I'd read years ago that Charlie thought calling the actual devil "son of a gun" was kind of mellow, so went with SOB. In my area, WMEE, Fort Wayne flipped from AM to FM when "The Devil" was topping the charts. On the AM,they ran the "Son of a Gun" version but once the flip to FM happened, they. played the SOB. The AM launched a country format at the same time and they still played the Son of a gun lyrics.
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Song you wondered how they they ever got played on Top 40 radio
- Thread starter secondchoice
- Start date
"Need revoked"? Let me guess ... You're from Milwaukee?
As it is, they had to make a three-syllable word out of "Detroit" to make it work. Of course, Gordon Lightfoot did the same on "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald."
No. I lived in the the Chicago suburbs (Libertyville) when Mayor Daily was speechless for 30 second when the Picasso was unvieled. That's art!
I would hate to think 10,000 years from now somehow "The Night Chicago Died" survires in a time capsule. If I wrote a song that had London with an Irish Sea ocean beach I am sure British socal media would arrange a boycott.
I thought the construction "needs revoked" instead of "needs to be revoked" or "needs revoking" was strictly a Milwaukee thing, although I think it's part of Pittsburgh English as well.
Geographical illiteracy from a surprising source is found in Roger Whittaker's "Durham Town." He sings fondly of the city he's going to leave and watching boats pass by on the River Tyne. Problem is, Durham sits on the River Wear. Newcastle is on the Tyne. Whittaker is British but spent much of his early life in Africa, so that may explain his unfamiliarity with the geography of the Northeast of England.
I don't think it's survived 51 years, really. It's remembered largely by the people who heard it when new. And usually not fondly, for reasons not usually including geography.
And that record made it to #12 in the UK.
My mother would've heard it new. And she loves the song to this day...
I enjoy it once in a while. But no more than a time or two a year.
Gotta say, though... I'd rather hear it on the radio than "Hotel California" or whatever for the 70th million time.
But yeah, you're absolutely right Michael, that's not a song that pretty much anyone my age knows and that's probably a good thing.
Omitting "to be", as in "needs repaired", "needs cleaned", etc. is also part of the Yinzer dialect:
Western Pennsylvania English - Wikipedia
I've always heard "bitch" on that Meredith Brooks song. They usually bleep it more when it's used as a more derogatory way, though, or used by a male singer.
Some stations are weirdly inconsistent. For example, my local AC station plays the version of Justin Bieber's "Peaches" that edits out the word "weed", but they have no problem with Third Eye Blind singing about crystal meth.
But they've never touched the Meredith Brooks song, either when it was new or since then. (And if you listen to her off-key singing, it's obvious that it was recorded a year before Auto-tune was invented!)
Some stations jumble the word "crystal meth" in Semi Charmed Life and some don't.
Or "Brown Eyed Girl."
Ever heard of ham radio operators doing "moon bounce"? I swear if stations like KRTH went off-air for tower maintenance, you'd hear 50,000 ancient layers of those songs buried in their frequencies' white noise, bouncing back to earth off every celestial object in the alpha quadrant.
Yeah, that song, too. Especially considering it's pretty much always the wimpy stereo mix played today. It's one of the only 60s tracks still left on my market's big classic hits station, judging by their "recently played" which I go look at every once in a while. At least the mono 45 mix has some real punch to it!
Here's one:
"Popsicle Toes" by Michael Franks. Big record on 13Q in Pittsburgh back in the 70s. Lyrically, it's just plain... weird. Same with "Telephone Man" by Meri Wilson which went to #1 on 13Q...
According to one commenter on the video, it went to #2 on 13Q...
"Popsicle Toes" by Michael Franks. Big record on 13Q in Pittsburgh back in the 70s. Lyrically, it's just plain... weird. Same with "Telephone Man" by Meri Wilson which went to #1 on 13Q...
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Okay, if you guys are going to insist on certain songs being "burnt to a crisp" in your own personal opinions, I am going to remind you, from a professional programming perspective, that Classic Hits stations have a constant process of retesting the active library with panels of actual listeners, and as long as those tests do not indicate the hatred that you are expressing, they stay on the air as consensus favorites. We know we can't make everyone happy -- especially those who feel the way you do -- but your exception to the majority makes you wrong, not right.
If the majority didn't like the consensus favorites we play, they'd stop listening. To use KRTH as an example, when was the last time it wasn't among the top five stations in L.A.?
That last question was rhetorical, in case you missed it.
If the majority didn't like the consensus favorites we play, they'd stop listening. To use KRTH as an example, when was the last time it wasn't among the top five stations in L.A.?
That last question was rhetorical, in case you missed it.
It's a sex song. The toes get the attention because of the title and the chorus, but there's a lot going on there:
You must have been Miss Pennsylvania
With all this pulchritude
How come you always load your Pentax
When I'm in the nude?
We oughta have a birthday party
And you can wear your birthday clothes
We can hit the floor
And go explore those
Popsicle toes
You got the nicest North America
This sailor ever saw
I'd like to feel your warm Brazil
And touch your Panama
But Your Tierra del Fuegos
Are nearly always froze
We gotta see saw
Until we unthaw those
Popsicle toes
There are a fair amount of songs in Michael's catalog with some healthy innuendo. If he's being autobiographical rather than aspirational, then more power to him.
I mean, if you can't see the difference between Michael Franks and...
I got it in the bedroom
And I got it in the hall
And I got it in the bathroom
And he hung it on the wall
I got it with a buzz
And I got it with a ring
And when he told me
What my number was
I got a ding-a-ling
....there's not much I can do for you.
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I wasn't equating the two. Obviously one is a lot more clever... But they're both records that have a lot of innuendo.
And "Popsicle Toes" wasn't banned because the artist got the geography wrong (see "The Night Chicago Died", above):
You got the nicest North America
This sailor ever saw
I'd like to feel your warm Brazil
And touch your Panama
You got the nicest North America
This sailor ever saw
I'd like to feel your warm Brazil
And touch your Panama
I’m very glad this post will probably be the only time I’ll hear or hear of these songs.