5 Random Songs

Son of a Bitch

Posted by Bud Weiser, WTIT on January 12, 2010
Posted in: 5 Random Songs, A DJs Take. 2 Comments

The WTIT Blog’s feature A DJ’s Take has been one of our most popular features. Today we continue our latest version of this feature that we have “sub-titled” 5 Random Songs. When writing this, we simply pick out five songs (at random…who’d a thunk?) that we have grown to love over the years. We hope to share with you some of the background of the songs and of course why this music is important to us.

Love Hurts by Nazareth. The song was from 1976 while a somewhat famous DJ named Gary Hunter (Okay, yes that was my radio name) worked in a popular nightclub and the song was requested almost every night, for a slow set. Nazareth was a Scottish band that did well in the UK. From what I believe was their seventh album, Hair of the Dog (also known as Son of a Bitch because of the chorus in the title track) the band released two versions. The English, without Love Hurts and the American version with Love Hurts. Most people don’t know that this was a cover song recorded originally and released by the Everly Brothers. It was also a B-side of a single after the Everly Brother’s original, on a song by Roy Orbison. The song was platinum hit in the US and was Nazareth’s only hit song in the states.

Kicks by Paul Revere & the Raiders. I’ve always thought that this was the first anti-drug song, and in preparing today’s post, my internet sources tell me that I have been correct. The producer of the album for Paul Revere & the Raiders, Terry Melcher (who also happened to produced the first two albums by the Byrds) loved the song We Gotta Get Outta This Place that was recorded by the Animals and written by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil. Terry wanted a song of that ilk for his new band, the Raiders. Mann and Weil had written Kicks because of a friend who had a drug problem. Melcher loved it and it was a huge hit for Paul Revere and the Raiders. I piece of trivia: Paul Revere if you remember was not the singer of the band, Mark Lindsay was.

I always thought Kicks was such an unusual song for its era, since most songs about drugs were positive during that time period. Sadly, Melcher was to have a very a weird life of his own, and unfortunately got involved in recording some of Charles Manson songs. After the Tate murder, Terry Melcher was so upset he became a very private and somewhat aloof person. Terry Melcher passed away in 2004 from cancer.

Lay Down (Candles in the Rain) by Melanie. I always felt that with all do respect to Joni Mitchell’s writing and recording of the song Woodstock, that Melanie’s Lay Down was the definitive song about the event. Melanie performed at Woodstock on the heels of her first hit in the Netherlands, Beautiful People. But here in the US, her first hit was Lay Down (Candles in the Rain). The song is about a break in the rain at one point during the music fest and the crowd started lighting candles to show that all was well and everyone had survived. On the album, and the B-side of the single, is a preamble of poetry read over her guitar that really adds to the song. We could not find that for today’s playlist, but we did find the hit.

Let’s Stay Together by Al Green. Willie Mitchell and Al Jackson wrote the music to the song. Al Jackson was the drummer of Booker T and the MGs. Willie Mitchell was a record producer who signed Al Green to Hi Records. Mitchell and Jackson would co-author a lot of Al Green’s songs. After being given the music to Let’s Stay Together, Al Green took only five minutes to write the lyrics. Green did not like the song at all and did not want to record it. He argued mightily with Willie Mitchell about recording it, and obviously lost.

Let’s Stay Together was not only one of his biggest hits ever (released in 1972), but also was named one of the Top 500 songs of all time by Rolling Stone Magazine. Al Green was elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995. Tina Turner covered this song in 1984 and it was the first hit that returned Tina to the charts. And that Private Dancer road that wave through the Thunderdome. And of course her autobiographical film, What’s Love Got to Do with It.

Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying by Gerry & the Pacemakers. The Pacemaker’s first hit was How Do You Do It which was a song that the Beatles record label and manager insisted that the Beatles record. John Lennon thought the song sucked. When he expressed that view, he was told to write a better song during lunch and they wouldn’t release the recording of How Do You Do It. John wrote Please, Please Me and all agreed, it was a better song. Brian Epstien was the manager of both bands and gave How Do You Do It to the Pacemakers. However, in the US the first hit by Gerry was Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying which he wrote. In fact Gerry Marsden wrote most of the Pacemakers hits. The band did not have much staying power and by 1966 broke up. And as a footnote, other than on some pirate Beatles’ albums, their version of How Do You Do It was not released until The Beatles Anthology in the mid 1990’s.
That will do it for the Tuesday edition
of the WTIT Blog.
Next time we will attempt to actually
do something incredibly funny.
Or perhaps we will settle for “mildly amusing”.
Parts of this post appeared on February 6, 2008.
Join us next time.
Same time. Same blog.

The Boys Are Back in Town

Posted by Bud Weiser, WTIT on May 15, 2008
Posted in: 5 Random Songs, A DJs Take. 8 Comments
Last night from the Associated press: “Syesha Mercado was voted off American Idol Wednesday night, paving the way for the expected showdown between David Archuleta and David Cook.”

We stated on the record that David Archulata would win American Idol when the Top 12 were announced. We also said that we were rooting for David Cook. On a comment on Trav’s Thoughts yesterday that we stated that we thought we’d never like a rocker as much as Chris Daughtry on American Idol. We actually like Cook more. So we hope we are wrong in the end and David Cook wins. A GREAT!!!! Season. Thank you Fox!

