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The Songfactors' Choice Top Ten #193

This week there is 4 songs needing facts.

Sorrow - David Bowie (1973)

Clampdown - The Clash (1979)

Riding With The King - BB King/Eric Clapton (2000)

All For Leyna - Billy Joel (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.

As always the Songfish thanks you. :D

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Lea, your sig is one of my all time favorite quotes! :D :thumbsup:

The Songfactors' Choice Top Ten #193

Sorrow - David Bowie (1973)

"Sorrow" is a song first recorded by The McCoys. It became a big hit in the United Kingdom in a version by The Merseys, reaching number 4 in the UK charts on 28 April 1966. A version by David Bowie was also a hit in 1973.

The song contains the lyric "with your long blonde hair and your eyes of blue", which is also referenced in the The Beatles' track "It's All Too Much" from Yellow Submarine.

David Bowie's remake of "Sorrow" was the only single released in the UK from the Pin Ups covers project, reaching UK #3 and staying in the charts for 15 weeks. The B-side, “Amsterdamâ€, was a cover of a Jacques Brel song (originally called “Port of Amsterdamâ€), had been performed live by Bowie since 1969, and was recorded in 1971 for the Ziggy Stardust album. It was dropped from the final release, but included as it fitted in with “Sorrowâ€. In France, it was billed as the A-side of the single.

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"Clampdown"

The Clash

Written by Joe Strummer and Mick Jones, this song was released as a single -its B-side is "The Guns of Brixton"-

on December 15th, 1979. It reached #16 on the UK charts.

It's also a track from their famous double LP "London Calling", recorded in the Autumn of 1979.

Wiki says:

The song began as a instrumental track called "Working and Waiting". It is sometimes called "Working for the Clampdown" which is the main lyric of the song, and also the title provided on the album's lyric sheet. Its lyrics comment on people who forsake the idealism of youth and urges young people to fight the status quo...
and also
The song's lyrics, written by Joe Strummer, have a variety of interpretions. One commonly held belief is that it refers to the Naziregime. According to this view, the reference to "wearing blue and brown" would refer to the monochromatic military-style uniforms often worn by federal police forces in dictatorial regimes, specifically the all-brown uniform worn by members of Hitler's SA.

The first verse is also commonly cited in support of the Nazi misinterpretation of the song, containing as it does references to Jews (see the Final Solution), blue-eyed men (see Aryan race) and young believers (see Hitler Youth):

Taking off his turban, they said, is this man a Jew?

Cause they're working for the clampdown

They put up a poster saying we earn more than you!

When we're working for the clampdown

We will teach our twisted speech

To the young believers

We will train our blue-eyed men

To be young believers

Others believe that the lyrics are more broad in scope, reflecting the failures of capitalist society. This interpretation of the lyrics sees the wearing of the "blue and brown" as referring to the color of the uniforms that are mostly worn by blue-collar workers. This idea goes along with lyrics that refer to "young believers" who are brought and bought into the capital system by those "working for the clampdown" who will "teach with twisted speech."

Strummer wrote,

The men in the factory are old and cunning

You don't owe nothing, so boy get running!

It's the best years of your life they want to steal!

You grow up and you calm down and You're working for the clampdown.

You start wearing the blue and brown and you're working for the clampdown.

So you got someone to boss around. It makes you feel big now...

These lyrics are seen to refer to how one gets caught by the capital economic system and its ethos of work, debt, power, position and conformist lifestyle. Strummer, who was a proud and loud socialist, also uses the songs closing refrain to highlight this mindset and potential trap and offers a warning to not give oneself over to "the clampdown". He does this by repeating as the song fades out the word "work" five times and "more work" twice. This reaffirms the idea that Strummer saw "the clampdown" as a threat to all who get caught up in the modern economic wage-hour system.

