Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. CDLXXXIII--Rebekah: Sin So Well

Oh, goodie, only six days late....

Sometime during the pandemic, I started going through all of my old mix tapes to see which songs I'd once liked that I didn't have on CD so I could download them from Spotify.  It was kind of surprising that there were a number (not a lot, but a few) of songs that I just could not remember.  I began searching music sites for them, and, to a song, they all ended up being songs that a) came back to me and b) I realized there was a good reason I'd put them on one of my mix tapes.  This week's tune was one such song--I originally discovered it via a compilation that Hits magazine put out called Hits Post Modern Syndrome:  Closing Time, one of a collection the magazine released numerous issues of....

At one point while doing my half-assed weekly research, I thought this was going to be the first Friday Night Jukebox post where I had absolutely no information about the week's artist.  But, after numerous searches, I finally found Rebekah also goes by Rebecca Johnson and Rebecca Jordan and was able to find a Wikipedia entry.  While Rebekah, originally from Cleveland, hasn't had much in the way of commercial success, she's done enough to keep playing music for the past twenty-six years which beats hell out of bagging groceries for a living.  She's released five studio albums, appeared in four movies (including the Best Picture nominee, As Good as It Gets), and probably most importantly from a financial standpoint, co-wrote the song "Beautiful Disaster" for Kelly Clarkson.  All in all, a career that many a failed musician would love to have had.

"Sin So Well" was the first single released from Rebekah's debut album, the well-advised title, Remember to Breathe.  The single hit #80 (with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100, while the album, near as I can tell, did not chart.  It should be noted, though, that in the above link AllMusic gave the album one hell of a review.

Regular readers (all three of you) will recall that emaycee has quite the fondness for pop songs sung by female vocalists...and "Sin So Well" checks both boxes.  Rebekah has a smooth voice that reaches right down into her soul, and her vocals capture the sin in the song...so well.  It's got a catchy chorus, some nice guitar and bass work, and a risqué lyric or two for those who like the occasional double entendre.  Just a marvelous pop single.

Lyric Sheet:  "Mama doesn't like when I sin so well/Heaven's kinda far/But I swear that when I'm coming it's close..."

Enjoy:

Republicans = Nazis

Peace,

emaycee

Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. CDLIX--Raspberries: Go All the Way

 A week late and a dollar short...or something like that....

For whatever reason, when I do my weekly half-assed research, I always do my readings on the performing artist, the album, and the song itself before I listen to it with the lyric sheet (the last one is usually repeated several times before I write the post).  However, this week I listened to the song first (mostly because it had been a while since I heard it) and was only about halfway through it when I realized (better late than never), "Jesus, this song is on a whole nother level."  And somewhat to my surprise, my half-assed research found that many others have had that very same thought....

Raspberries formed in 1970 in one of rock and roll's truly great cities, Cleveland (Cleveland rocks!).  While the band had a relatively short career disbanding in 1975, they are considered one of the pioneers of Power pop.  Their frontman, Eric Carmen, would go on to have quite a solo career, registering three top five singles, and writing hits for several other artists.  For their career, Raspberries released four studio albums (with two hitting the top 100 albums) and ten singles (three of which reached the top twenty).  They had a quasi-reunion in 1999-2000 (without Eric Carmen), and the original four members reunited in 2004-2005 for a very successful and critically acclaimed tour.

"Go All the Way" was the second single released from their debut album, the rather adventurously entitled Raspberries.  The single was the biggest of their career, reaching #5 (with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100 and eventually selling over a million copies.  The album peaked at #51 on the Billboard 200. 

Fun Fact:  When Carmen wrote this week's featured tune, he hoped that by making the female the aggressor in the sexually provocative song it would help with the censors.  While the song had few problems in America (though whether Carmen's hopes were realized is debatable), the BBC in the U.K. was having none of it and banned the song from its airwaves.

One can literally listen to the first forty-five seconds of "Go All the Way" and realize that one is hearing a song on "a whole nother level."  It opens with a rollicking guitar solo before segueing into a lush melody and Carmen's silky-smooth vocals.  The chorus is as sweet as the nectar of the Gods (good things, too, as it makes up most of the song--the stanzas are remarkably short).  I would be remiss if I didn't mention the "Come ons" in the bridge --when you hear it you'll know what I mean.  If ever there was a song that is the very essence of Power pop, "Go All the Way" is it.  A truly stunning accomplishment.

Lyric Sheet:  "Please go all the way/Just hold me close/Don't ever let me go..."

