaborating with too many artist to count (he's a multi-instrumentalist, and his harmonica playing has been featured on numerous songs). Did I mention that he's been blind since shortly after his birth? Taken as a whole, that's a legacy to end all legacies.
Fun Fact: Wonder was instrumental (so to speak) in establishing Martin Luther King's birthday as a national holiday--he wrote the song "Happy Birthday" to popularize the campaign and also staged a rally which helped to bring in a petition with over six million signatures in support of making King's birthday a national holiday.
"If You Really Love Me" was released in 1971 on the album Where I'm Coming From. It would eventually reach #8 (with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100. Wonder wrote the song with his first wife Syreeta Wright, and played piano, synthesizer, and drums on the song.
One of the reasons I chose this week's tune (other than it's one of my favorites of his) is that I like how Wonder opens with the catchy as all hell chorus and then moves into the considerably slower, almost ballad-like stanzas--it's a fine juxtaposition of the two styles. As I did my half-assed research for this week's tune, I noticed that the album "If You Really Love Me" came from was the last of Wonder's career before Motown turned control of his work over to Wonder himself, and in a lot of ways you can see in this song what was to come in his seventies work over the next few years--Wonder was really stretching out a little bit, seeing just what he could do with his music. I also chose it because there's a joyousness, a playfulness, to the song that is a hallmark of Wonder's work--he did some great socially conscious songs through the years, but Wonder's genius has always been that he could do it with some of the greatest pop music sensibilities of any artist I can think of. I would be remiss if I didn't note that the song has some fine horn work from Motown's in house band, the Funk Brothers, and that Wonder's wife at the time also provided some fine backing vocals. All in all, it's a hell of pop tune from one of the greatest practitioners of pop this country has ever seen--and a man with the heart of a lion.
Lyric Sheet: "First the feeling's alright/Then it's gone from sight/So I'm taking out this time to say.../Oh, if you really love me won't you tell me..."
As a child of the seventies, I can tell you there were a whole lot of cool kids who were fans of Chicago, and while I was one of them (fan of Chicago, definitely not a cool kid), they were the kind of band that I was more than happy to own their greatest hits (formidable) without really desiring to get into their catalog. And then when their ninth studio album rolled around, I thought what the hell and gave it a try--good thing, too, lest I'd have never heard this week's tune. (Aside: I also bought their twelfth--and it was the last album I ever bought by Chicago....)
Chicago was formed in 1967 in, not surprisingly, Chicago. Originally known as the Chicago Transit Authority (probably a good career move to shorten that a bit), their first three albums were double LPs (could you imagine anyone trying that these days?), their fourth was a live four LP box set of their sold out week at Carnegie Hall, and released their first ten albums in ten years (again, anyone do that these days?). Sadly, shortly after the release of their ninth LP, founding member Terry Kath was playing with a gun and accidentally shot himself to death. After Kath's death the band went from being a socially conscious band into being a pop music juggernaut. Over the course of the last now more than fifty years, Chicago released twenty-four albums, 23 of which went gold, eighteen platinum, sold over a hundred million albums, and at one time had a string of five consecutive number one LPs. They have had 20 singles reach the top ten on the Billboard Hot 100. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2016, and three members have been inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. They've had numerous incarnations, literally dozens of band members, and won a Grammy Award. Not a bad career for a band that originally dubbed itself "rock and roll with horns."
"Till the End of Time" was released in 1977 on the oh, so cleverly titled LP, Chicago XI.The song was never released as a single, and the LP was the last of the big picture works they were to release (no doubt related to Kath's tragic death). It is considered by some to be Chicago's best album.