Paul Simonon said to the LA Times:

What was worse was that when it got time for us to start leaving school, they took us out on trips to give us an idea of what jobs were available. But they didn’t try to introduce us to anything exciting or meaningful. They took us to the power station and the Navy yards. It was like saying, ‘This is all you guys could ever do.†“Some of the kids fell for it. When we got taken down to the Navy yards, we went on a ship and got cooked up dinner and it was all chips and beans. It was really great. So some of the kids joined up - because the food was better than they ate at home.â€

In the same interview with the LA Times Strummer said:

“You see, I’m not like Paul or the others, I had a chance to be a ‘good, normal person’ with a nice car and a house in the suburbs - the golden apple or whatever you call it. But I saw through it. I saw it was an empty life.â€

“I only saw my father once a year (after being sent to boarding school,) he was a real disciplinarian, who was always giving me speeches about how he had pulled himself up by the sweat of his brow: a real guts and determination man. What he was really saying to me was, ‘If you play by the rules, you can end up like me’. And I saw right away I didn’t want to end up like him. Once I got out on my own, I realized I was right. I saw how the rules worked and I didn’t like them.â€

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"Riding With The King"

B.B.King/Eric Clapton

The song was written by John Hiatt and it's the first track of the eponymous album by B.B.King and Clapton, released in 200.

The album became Platinum.

From wiki:

Line-up:

Eric Clapton - vocals, guitar

Doyle Bramhall II - guitar, background vocals

Andy Fairweather-Low, Jimmie Vaughan - guitar

Joe Sample - piano, Wurlitzer piano

Tim Carmon - organ

Nathan East - bass

Steve Gadd - drums

Paul Waller - programming, string arrangement

Susannah Melvoin - background vocals

Wendy Melvoin - background vocals

:help: :help:

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"All For Leyna"

Billy Joel

Written by Billy Joel, recorded in 1979 and released as a single in 1980. "Sometimes a Fantasy" is the bB-side.

Also a track of "Glass Houses", his album from 1980.. It was #40 on the UK charts.

It's a song about an obssesive behaviour: a man meets a woman called Leyna and after spending one night together he falls in love with her.

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The Songfactors' Choice Top Ten #194

This week there is only 1 song needing facts.

Star Baby - The Guess Who (1974)

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.

As always the Songfish thanks you. :bow:

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The Songfactors' Choice Top Ten #194

This week there is only 1 song needing facts.

Star Baby - The Guess Who (1974)

'Star Baby' was a 1974 hit by The Guess Who. It was written by Burton Cummings, and Randy Bachman provided lead vocals. It reached #39 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 [1], but made it up to #9 in Canada, where the group is from. It is classified in the genre of Power pop, and was included on the group's LP entitled, "Road Food," as well as "The Guess Who - Greatest Hits" in 1999. Chicago radio superstation WLS, which gave the song much airplay for years, ranked the song as the 37th most popular hit of 1974. [2] It reached as high as #4 on their chart of 5-18-74.[3]
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The Songfactors' Choice Top Ten #194

This week there is only 1 song needing facts.

Wishlist - Pearl Jam (1998)

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.

As always the Songfish thanks you. :bow:

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Thank you MC I needed that :D I miss Katie. She so rocked at this stuff I don't think I'll ever measure up.

I'm trying to learn to edit. I don't think I'm very good at it :(

It's funny, English was always my favorite subject and my worst. Go figure huh :stars:

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Eddie Vedder about the song:

It was a stream-of-consciousness exercise. [Mike] McCready booked studio time in a tiny studio here with our friend Stu behind the board and another friend playing drums. We don't have the discipline to sit down and teach each other parts, so you're writing simple chord changes that someone else can follow without having to take breaks to learn them. It was probably eight minutes long originally. I listened to the tape and picked out the better wishes.

(interview with Microsoft MusicCentral. February 1998.)

The line "I wish I was the full moon shining off your Camaro's hood" references the car that belonged to Beth Liebling, Vedder's wife at the time.

(source Addicted to Noise. February 1998.)

