Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. CXXXIII--The Cars: My Best Friend's Girl

Hard as it may be to believe nearly forty years down the road, but when the Cars released their first album in 1978 they were right up there with a slew of bands from the mid to late 70's such as Elvis Costello, The Clash, The Sex Pistols, The Ramones, The Police, Talking Heads, and Dire Straits as far as bands that all the cool kids (or music dorks) were listening to and music critics were fawning over.  Alas, unlike the the other performers who shared their time frame (with the exception of Dire Straits who pretty much followed a similar career path as the Cars), the Cars stopped pushing the envelope musically after their first LP and headed straight into massive mainstream success and rested upon the laurels of their debut album.

But, oh, what laurels to rest upon....

Formed circa 1976 in Boston Massachusetts, the Cars exploded onto the music scene in 1978 on the heels of their aptly entitled debut, The Cars, which would go on to sell six million copies and remain on the Billboard 200 for 139 weeks (and rank at #284 on Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Albums of All Time" list),  Over the course of the next ten years the Cars would release five more albums, garner a couple of Grammy nominations, win the first ever Video of the Year at the MTV Video Music Awards in 1984 (Zzzzz....), sell millions more records, and call it quits in 1988.   Twenty-two years later they reformed and released the obligatory reunion album replete with the obligatory reunion tour (sadly, co-founder--along with Ric Ocasek--Benjamin Orr had passed away in 2000 from pancreatic cancer), and they remain together to the present day, still touring and still hoping for that call from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame that so many of their contemporaries noted above (except Dire Straits) have already received.

Fun (and slightly sad) Fact:  Nirvana performed a cover version of "My Best Friend's Girl" at their final concert in 1994.

Opening with a funkily tuned guitar that until I did my weekly half-assed research I had always assumed was a bass guitar line, and mixing in some hand claps shortly thereafter, "My Best Friend's Girl" can best be described as quirky fun--without being a novelty song.  The rather strange subject matter (a man salaciously describing his best friend's girlfriend...who it just so happens, used to be his girlfriend), Ric Ocasek's matter of fact vocals, and, of all things, some rockabilly guitar licks surrounded by synth pop technology made for a song (as with others on their debut album) that wasn't quite like anything I'd ever heard before in 1978, and made for months of delicious fun singing along with the band's backing vocalists as they harmonized "my best friend's girlfriend" again and again in support of Ocasek's oddball lyrics and lovestruck vocals.  Alas, the song would only reach #35 (with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100, but would go to #3 in the U.K. (why are there so many cool kids in the British Isles?).  Still, it's a delightful blast from my past, and has not diminished in my eyes one iota in the last forty years, and is just as joyous and catchy as the first time I heard it.

Lyric Sheet:  "You're always dancing down the street/With your suede blue eyes..."

Enjoy:

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

Meet the new boss...

Not the same as the current boss...

You know, there's some delicious irony in the fact that 72 years after America led the way in defeating a psychopathic German despot and hence the President of the United States became the de facto leader of the free world, that a German Chancellor has become the de facto leader of the free world as she tries to help save us all from a psychopathic American President.

And for the umpteenth time in the history of humankind, truth proves stranger than fiction.

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. CXXXII--R.E.M.: Imitation of Life

Trying to pick my favorite R.E.M. song was a bit like trying to pick my favorite dessert--far too many sweet, sweet choices.  In the end, I chose "Imitation of Life" because of how much it surprised me.  R.E.M. had pretty much reached the point of still being a very serviceable band, just not a band that I was still highly anticipating any release they had (and not that performers don't surprise later in their careers--Springsteen, Neil Young, and Lou Reed all had stellar releases at various points deep into their latter years).  And still does for that matter--whenever I'm listening to my R.E.M. playlist I find "Imitation of Life" to be one of the songs I most look forward to hearing.

Formed in Athens, Georgia in 1980, R.E.M. started as a critic's darling without a lot of sales and ended in 2011 as one of the greatest bands of all time with a shitload of sales.  They are often credited with being one of the biggest guiding forces of the alternative rock scene, and their influence on so many of the bands that came out of the 1990's alternative explosion (Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and a host of others) was seismic.  Along the way they released 16 studio albums, sold over 85 million records, had epic world tours, won 3 Grammy Awards, and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in their first year of eligibility.  And yet, as one comment I read while I was doing my half-assed research for this week's tune noted, they were one of the few bands to become popular and still remain cool.

Released in 2001 on their Reveal LP, "Imitation of Life" met with very little commercial success (par for the course for R.E.M. after the mid-nineties) only reaching #83 on the Billboard Hot 100 (and probably not with much of a bullet).  It did, however, become R.E.M.'s first #1 single in Japan, so at least there's that.

If there's any one word I could use to describe "Imitation of Life" it would be joyous, though I don't think the song is meant to be so.  Throughout the course of its career, R.E.M. often could turn songs of a sad nature into upbeat pop songs ("Fall on Me," "Man on the Moon," "Don't Go Back to Rockville"), and "Imitation of Life" is another such single.  Led by Michael Stipe's compassionate vocals and veiled lyrics, it seems to me a song about courage in the face of sorrow and one's daily strife, about enjoying the moment, though it could mean fuck all for all I know, as Stipe is known for a) obscure meanings, and b) never discussing his obscure meanings.  But I like the imagery, from freezing rain to hurricanes, from sugarcane to cinnamon, and Peter Buck's usual steadfast guitar work, all of which come together to form the umpteenth pop gem featured here on Friday Night Jukebox, of which I'm certain there'll be more than a few still coming.