WTIT Blog’s feature A DJ’s Take has been one of our most popular features. Today we continue our latest version of this feature that we have “sub-titled” 5 Random Songs. When writing this, we simply pick out five songs (at random…who’d a thunk?) that we have grown to love over the years. We hope to share with you some of the background of the songs and of course why this music is important to us. Sometimes it is because of the trival nature of the song, sometimes it’s the song’s history. Today let’s look at these five songs:

Love Song by Sarah Bareilles:

We were going to link this part of today’s post to Linda’s blog, Are We There Yet? because it was her post with the video of this song that drew us to the artist. Sarah Bareilles was a recording artist that we had not heard of as of that post. The video of this song totally captivated us. So we downloaded the entire CD. And yes, usually when you do this you are utterly disappointed. But in this case, we were very pleasantly surprised. Every song on the CD is as good as the next one. Her lyrics are well thought out and meaningful. Her voice is beautiful and her music is captivating. The song is from her 2007 album Little Voice.

It seems that Epic, the record company that signed Bareilles, told her that they wanted her to write and perform a “marketable love song”. She wrote this song as her response. As you might know iTunes features a free download each week and they featured Love Song for one week in 2007. By the next month Little Voice was the site’s number one downloaded album. The single peaked at number 5 in the Billboard Hot 100 songs. In this past February her CD was certified gold and the album hit number 7 in the Billboard Top 200 albums. Her next tour is with Maroon 5, a band we enjoy and is headlined by one of our favorite bands of all time The Counting Crows. They will be in Connecticut in August.

Wild World by Cat Stevens:

We have always thought that there was no better song written about a breakup that is not your decision. It was out around the time my high school girlfriend told me that “God” told her to break up with me. It was Cat’s first hit in the US and had been a hit in the UK with a version by Jimmy Cliff three months prior to Steven’s release. It is from the album Tea for the Tillerman, one of his best albums. Cat was born Stephanos Demetre Georgiou and is now known as Yusuf Islam. For years after his conversion to Muslim he felt that had to leave his music behind him. It was not until the start of this century that Islam felt he could be both. When he released a boxed CD set of Cat Stevens music in 2001, he said that Wild World convinced him that it was the right thing to do. If you ever want to hear a terrific song that he covered in his CD last year, download his version of Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood.

American Woman by The Guess Who:

All the original members of the Guess Who were from Winnipeg, Canada. Chad Allen was the leader and lead singer in the start of the band in 1962 that was called Chad Allen and the Silvertones. Chad then changed the name of the band to Chad Allen and the Reflections just in time for an American band called The Reflections to have a hit with Just Like Romeo and Juliet. The band got signed by Quality records and recorded a cover of Shaking All Over. The record company called the band Guess Who? (yes with a question mark) and thought with the Mercy Beat sound teens might think it a secret Beatles record or something. Shaking All Over was a major hit in Canada. The band released their first two albums with separate releases under Guess Who? and again as Chad Allen and the Expressions.

A key member left the Guess Who at the end of 1965 and Burton Cummings was brought in as a keyboard player and a “co-lead” singer. Not Chad Allen’s best move. Burton Cummings, who made number 6 on WTIT’s Top 15 Male Rock Vocalists of All Time, replaced Chad almost immediately and Chad left the band. The question mark left shortly after Chad. Cummings and guitarist Randy Bachman (when he left he formed Bachman Turner Overdrive) now wrote the songs. No longer a “Mercy Beat” band they now had an edge and injected more blues and hard rock in their music. American Woman was the title song of their first album that really showed the change in direction. And American Woman would be their only song to hit number one in the U.S.

The Boys are Back in Town by Thin Lizzy:

There is not a lot of story here, but it is one our favorite rock songs of all time. It was released in 1976. Thin Lizzy was an Irish rock band and the lead singer was Phil Lynott. Obvious we were not alone in loving the song. It has been covered in concerts or on albums by artists including: Bon Jovi, Ash Mondays, Everclear, and Pearl Jam. The song was in Rolling Stones Top 500 rock songs of all time. It has been written that the brass in the song was inspired by a Bruce Springsteen song, Kitty’s Back.

When a Man Loves a Woman by Percy Sledge:

Percy Sledge was all upset when he showed up for a gig while in the band The Esquires Combo. He could not concentrate on their normal set because he and his girlfriend had broken up. He asked the band to play a blues chord progression and wrote the song as he sung. At the time he called it Why Did You Leave Me and it was about his girlfriend Lizz King. After Sledge was in a better state of mind he rewrote the song as When a Man Loves a Woman and brought it to a record company to try and sell the song. They were so impressed they signed him to sing it. He gave sole credit to his band mates who played the riffs that night, his bass player Cameron Lewis and organ player Andrew Wright. This would end up costing him millions of dollars in royalties. When the song was released three years after he has last seen Lizz King, she contacted him and they actually got back together for a while.

