Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. CXXXVII--Marshall Crenshaw: Someday, Someway

We'll spend another week in pop heaven as FNJ features a song by an artist who hails from my adopted home--and one who offers proof that Michigan has produced many a talented musician, and not just twits like Kid Rock and Ted Nugent.

I recently read someone who said that if we lived in a just world, Marshall Crenshaw would rule the airwaves and I nodded in agreement.  After spending his formative years here in the suburbs of Detroit, Crenshaw began his career as an understudy playing John Lennon in Beatlemania.  After eventually taking over the role and touring the country, Crenshaw left the troupe and formed a band in New York City and began his solo career in earnest.  In 1982 Crenshaw released his debut album and first single to critical acclaim--both would go on to be the most commercially successful of his career, though they were moderate sellers at best.  Crenshaw has gone on to release nine more albums, six EPs, wrote a book about rock and roll in the movies, and still plays 40-50 shows a year, most within driving distance of his home.  He's known for playing a mean guitar, too.

Every now and again you'll hear a song for the first time and think "Holy shit, what was that?" Invariably, it's a song you'll love for the rest of your life--and such was the case with "Someday, Someway" for me.  Released as the initial single from his very aptly titled first album, Marshall Crenshaw, it garnered enough airplay and sales to reach #36 (with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100.  Opening with what a friend of mine called jangly guitars (if there was anything the 80's was good at, it was jangly guitars), Crenshaw forays into a power pop plea to the love of his life to tell him what's making her so sad--alas she won't and Creshaw is left to hope that someday, someway he'll understand and be able to return the love she has given to him.  Throughout, "Someday, Someway" swings and sways, a little rockabilly, and is given a pop sheen through Crenshaw's sincere vocals, power drumming (provided by Crenshaw's brother Robert), and a melody that I'm sure Jesus Christ himself would be humming for days if he'd ever heard it.  It's primal pop for people who worship at the altar of rock and roll....

Fun Fact:  Crenshaw was often compared (favorably) to Buddy Holly early in his career, and eventually would play Holly in the movie La Bamba.  Cool!

Lyric Sheet:  "Now after all you've done for me/All I really want to do/Is take the love you brought my way/And give it all right back to you...."

Enjoy:

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. XCVI--Buddy Holly: Oh Boy

Pop quiz:  What do the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Bruce Springsteen, Elton John, and the Grateful Dead all share in common (other than being superstar rock and roll performers, of course)?

They all cite Buddy Holly as a major influence on their careers.

As is sometimes the case here on Friday Night Jukebox, there are some performers who transcend my mini biographies, and Buddy Holly is one such artist.  Suffice it to say that the pride of Lubbock, Texas may have been the first rock and roll artists to write, perform, and produce his own material, as well as paving the way for the two guitars, bass, and drums band arrangement that has defined thousands of bands since rock and roll's inception,  Holly was in the first class inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and was listed at #13 on Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Artists.  And perhaps most amazing is that Holly accomplished this in a little more than three years before the plane crash that took his life all too soon at the age of 23 (and immortalized in Don McLean's "American Pie").

Released in 1957 (yup, older than even me) on his The "Chirping" Crickets LP, "Oh Boy" would go on to reach #10 (most assuredly with a bullet!) on The Billboard Hot 100.  The flip side of the 45 was "Not Fade Away" which makes it one of the greatest, if not the greatest, two-sides of a single in the history of rock and roll.

Oddly enough, I might not have become all that familiar with "Oh Boy" had it not been for my two oldest children's adoration of the Ritchie Valens biopic La Bamba.  There's a scene in the movie where Valens and his brother play it at a concert (actually done by Los Lobos) and it's hard not to fall right in love with the song after seeing it.  While the Los Lobos version is a raucous and loving tribute, it's not the original.  Holly busts out maybe his most vibrant vocals in this paean to the joys of spending time with your baby.  The guitars have that jangly sound that has been copied by too many bands to count since, and the drums thump, thump, thumps their way through the song in such a way as to make it all but impossible not to shake your body at least a little while it's playing.  And all of this in two minutes, five seconds.  In simplicity is beauty, he said to no one in particular...

And did I mention the cherry on the top of the Crickets echoing Holly every time he sings the words "Oh Boy"?

Lyric sheet:  "All of my life, I've been waitin'/Tonight there'll be no hesitatin', oh boy (Oh Boy!)..."

Enjoy:

Peace,
emaycee