Liner Notes:  "This lightning storm/This tidal wave/This avalanche, I'm not afraid..."

Enjoy (and note that in the video Michael Stipe gives ample evidence that being a good dancer is not a requisite for being a frontman for a great band...):

Enjoy:

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

They're not fucking entitlements

Poor's always been gettin' fucked over by the rich...

Of the myriad of things the Democratic Party needs to do better, one is countering the idea oft repeated by republicans and the media (who should really know better) that somehow Social Security and Medicare are "entitlements."

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Every job you have ever had--from flipping burgers at McDonald's, to selling jeans to the cool kids at The Gap, to Assistant Manager of Sweat Socks at Foot Locker, to Klothing Account Rep at Kmart, to junior partner at Doodad, Doohickey, and Doowop, to U.S. Senator from the great state of Michigan--you have paid a percentage (6.2% of gross wages for Social Security, 1.45% for Medicare) of every penny you have ever made into Social Security and Medicare (also known as the Federal Insurance Contributions Act or FICA).  Neither of which you can partake of until you're in your sixties.

So how exactly is paying into two systems for better than forty fucking years so you can retire and have healthcare late in life make them entitlements?

They are called entitlements because a) the companies you work for over the course of your career have to match the percentage you pay and aren't happy enough that their cost cutting has you doing the work of three people for the pay of one, but would also like you starve in your old age and die quickly because you don't have healthcare, so they can make their already rich shareholders even richer,  b) rich people don't need them, and don't want to pay into them so they can have even more money in their Cayman Islands' accounts, and would also like you to starve in your old age and die quickly because you don't have healthcare, and c) Wall Street and big banks would much prefer that you invest in the stock market for your retirement plans so they can steal even more of your money than they already have.

In the end, they're called entitlements because the economic powers that be want to fuck you coming and fuck you going.

And there endeth the lesson.

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

And one to piss off your racist acquaintances

Regular readers (both of you) will have noticed that this blog is, and always will be, ad free--because it's not about money, it's about people (well that and the fact that no money making enterprise cares about it either).  But every now and again a business will do something surprising and worth noting...like this ad from Ancestry.com showing just how far we have come in our diverseness in the 241 years we've been fighting for the American dream:

O beautiful for spacious skies, indeed.

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

Hey, baby, it's the Fourth of July...

With a little help from one of America's greatest poets, Langston Hughes, one of America's greatest actresses, Alfre Woodard, and the fighting the good fight folks at MoveOn, a beautiful reminder that the Resistance has been going on for quite some time (the poem is here for those of you like me who can comprehend it better by reading it rather than listening to it):

Fuck Donald Trump,

emaycee

Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. CXXXI--The Ramones: Blitzkrieg Bop

"Hey! Ho! Let's go!"

And with those four words a legendary rock and roll band was born

It's hard to overestimate the legacy of the Ramones--despite their lack of commercial success (their highest charting album hit #49, their highest charting single hit #66--both, one presumes, with a bullet!) their influence on the punk movement and later the alternative scene (much like their non-selling kin The Velvet Underground) was astounding.  Formed in Queens, New York in 1974, the Ramones would spend the next 22 years making fourteen albums and touring over two hundred days a year.  They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002, were listed as #26 on Rolling Stone's "100 Greatest Artists of All Time," and in 2011 received a Lifetime Achievement award from the Grammy's.  Sadly, much of this glory was missed by the original band members, as three of the four (Joey in 2001, Dee Dee in 2002, and Johnny in 2004) had passed away less than eight years after their dissolution, and the last original Ramone (Tommy) died in 2014.

Fun Fact:  There have been 48 (yes, 48) full-length tribute albums devoted to the Ramones.  Not bad for four middle class kids from Queens....

Released on their oh so cleverly named debut album (which was certified gold--500,000 copies sold--thirty eight years later in 2014), The Ramones, in 1976. "Blitzkrieg Bop" was the world's vinyl introduction to the Ramones.  I'm not sure there's ever been another band whose first song on their first album transformed a generation of musicians the way "Blitzkrieg Bop" did--when you listen to the guitars it's not hard to guess where the Sex Pistols, the Clash, and Green Day (among a multitude of others) borrowed their guitar sounds from.  In keeping with the Ramones disdain for long songs (their songs are generally three minutes or less in length), "Blitzkrieg Bop" is two minutes and nineteen seconds of pure adrenaline with Joey's shout singing vocals, Johnny's blistering guitar, and Tommy's no holds barred drumming.  Even at the age of fifty-eight, it's hard when listening to it to not jump around the house with arms and legs thrashing.  It's power pop at its finest...and as it often went in the Ramones' career, the song never even made the damn charts.

And it's a reminder that all too often, greatness is only seen in retrospect (Hello, Hillary Clinton!).

Liner Notes:  What else?  "Hey! Ho! Let's go! Hey! Ho! Let's go!"

Enjoy:

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee