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The Songfactor's Choice Top Ten #161

This week's number one is missing! Help fix this!

Hey Tonight - Creedence Clearwater Revival (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.

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The Songfactor's Choice Top Ten #162

FOUR songs this week:

Grey Seal - Elton John (1970)

Rock And Roll Fantasy - Bad Company (1979)

Policy Of Truth - Depeche Mode (1990)

Skateaway - Dire Straits (1980)

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.

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Hi, Katie!! :):)

"Hey Tonight"

Creedence Clearwater Revival

Not much info about this song...

Written by John Fogerty.

A track of their 1970 LP "Pendulum", the last before J.Fogerty left the band.

It was released as the B-side of "Have You Ever Seen The Rain". The single reached #7 in the US charts and #36 in the UK by January 1971.

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"Skateaway"

Dire Straits

Written by Mark Knoppfler. Released in 1980 in their album "Making Movies".

Released in March 1981 (B-side: "Solid Rock")

Wikipedia: ...dealing with a female roller-skater (Jay Curley/ Jayzik) breezing through busy city streets, who is listening to a then-newly-released Walkman... Released as a single in 1981, the song was accompanied by a video that was popular on MTV.

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"Policy Of Truth"

Depeche Mode

Written by Martin Gore. Released as a 7" single on May 1990 with "Kaleid" as B-side. It was also released in 12".

Third single from their album "Violator".

From wikipedia:

The cover art for "Policy of Truth" has the blurred image of a nude woman. The camera angles and poses differ on the 7" Vinyl, the 12" Vinyl, the CD and Cassette. Usually each one has more than one. On the L12, there is a picture of a different woman.

It is the only Depeche Mode single to chart higher on the Billboard Hot 100 (#15) than on the UK Singles Chart (#16). It also became the band's second chart-topper on the Modern Rock Tracks chart.

The video was directed by Anthony Corbijn.

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"Grey Seal"

Elton John

Released as a single in June 1970, the song was the B-side for "Rock and Roll Madonna". It was written by Elton John and Bernie Taupin.

It was included as a track on the double album "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road", released in October 1973.

The song's musical style is typical for the album, using wah-effects and a variousity of keyboards and synthesizers. A grand piano is also played, with a riff that could remind of Elton's version of Pinball Wizard. A count-in is also audible on the track.

The original version was available on several bootlegs until its release on "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road". This version is musically different. It's played on electric piano and is heavily orchestrated. It also has an ending which isn't found on the 1973 version.

says Wiki.

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The Songfactor's Choice Top Ten #163

TWO songs not on Songfacts this week:

Into The Great Wide Open - Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers (1991)

Catch Us If You Can - Dave Clark Five (1965)

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.

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"Catch Us If You Can"

Dave Clark Five

Written by Glenn Clark and Lenny Davidson. It was released as a sngle in 1965 and it went to #4 in the US charts and #5 in the UK charts.

From Wikipedia:

Starting with no accompaniment other than finger snapping, the hook was instantaneous:

Here they come again, mmmm-mm-mm

Catch us if you can, mmmm-mm-mm

Time to get a move on, mmmm-mm-mm

We will yell with all of our might!

[drums kick in]

Catch us if you can ...

As such, it served as the title song to John Boorman's well-regarded DC5 vehicle and pop scene film Catch Us If You Can (relabelled Having a Wild Weekend in the U.S.) of the same year. The title phrase was seemingly a take-off on the 1959 crime film Catch Me If You Can and similar phrases, with 'me' turned to the group 'us'.

In years since, "Catch Us If You Can" is played near the start of Shrewsbury Town F.C. matches as the footballers run onto the pitch. This has been happening on and off since the 1974-1975 season and "Catch" is thus`seen by home fans as Shrewsbury's de facto theme tune. In the U.S., "Catch" remains one of the DC5's most played tunes on oldies radio stations. In Australia, the Candid Camera-style television show Catch Us If You Can was named after the song.

Author Emlyn Williams used this song's lyric as an epigraph in Beyond Belief, his book about the serial killers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley. "Catch Us If You Can" was a hit song on British radio during part of the time the Moors Murders were being committed

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"Into The Great Wide Open"

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers

Written by Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne. It was a track of their third album, "Into The Great Wide Open" from 1991.

Allmusic says that Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers were reunited for this song and Petty with producer Jeff Lynne, the first recording from the session which yielded the title track for the 1991 album Into the Great Wide Open. Mike Campbell's slide guitar provides the appropriate rock & roll Hollywood-sleaze underpinning to the story about a rock star -- the so-called "rebel without a clue" in the song -- on his way to the big time. Because Petty and the Heartbreakers had recently completed a tour with the Replacements, there was some suspicion among hardcore fans that Petty may've borrowed the "rebel without a clue" line from the Replacements' "I'll Be You," which they performed night after night on Petty's 1989 shed tour; the rumor has never been founded. The video for "Into the Great Wide Open" was "a piece of cake," says Petty, who was particularly satisfied with the way in which the simple narrative matches the action in the video. He calls it, "a very funny song and a very true song." The video features Johnny Depp and Faye Dunaway (on a break from the set of the film Arizona Dream). Again, Petty made career inroads with the video format that he may never have achieved with just the release of the song -- though it didn't have a big enough impact to land it in the charts. Yet "Into the Great Wide Open," with all its mythical rock & roll-life imagery, is a keeper with or without the visuals.

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  • 3 weeks later...

The Songfactor's Choice Top Ten #165

Just the ONE song this week:

Draggin' The Line - Tommy James (1971)

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.

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Hi, Katie!! :)

"Draggin' The Line"

Tommy James

I got this from allmusic.com:

"Draggin' The Line", Roulette Records single #7103, went top 5 on the pop charts in the summer of 1971, the first hit record for Tommy James away from The Shondells. Partnered with co-producer Bob King, the pair that wrote and produced the Top 10 "Tighter, Tighter" for Alive 'n Kickin' one year earlier, "Draggin' The Line" was co-written with King as well and clocks in at two minutes and forty five seconds, the same exact time as "Tighter, Tighter". A bubbling bass line resonating the melody of the song's title opens the tune followed quickly by a simple and direct drumbeat. The lyrics are as obscure as ever, from what seems like a song about the 9-5 workday grind to the singer's dog "Sam" eating purple flowers. It dips into a glorious chorus of "I feel fine", peace of mind, and taking one's time, horns a blazing, back into the repeating title. "Draggin' The Line" comes from Tommy's Christian Of The World album and could be a reference to the cliche "we all have our crosses to bear", but the invisible asterisk seems to indicate the fact that he doesn't care about it all. The marching instrumentation adds to the sentiment, underlining this pop anomaly. It's not like anything recorded by Tommy James prior or after, his catalog full of twists and turns. The song is short and sweet, in and out in under three minutes, but it's a very effective journey into post-psychedelic seventies radio music with Tommy James voice in great shape. The follow-up, "I'm Comin' Home" from the same album is even shorter, but not nearly as successful, only nicking the bottom of the Top 40 a few months later.

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  • 2 weeks later...

hi edna!

The Songfactor's Choice Top Ten #166

Just two songs without facts:

San Franciscan Nights - Eric Burdon & The Animals (1967)

Porcelain - Moby (1999)

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.

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The Songfactor's Choice Top Ten #167

THREE songs needing your assistance with facts!

Call Me The Breeze - J.J. Cale (1971)

tanding Outside A Broken Phone Booth With Money In My Hand - Primitive Radio Gods (1996)

Feels Like Rain - Buddy Guy (1993)

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.

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Wiki info:

J.J. Cale has been covered by many artists

as for "Call me the Breeze": The Allman Brothers Band, Johnny Cash, David Allen Coe, Dr Hook, Waylon Jennings, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Spiritualized

The song consists of a 12-bar blues guitar shuffle over the backing of a primitive drum machine. It's typical of J.J Cale's style in its simplicity and laid-back, easy-going feel.

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Standing Outside A Broken Phone Booth With Money In My Hand - Primitive Radio Gods (1996)

The chorus, "I've been downhearted baby / ever since the day we met" is sampled from B.B. King's 1964 song "How Blue Can You Get?"

The song was first featured in the 1996 movie "The Cable Guy" with Jim Carrey. Not long after it reached #1 in Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks.

This was Primitive Radio Gods' first single and to date biggest (only? *) hit.

* I'm not 100% sure on that, so [citation needed] :P

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"San Franciscan Nights"

Eric Burdon & The Animals

Written byEric Burdon/Vic Briggs/John Weider/Barry Jenkins/Danny McCulloch. A siongle from their 1967 album "Winds Of Change" with "Good Times" as the B-side in the US and "Gratefully Dead" in the UK.

From Wikipedia:

A paean to San Francisco, it was the biggest hit that the new band — as opposed to the first-incarnation Animals of the mid-1960s — would have, reaching a peak position of number 1 on the Canadian RPM charts, number 9 on the U.S. pop singles chart and number 7 on the UK pop singles chart.

The song opens with a brief parody of the Dragnet theme. This is followed by a spoken word dedication by Burdon "to the city and people of San Francisco, who may not know it but they are beautiful and so is their city," with Burdon urging European residents to "save up all your bread and fly Trans Love Airways to San Francisco, U.S.A.," to enable them to "understand the song," and "for the sake of your own peace of mind."

The melody then begins with lyrics about a warm 1967 San Franciscan night, with hallucinogenic images of a "strobe light's beam" creating dreams, walls and minds moving, angels singing, "jeans of blue," and "Harley Davidsons too," contrasted with a "cop's face is filled with hate" (on a street called "Love") and an appeal to the "old cop" and the "young cop" to just "feel all right." Pulling in as many 1960s themes as possible, the song then concludes with a plea that the American dream include "Indians too."

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"Porcelain"

Moby

Written by Moby. A track from his album "Play" and the sixth suingle from this album. It was released in the summer of 2000 and reached #5 in the UK charts.

The B-side was "Summer" and "Flyying Over The Dateline".

Allmusic says:

Crackling noises layered over reversed synth chords at the beginning and end of "Porcelain" illustrate the homegrown nature of this recording; Moby tracked this song, and the rest of Play, in his Little Italy, NY, apartment. Sure, the noises could have been digitally removed, but they add character to this texture-rich song. A laid-back drum-machine pattern and strategically arranged music layers serve as the foundation to "Porcelain." Each verse adds on a new sound pattern — be it choir-like chants, vocal samples, or a cello line — and it's this layering technique that lends "Porcelain" its substance and momentum, even though the song is mid-tempo at best. Moby's layering is done ever so subtly that before you know it, the song climaxes and ends by returning to its beginning with the bare chords and crackling sounds. "Porcelain" could almost have been classified as an instrumental piece, however, Moby does sing a simple, but catchy, vocal line that repeats throughout: "I never meant to hurt you/I never meant to lie/So this is good-bye." His delicate and haunting delivery is a perfect complement for the instrumentation, which features ethereal synth washes and celestial piano hooks. What makes "Porcelain" such a groundbreaking recording is that it helped bring electronica music into the limelight. It was so well-received upon its release in 1999 that it enjoyed cross-format radio play and remains a genre-straddling phenomenon. The song was such a runaway hit, in fact, that it was also featured on a number of television commercials and resulted in a Moby media frenzy (the vegan artist was featured in publications from the New York Times to Spin).

Porcelain contains pulsating string samples, piano rhythms and wandering solos by Moby. The beginning is a reverse sound of sampled strings. Moby performs vocals, with additional vocals by Pilar Basso
, says Wiki.
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Thanks everyone!

The Songfactor's Choice Top Ten #168

TWO absolute classics that aren't currently on Songfacts!

So Far Away - Carole King (1971)

Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad - Meat Loaf (1977)

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 read something about Bonnie Raitt doing backup and ringing a bell of some kind I think :crazy: I know I read it on an Amazon review of the album.

I was short on time when I was checking on the song today but I'll try the Amazon site again tomorrow :)

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Thank you, Sébas, Lea and Laurie... :):)

"So Far Away"

Carole King

A track of his famous "Tapestry" album. Written by herself and also a single released in March 1971. It reached #3 in the Charts.

From allmusic: by Bill Janovitz

From the enormously successful 1971 album Tapestry, the sublime "So Far Away" is representative of the LP in general: A thoughtful, unhurried pace and a lilting melody carry an uncomplicated lyric that feels at once heartfelt, personal, and universal. Over a wistful jazz-pop chord progression on her piano, King's vocal melody aches with her narrator's pining: "Long ago I reached for you and there you stood/Holding you again could only do me good/How I wish I could, but you're so far away." The deceptively simple lyric operates on more than one level, beginning with the geographic dislocation of her friend/lover. King's narrator is audibly frustrated in her rhetorical question "doesn't anybody stay in one place anymore?" But the guileless lyric searches deeper than mere physical separation; the narrator bears witness to an overall fragmentation to interpersonal relationships and an increasingly transient '70s (and beyond) society in general. "One more song about moving along the highway," sings King, acknowledging the clichéd straits into which she has ventured. "Can't say much of anything that's new/If I could only work this life out my way/I'd rather spend it being close to you." There is an innocence that seems even more charming now — as more artists seem to need to have to convey some form of postmodern ironic detachment or cynicism — and that is a tragedy; why should a graceful expression of a basic human need have to feel nostalgically quaint and outdated? Yet this still would have been the context in 1971, and clearly this sentiment resonated for many record-buyers — 13 million and counting, in fact. The weary narrator seems conscious of this jaded context. She should know better, she seems to say, and the song feels like one big sigh. The narrator is not an exception or without blame, though, as she sings in the song's second B-section, "Traveling around sure gets me down and lonely/Nothing else to do but close my mind/I sure hope the road don't come to own me/Yet so many dreams I've yet to find." King is supported by friends and session musicians on this intimate recording — mostly personnel from James Taylor's records. Taylor himself is here on the track, providing sparse acoustic guitar arpeggios. Charles Larkey (her second husband) adds distinctive harmonic counterpoints on electric bass, as does Curtis Amy on flute. Russ Kunkel plays it mellow on the drums. The legendary Lou Adler produces. The end result sounds like a template for the '70s singer/songwriter genre.

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