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The Songfactor's Choice Top Ten Facts


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Here I am, better late than never :grin:

The Songfactor's Choice Top Ten #110

TWO songs missing from Songfacts this week:

Jigsaw Puzzle - The Rolling Stones (1968)

Expressway To Your Heart - The Soul Survivors (1967)

If you have any info on any of the songs mentioned anywhere in this thread, please feel free to post your knowledge here. Submissions on songs will be collated and sent to the main site and you will receive credit for your contribution.

The Songfish thanks you.

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Jigsaw Puzzle - The Rolling Stones (1968)

From Wiki:

"Jigsaw Puzzle" is a song by rock and roll band the Rolling Stones found on their 1968 album Beggars Banquet.

Written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, "Jigsaw Puzzle" is one of the longer songs on the album. It comes in just ten seconds shorter than "Sympathy for the Devil" to which it is stylistically similar.

Recording began at Olympic Sound Studios on March 25, 1968. Parts of the recording sessions are available on the bootleg market, and on these recordings Mick Jagger is on acoustic guitar, Keith Richards on electric slide guitar, Charlie Watts on drums, Bill Wyman on bass and Nicky Hokins on piano. Brian Jones is not present on these sessions. The released version has Richards on overdubbed acoustic guitar, and Brian Jones added the distinctive "whine" at the end of the song with the mellotron. "Jigsaw Puzzle" has never been performed live by the Rolling Stones.

Expressway To Your Heart - The Soul Survivors (1967)

Link

This timeless hit song by Philly’s Soul Surivors was released in 1967 and exemplified the genesis of the Sound of Philadelphia. Written by Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, the song’s honking horns and sound effects combined with the blue-eyed soul of Charlie and Richie Ingui have made this one of the great all-time singles to come from the Philly music canon and the ultimate song to be listening to on the drive on the Schuykill Expressway. The song hit #4 on Billboard Top 100 and remains one of the classics.

from Wiki:

"Expressway to Your Heart" was a #1 hit regionally in Philadelphia and New York in the spring of 1967, and the tune reached #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 nationally.

from All Music:

The Soul Survivors' only giant hit, "Expressway to Your Heart," was one of the first notable productions by Philadelphia wizards Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff in 1967. Although they were white, the Soul Survivors adopted a convincing R&B sound for their early singles on Crimson. Gamble and Huff loaded "Expressway to Your Heart" with honking horns and other automotive sound effects, but the record's principal strength lay in its soulful vocals and pounding beat. After a less successful follow-up, "Explosion in Your Soul," the band faded but returned for one more hit in 1974.

Edited by Guest
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The Songfactor's Choice Top Ten #111

ONE song missing this week:

Mind Games - John Lennon (1973)

If you have any info on any of the songs mentioned anywhere in this thread, please feel free to post your knowledge here. Submissions on songs will be collated and sent to the main site and you will receive credit for your contribution.

The Songfish thanks you.

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"Mind Games"

John Lennon

The first track of his "Mind Games" album, released in November 1973 and also the first single. Side B was "Meat City".

From Wiki:

The song evoked lingering hippie sentiments mixed with the evolving mysticism of the early 1970s. Although it did not involve producer Phil Spector, it nonetheless revealed what Lennon had learned from working with him.

This song was inspired by the book of the same name by Robert Masters and Jean Houston (1972), which emphasized the power of the human brain to induce various states of consciousness without the aid of external substances. The book presented a series of exercises intended to maximize one's potential for problem solving, conflict resolution, visionary thinking, creativity, focused listening and super-communication. Each application would start with a brief meditation cycle followed by the guided instructions of a director. During the exercise, only the director would speak, but each person would share their experience afterwards. Mind alteration had long since been a point of interest to Lennon, however he was aware of the risks involved with chemical consumption. A recommendation by Lennon himself is included with the book.

John recorded a lyrical alternate to this song, entitled "Make Love, Not War". It is available on the John Lennon Anthology.

John Lennn said:

That was a fun track because the voice was in stereo and the seeming orchestra on it was me playing three notes on slide guitar. And the middle eight is reggae.
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  • 2 weeks later...

The Songfactor's Choice Top Ten #113

A massive SIX songs are not part of the Songfacts database at the conclusion of this week's top ten. They are:

Hey Hey What Can I Do - Led Zeppelin (1970)

Don't Try To Lay No Boogie Woogie On The King Of Rock And Roll - Long John Baldry (1971)

Bungle In The Jungle - Jethro Tull (1974)

Give Me One Reason - Tracy Chapman (1995)

I Wish It Would Rain - The Temptations (1967)

Booze And The Drugs, The - The Broken Family Band (2006

If you have any info on any of the songs mentioned anywhere in this thread, please feel free to post your knowledge here. Submissions on songs will be collated and sent to the main site and you will receive credit for your contribution.

The Songfish thanks you.

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"Bungle In The JUngle"

Jethro Tull

Written by Ian Anderson.

Released in 1974 in their War Child album.

It was written in 1972 and was a big radio hit. According to the Jethro Tull web site, the lyrics still unleash lashing critiques of established society... "Bungle in the Jungle" came from the aborted "Chateau D'isaster" tapes preceding "A Passion Play".

:help:

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"I Wish It Would Rain"

The Temptations

Written by Norman Whitfield, Barrett Strong and Roger Penzabene. Recorded in April 1967 and released as a single in December 1967 for Motown Records. Produced by Norman Whitfield.

Sde B: "I Truly, Truly Believe".

It reached #4 in the Billboard Hot 100 and #1 at the R&B Singles Charts.

It was also included in their 1968 LP, "I Wish It Would Rain".

According Wikipedia:

The song is one of the most melancholy in the Temptations repertoire, with lead singer David Ruffin delivering, in a pained voice, the story of a heartbroken man who wants to hide his sorrow. His woman has just left him, and he wishes that it would start raining, to hide the tears falling down his face because "a man ain't supposed to cry." Accompaning Ruffin's mourning vocal are the vocals his bandmates Eddie Kendricks, Melvin Franklin, Paul Williams, and Otis Williams, the subdued instrumentation of The Funk Brothers studio band, and, courtesy of Whitfield, sound effects depicting the "sunshine and blue skies" and rain described in the song. Producer Norman Whitfield devised much of the musical structure of the song, with former Motown artist Barrett Strong composing the song's signature piano intro on a piano with only ten working keys. Motown staff writer Roger Penzabene provided the song's lyrics.

More so than a number of other Motown songs, there is real sentiment and pain behind the song's words. Lyricist Penzabene had just found out his wife was cheating on him with another man. Unable to deal with the pain and unable to stop loving his wife, Penzabene expressed his pain in the lyrics of this song and its follow-up on the Temptations release schedule, "I Could Never Love Another (After Loving You)". The distraught Penzabene committed suicide on New Year's Eve 1967, a week after the single's release.

The song was the b-side to Marvin's number-one hit, "Let's Get It On".

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"Hey, Hey, What Can I Do"

Led Zeppelin

A single recorded and released as a single (side B of "Immigrant Song")in 1970.

Written by Plant/Page/Jones/Bonham. Produced by Jimmy Page.

It was never released in an album, except for "Led Zeppelin Boxed Set" a four cd compilation relased in 1990, and also on the Atlantic U.K. compilation of various artists from 1972, "The New Ag Of Atlantic".

Wikipedia said:

The lyrics of the song tell of a man's love for a woman that he will never have all to himself; a woman who 'wants to ball all day', 'stays drunk all the time', and who 'won't be true.' Eventually, it becomes apparent to the listener that the girl the singer longs for is actually a prostitute. This is revealed in the second verse, which indicates that men are "standin' in line" on Sunday morning (or Saturday night), but are not "praying." The singer emphasizes this further by saying that he is "Lookin' for [his] street corner girl." The first verse is a declaration of his love and his desire to tell her that she is the only one for him. The second verse describes her infidelity and his jealousy and frustration. In the third verse he comes to the conclusion that he must leave her 'where the guitars play', a sentiment reinforced by the vamp in which the lead singer, Robert Plant, is backed by the rest of the band repeating the two lines; 'Hey hey what can I do' and 'Oh no what can I say.'

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"Don't Try to Lay No Boogie-Woogie on the King of Rock and Roll"

Long John Baldry

Written by Long John Baldry. Released in 1971 for his album "It Ain´t Easy". Elton John (a close friend of baldry´s ) produced one side of this album while the other is produced by Rod Stewart.

From wikipedia:

...his biggest U.S. hit, "Don't Try to Lay No Boogie-Woogie on the King of Rock and Roll." In the liner notes, Baldry notes how Stewart's loose and late-night recording sessions affected the tracks, "especially those recorded on my thirtieth birthday when he showed up with cases of Remy Martin cognac and several measures of good quality champagne!" Baldry points out that "Don't Try to Lay No Boogie-Woogie on the King of the Rock and Roll" was recorded "whilst laying on the floor."

From allmusic:

A true FM radio staple at the tale end of the 1960s, this Long John Baldry classic was a number 73 hit in edited form, yet the full-length version is the one that received the FM attention. It opens with a lengthy, mellow, down-and-dirty piano-driven introduction that finds Baldry narrating the story about a time when he was detained by the London police for playing rock & roll in London, no less. The song then slips into an explosive, full-blown rocker, complete with funky saxophone and background singers in the wicked turnaround. The star of the show, though, is Baldry's own bad-ass vocal, which underlines his status as one of the most underrated singers of the '60s. The full-length version is available on the excellent Collectors Choice '60s rarities anthology, Buried Treasure.

n The album featured the song "Don't Try to Lay No Boogie Woogie on the King of Rock and Roll" which became his most successful song in the US.

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"Give Me One Reason"

Tracy Chapman

Single released in 1996. A Track of her album, "A New Reason". It won the "Best Rock Song" Grammy in 1996. It was also #1 at the Adult Top 40 Chart. One of her most famous singles.

:help:

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EDNA!! :bow: :bow:

thankyou!!

The Songfactor's Choice Top Ten #114

TWO songs not in the mix this week:

A Well Respected Man - The Kinks (1966)

And It Stoned Me - Van Morrison (1970)

If you have any info on any of the songs mentioned anywhere in this thread, please feel free to post your knowledge here. Submissions on songs will be collated and sent to the main site and you will receive credit for your contribution.

The Songfish thanks you.

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And It Stoned Me - Van Morrison (1970)

From Wiki.

"And It Stoned Me" is the opening song on Moondance the third solo album of Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison which was released in 1970.

Van Morrison, in 1985, best explains the song about his real life experience as a child to Steve Turner, his biographer:

"I suppose I was about twelve years old. We used to go to a place called Ballystockart to fish. We stopped in the village on the way up to this place and I went to this little stone house, and there was an old man there with dark weather-beaten skin, and we asked him if he had any water. He gave us some water which he said he'd got from the stream. We drank some and everything seemed to stop for me. Time stood still. For five minutes everything was really quiet and I was in this 'other dimension'. That's what the song is about.

It was listed as No. 682 on the All Time 885 Greatest Songs compiled in 2004 by WXPN from listener's votes.

It was one of the songs chosen for Van Morrison's 1990 album, The Best of Van Morrison.

"And It Stoned Me" was one of the songs performed on Van Morrison's 1980 segment of his (2006) 2 disc DVD Live At Montreux 1980/1974.

It is one of the hits included on the 2007 compilation album, Still on Top - The Greatest Hits.

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"A Well Respected Man"

The Kinks

Recorded in July/early Aug 1965 at Pye Studios, London. Released as a single in March 1966 in the UK with "Milk Cow Blues" as the B side. Also a track of their 1965 album "Kinkdom".

It was released as the B side of "Set Me Free" in September 1967 in the US, where it reached 13 in the charts.

Included on The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.

:help:

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I didn't find much more-

"A Well Respected Man" is a song by the British band The Kinks from 1966 (see 1966 in music). It reached #13 on the US charts. It was included on The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. It was featured in the 2007 film Juno and its award-winning soundtrack. It can also be heard during the end credits of the 2004 film The Life and Death of Peter Sellers.

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The Songfactor's Choice Top Ten #115

Over half this week's top ten are missing from Songfacts! SIX big songs, here they are:

Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon - Neil Diamond (1967)

Living In The Past - Jethro Tull (1969)

Ain’t No Mountain High Enough - Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell (1967)

I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry - Hank Williams (1949)

Little Green Bag - George Baker Selection (1969)

Flyswatter - Eels (2000)

If you have any info on any of the songs mentioned anywhere in this thread, please feel free to post your knowledge here. Submissions on songs will be collated and sent to the main site and you will receive credit for your contribution.

The Songfish thanks you.

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I'm including the wiki link because there's a lot of information on various versions of the song.WIki

Ain't No Mountain High Enough" is an R&B/soul song written by Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson in 1966. The composition was first successful as a 1967 hit single recorded by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell for the Tamla (Motown) label.

Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell original

The original 1967 version of "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" was a top twenty hit. According to Gaye, Ashford, and Simpson, Terrell was a little nervous and intimidated during recording because she hadn't rehearsed the lyrics. Terrell recorded her vocals alone with producers Harvey Fuqua and Johnny Bristol, who added Gaye's vocal at a later date. [1] "Ain't No Mountain" peaked at number nineteen on the Billboard pop charts, and went to number three on the R&B charts.

This original version of "Ain't No Mountain", produced by Harvey Fuqua and Johnny Bristol, was a care-free, danceable, and romantic love song that became the signature duet between Gaye and Terrell. Its success led to a string of more Ashford/Simpson penned duets (including "You're All I Need to Get By" and "Your Precious Love").

The Gaye/Terrell version was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999, and is regarded today as one of the most important records ever released by Motown.

Credits

Gaye/Terrell version

All vocals by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell

Instrumentation by The Funk Brothers

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"Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon" is a song written by Neil Diamond, whose recording of it reached #10 on the U.S. pop singles chart in 1967.

The song first appeared on Diamond's album Just for You, which came out the same year. The mono and stereo versions of this song differ slightly. On the mono "Just For You" LP as well as on the 45, the strings do not come in until the second verse. It also has a slightly longer fade. The stereo "Just For You" LP version has a shorter fade and the strings come in on the first chorus.

"Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon" garnered a second life span when it appeared on the 1994 Pulp Fiction soundtrack, performed by rock band Urge Overkill. Other versions have been done by Cliff Richard (1968), Gary Puckett and the Union Gap (1969), the Biddu Orchestra (1978), and 16 Volt (1998).

"I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" is a song written and recorded by American country music singer-songwriter Hank Williams in 1949. The song about loneliness was largely inspired by his troubled relationship with wife Audrey Sheppard. With evocative lyrics, such as the opening lines "Hear that lonesome whippoorwill/He sounds too blue to fly," the song has been covered by a wide range of musicians.

Rolling Stone ranked it #111 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. It's the second oldest song on the list, and one of only two from the 1940s.

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"Living In The Past"

Jethro Tull

Written by Ian Anderson.

Single released in 1969 with "Driving Song" as side B.

Wikipedia:

It is notable for being written in the irregular 5/4 time signature.

The song was originally recorded during sessions for Tull's 1969 album Stand Up, and released in the same year as a stand-alone single. It was restored as a "bonus track" for the 2001 CD reissue. However, it became even more popular after its 1972 release on Tull's compilation album, also called Living In The Past.

The song, which was originally released at the peak of the Vietnam War, seems to be about people wishing to live in peaceful times (the "past" mentioned in the song) rather than at a time of war and turmoil (the "present").

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"Little Green Bag"

George Baker Selection

wikipedia:

Written by Jan Visser and George Baker (credited as Hans Bouwens)and recorded by the George Baker Selection at the band's own cost. The 7" single, debut of the George Baker Selection, was released by the label Negram. The B-side was "Pretty Little Dreamer". In 1970 "Little Green Bag" appeared on the album Little Green Bag of the George Baker Selection.

1970:

#9 in the Dutch Top 40.

#3 in Belgium.

#16 Cash Box magazine chart

#21 in the Billboard Top 100, U.S.

In 1992 it was used in the film Reservoir Dogs and reached #1 in Japan after it was used in a Japanese whiskey commercial.

Wikipedia:

The song features a "jazzy" bass intro, with a tambourine played on the off beats. The bass line is played twice followed by a drum groove with a "bounce" feel. The vocals start and are sung in a mellow, cool way, then they build. By the chorus the song starts to resemble romantic Spanish music.

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Flyswatter - Eels

From wikipedia:

Year: 2000

Album: Daisies of the Galaxy

Music video directed by Steve Hanft

Charted only in the UK at 55

Used in the movie: "The Anniversary Party", "Chain of fools"

unverified facts:

- "E wrote this about mice that were in his basement"

- "about how people don't care for all the things that bug them. They put the mice in mouse traps, kill off the head lice and squash the spiders. And of course the flyswatter is made to kill flies. It's just about the whole apathy towards them."

Not much to find :(

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Gold stars to Shannon, edna & Viaene! :bow:

The Songfactor's Choice Top Ten #116

Just two songs needing facts this week:

I'm Losing You - Rod Stewart with The Faces (1971)

Disco 2000 - Pulp (1996)

If you have any info on any of the songs mentioned anywhere in this thread, please feel free to post your knowledge here. Submissions on songs will be collated and sent to the main site and you will receive credit for your contribution.

The Songfish thanks you.

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