After the song was recorded, the producers brought him back because they realized that he was off key in a couple of spots. Percy was glad to do it. Here’s a bit of irony: The record company mixed the tapes up and released the off key version. It is the song we still love to this day. Percy Sledge was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005. The song has been covered and hits again by others including Bette Midler and in 1991 by Michael Bolton. A final piece of trivia: It was also covered during his solo career by Burton Cummings of the Guess Who.

That will do it for your Thursday
edition of the WTIT Blog.
We hope you enjoyed our 5 Random
“Blasts from the Past” on this week’s
A DJ’s Take.
Next time we will attempt to actually
do something incredibly funny. Or perhaps
we will settle for anything even”mildly amusing”.
We tend to set our standards not very high.
We are happy that you read
our nonsense on WTIT: The Blog.
Join us next time.
We will do our Dating Profiles.
Same time. Same blog. Go David Cook!
(And do your Peace Globe.)

The Boys Are Back in Town

Posted by Bud Weiser, WTIT on May 14, 2008
Posted in: 5 Random Songs, A DJs Take. 9 Comments
Last night from the Associated press: “Syesha Mercado was voted off American Idol Wednesday night, paving the way for the expected showdown between David Archuleta and David Cook.”

We stated on the record that David Archulata would win American Idol when the Top 12 were announced. We also said that we were rooting for David Cook. On a comment on Trav’s Thoughts yesterday that we stated that we thought we’d never like a rocker as much as Chris Daughtry on American Idol. We actually like Cook more. So we hope we are wrong in the end and David Cook wins. A GREAT!!!! Season. Thank you Fox!

WTIT Blog’s feature A DJ’s Take has been one of our most popular features. Today we continue our latest version of this feature that we have “sub-titled” 5 Random Songs. When writing this, we simply pick out five songs (at random…who’d a thunk?) that we have grown to love over the years. We hope to share with you some of the background of the songs and of course why this music is important to us. Sometimes it is because of the trival nature of the song, sometimes it’s the song’s history. Today let’s look at these five songs:

Love Song by Sarah Bareilles:

We were going to link this part of today’s post to Linda’s blog, Are We There Yet? because it was her post with the video of this song that drew us to the artist. Sarah Bareilles was a recording artist that we had not heard of as of that post. The video of this song totally captivated us. So we downloaded the entire CD. And yes, usually when you do this you are utterly disappointed. But in this case, we were very pleasantly surprised. Every song on the CD is as good as the next one. Her lyrics are well thought out and meaningful. Her voice is beautiful and her music is captivating. The song is from her 2007 album Little Voice.

It seems that Epic, the record company that signed Bareilles, told her that they wanted her to write and perform a “marketable love song”. She wrote this song as her response. As you might know iTunes features a free download each week and they featured Love Song for one week in 2007. By the next month Little Voice was the site’s number one downloaded album. The single peaked at number 5 in the Billboard Hot 100 songs. In this past February her CD was certified gold and the album hit number 7 in the Billboard Top 200 albums. Her next tour is with Maroon 5, a band we enjoy and is headlined by one of our favorite bands of all time The Counting Crows. They will be in Connecticut in August.

Wild World by Cat Stevens:

We have always thought that there was no better song written about a breakup that is not your decision. It was out around the time my high school girlfriend told me that “God” told her to break up with me. It was Cat’s first hit in the US and had been a hit in the UK with a version by Jimmy Cliff three months prior to Steven’s release. It is from the album Tea for the Tillerman, one of his best albums. Cat was born Stephanos Demetre Georgiou and is now known as Yusuf Islam. For years after his conversion to Muslim he felt that had to leave his music behind him. It was not until the start of this century that Islam felt he could be both. When he released a boxed CD set of Cat Stevens music in 2001, he said that Wild World convinced him that it was the right thing to do. If you ever want to hear a terrific song that he covered in his CD last year, download his version of Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood.

American Woman by The Guess Who:

All the original members of the Guess Who were from Winnipeg, Canada. Chad Allen was the leader and lead singer in the start of the band in 1962 that was called Chad Allen and the Silvertones. Chad then changed the name of the band to Chad Allen and the Reflections just in time for an American band called The Reflections to have a hit with Just Like Romeo and Juliet. The band got signed by Quality records and recorded a cover of Shaking All Over. The record company called the band Guess Who? (yes with a question mark) and thought with the Mercy Beat sound teens might think it a secret Beatles record or something. Shaking All Over was a major hit in Canada. The band released their first two albums with separate releases under Guess Who? and again as Chad Allen and the Expressions.

A key member left the Guess Who at the end of 1965 and Burton Cummings was brought in as a keyboard player and a “co-lead” singer. Not Chad Allen’s best move. Burton Cummings, who made number 6 on WTIT’s Top 15 Male Rock Vocalists of All Time, replaced Chad almost immediately and Chad left the band. The question mark left shortly after Chad. Cummings and guitarist Randy Bachman (when he left he formed Bachman Turner Overdrive) now wrote the songs. No longer a “Mercy Beat” band they now had an edge and injected more blues and hard rock in their music. American Woman was the title song of their first album that really showed the change in direction. And American Woman would be their only song to hit number one in the U.S.

The Boys are Back in Town by Thin Lizzy:

There is not a lot of story here, but it is one our favorite rock songs of all time. It was released in 1976. Thin Lizzy was an Irish rock band and the lead singer was Phil Lynott. Obvious we were not alone in loving the song. It has been covered in concerts or on albums by artists including: Bon Jovi, Ash Mondays, Everclear, and Pearl Jam. The song was in Rolling Stones Top 500 rock songs of all time. It has been written that the brass in the song was inspired by a Bruce Springsteen song, Kitty’s Back.

When a Man Loves a Woman by Percy Sledge:

Percy Sledge was all upset when he showed up for a gig while in the band The Esquires Combo. He could not concentrate on their normal set because he and his girlfriend had broken up. He asked the band to play a blues chord progression and wrote the song as he sung. At the time he called it Why Did You Leave Me and it was about his girlfriend Lizz King. After Sledge was in a better state of mind he rewrote the song as When a Man Loves a Woman and brought it to a record company to try and sell the song. They were so impressed they signed him to sing it. He gave sole credit to his band mates who played the riffs that night, his bass player Cameron Lewis and organ player Andrew Wright. This would end up costing him millions of dollars in royalties. When the song was released three years after he has last seen Lizz King, she contacted him and they actually got back together for a while.

After the song was recorded, the producers brought him back because they realized that he was off key in a couple of spots. Percy was glad to do it. Here’s a bit of irony: The record company mixed the tapes up and released the off key version. It is the song we still love to this day. Percy Sledge was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005. The song has been covered and hits again by others including Bette Midler and in 1991 by Michael Bolton. A final piece of trivia: It was also covered during his solo career by Burton Cummings of the Guess Who.

That will do it for your Thursday
edition of the WTIT Blog.
We hope you enjoyed our 5 Random
“Blasts from the Past” on this week’s
A DJ’s Take.
Next time we will attempt to actually
do something incredibly funny. Or perhaps
we will settle for anything even”mildly amusing”.
We tend to set our standards not very high.
We are happy that you read
our nonsense on WTIT: The Blog.
Join us next time.
We will do our Dating Profiles.
Same time. Same blog. Go David Cook!
(And do your Peace Globe.)

The Boys Are Back in Town

Posted by Bud Weiser, WTIT on May 14, 2008
Posted in: 5 Random Songs, A DJs Take. 8 Comments
Last night from the Associated press: “Syesha Mercado was voted off American Idol Wednesday night, paving the way for the expected showdown between David Archuleta and David Cook.”

We stated on the record that David Archulata would win American Idol when the Top 12 were announced. We also said that we were rooting for David Cook. On a comment on Trav’s Thoughts yesterday that we stated that we thought we’d never like a rocker as much as Chris Daughtry on American Idol. We actually like Cook more. So we hope we are wrong in the end and David Cook wins. A GREAT!!!! Season. Thank you Fox!

WTIT Blog’s feature A DJ’s Take has been one of our most popular features. Today we continue our latest version of this feature that we have “sub-titled” 5 Random Songs. When writing this, we simply pick out five songs (at random…who’d a thunk?) that we have grown to love over the years. We hope to share with you some of the background of the songs and of course why this music is important to us. Sometimes it is because of the trival nature of the song, sometimes it’s the song’s history. Today let’s look at these five songs:

Love Song by Sarah Bareilles:

We were going to link this part of today’s post to Linda’s blog, Are We There Yet? because it was her post with the video of this song that drew us to the artist. Sarah Bareilles was a recording artist that we had not heard of as of that post. The video of this song totally captivated us. So we downloaded the entire CD. And yes, usually when you do this you are utterly disappointed. But in this case, we were very pleasantly surprised. Every song on the CD is as good as the next one. Her lyrics are well thought out and meaningful. Her voice is beautiful and her music is captivating. The song is from her 2007 album Little Voice.

It seems that Epic, the record company that signed Bareilles, told her that they wanted her to write and perform a “marketable love song”. She wrote this song as her response. As you might know iTunes features a free download each week and they featured Love Song for one week in 2007. By the next month Little Voice was the site’s number one downloaded album. The single peaked at number 5 in the Billboard Hot 100 songs. In this past February her CD was certified gold and the album hit number 7 in the Billboard Top 200 albums. Her next tour is with Maroon 5, a band we enjoy and is headlined by one of our favorite bands of all time The Counting Crows. They will be in Connecticut in August.

Wild World by Cat Stevens:

We have always thought that there was no better song written about a breakup that is not your decision. It was out around the time my high school girlfriend told me that “God” told her to break up with me. It was Cat’s first hit in the US and had been a hit in the UK with a version by Jimmy Cliff three months prior to Steven’s release. It is from the album Tea for the Tillerman, one of his best albums. Cat was born Stephanos Demetre Georgiou and is now known as Yusuf Islam. For years after his conversion to Muslim he felt that had to leave his music behind him. It was not until the start of this century that Islam felt he could be both. When he released a boxed CD set of Cat Stevens music in 2001, he said that Wild World convinced him that it was the right thing to do. If you ever want to hear a terrific song that he covered in his CD last year, download his version of Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood.

American Woman by The Guess Who:

All the original members of the Guess Who were from Winnipeg, Canada. Chad Allen was the leader and lead singer in the start of the band in 1962 that was called Chad Allen and the Silvertones. Chad then changed the name of the band to Chad Allen and the Reflections just in time for an American band called The Reflections to have a hit with Just Like Romeo and Juliet. The band got signed by Quality records and recorded a cover of Shaking All Over. The record company called the band Guess Who? (yes with a question mark) and thought with the Mercy Beat sound teens might think it a secret Beatles record or something. Shaking All Over was a major hit in Canada. The band released their first two albums with separate releases under Guess Who? and again as Chad Allen and the Expressions.

A key member left the Guess Who at the end of 1965 and Burton Cummings was brought in as a keyboard player and a “co-lead” singer. Not Chad Allen’s best move. Burton Cummings, who made number 6 on WTIT’s Top 15 Male Rock Vocalists of All Time, replaced Chad almost immediately and Chad left the band. The question mark left shortly after Chad. Cummings and guitarist Randy Bachman (when he left he formed Bachman Turner Overdrive) now wrote the songs. No longer a “Mercy Beat” band they now had an edge and injected more blues and hard rock in their music. American Woman was the title song of their first album that really showed the change in direction. And American Woman would be their only song to hit number one in the U.S.

The Boys are Back in Town by Thin Lizzy:

There is not a lot of story here, but it is one our favorite rock songs of all time. It was released in 1976. Thin Lizzy was an Irish rock band and the lead singer was Phil Lynott. Obvious we were not alone in loving the song. It has been covered in concerts or on albums by artists including: Bon Jovi, Ash Mondays, Everclear, and Pearl Jam. The song was in Rolling Stones Top 500 rock songs of all time. It has been written that the brass in the song was inspired by a Bruce Springsteen song, Kitty’s Back.

When a Man Loves a Woman by Percy Sledge:

Percy Sledge was all upset when he showed up for a gig while in the band The Esquires Combo. He could not concentrate on their normal set because he and his girlfriend had broken up. He asked the band to play a blues chord progression and wrote the song as he sung. At the time he called it Why Did You Leave Me and it was about his girlfriend Lizz King. After Sledge was in a better state of mind he rewrote the song as When a Man Loves a Woman and brought it to a record company to try and sell the song. They were so impressed they signed him to sing it. He gave sole credit to his band mates who played the riffs that night, his bass player Cameron Lewis and organ player Andrew Wright. This would end up costing him millions of dollars in royalties. When the song was released three years after he has last seen Lizz King, she contacted him and they actually got back together for a while.

After the song was recorded, the producers brought him back because they realized that he was off key in a couple of spots. Percy was glad to do it. Here’s a bit of irony: The record company mixed the tapes up and released the off key version. It is the song we still love to this day. Percy Sledge was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005. The song has been covered and hits again by others including Bette Midler and in 1991 by Michael Bolton. A final piece of trivia: It was also covered during his solo career by Burton Cummings of the Guess Who.

That will do it for your Thursday
edition of the WTIT Blog.
We hope you enjoyed our 5 Random
“Blasts from the Past” on this week’s
A DJ’s Take.
Next time we will attempt to actually
do something incredibly funny. Or perhaps
we will settle for anything even”mildly amusing”.
We tend to set our standards not very high.
We are happy that you read
our nonsense on WTIT: The Blog.
Join us next time.
We will do our Dating Profiles.
Same time. Same blog. Go David Cook!
(And do your Peace Globe.)

Sex as a Weapon

Posted by Bud Weiser, WTIT on March 6, 2008
Posted in: 5 Random Songs, A DJs Take. 10 Comments

The WTIT Blog’s feature A DJ’s Take has been one of our most popular features. Today we continue our latest version of this feature that we have “sub-titled” 5 Random Songs. When writing this, we simply pick out five songs (at random…who’d a thunk?) that we have grown to love over the years. We hope to share with you some of the background of the songs and of course why this music is important to us. Sometimes it is because of the trival nature of the song, sometimes it’s the song’s history. Today let’s look at these five songs:

The Pusher by Steppenwolf. While Hoyt Axton attempted to make a living singing his own music, he is better known for writing the hits of others. He wrote Never Been to Spain and Joy to the World covered by Three Dog Night, The No-No Song, an anti-drug song for Ringo Starr and The Pusher recorded first by The Sparrows, but popularized by Steppenwolf. The Pusher became a huge song when used in the 1969 counter-culture film Easy Rider. It was one of the first major anti-drug songs during the era that mostly saw songwriters praise drugs both through song and example. While Hoyt Axton had a couple of hits of his own, he also acted in movies and television. Axton died at age 61 in 1999 after a series of heart attacks.

Sex as a Weapon by Pat Benatar. It did not get bigger for a female rocker in the 80’s than Pat Benatar. She won Grammies in 1980, 1981, 1982 and 1983. While Heartbreaker was her first mega-hit from 1979’s In the Heat of the Night and Hit Me With Your Best Shot from 1980’s Crime of Passion is probably her best known and signiture song, we always found Sex as a Weapon her most intriguing song.

Pat’s main songwriter was her guitarist Neil Giraldo. He became her second and still current husband in 1982. We always felt that this song was out of time and space. Do men really use sex as a weapon? We think it is usually the other way around. So what? It was her husband who wrote the song and it shows. It was released on 1985’s Seven the Hard Way. That album was an attempt by Pat and her band to move to a bit more mainstream place and less the rebellious rocker that made her famous. While she released albums after this, she was essentially done. By the time that Neil and Pat recorded a edgie rock album again it was the early 90’s and rock had changed. Melissa Etheridge, Sheryl Crow, Alanis Morrosette and Jewel were now in place. All in all though, she is one of the best ever.

Tainted Love by Soft Cell. Ed Cobb, a legendary songwriter, wrote this song. Does the name sound familiar? He also wrote Dirty Water that was a hit by the Standells featured in this space not long ago. Gloria Jones originally recorded Tainted Love as a soul song in 1964. While her discography includes a series of songs recorded in the sixties (no we never heard of her either), she made her living as a back up singer to the likes of Neil Young and Bob Dylan. We had not heard her version until yesterday when we wrote this piece. While it is similar to the Soft Cell hit, Soft Cell added the famous “boink-boink” sound. Marc Almond and David Ball were the members of the British band that had just recorded a major flop. The record company pushed the song on them. It became one the biggest hits of the 80’s, but while Soft Cell was a one hit wonder in the US, in the UK they sold a ton of records for several years in the early 80’s.

Jenny (867-5309) by Tommy Tutone. There is no Tommy Tutone. The leader of the band Tommy Tutone was lead singer Tommy Heath and the original band name was Tommy and the Tutones. Jim Keller was the guitarist, and he had a friend named Alex Call who came up with the “name and number” and was trying to write a song with it, but was not yet really a songwriter. As it turns out, the name and number meant nothing. Like there is no Tommy Tutone, there is no Jenny. We won’t even touch on Santa. But when Jim Keller heard the idea and was told Jenny and the number meant nothing, he countered that it should be a phone number and message on a bathroom wall. While laughing at this absurb srory, the two wrote the whole song in fifteen minutes.

When the song came out the band used a story about how it was a true story, but of course it was not. From there the band with no fanfare recorded the song. Alex Call would end up as original lead singer of Clover, which became most notable for its harmonica player and later lead singer Huey Lewis. The stories of the amount of calls people who happened to have that number are legendary. Alex Call still is in the music business and recorded an album in 2004 with Jenny (867-5309) on it. Tommy Heath is now a computer analyst.

Ohio by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. There is not much to tell and so much to tell about this song. We were in college on May 4th 1970 and very active in the anti-war movement. We remember the horror when we found out that the National Guard had killed four unarmed protesting students at Kent State. We were home that weekend and returned to Boston on the Sunday night to find the students on strike.

We would not attend another class that year. We were head of communications for the student strike, which mostly meant we did a lot of interviews. The amazing thing is how fast this song went from being written by Neil Young and recorded by CSN&Y and released in ten days. And unlike Neil’s similar effort after 9/11 with the song Let’s Roll, Ohio was a terrific song and still a classic. Neil Young has acknowledged it was the best song he wrote for the band. And let us add our current continued opposition to the current illegal war in Iraq. We thought the nation learned a lesson in getting involved in other country’s civil wars. The only reason that the country isn’t in as much turmoil now as it was then: There is no draft. Those fighting in this war chose the military. Not that the majority hasn’t got more than it bargained for, but that is the truth. George and Dick cannot go away soon enough. And fuck McCain and his “stay there 100 years” shit. He’ll only be 170 years old when we are done. Old men forcing wars on young people to fight. It is time for the madness to end.

That will do it for the Thursday
edition of the WTIT Blog.
We hope you enjoyed our 5 Random
“Blasts from the Past” on this week’s
A DJ’s Take.
Next time we will attempt to actually
do something incredibly funny. Or perhaps
we will settle for anything even”mildly amusing”.
We tend to set our standards not very high.
We are happy that you read
our nonsense on WTIT: The Blog.
Join us next time.
We will do Dating Profiles of the Week.
Same time. Same blog.

Sex as a Weapon

Posted by Bud Weiser, WTIT on March 6, 2008
Posted in: 5 Random Songs, A DJs Take. 11 Comments

The WTIT Blog’s feature A DJ’s Take has been one of our most popular features. Today we continue our latest version of this feature that we have “sub-titled” 5 Random Songs. When writing this, we simply pick out five songs (at random…who’d a thunk?) that we have grown to love over the years. We hope to share with you some of the background of the songs and of course why this music is important to us. Sometimes it is because of the trival nature of the song, sometimes it’s the song’s history. Today let’s look at these five songs:

The Pusher by Steppenwolf. While Hoyt Axton attempted to make a living singing his own music, he is better known for writing the hits of others. He wrote Never Been to Spain and Joy to the World covered by Three Dog Night, The No-No Song, an anti-drug song for Ringo Starr and The Pusher recorded first by The Sparrows, but popularized by Steppenwolf. The Pusher became a huge song when used in the 1969 counter-culture film Easy Rider. It was one of the first major anti-drug songs during the era that mostly saw songwriters praise drugs both through song and example. While Hoyt Axton had a couple of hits of his own, he also acted in movies and television. Axton died at age 61 in 1999 after a series of heart attacks.

Sex as a Weapon by Pat Benatar. It did not get bigger for a female rocker in the 80’s than Pat Benatar. She won Grammies in 1980, 1981, 1982 and 1983. While Heartbreaker was her first mega-hit from 1979’s In the Heat of the Night and Hit Me With Your Best Shot from 1980’s Crime of Passion is probably her best known and signiture song, we always found Sex as a Weapon her most intriguing song.

Pat’s main songwriter was her guitarist Neil Giraldo. He became her second and still current husband in 1982. We always felt that this song was out of time and space. Do men really use sex as a weapon? We think it is usually the other way around. So what? It was her husband who wrote the song and it shows. It was released on 1985’s Seven the Hard Way. That album was an attempt by Pat and her band to move to a bit more mainstream place and less the rebellious rocker that made her famous. While she released albums after this, she was essentially done. By the time that Neil and Pat recorded a edgie rock album again it was the early 90’s and rock had changed. Melissa Etheridge, Sheryl Crow, Alanis Morrosette and Jewel were now in place. All in all though, she is one of the best ever.

Tainted Love by Soft Cell. Ed Cobb, a legendary songwriter, wrote this song. Does the name sound familiar? He also wrote Dirty Water that was a hit by the Standells featured in this space not long ago. Gloria Jones originally recorded Tainted Love as a soul song in 1964. While her discography includes a series of songs recorded in the sixties (no we never heard of her either), she made her living as a back up singer to the likes of Neil Young and Bob Dylan. We had not heard her version until yesterday when we wrote this piece. While it is similar to the Soft Cell hit, Soft Cell added the famous “boink-boink” sound. Marc Almond and David Ball were the members of the British band that had just recorded a major flop. The record company pushed the song on them. It became one the biggest hits of the 80’s, but while Soft Cell was a one hit wonder in the US, in the UK they sold a ton of records for several years in the early 80’s.

Jenny (867-5309) by Tommy Tutone. There is no Tommy Tutone. The leader of the band Tommy Tutone was lead singer Tommy Heath and the original band name was Tommy and the Tutones. Jim Keller was the guitarist, and he had a friend named Alex Call who came up with the “name and number” and was trying to write a song with it, but was not yet really a songwriter. As it turns out, the name and number meant nothing. Like there is no Tommy Tutone, there is no Jenny. We won’t even touch on Santa. But when Jim Keller heard the idea and was told Jenny and the number meant nothing, he countered that it should be a phone number and message on a bathroom wall. While laughing at this absurb srory, the two wrote the whole song in fifteen minutes.

When the song came out the band used a story about how it was a true story, but of course it was not. From there the band with no fanfare recorded the song. Alex Call would end up as original lead singer of Clover, which became most notable for its harmonica player and later lead singer Huey Lewis. The stories of the amount of calls people who happened to have that number are legendary. Alex Call still is in the music business and recorded an album in 2004 with Jenny (867-5309) on it. Tommy Heath is now a computer analyst.

Ohio by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. There is not much to tell and so much to tell about this song. We were in college on May 4th 1970 and very active in the anti-war movement. We remember the horror when we found out that the National Guard had killed four unarmed protesting students at Kent State. We were home that weekend and returned to Boston on the Sunday night to find the students on strike.

We would not attend another class that year. We were head of communications for the student strike, which mostly meant we did a lot of interviews. The amazing thing is how fast this song went from being written by Neil Young and recorded by CSN&Y and released in ten days. And unlike Neil’s similar effort after 9/11 with the song Let’s Roll, Ohio was a terrific song and still a classic. Neil Young has acknowledged it was the best song he wrote for the band. And let us add our current continued opposition to the current illegal war in Iraq. We thought the nation learned a lesson in getting involved in other country’s civil wars. The only reason that the country isn’t in as much turmoil now as it was then: There is no draft. Those fighting in this war chose the military. Not that the majority hasn’t got more than it bargained for, but that is the truth. George and Dick cannot go away soon enough. And fuck McCain and his “stay there 100 years” shit. He’ll only be 170 years old when we are done. Old men forcing wars on young people to fight. It is time for the madness to end.

That will do it for the Thursday
edition of the WTIT Blog.
We hope you enjoyed our 5 Random
“Blasts from the Past” on this week’s
A DJ’s Take.
Next time we will attempt to actually
do something incredibly funny. Or perhaps
we will settle for anything even”mildly amusing”.
We tend to set our standards not very high.
We are happy that you read
our nonsense on WTIT: The Blog.
Join us next time.
We will do Dating Profiles of the Week.
Same time. Same blog.

Sex as a Weapon

Posted by Bud Weiser, WTIT on March 6, 2008
Posted in: 5 Random Songs, A DJs Take. 11 Comments

The WTIT Blog’s feature A DJ’s Take has been one of our most popular features. Today we continue our latest version of this feature that we have “sub-titled” 5 Random Songs. When writing this, we simply pick out five songs (at random…who’d a thunk?) that we have grown to love over the years. We hope to share with you some of the background of the songs and of course why this music is important to us. Sometimes it is because of the trival nature of the song, sometimes it’s the song’s history. Today let’s look at these five songs:

The Pusher by Steppenwolf. While Hoyt Axton attempted to make a living singing his own music, he is better known for writing the hits of others. He wrote Never Been to Spain and Joy to the World covered by Three Dog Night, The No-No Song, an anti-drug song for Ringo Starr and The Pusher recorded first by The Sparrows, but popularized by Steppenwolf. The Pusher became a huge song when used in the 1969 counter-culture film Easy Rider. It was one of the first major anti-drug songs during the era that mostly saw songwriters praise drugs both through song and example. While Hoyt Axton had a couple of hits of his own, he also acted in movies and television. Axton died at age 61 in 1999 after a series of heart attacks.

Sex as a Weapon by Pat Benatar. It did not get bigger for a female rocker in the 80’s than Pat Benatar. She won Grammies in 1980, 1981, 1982 and 1983. While Heartbreaker was her first mega-hit from 1979’s In the Heat of the Night and Hit Me With Your Best Shot from 1980’s Crime of Passion is probably her best known and signiture song, we always found Sex as a Weapon her most intriguing song.

Pat’s main songwriter was her guitarist Neil Giraldo. He became her second and still current husband in 1982. We always felt that this song was out of time and space. Do men really use sex as a weapon? We think it is usually the other way around. So what? It was her husband who wrote the song and it shows. It was released on 1985’s Seven the Hard Way. That album was an attempt by Pat and her band to move to a bit more mainstream place and less the rebellious rocker that made her famous. While she released albums after this, she was essentially done. By the time that Neil and Pat recorded a edgie rock album again it was the early 90’s and rock had changed. Melissa Etheridge, Sheryl Crow, Alanis Morrosette and Jewel were now in place. All in all though, she is one of the best ever.

Tainted Love by Soft Cell. Ed Cobb, a legendary songwriter, wrote this song. Does the name sound familiar? He also wrote Dirty Water that was a hit by the Standells featured in this space not long ago. Gloria Jones originally recorded Tainted Love as a soul song in 1964. While her discography includes a series of songs recorded in the sixties (no we never heard of her either), she made her living as a back up singer to the likes of Neil Young and Bob Dylan. We had not heard her version until yesterday when we wrote this piece. While it is similar to the Soft Cell hit, Soft Cell added the famous “boink-boink” sound. Marc Almond and David Ball were the members of the British band that had just recorded a major flop. The record company pushed the song on them. It became one the biggest hits of the 80’s, but while Soft Cell was a one hit wonder in the US, in the UK they sold a ton of records for several years in the early 80’s.

Jenny (867-5309) by Tommy Tutone. There is no Tommy Tutone. The leader of the band Tommy Tutone was lead singer Tommy Heath and the original band name was Tommy and the Tutones. Jim Keller was the guitarist, and he had a friend named Alex Call who came up with the “name and number” and was trying to write a song with it, but was not yet really a songwriter. As it turns out, the name and number meant nothing. Like there is no Tommy Tutone, there is no Jenny. We won’t even touch on Santa. But when Jim Keller heard the idea and was told Jenny and the number meant nothing, he countered that it should be a phone number and message on a bathroom wall. While laughing at this absurb srory, the two wrote the whole song in fifteen minutes.

When the song came out the band used a story about how it was a true story, but of course it was not. From there the band with no fanfare recorded the song. Alex Call would end up as original lead singer of Clover, which became most notable for its harmonica player and later lead singer Huey Lewis. The stories of the amount of calls people who happened to have that number are legendary. Alex Call still is in the music business and recorded an album in 2004 with Jenny (867-5309) on it. Tommy Heath is now a computer analyst.

Ohio by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. There is not much to tell and so much to tell about this song. We were in college on May 4th 1970 and very active in the anti-war movement. We remember the horror when we found out that the National Guard had killed four unarmed protesting students at Kent State. We were home that weekend and returned to Boston on the Sunday night to find the students on strike.

We would not attend another class that year. We were head of communications for the student strike, which mostly meant we did a lot of interviews. The amazing thing is how fast this song went from being written by Neil Young and recorded by CSN&Y and released in ten days. And unlike Neil’s similar effort after 9/11 with the song Let’s Roll, Ohio was a terrific song and still a classic. Neil Young has acknowledged it was the best song he wrote for the band. And let us add our current continued opposition to the current illegal war in Iraq. We thought the nation learned a lesson in getting involved in other country’s civil wars. The only reason that the country isn’t in as much turmoil now as it was then: There is no draft. Those fighting in this war chose the military. Not that the majority hasn’t got more than it bargained for, but that is the truth. George and Dick cannot go away soon enough. And fuck McCain and his “stay there 100 years” shit. He’ll only be 170 years old when we are done. Old men forcing wars on young people to fight. It is time for the madness to end.

That will do it for the Thursday
edition of the WTIT Blog.
We hope you enjoyed our 5 Random
“Blasts from the Past” on this week’s
A DJ’s Take.
Next time we will attempt to actually
do something incredibly funny. Or perhaps
we will settle for anything even”mildly amusing”.
We tend to set our standards not very high.
We are happy that you read
our nonsense on WTIT: The Blog.
Join us next time.
We will do Dating Profiles of the Week.
Same time. Same blog.