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The Songfactor's Choice Top Ten Facts


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  • 2 weeks later...

The Songfactor's Choice Top Ten #175

FOUR song from this week's top ten:

You Belong to Me - Carly Simon (1978)

Stone Cold Crazy - Queen (1974)

Dress - PJ Harvey (1991)

Stand Tall - Burton Cummings (1976)

The Songfactor's Choice Top Ten #176

ONE song missing from this week's top ten:

Crazy Mama - J.J. Cale (1971)

The Songfactor's Choice Top Ten #177

THREE songs needing facts from this top ten:

Cold Shot - Stevie Ray Vaughan (1984)

Going To a Go-Go - Smokey Robinson & The Miracles (1965)

You Better You Bet - The Who (1981)

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.

Profuse apoligies for my extreme lateness.

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"You Belong To Me"

Carly Simon

A track from her seventh studio album (1978) "Boys In The Trees". Written by Carly Simon and Michael McDonald. It was also a single and had "In a Small Moment" as B-side. It reached #4 and #6 at the charts.

Originally recorded by the American rock group The Doobie Brothers for their seventh studio album, Livin' on the Fault Line (1977), the song was made famous by Simon herself when recorded for her seventh studio album, Boys in the Trees (1978). Released as the album's lead single, her version reached the top ten of the Pop Singles chart in late June 1978. A live version of the song from The Doobie Brothers' 1983 album Farewell Tour would later chart on the Pop Singles chart at number seventy-nine in early August 1983.

Artists who have covered "You Belong to Me" include Anita Baker on the 1990 compilation album Rubáiyát: Elektra's 40th Anniversary, Jennifer Lopez on her 2002 album This Is Me... Then, and Chaka Khan on her 2007 album Funk This—the latter being a collaboration with Michael McDonald. It was also recorded in Finnish by Finnish singer Maarit for her 1978 album Siivet saan, retitled "Yhteen kuulutaan".

Simon's version was featured on the soundtrack to the romantic comedy films Desperately Seeking Susan (1985) and Little Black Book (2004)

, says Wikipedia.
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"Going To a Go-Go"

Smokey Robinson & The Miracles

Written by Smokey Robinson, Pete Moore, Bobby Rogers and Marvin Tarplin. Recorded for Tamla-Motown.

Its B-side was "Choosey Beggar" and was released in December 1965. It made #11 on the Hot 100 and #2in the rock and blues charts. It sold a million records.

According wikipedia

Smokey Robinson sings lead on "Going to a Go-Go"... Moore, Rogers, Ronnie White, and Smokey Robinson's wife Claudette Robinson provide backing vocals for the song, an up-tempo dance song inviting people of all walk of life to attend a go-go party. In the Motown DVD release "Smokey Robinson And The Miracles : The Definitive Performances" , Miracles member and co- author Bobby Rogers commented that this song was inspired by the success of the "Go-Go" clubs that grew in popularity throughout the United States in the 1960s .

"Going to a Go-Go" is featured on the Miracles' album of the same name, which proved to be their highest-charting LP of all-original material. The album reached the Top Ten of the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart in early 1966, peaking at number eight, and reached #1 on the Billboard top R&B albums chart. One of the tracks from the Going to a Go-Go LP, "Choosey Beggar", was issued as the single's b-side, and peaked at number 35 on the Billboard R&B chart.

The Rolling Stones perrformed it live at their 1981 tour and included the song in their album "Still Life" (American Concert 1981)

Also released as a single; B-side was"Beast of Burden" (Live)

Released June 2, 1982

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"Stand Tall"

Burton Cummings

Written by B.Cummings, who recorded a self-titled album in 1976 after leaving The Guess Who. "Stand Tall" was the single from this album.

It sold over a million copies. It reached #10 in the US charts and #2 in US Adult Contemporary Charts.

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"Stone Cold Crazy"

Queen

Written by Freddie Mercury, Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon. Atrack from their November 1974 album, "Sheer Heart Attack". It was never released a single but it' s also included in their "Best Of" albums.

Wiki:

The lyrics feature a gangster theme, even mentioning Al Capone. A person is dreaming on a Saturday morning about being Al Capone committing various crimes, although the lyrics are very tongue-in-cheek and have humorous lines such as "walking down the street/shooting people that I meet/with my rubber tommy water gun".

The song is credited to the four members of Queen though Freddie Mercury played it with his band Wreckage during the 60s.

Wiki:

...the song underwent many changes musically and lyrically before getting recorded, resulting in credit going to the entire band. Early versions of the song were much slower, according to the band, although no bootlegs exist.
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"You Better You Bet"

The Who

Written by Pete Townshend.

A track from their 1981 album "Face Dances". Recorded in November 1980. Released as a single in February 1981.

Its B-side was "The Quiet One" and it reached #18 at the Billboard Hot 100 and #1 at the Billboard Top Tracks. It made #9 at the UK Top Ten. It was the last of their singles to make the charts and the first one to make the Top 40 since 1978.

