Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. DXCIX--Melanie: What Have They Done to My Song Ma

 Must have been a dream, I don't believe where I've been, come on...I'm (eleven days--gadzooks!) late again....

My introduction to this week's tune is a bit convoluted--I remembered the popular version by the New Seekers (released as "Look What They've Done to My Song, Ma") from 1970, but upon this week's artist's passing I was reading her obituary and discovered that she'd actually written it and recorded it first (under the title "What Have They Done to My Song Ma").  I gave her version a listen and just immediately fell in love with it.  Nothing against the charting rendition, though.  It's a lovely piece of seventies pop....

Melanie (professionally, Melanie Safka by birth, Melanie Safka-Schekeryk by marriage) was born in New York City in 1947 and began performing at coffeehouses throughout the city after she graduated from high school.  She was signed to Columbia records in 1969, had a hit in the Netherlands (so many cools Dutch kids!), before having a career altering performance at Woodstock (one of only three solo women artists to perform there).  Her first hit in America was inspired by the audience at Woodstock and rose to #6.  She had a humongous hit with "Brand New Key" in 1971 (my father was a big fan of the song) and parlayed her early successes into a career that spanned over fifty years. Over the years she performed at numerous music festivals, won an Emmy for writing the theme song to the TV series Beauty and the Beast, and wrote the music and lyrics for a theatrical musical about Annie Oakley.  For her career, Melanie released twenty-eight studio albums (with two charting in the top twenty), thirteen live albums, fourteen compilations, and fifty-nine singles (with a number one and a number six hit).  Sadly, Melanie passed away in 2024 from an undisclosed illness.

Fun Fact:  Melanie attended Red Bank High School in, of all places, Red Bank, New Jersey.  She was not allowed to attend her graduation ceremony because of an overdue library book.  However, in 2014 she was inducted into the school's Hall of Fame.  Kind of bullshit, but it's proof that fame opens a lot of fucking doors....

"What Have They Done to My Song Ma" was released as the B-side of "Ruby Tuesday" (a cover of the Stones song) on Melanie's 1970 album, the rather illuminating wetly entitled Candles in the Rain.  The single reached #39 in the U.K., #6 in Norway (so many cool Norwegian kids!), and #14 in Belgium (so many cool kids in the Wallonia region!).  The album reached #17.  For posterity, the New Seekers version hit #14 (with a bullet!).

There is so much to love about this song, beginning with the song's theme, which is that no matter how beautiful you try to make something the powers that be (read Corporate America) are going to do everything in their power to fuck it up.  Secondly, and the reason I chose Melanie's version, is just the rawness of her performance, with her raspy vocals capturing all of the disappointment of having your dreams crushed.  Thirdly, the music is oddly reminiscent of circus music, which may or may not be a nod to the often-surreal nature of life.  Finally, about halfway through the song, Melanie starts singing in French (a nod to existentialism?)!  How fucking cool is that?  As the week has progressed (well, eleven days actually), it has amazed me how with every listen the song gets better and better to me.  Just a wonderful slice of rock and roll at a critical juncture not only for the world at large, but for art itself as well.

Lyric Sheet:  "Well they tied it up in a plastic bag/And turned it upside down ma/Look what they done to my song..."

Enjoy:

Fuck Donald Trump

Peace,

emaycee

Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. DXCVII--Tim Curry: Working on My Tan

[Blogger's Note:  Hold your horses--while it is Friday, I'm late as noted below.  You'll still have to wait for my once-a-year music post that's actually on the correct Friday....]

Kumbaya, my Lord, kumbaya, Kumbaya, my Lord, kumbaya, Kumbaya, my Lord, kumbaya, Oh, Lord...I'm (seven days) late again....

My introduction to this week's tune came, for the umpteenth time, via my time at Camelot Music.  'Twas very early in my career--first year in fact--and my guess as to why a relatively neophyte musical performer would be given such prominence in our in-store play would most assuredly be his career making role as Dr. Frank-In-Furter in first the play, then the movie, The Rocky Horror Picture Show.  If memory serves (though often it doesn't), the album--though decidedly not a hit--was very popular with our team....