Written and sung by James Pankow (one of four original members--seven in the initial lineup--still with the band), "Till the End of Time" is your basic blues cum soul love ballad with horns. Pankow spins the tale of a man who wonders why his woman stands by him, but is oh, so glad she does--and he's asking her to love him till the end of time. The song is interspersed with trumpet, trombone and saxophone, and some playful piano. As regular readers (both of you) know, emaycee is a big fan of blue-eyed soul...and this one rivals Van Morrison, Daryl Hall, and Boz Scaggs at their best. Pankow infuses the song with joy, wonder, and a conviction that this love is all the love he needs. It closes with some dandy backing vocals embellishing Pankow's fiery vocals as he freelances his way through celebrating their love. "Till the End of Time" is another in a long line of rock and roll songs that remind us of the glory of love--and the glory of a beautifully crafted pop song.
Liner Notes: "Why...even though you know I'm crazy/Do you still believe in me/Why...does a smile come so easy/Baby since you set me free..."
For the past year, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has been trying to rewrite an Obama era rule known as the Borrower Defense to Repayment, which basically helps students who were cheated out of money by for-profit colleges, so as to give for-profit colleges who grifted people out of thousands of dollars the fruits of their cheating.
Isn't this akin to convicting a bank robber, and then saying, "What the hell, here's the money you stole--enjoy!"
Nothing quite like the rich helping the rich to get even richer--and what an embarrassment Betsy DeVos is to everything that decent people consider proper.
Probably equally as tasty as a McDonald's cheeseburger
News this week that the Trump Foundation will shut down with an assist from the courts due to its rampant corruption (read enrichment of the Trump family, helping those in need not so much) is just another reminder of how depraved the Trump family truly is. Shuttering a charitable foundation because of its decadency is neither Presidential not does it make America great.
Seven-year-old Jakelin Maquin died of dehydration and shock this week just hours after being taken into custody by Border Patrol as she and her father tried to escape the violence in Guatemala by trekking a thousand miles to America. Department of Homeland Security Secretary and resident sleazebag Kirstjen Nielsen went on Fox News and blamed her father for literally walking through a desert trying to give his daughter a better life, though one supposes Border agents who have been filmed breaking jugs of water left for migrants in said desert may have played just a teensy role themselves.
Make no mistake--this, every single bit of it, is today's republican party.
Poor seven-year-old Jakelin made two mistakes: for one, she wasn't white. And for two, she wasn't a zygote in some woman's womb. Those are the only two ways republicans would have cared about her.
This is Humanity 101 and republicans are failing. What does it say about what republicans have become that they can be so callous over the death of a little girl?
Donald Trump this week claimed he wasn't worried about impeachment, because if he was impeached the people would revolt.
One presumes he's talking about the forty percent of Americans who approve of the job he's doing (I'd like to say I'm surprised that many Americans are that stupid but I drive the highways of this nation every day), the vast majority of whom aren't about to get up off the couch, turn off Netflix, put away their Doritos and salsa, give up their jobs, leave the wife and kids, and get off their phones before finding out if the Bears won to fight for a fat ass pumpkin head who has shown time and again that if you ain't rich he ain't giving a shit.
So he can count on a few hundred numbnuts who will show up and wave their guns for a bit, and then tuck tail and run once the police show up.
But here's hoping the fantasy lasts until at least the White House door is slapping his ass on his way out.
It appears that the lesson republicans are taking from the ass kicking they took last month is...nothing? New NRCC chair Tom Emmer (R-MN) said this week that, contrary to all evidence, republicans did not lose the suburbs in the past election and don't really need to reach out to women.
Here's hoping republicans continue apace with their Bury Your Head in the Sand strategy for 2020--I really enjoyed all the winning we did last November and would love to continue it two years hence.
The times they are a-changin'...and the longer the republican party refuses to believe it, the better those changes will be for the rest of us.
Have a rough day? Here's something to cheer you up--watching Nancy Pelosi bitch slap the utterly unqualified Donald Trump after the orange tumor thought it'd be a great idea to have the press watch them negotiate Trump's wall and a government shutdown:
And for the cherry on top, later in the day Pelosi told the press she didn't want to embarrass the little man on live TV by telling him he didn't know what he was talking about for all America to see.
Did you know that in roughly three weeks Nancy Pelosi will be third in line for the Presidency?
It sure was a lot of fun this past weekend to watch the party of law and order trip all over their tongues trying to whitewash the fact that Donald Trump committed a felony by using campaign funds to pay off two women he'd had an affair with--especially when you're old enough to remember republican heads exploding because Bill Clinton lied under oath about an extramarital affair.
Not nearly as fun, though, as watching them explain, the next time a prominent Democrat has a legal problem, why it's okay for Trump to break the law but not a Democrat. Here's hoping our national media takes a lesson or two from the reformed Cowardly Lion and actually puts them on the spot.
Better yet, here's hoping that Michigan's governor-elect, Gretchen Whitmer is right, and that republicans are trading short term gain for long term pain.
When my first wife and I were still newlyweds, I used to bring home all the promotional singles from the Camelot Music store that I managed and after dinner we'd listen to several of them to entertain ourselves, in the days when we were too poor to do much else. Admittedly, it was probably more enjoyable for me than her, but I was amazed at the number of songs (mostly from up and coming artists, most of whom we'd never heard of, some who never did hit the big time) that we ended up liking. One such tune was this week's featured song--and it still serves as a reminder to me that there's a hell of a lot of music out there, and even though I'll never be able to discover all of it, to try and enjoy all the more the tunes I do find.
Shakin' Stevens was born Michael Barrat in Cardiff, Wales in 1948 (first artist from Wales here on FNJ, I believe). He started his working career as a milkman while playing gigs on the weekends before embarking on a music career in earnest with his first band, Shakin' Stevens and the Sunsets, in the late sixties. Stevens' band had very little commercial success though they toured a lot before he was offered a role in the musical Elvis! in London in 1977. Stevens parlayed the hit show into a solo career, and throughout the eighties was the best selling singles artist in the UK. While Stevens has never done anything here in the States, in his native UK he has had 33 top forty singles, four number one singles, two number two singles, and three top ten albums. Over the course of his career, he has released twenty studio albums, twenty-one compilation albums, and 69 singles. He released his last album in 2016, and will be touring the UK and Europe in 2019. Good thing he gave up on that milkman gig....
"You Drive Me Crazy" was released in 1981 on Steven's only #1 LP, Shaky(Stevens' nickname, for those wondering, which is probably no one...). The single would hit #2 (with a bullet...maybe, because I don't know if the UK Top 75 has bullets on hit records) on the UK Singles chart, and #1 on the charts in Australia, Denmark, and Ireland (so many cool kids in Australia, Denmark, and Ireland...).
Fun Fact: Though I'm sure she doesn't remember it, my daughter did a mean two legged stomp to "You Drive Me Crazy" when she was a toddler...
For those not familiar with Shakin' Stevens (which would probably be most anyone outside of Europe and the UK), his shtick is basically as a fifties cover artist extraordinaire (great gig in the UK which is nuts for fifties rock and roll), though he generally sticks to less well known songs from that era. While "You Drive Me Crazy" definitely has a fifties vibe to it, it is actually an original song written around the time the song was recorded. There's nothing fancy about this one--catchy music, love song lyrics, and an echoed chorus (Cray-ay-zee...). Stevens sings with a lot of joy and gives the song a real rockabilly feel and there's a short guitar solo as well as some "It's got a good beat and I could dance to it" drumming. If you're looking for "Born to Run" or "Baba O'Reilly" this one probably isn't for you, but if you like to shake your hips a bit and sing along, it'll do just fine.
Lyric Sheet: "And when I'm looking in those big blue eyes/I start a'floating 'round in paradise/You drive me crazy..."
Earlier this week during an orientation for representatives-elect, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted that the incoming congresspersons had been spoken to by four CEOs...and zero labor leaders. Later, Michigan's own Rashida Tlaib tweeted that Gary Cohn of Goldman-Sachs had told the freshmen that they didn't know how the game was played...and Tlaib promptly warned him to prepare his ass for a Congress that puts people over profits.
For all the despair that Donald Trump has created since his election, it fills me with great hope that in spite of it we are electing such congresswomen as Ocasio-Cortez and Tlaib, who are showing that the new boss is not the same as the old boss, and who are going to remind those in power every day that they serve the people and not Corporate America.
Over the course of the past twenty-five years or so, we Americans have borne witness again and again to once respected institutions covering up child molestation and protecting the perpetrators. The Catholic Church, Penn State, Michigan State University, and now our Secretary of Labor, when he was Miami's top federal prosecutor, have all erred on the side of money and not on the side of children.
For those not aware, in 2007 Alex Acosta (our current Labor Secretary) issued a more than lenient sentence (13 months) to billionaire Jeffrey Epstein who was facing life imprisonment for numerous instances of sex with underage girls (some still in middle school) as well as being suspected of sex trafficking girls from overseas. Nobody seems to know why Acosta cut such a pathetic deal (a good guess would be something to do with the billions of dollars Epstein is worth plus the many notable men--including Donald Trump and Bill Clinton--who may have been involved with Epstein's perversions but as of yet have remained anonymous), but two of his victims are now suing to have the plea overturned.
Can someone explain to me what I am missing here? We are talking the rape of children, and yet what does it say about America when the real estate holdings of the Church or the athletic programs of universities or the comfort of a billionaire all supersede the lifetime trauma of a child? The punishments issued in all of these cases are a mere piddling compared to what the children have suffered.
Have we become that desensitized to the power of money?
Because if we have, it's not a slippery slope we are descending. We have already struck rock bottom.
This is the week that was in the National Fucked (up) League:
The Washington Redskins, the organization with the racist team name, were the only team to pick up one Reuben Foster, who had been released last week by the 49ers (about a year too late, truthfully) who has now been accused of domestic violence twice (in fairness, the first charges were dropped, though there's something not quite kosher about the dropping of the accusation).
And then, after having a second quarterback lost for the season due to injury, the Redskins declined to sign noted national anthem protester Colin Kaepernick as a backup because he doesn't fit into their system (which seems to be the go to answer for not signing Kaepernick among all teams in the NFL--amazing he guided a team to the Super Bowl considering how ill suited he is to NFL offensive systems, isn't it?).
So this is the message the NFL is sending to our kids: Beat a woman and you can have a job, but if you exercise your constitutionally protected right to free speech by taking a knee during the national anthem to protest racial inequality, you cannot be employed in the NFL.
This is George H.W. Bush's legacy: racism, a continuation of the republican war on the working class and the poor and giveaways to the wealthy and corporations, war crimes, obstruction of justice, and sexual harassment. He also set the stage for his son's Presidency, which, amazingly, was much worse than his. Just because he wasn't as much of a repulsive cretin as Donald Trump does not mean he was not an asshole, too.
And while we Liberals had to suffer this week yet again as a former President's ugly and utterly mediocre legacy is whitewashed after his death (see also, Ford, Gerald, and especially Reagan, Ronald), I couldn't help but wonder who was more pissed off--us, or Donald Trump's base, having to watch a man they most assuredly consider a sniveling wimp (like the rest of the Bush family) be glorified while so many continue to call out their hero for being an unqualified, boorish, and grotesque twit.
There is much (rightful) consternation now about republican legislatures in my home state of Michigan and in Wisconsin taking away powers from the incoming Democratic leaders who so soundly trounced republican candidates on November 6th. What they are literally doing is undermining democracy and as such, the will of us, the voters.
Keep two points in mind: First, virtually all of these attempts to usurp power will be met with lawsuits, and courts thus far have not shown a propensity to overturning the will of the voters (at least when it comes to elections...our paychecks are another matter). However, this does highlight the importance of State Supreme Court elections--both states currently have a republican majority on their state Supreme Courts and as we've seen over the past few years, when republicans can't win on merit, they're more than happy to cheat. We cannot trust republican judges to do the right thing; therefore we need to make sure we elect Democratic state justices.
Second (and I've noted this before), you can only undermine the will of the people for so long before it gets ugly--there aren't enough republican congresspeople or members of the Chamber of Commerce to stop the barreling train that is the will of a state's (or a nation's) voters.
Republicans may win in the short term, but their victory will most assuredly be Pyrrhic.
In lieu of General Motors having record profits and yet still closing plants and laying off up to 14,000 people, a Fox Business News pundit this past week wondered just how long it would be before Americans woke up to capitalist bullshit and elected not just a Democratic Socialist to the Presidency, but a gee, by golly actual Socialist.
My guess is not too long--especially after all the folks who voted for Trump thinking he'd bring the good manufacturing jobs back realize he's not bringing the good manufacturing jobs back and is only there to further enrich himself and America's wealthy elite.
And considering that Fox has been has been championing the republican agenda of subsidizing the wealthy with our tax dollars since Jesus was a cub scout, I'm going to thoroughly enjoy that bit of schadenfreude.
Outside of themselves, their family members, a handful of Scots, and myself, I'm not sure too many folks remember this week's tune. I first heard it when MTV was still in its infancy (and still playing music full time) in 1983, and it's one of those gems that make me miss MTV as it once was, when one could find a small gem that otherwise would be lost amidst the thousands of songs released each year.
The Bluebells originated in Scotland in 1981 (and until I did my half-assed research this week I had no idea they were Scottish--always thought they were an American band) and stayed together until 1986. In that time they released an EP and one full length album, and had a modicum of commercial success in their native UK (though none here in the States). Their debut LP hit #22 on the UK charts, and they had five singles hit the top 100 in the UK. Their biggest hit was "Young at Heart" which hit #8 in 1984, and thanks to a Volkswagen commercial, became an even bigger hit in 1993, hitting #1 and staying there for four weeks. The band has reunited a time or two--1993 thanks to Volkswagen, and briefly in 2008-2009 and 2011. Most of its members have stayed in the music business in one form or another, though one does make a living now writing about golf. I've always thought they were like the Ramones, if the Ramones had been a pop band instead of a punk band, but this could also be because one of their members (watch the video below) bears a passing resemblance to Joey
Ramone....
"Cath" was originally released in 1983 on their debut EP entitled, appropriately enough, The Bluebells,and was also included on their debut LP, Sisters, in 1984. It was also released twice as a single, reaching #62 (with a bullet!) on the UK charts in 1983, and #38 (most assuredly with a bullet!) on the same charts in 1984.
Fun Fact: Though the Bluebells only released one EP and one LP (though they did have a Japan only release, as well), they still managed to release a greatest hits package in 1993. Oh, the wonders of a hit single....
If the gods of music got together and said to themselves, "What we really need to do is create a pop single that emaycee really loves..." (as if) they would have been hard pressed to make one that has more of my faves than "Cath." From the ever present harmonica, to the catchy chorus, to the "woa, woa"s, to the crescendo ending, to the guitar leading into the crescendo (shamelessly stolen from Rod Stewart's "Maggie May"), this one pretty much nails it. It's a pop fan's pop tune, a one off single that shows the glory of the pop single. It's the kind of song that I started Friday Night Jukebox for--I am music fan, hear me roar, this one you cannot ignore...and it's fine addition to the genre that is known as Scottish pop.
\ Lyric Sheet: "I'm shaking with fright/And nothing's going right/You've spoilt my day for the rest of the night..."
The average American gets paid just enough so he doesn't quit his job, and works just hard enough so he doesn't get fired.
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross." Source unknown
Uncle emaycee Wants You For the Coming Class War! Enlist today....
Capitalism: Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you can exploit his labor, become filthy rich, and keep the poor bastard living paycheck to paycheck for the rest of his life.