Enjoy:

Republicans = Nazis

Peace,

emaycee

Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. CCCXCVIII--Tracy Chapman: Talkin' 'bout a Revolution

 For a fan of folk music such as myself, this week's featured artist's initial album--which seemed to come out of nowhere--was a breath of fresh air.  While the genre itself had had its heyday (if you can call it that) in the late fifties and early sixties, it was nice to see an artist that believed (and she still does) in the power of the acoustic guitar and songs that focused on social issues in, of all things, the midst of the Greed Is Good decade.  And though I haven't followed her career quite as closely as I would have liked, from my half-assed weekly research I have found that she is still fighting the good fight....

Tracy Chapman was born in the cradle of rock and roll, Cleveland, Ohio, in 1964, and by the age of eight was playing guitar and writing songs.  Discovered by the son of a publishing executive while playing a gig when she attended Tufts University, Chapman made it perfectly clear to the music industry that she was going to make music on her own terms, and she has stuck to her guns.  At 24 she released her first album, and it went on to sell over six million copies.  Chapman has had two more albums that went platinum and has won four Grammys.  For her career, she has released eight studio albums (with three hitting the top five on the LP charts), and 22 singles (with two top ten songs).  Chapman is well known for her social activism and has done charity work and/or helped to raise awareness for AIDS, poverty, and human rights, among others.

"Talkin' 'bout a Revolution" was released in 1988 as the second single from her fittingly entitled debut LP, Tracy Chapman.  The single hit #75 (with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100, while the album went on to become her only #1 on the Billboard 200 (which is one more than 99% of us have).

At a time when the Reagan Devolution had gutted the poor and the middle class, when greed and material excess were beginning the trajectory that lead us to today's record levels of income inequality, "Talkin' 'bout a Revolution" was a rousing shot of hope.  Yes, it was a bit on the rose-colored side (think we're still waiting for poor people to get their share), but it was--and still is--a call to arms that we can never stop pursuing.  Chapman's throaty vocals over its electrifying melody gives the song an anthemic quality that roars defiance in spite of the odds.  Throw in the whisper in the lyric "Sounds like a whisper" and Chapman referencing the Salvation Army as "Those armies of salvation" and you have not one but two of those moments that always make a song just a little bit more special.  In the end, it's everything the most hopeful of protest songs could ever be....

Lyric Sheet:  "Poor people gonna rise up/And get their share/Poor people gonna rise up/And take what's theirs..."

Enjoy:

Republican = Traitor

Peace,

emaycee

Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. CCXCIX--Pere Ubu: Final Solution

Another week, another song featured because I first heard it on No Thanks! The 70's Punk Rebellion.  I'm sure I've mentioned it a time or two (or ten) before, but I cannot stress enough how essential this album is--if you like your music with an alternative bent you've got to give it a listen or two (or ten)...

Unfortunately, every now and again here on Friday Night Jukebox I feature a band whose Wikipedia history is, shall we say, not all that entertaining.  I'll take nothing away from Pere Ubu, though--they formed in 1975 in Cleveland, Ohio and lasted until 1982, at which time they took a five year hiatus before reforming in 1987 and they are still performing and touring to this day.  And that's all without ever having a single or an album that so much as sniffed commercial success, let alone hitting any of the charts.  Lead singer and keyboardist David Thomas is the only member to have lasted from beginning to end, though many others in the band (I counted 29 current and former members) have come and gone a few times.  For their career, Pere Ubu has released 18 studio albums (the latest in 1979), 8 live albums, 3 compilations, and six (!) box sets.  They've also released 19 singles and EPs.  The band has collaborated with other artists and has had more side projects than I cared to count.  Any way you slice it, the band has managed to make a living playing music for just about thirty years and that's a whole hell of a lot more entertaining than any job I've had.

"Final Solution" was released as a stand alone single in 1976, and was added to their 1985 compilation Terminal Tower.  As noted above, neither single nor album came anywhere near the Billboard charts (though the single should have, goddamnit).

Though its title suggests it, "Final Solution" has nothing to do with the Jewish holocaust perpetrated by Nazi Germany during World War II--and instead is more of a reflection on teenage (or young adult) angst.  What stands out most for me is how far ahead of its time this song was--it was recorded in 1975 and you have to remember that at that time The Clash, The Ramones, the Sex Pistols, or even the New York Dolls were all little more than blips (if that) on the music scene.  The lyrics could have been written by any of the aforementioned bands (or frankly any punk band of the 70's) yet was written a couple years before punk exploded.  The music is...well, let's just say the drums are a punch in the gut, the bass is an angry thump of contempt, and the guitars are a back of the hand to the face.  Thomas' vocals are a bleak howl caught between a laugh and a kick in the ass.  And the kicker?  Turns out the "final solution" is...wait for it...rock and roll.  How the hell can you beat that?  An incredible song from an incredible era.

Lyric Sheet:  "Buy me a ticket to a sonic reduction/Guitars gonna sound like a nuclear destruction/It seems like I'm a victim of natural selection/Or maybe just another slide in another direction..."

Enjoy:

210,000+ Dead Americans

Fuck Donald Trump,

emaycee

Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. CCLXXX--Filter: Hey Man Nice Shot

Spoiler alert:  the subject of this song is not going to make for one of the happier Friday Night Jukebox posts....

Filter has had a much longer and more successful career than I ever would have guessed before doing my weekly half-assed research.  They formed in 1993 in Cleveland when Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails fame advised his then guitarist, Richard Patrick, to work on another project as Reznor was going to be taking quite some time completing his latest album, and Patrick wisely listened.  Little known facts would include that Patrick did a stint in rehab (which isn't all that surprising in the annals of pop music), and the fact that his brother is the actor Robert Patrick, known for playing the most current model of cyborg in the movie Terminator 2.  Over the course of the last 27 years, Filter has gone through numerous incarnations with Patrick being the sole constant and has released 7 studio albums, two of which went platinum.  Their single "Take a Picture" reached #12 on the Billboard Hot 100.  Filter is still performing and released their latest album just this year.

Completely Not Fun Fact:  The subject of "Hey Man Nice Shot" is R. Budd Dwyer, a State Treasurer in Pennsylvania who was convicted on 11 counts, most of which were fraud related, and then scheduled a press conference shortly before he was to be sentenced at which he committed suicide by shooting himself in the head on live TV.  Some have tried to falsely claim that Dwyer was eventually exonerated, but there is absolutely no truth to this claim and it is speculated that Dwyer committed suicide so his family could still collect the death benefits he was due after a career in Pennsylvania politics (once sentenced his benefits would have been stripped away).

"Hey Man Nice Shot" was released as a single in 1995, from Filter's debut album Short Bus (for those wondering, short bus is slang for the smaller buses schools use to transport children with disabilities).  The single would reach #76 (with a bullet!--no pun intended) on the Billboard Hot 100.  Due to its proximity to the suicide of Kurt Cobain, many have claimed that the song was about Cobain, but as noted above it was not and Patrick has been adamant that the song was written years before Cobain's death.

Somewhere along the line in all of my schooling I was taught that we don't have to necessarily either agree or believe in the artist's statement to acknowledge their work as great art.  I've thought a lot about this week's song and read the lyrics numerous times and still I confess that I'm not really sure what Patrick was trying to convey with "Hey Man Nice Shot."  He's said that the song could be seen as callous, but in no way was he trying to glorify suicide.  As for myself, it seems a bit callous to call out Patrick's vocals or the incredible bass line that runs through it in order to justify its inclusion in Friday Night Jukebox--maybe in the end the best I can do is to put it out there for folks to listen to and make their own peace with its subject matter.  Perhaps sometimes art is more than what the heart and head can comfortably comprehend.  And perhaps sometimes, as I've come to believe this week, art is just a picture of a moment in time that we must bear witness to.

Lyric Sheet:  "I wish I would've met you/Now it's a little late/What you could've taught me/I could've saved some face...."

Enjoy:

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

U-N-I-T-Y

I saw about thirty seconds of the Republican National Convention tonight (because that's about all I can stomach), and in that thirty seconds, Ron Johnson, republican Senator from Wisconsin who's going to get his clock cleaned this November by Russ Feingold, said that after Donald Trump was elected President the republican party would unify Americans once again.

Because, you know, nothing says unity more than building a wall to keep Latinos out, banning Muslims from entering the country, selecting a VP candidate known for his anti-women and anti-LGBT viewpoints, and having an arena full of dimwits screaming to have the opposition party's candidate locked up for imaginary crimes.

You cannot make this shit up.

Peace,
emaycee

Watching the detectives

After the recent murders of police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge, Steve Loomis, the President of the Cleveland Police Patrolman's Association proclaimed that President Obama was to blame (why--because he's black?) and wondered how police officers had become the bad guys.

I think I can answer that.

It's because prosecutors across America have decided that police officers can murder American citizens with impunity.

See how easy that was?

Peace,
emaycee

#Pathetic

“Tamir Rice should have been shot and I am glad he is dead,” wrote Jamie Marquardt, a supervisor for Cleveland’s Emergency Medical Service, according to Cleveland’s Fox 8 TV station. “I am upset I did not get the chance to kill the little criminal.”

Leaving aside the fact that you have to be incredibly stupid in this day and age to post such a horrid thought on Facebook (Mr. Marquardt was deservedly fired for his actions), how pathetic must your life be to wish that you had killed a twelve-year-old child for the crime of carrying a toy gun.

Were Dante alive today, his Inferno would have to have a special circle in Hell added for the likes of Mr. Marquardt.

Peace,
emaycee