Tim Curry was born in Cheshire, England in 1946, and contrary to just about every artist featured here on Friday Night Jukebox has had the vast majority of his success as an actor.  Curry's big break came in 1968 with a role in the London cast of the musical Hair, and then in 1973, again in the London cast, with the role noted above.  Since then, he has had a steady supply of acting work, mostly in supporting roles, in a wide variety of plays, movies, and television shows.  Curry has been nominated for three Tony Awards, two Emmys (winning a Daytime Emmy), and a Grammy Award (for spoken word).  Surprisingly to me, Curry's music career was rather short-lived.  He released three studio albums between 1978 and 1981, and in the late eighties a greatest hits package.  A previously unreleased album from 1976 debuted in 2010. His last two studio albums did hit the charts, and his second album yielded a top 100 single.  Curry has also penned a memoir.  Sadly, he suffered a major stroke in 2012 and has been confined to a wheelchair ever since.

Fun Fact:  The movie version of The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1976) is still in limited release as of this year and is the longest running theatrical release in movie history (for those who suck at math, fifty years).

"Working on My Tan" was the first single from his final studio album in 1981, the rather sincerely entitled, Simplicity.  The single did not chart, while the album peaked at #112. Also, the album was the only one of his three to chart in Canada, hitting #45 (so many cool kids in the Great White North!).

Sometimes a song doesn't have to be earth shattering and can just be fun, and "Working on My Tan" is one such song.  It's right up my alley--catchy stanzas, catchy chorus, and a lovely theme of living the chill life in the sunshine.  The music is reggae inflected, and Curry sings it with a respectful Jamaican accent.  The lyrics make generous use of simply rhyming patterns (always enjoyable when singing along), and the "oh man" in the chorus is just to die for.  An ode to the sun that is simply divine.

Lyric Sheet:  "Hunt yourself an island/Hitch down to the beach/The sun belong to everyone/In everybody's reach..."

Enjoy:

Fuck Donald Trump

Peace,

emaycee

The stars align

President Obama won an Emmy tonight. Trump got booed at the US Open. I love it when the stars align 🌟 Thank you for your attention to this matter 😜

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— 🍁🇨🇦Team Canada Forever🇨🇦🍁 (@teamcanadaforever.bsky.social) September 8, 2025 at 1:31 AM

Fuck Donald Trump

Peace,

emaycee

 

Friday Night Jukebox Vol. CDXII--Adele: Someone like You

Several years back I was helping restock a thrift store that had been damaged by smoke from a fire at a restaurant next door in anticipation of its grand reopening.  Over the course of several days, I kept hearing this week's tune again and again going from initially "What is this shlock?" to "Holy shit, this is incredible!"  When I finally remembered to look it up online, I played the song and asked my wife if she'd ever heard it, and she was like "Duh, it's Adele, one of the biggest stars going these days."  D'oh! So much for my new music cred....

Adele Laurie Blue Adkins was born in 1988 in London and began singing at the age of four.  After graduating from an art school at 18, she began making money from music immediately.  At the ripe old age of twenty she released her first album, and by the time she was twenty-one she was an international superstar.  I could literally fill several paragraphs with all her accomplishments, but just to highlight:  she has sold over 120 million records, won 15 Grammys, 12 Brit Awards, an Oscar, and an Emmy.  Ten million people tried to buy tickets for her 2016 World Tour, of which only 750,000 seats were available.  For her career, Adele has released four albums, with all four hitting #1 in her native U.K., and three reaching number one in the U.S.  She has had a #1 album in 36 different countries.  She's also released 18 singles with three number ones in the U.K. and five in America.  And she probably has a good forty years of touring and recording to go....

Fun Fact:  Adele is the only artist to have an album (21) be at #1 on the Billboard 200 while also having three singles hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 as the LP rested atop the album chart.  The album also had the longest reign of an album by a female artist at 24 weeks.

"Someone like You" was the second single from Adele's diamond certified (sales of over ten million) LP 21.  Amazingly enough, both the single and the album hit #1 in the United Kingdom and the United States, as well as more countries than I have the time to list.

A piano, some of the best vocals you'll ever hear in your life (not an exaggeration), and lyrics and music that easily cracks the top ten (if not top five) of all-time great "My Life Will Go On But My Heart Is Going To Be Shattered For A Good While" songs.  It still puts a lump in my throat every time I hear it. And all that's left to say is this:  Just listen to it--by the end, you'll understand.

Lyric Sheet:  "Nothing compares, no worries or cares/Regrets and mistakes, they're memories made/Who would have known how bittersweet this would taste?"

Enjoy:

Republicans = Losers

Peace,

emaycee

Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. CCCXCVII--Barbra Streisand: The Way We Were

 When my father passed away, I inherited his record collection, and after I got them all (a few hundred LPs) to my apartment, I set about to play each and every one of them.  I never came close to listening to each one, but the few I did get to each seemed to have a tune or two (or three or four) that I came to love.  One of those songs was this week's featured tune, though I have to admit having liked it (and the movie from whence it came) before having listened to it in the wake of my father's death.  Still, knowing the song meant something to my father increased its stature, and that stature has not waned in the now twenty-seven years since he passed away.

Over the course of the last fifty some odd years, you'd be hard pressed to name too many entertainers who were as successful and as beloved as Barbra Streisand.  You'd also be hard pressed to summarize her staggeringly varied career (singer, songwriter, actress, music producer, director, movie producer) in a paragraph, too.  A short summary:  one of the few individuals to have a career EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony), she's been nominated for 43 Grammys and has won eight, she's been nominated for five Academy Awards and won twice (Best Actress, Best Original Song), starred in nineteen movies and directed three, and has sold over 150 million records.  For her musical career, Streisand has released 36 albums, nine of which have gone to #1 (she's also had a soundtrack and a compilation--which is the album my Dad had--hit the top spot), and 117 singles of which five peaked at the top of the chart.  Streisand is also well known for her politics (Democratic Party to her core), fighting for women's rights and LGBTQ rights, and her numerous philanthropic efforts.

Fun Fact:  Streisand attended Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn (she graduated at age 16), and among her classmates were future music star Neil Diamond and future World Chess Champion Bobby Fischer (whom Streisand admitted she had a crush on).  

"The Way We Were" was originally released as a single in conjunction with the movie of the same name, and its success lead to the quick release of the deftly titled LP, The Way We Were.  Both the single (with a bullet!) and the album hit the number one spot on the Billboard charts.  The single also went on to win the Academy Award for Best Song, as well as the Grammy for Song of the Year.  Based on a Google Search, near as I can tell it is the only song to ever complete such a trifecta, though "Lose Yourself" by Eminem hit #1, won an Oscar, and won a Grammy for Rap Song of the Year.

As my regular readers (both of you) know, emaycee is a big fan of female vocalists and "The Way We Were" has a heaping helping of an incredible female vocalist.  Frankly, at the beginning and ending of the song Streisand hums along with the melody and she probably could have done it for the entire three and a half minutes and it still would have been a great song.  Add in the fact that it chronicles the sad fate of two star crossed lovers, and you have a ballad beyond compare.  Just a stunning piece of music by a stunning talent--a hundred years from now it will still sound as fresh and passionate as it did upon its release in 1973....

Lyric Sheet:  "Can it be that it was all so simple then?/Has time re-written every line?/If we had the chance to do it all again/Tell me, would we? Could we?...

Enjoy:

Republican = Traitor

Peace,

emaycee

Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. CCCLXXXVI--Tracey Ullman: They Don't Know

 This week's featured artist went on to great success in television after her brief music career, and as I was doing my weekly half-assed research, I realized that outside of the video for this week's tune I have never seen her on any of her television shows or in any movie.  Though I have seen an episode or two (or a hundred) of the TV show that her first TV series gave life to:  none other than The Simpsons, which just recently completed its thirty-third season.

Tracey Ullman was born in Slough, England in 1959 and from an early age showed a talent for entertaining people.  She began her career performing in a number of musicals, before getting her break on a BBC soap opera.  She made her first album in 1983 and met with some success which eventually led to her first TV show, The Tracey Ullman Show, on Fox.  By then her music career was over, but she would go on to appear in two more highly acclaimed television series, a number of movies, many plays and musicals, and several guest appearances on other shows.  She has won seven Emmys, a Golden Globe, and a host of other awards that aren't on the casual fan's radar.  Her music career was relatively brief, as she only released two albums, which spawned eight singles, before turning her full attention to acting.  Ullman continues to perform on stage and screen, having appeared in two movies in 2020, and two television series in 2021.

"They Don't Know" was the second single released from Ullman's 1983 debut album, the humorously entitled You Broke My Heart in 17 Places.  The single would reach #2 in the U.K. and #8 (with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100.  The album peaked at #14 on the U.K. Albums Chart and #34 here in America.

Fun Fact:  "They Don't Know" was the second single Ullman recorded, and years later when asked if she'd do anything differently for her career, she responded that she would have quit making music after she recorded "They Don't Know."  Yes, it's that good.

As my regular readers (both of you) know, I have an extreme fondness for a) female vocalists, and b) good Top 40 pop and "They Don't Know" is a) sung by a female vocalist, and b) an exemplar of the best of what Top 40 pop has to offer.  Ullman channels 60's girl groups both vocally and musically and turns in one of the catchiest songs the 1980's had to offer.  Every time I listen to it, even almost forty years since the first time I heard it, it reminds me not only of why I've devoted so much of my life to pop music, but also why it's been worth every minute.  It's an absolute gem of a song.

Lyric Sheet:  "So I don't mind if they don't understand/When I look at you and you hold my hand/'Cause they don't know about us/And they've never heard of love..."

Enjoy (be sure to stick around for the cute cameo at the end):

Republican = Traitor

Peace,

emaycee

Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. CCLXXVIII--Keith Carradine: I'm Easy

In another Friday Night Jukebox first, this week's tune is the first to be featured that won an Academy Award for best song...even better, it's not one of those schmaltzy Disney numbers but is a nice slice of American pop right up there with other winners like Springsteen's "Philadelphia" or Eminem's "Lose Yourself."  In another first for FNJ, it also the first tune to win the Golden Globe for best original song.

The musical career of Keith Carradine was very short--he released two albums, one in 1976 capitalizing on his Oscar win, and a second just for shits and grins (kidding--I'm sure the success of the first led to another shot at even more music success).  Not that his original career-acting--didn't pan out--Carradine has appeared in 64 films and 71 television shows/movies.  He's been nominated for an Emmy Award and twice for Tony Awards.  He also comes from a family of actors--his father John, brothers David and Robert, and daughter Martha Plimpton have all had quite some success on both the big and small screens.  Not too bad for a kid who grew up in San Mateo, CA--just a stone's throw from where I grew up:  the metropolis of San Bruno.

"I'm Easy" was originally featured in Robert Altman's epic film Nashville, and after the film's success and song's Academy Award win, was rushed out on an album entitled, appropriately enough, I'm Easy.  The song would reach #17 (with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100, while the album would reach #61 on the album chart.  They were the only two charting records of Carradine's brief foray into music.