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"Whishlist"

Pearl Jam

Written by Eddie Vedder. A track of their 1998 album "Yield" and also the second single of the album, realeased on May 5th with "U" / "Brain of J." (live) on the B-side.

It reached #6 in the Billboard charts.

Wikipedia says: Vedder used an EBow for his guitar solo on the song

"Wishlist" was released as a single in 1998 with a previously unreleased B-side titled "U", of which an alternate version can also be found on the compilation album, Lost Dogs (2003). The song peaked at number 47 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number six on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks and Billboard Modern Rock Tracks charts.

Outside the United States, the single was released commercially in Australia, Austria, Japan, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. In Canada, the song charted on the Alternative Top 30 chart where it reached number one and became Pearl Jam's third single to top that chart. "Wishlist" also reached number 13 on the Canadian Year End Alternative Top 50. "Wishlist" reached the top 30 in the UK and peaked at number 48 on the Australian Singles Chart.

In his review of Yield, Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone magazine said, "The gentle power-popnugget "Wishlist", a silly love song that Vedder composed solo, might be the simplest song Pearl Jam have ever done. But it's also the most moving.

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The Songfactors' Choice Top Ten #195

This week there is only 1 song needing facts.

Dance To The Music - Sly & The Family Stone (1968)

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.

As always the Songfish thanks you.

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"Dance To The Music"

Sly & The Family Stone

Written by Sly Stone.

A single and also a track from their 1968 album "Dance To The Music".

Released in January 1968.

I'm copying from Wikipedia:

first single by the band to reach theBillboard Pop Singles Top 10, peaking at #8 and the first to popularize the band's sound, which would be emulated throughout the black music industry and dubbed "psychedelic soul". It was later ranked #223 on Rolling Stone's list of the500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

Notably, none of the band members particularly liked "Dance to the Music" when it was first recorded and released. The song, and the accompanying Dance to the Music LP, were made at the insistence of CBS Records executive Clive Davis, who wanted something more commercially viable than the band's 1967 LP, A Whole New Thing. Bandleader Sly Stone crafted a formula, blending the band's distinctpsychedelic rock leanings with a more pop-friendly sound. The result was what saxophonist Jerry Martini called "glorified Motown beats. "Dance to the Music" was such an unhip thing for us to do."

"Dance to the Music" featured four co-lead singers, black musicians and white musicians in the same band (segregation had just been repealed four years prior), and a distinct blend of instrumental sounds: rock guitar riffs from Sly's brother Freddie Stone, a funk bassline fromLarry Graham, Greg Errico's syncopated drum track, Sly's gospel-styled organ playing, and Jerry Martini and Cynthia Robinson on the horns.

An unabashed party record, "Dance to the Music" opens with Robinson screaming to the audience, demanding that they "get on up...and dance to the music!" before the Stone brothers and Graham break into an a Capella scat before the song's verses begin. The actual lyrics of the song are sparse and self-referential. The song serves as a Family Stonetheme song of sorts, introducing Errico, Robinson, and Martini by name. After calling on Robinson and Martini for their solo, Sly tells the audience that "Cynthia an' Jerry got a message that says...", which Robinson finishes: "All the squares go home!"

one of the most influential songs of the late-1960s. The Sly & the Family Stone sound became the dominating sound in African-American pop music for the next three years, and many established artists, such as The Temptations and their producerNorman Whitfield, Diana Ross & the Supremes, The Impressions, The Four Tops, The 5th Dimension, and War began turning out Family Stone-esque material. The Temptations, in fact, rode their first "Dance to the Music"-inspired single, "Cloud Nine", all the way to the Pop Top Ten and to a 1968 Grammy Award. "Dance to the Music" and the later Family Stone singles also helped lead to the development of what is now known as funk music.

Later in 1968, Sly & the Family Stone released an alternate version of "Dance to the Music" as a novelty single. This recording was a French language version called "Dance à la Musique", with the group's vocals sped-up in a style similar to that of The Chipmunks

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