"Free Dances"...introduced drummer Kenny Jones of ex- Faces and Small Faces fame. Jones took the place of the legendary Keith Moon, who died of an overdose in 1978, after which it was rumored that there would never be a replacement... "You Better You Bet," loosely based on Townshend's yearning to remain youthful as a musician and to survive the changing times of love and romance, proved to be an amiable radio rocker. The Who's use of synthesizers fit in perfectly with the beginning of the decade, while the song's alliterative chorus and clever use of sarcasm and wit gave it lyrical sustenance. Even though Roger Daltrey's gritty vocal style gives the song most of its character, an acoustic, more heartfelt version is performed by Townshend on his double album, entitled Another Scoop, from 1987, which consists of numerous Who songs and solo efforts that Townshend remixed and reconfigured. Even with this secondary version in existence, it will always be the Face Dances single that fans will remember as one of the Who's last radio hurrahs.
From allmusic.com

Wiki:

A music video for the song was produced in black and white featuring the band and keyboardist John Bundrick playing onstage. It was the fourth video played upon MTV's launch on August 1, 1981.

It is sung by front man Roger Daltrey but contains backing vocals from Townshend and bassist John Entwistle. Townshend's guitar part is played on a Rickenbacker 360/12.

The song also makes references to both the group T.Rex and the group's own 1971 album Who's Next with the line: "I drunk myself blind to the sound of old T.Rex... and Who's Next

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"Cold Shot"

Stevie Ray Vaughan

Written by W.C. Clarck and Michael Kindred.

A track from his 1984 album -his second album- "Can' t Stand The Weather".

He performed this song very often live and it's also included n most of his compilations. He makes a very personal version of this classic.

:help: :help:

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"Dress"

PJ Harvey

Written by Rob Ellis/P.J.Harvey.

Recorded by the end of 1991 and released both as a single (of her three songs record from 1991 "Dress/Water/Dry") and a track from her first album "Dry" in 1992.

allmusic says:

PJ Harvey's first single isn't as startling as some of the more crazed moments that followed on her first two albums, but "Dress" works perfectly as an introduction to Harvey's musical and lyrical world. The lyrics take an intriguingly real-world angle on male/female relations, in a manner similar to the politically charged post-punk of the Gang of Four or the Au Pairs: although the female character in the song is trying to catch the eye of a certain male, her obsession is with the dress that she's wearing, uncomfortably, "swinging over like a heavy loaded fruit tree." As the song goes on, the character's predicament grows worse, until the explosively savage last verse, when she runs away feeling like "a fallen woman in dancing costume." In between verses, the one-line chorus, "If you put it on," sounds increasingly mocking, until Harvey's spitting it out repeatedly at the song's end. Overall, "Dress" is a neatly packaged précis of many of Harvey's early lyrical obsessions; similarly, the song is a crisp but not threateningly weird introduction to her band's tightly wound, nervy sound, with a fairly traditional tune and arrangement — including one of the most memorable choruses on the album — amped up to an almost unbearable point by Harvey's impassioned performance.
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  • 2 weeks later...

The Songfactor's Choice Top Ten Facts #178

A few songs missing this time round, four to be precise:

Love Is Alive - Gary Wright (1976)

No One Like You - Scorpions (1982)

Diamond Girl - Seals & Crofts (1973)

I'm Free - The Rolling Stones (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.

The Songfish thanks you.

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The Songfactor's Choice Top Ten #179

Two songs without facts:

10 A.M. Automatic - The Black Keys (2004)

Mercy Seat, The - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds (1988)

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 Free"

The Rolling Stones

Written by Jagger/Richards. A track of their third UK LP "Out Of Our Heads" (Sept. 64) and included later in "December' s Children" (1965) in the US.

It was also released as a single and was the B for "Get Off Of My Cloud".

There' s Ian Stewart on piano, Jack Nitzsche on organ and

James W. Alexander on tambourine.

Allmusic states that

...this is the Rolling Stones at their brightest and most ebullient. With a folk-rock-meets- Motown guitar lick and giddy-up drumbeat, it sounds like the Stones doing their own version of the Everly Brothers as filtered through the Stones' most immediate competition, the Beatles. The end result, though, sounds like a Solomon Burke-sung Bert Berns song (i.e., a Tin Pan Alley pop number sung with a soul flavor). The Stones in 1965 were starting to branch out from the blues and R&B covers that made up the bulk of their repertoire and felt the pressure to write some original material. In this respect, the Beatles were way ahead of them in terms of both quantity and quality. But the Stones soon made up for lost time and positioned themselves as far opposite of the Beatles as they could, ultimately finding their own unique ground. At the risk of oversimplifying it, the Stones generally sounded more blues-based and dark, as opposed to the Beatles' more major-key pop excursions, at least during these early years. The Stones' brooding visages peered out at you from shadowy album covers, while the Beatles were usually caught smiling in jaunty group poses. Even "I'm Free," which has the Stones' sunny harmonies over a bouncy major-key riff, features an undeniably bluesy vocal by Mick Jagger, who could not sing a song straight if his life depended on it; he has always been a soul singer — bending and slurring the notes of any scale and thus finding the blue notes in between. The lyrics of "I'm Free" are simple, direct, and most likely aimed at the teenage pop market. But even in their simplicity, Jagger finds a way to add a sexy, subversive boast: "I'm free to choose whom I please any old time/I'm free to please whom I choose any old time/So hold me, love me/Love me, hold me/But I'm free any old time to get what I want." This was basically the template by which he seemingly lived his life thenceforth. The record might have been put to good effect as a prenuptial warning to his future love interests. The music, recorded in between tour stops in Hollywood, is mostly based around a guitar riff with a tremolo effect and features the oddly out-of-time tambourine of soul music sideman James W. Alexander. The Rolling Stones released "I'm Free" in the United States on the December's Children LP and as a B-side to "Get off My Cloud." Later live versions were slowed down, accentuating the R&B aspects of the song, especially when coupled in a medley with "Under My Thumb." It was a hit years later for the Scottish dance/ rock outfit Soup Dragons on their Lovegod LP (1990), adding a bass line straight from the Doors' "Peace Frog," as well as some reggae toasting (rapping) with the shouted line, "Don't be afraid of your freedom," which was used as a slogan in advertisements for cell phones.

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"Diamond Girl"

Seals & Crofts

Written by Seals and Crofts.

A track of their fifth studio album "Diamond Girl" from August 1973.

The song, also relased as a single, reached #6 at the Billboard Hot 100. According wikipedia, it' s a jazzy minor-key shuffle with a walking bass line that was obviously heavily influenced by Van Morrison's Moondance.

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"No One Like You"

Scorpions

Written by Rudolf Schenker and Klaus Meiner.

A track from their 1982 album "Blackout" and also a single to reach #65on the Billboard Charts but #1 on the Billboard Rock Tracks Chart.

Allmusic:

n 1982, Blackout gave the Scorpions a number ten placing on the album charts, eventually gaining platinum status. This was a far better result than 1979's Lovedrive release, which peaked at number 55. Blackout rose to semi-prominence thanks to the hard-rocking strength of "No One Like You." Although the song only made it as far as number 65 on the charts, it mustered up a simple but heavy sound that could please more than one audience. This tapered heavy metal style began in 1979, when Mathias Jabs replaced Michael Schenker as the group's premier guitarist. With Schenker's fondness for playing a heavier style now gone, the Scorpions had a solid lineup that was willing to focus on more of a streamlined rock sound that would appeal to a wider commercial base rather than just a heavy metal one. Written by Rudolf Schenker and Klaus Meine, "No One Like You"'s energy is built around Meine's explosive vocals, full-bodied and controllably charged throughout the chorus but wonderfully subtle during the rest of the tune. The guitar riffs are simple and appealing, and although they're a little cliché sounding, they brandish the perfect amount of hard rock flair without going overboard. "No One Like You" sports a light to hard transition, with only one guitar and some solid drum hits accompanying Meine during the chorus. The riffs are short and dense, creating an effectual rock mien. Actually, it was "No One Like You" that kicked off the Scorpions' commercial success, and because of the song's amicable rock feel, the band managed to hold on to the fans that have been with them all the while. The Scorpions used the same rock recipe for their next release, the double-platinum Love at First Sting album, which went all the way to number six and gave them their first Top 40 hit with "Rock You Like a Hurricane."
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"Love Is Alive"

Gary Wrigh

Written by Gary Wright and recorded as a track of his June 1975 album "The Dream Weaver".

Wright was the keyboard player for Spooky Tooth and this was the second all synthetizer/keyboard solo album, only featuring an electric guitar on one of the tracks. The rest would be drums by Jim Keltner and Andy Newmark, plus the vocals by Wright himself.

It was also a single and it reached #2 in the Pop Singles charts in 1976 and #98 in the Black Singles charts in the same year.

:help:

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"Mercy Seat, The"

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

Written by Nick Cave and Mick Harvey. Released as a track of "Tender Pray", 1988, an album of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Also released as a single.

It's a song about a man who is being executed by the electric chair.

Wikpedia says

The "Mercy Seat" refers both to the throne of God in the heavens, which the man feels he will soon visit, and to the electric chair. The song is laden with allusions to Christianity; in the Old Testament, the mercy seat is the symbol of the throne of God over the Ark of the Covenant. The sentenced man claims that he is innocent, that he told the truth, and that he is not afraid to die.

Over the course of the song the register is repeated and gradually altered from a defiant statement of innocence to admitting guilt and that he is deserving of death.

Cave's vocals are delivered over a thick backing of guitars, organ, and strings. An acoustic version was also released as part of a bonus CD for the album The Good Son entitled Acoustic Versions from Tender Prey. This version was later reissued to appear on both the Stripped EP and B-Sides & Rarities. The song is a live standard of Cave's, and has been performed at almost every concert since 1988.

Country singer Johnny Cash covered the song on his 2000 album American III: Solitary Man. Cash's version features a somber guitar and piano accompaniment.

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The Songfactor's Choice Top Ten #180

Just the two songs this week:

I'm Going Home - Ten Years After (1970)

Dream Police - Cheap Trick (1979)

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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