For me, the most impressive part of "I'm Easy" is that a virtual musical novice--Carradine--wrote the song.  Don't get me wrong--it's not "Backstreets" or "Night Moves," but it's still a thoughtful song with a catchy yet subtle arrangement.  If you've seen Nashville, you know that Carradine plays a womanizer and in the scene where he performs the song, several woman who he's had relations with are in the audience--each of whom, save one, believes the song is written for herself (I've always felt the song was actually written for the one woman who doesn't seem to either realize or care who the song is written for).  Carradine weaves a tale about a man who's in love with a woman and will easily follow her lead, but who can't seem to make about her mind about him.  The instrumentation is sparse--it's mostly a pair of acoustic guitars, with a nice strum and pluck playing off one another.  Carradine sings so that one feels the protagonist's longing, though his measured tones also conjure the easy nature of his desire for her.  The last few weeks the theme seems to be songs that added up to more than the sum of the artist's parts, and "I'm Easy" is another such song, a small moment of triumph for an actor turned momentary musician.

Lyric Sheet:   "And when your eyes throw light at mine/It's enough to change my mind/Make me leave my cautious words and ways behind..."

Enjoy:

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. CCXV--Randy Newman: Jolly Coppers on Parade

This week's tune is another in a much shorter list than I had originally hoped those many moons ago when I began Friday Night Jukebox--album tracks that all too often get overlooked when the Greatest Hits packages are released...but are just as worthy of a shout out as the big time Billboard chart hits.

While Randy Newman might not quite be a household name, a lot more people are familiar with his music than they realize.  Newman has made quite the career since the 1980's as a film composer, and his credits include some blockbusters:  all three Toy Story movies, the first and third Cars movies, and both Monsters (Inc. and University) movies, as well as some non-kids fare like The Natural, Seabiscuit, and Meet the Parents.  But Newman cut his chops as a pop songwriter (though his biggest hits were more novelty songs--"Short People" and "I Love L.A.") and had a critically acclaimed if not hugely commercially successful run through the seventies.  Throughout his career (not counting soundtracks) Newman has released 11 albums, won seven Grammy Awards, three Emmy Awards, and two Academy Awards (both for best song, though he's been nominated twenty times, mostly for film scores).  Newman has also been inducted into the Songwriting Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  And in a personal aside, Norah Jones' cover of Newman's "I Think It's Going to Rain Today" would easily make my top five cover versions of all-time.  My reflections aside, though, Newman has had a hell of a career.

Fun Fact:  Newman's "Sigmund Freud's Impersonation of Albert Einstein in America" (Newman's songwriting is nothing if not quirky) contains the lines "America, America/Step out into the light/You're the best dream man has ever dreamed"...which observant readers (both of you) will note emaycee has borrowed a time or two (or three) in various incarnations for regular blog posts over the years...

"Jolly Coppers on Parade" was released in 1977 on Newman's Little Criminals LP.  While "Jolly Coppers on Parade" was not released as a single (though it should have been), Little Criminals was the highest charting album of Newman's career, reaching #9 (with a bullet!) on the Billboard 200.  And in another personal aside that's worth about two cents (if that), Little Criminals would easily be one of my ten favorite albums from the 70's--it's a stellar piece of work.

"Jolly Coppers on Parade" tells the tale of a young boy watching police officers march down the street as part of a parade--and while it's from a different time in America's history (when the media wasn't quite as quick to show black Americans being gunned down in the street or twelve-year-olds carrying fishing rods shot forty-two times by their local police force), Newman does an exceptional job of capturing the boy's fascination as the men in blue strut down the street.  No one is ever going to confuse Randy Newman's vocals with Rod Stewart, but he does a nice job of capturing the boy's
exhilaration.  There's some nice guitar from Waddy Wachtel (one of the great names in rock and roll history) and a smooth rhythm section, but the it's Newman's piano which gives the song a majesty and infuses it with a young boy's joy at watching the scene unfold before him.  As I noted in the intro, it won't make Newman's greatest hits LP, but it's a great album track from a great album.

Lyric Sheet:  "Oh, Mama/That's the life for me/When I'm grown/That's what I want to be..."

Enjoy:

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee