More:
20 - "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," Robert John
19 -"Stay With Me," Faces featuring Rod Stewart
18 - "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing (In Perfect Harmony)," The New Seekers
17 - "Drowning in the Sea of Love," Joe Simon
16 - "Sugar Daddy," The Jackson 5
We kick off with Robert John's cover of the Tokens' 1961 #1 hit, which was itself an adaptation of a 1939 song written by South African Solomon Linda. The song became even bigger in the 90s after its use in the movie and stage musical The Lion King. For years, Linda's estate was only receiving a tiny fraction of their deserved royalties, but in recent years, lawsuits have corrected this to some extent. Lawyers are all right, sometimes.
Next are the former Small Faces, who dropped the "Small" after Rod Stewart and future Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood joined the band. This is your basic rocker about pleading for a woman to stay the night...but only the night. Gotta admit, Rod's good at singing about this topic.
Then it's The New Seekers with the bigger hit version of a repurposed Coke jingle. And the better one as well. Still, not great.
"Drowning in the Sea of Love," actually sounded familiar to me, so I guess I'm not a complete blank on Joe Simon. And it's rich, wonderful soul to boot. Love it.
Finally it's the Jackson 5, with the story of a guy who buys a girl everything she wants, even though her loyalty is not exactly steadfast. Lots of candy and sugar references here, but my favorite line might be the one about being her "standby Santa Claus." What a sucker!
15 - "You are Everything," The Stylistics
14 - "Anticipation," Carly Simon
13 - "Scorpio," Dennis Coffey and the Detroit Guitar Band
12 - "Down by the Lazy River," The Osmonds
11 - "Clean Up Woman," Betty Wright
First in this bunch are the Stylistics with more smooth Philly soul. Another potential contender to be played at a hypothetical Glovehead wedding.
Next is Carly Simon with a future Heinz Ketchup jingle. Apparently, this one's about how Carly felt while waiting to go on a date with Cat Stevens. So I guess he knows this song is about him.
Dennis Coffey was a former member of the Motown session group the Funk Brothers who then set out on his own and had two instrumental hits named after Zodiac signs. This came first, and hit #6. "Taurus" would only reach Number 18. From hearing it, I know this song has been sampled many many times, but I can't think of a specific example offhand.
After being more of a Jackson 5 knockoff in their early singles, they went in a slightly more rock direction with "Down by the Lazy River." Not eaxactly The Who, but it's all right. Although their use of the word "mosey" was a questionable choice.
Lastly we have Betty Wright with a funky strut about a woman who "cleans up" all the men other women leave behind. But I don't think it means she buys them new clothes and advises them on better grooming. In fact, what she does might not be clean at all.
Ten top tunes for all y'all
10 - "Joy," Apollo 100
This British studio band had their only real hit with this instrumental pop version of J.S. Bach's "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring." I've heard it before. It's all right. That's all I got.
9 - "Hurting Each Other," The Carpenters
Karen and Richard again, this time with a song about people in love who for some reason can't stop doing each other. This is the type of song Karen was made to sing. Yeah, she can do happy stuff like "Top of the World" and "Close to You," but it's songs like this that show why she's one of the greats.
8 - "Precious and Few," Climax
I don't think this band was named after orgasms, but the very possiblity that they could have been is much more interesting than this sleepy bit of wannabe romantic piffle. The fact that the band Artie Ziff hired played this at the restaging of his senior prom probably contributed to his eventual failure to win Marge Simpson away from Homer
7 - "Sunshine," Jonathan Edwards
In spite of the happy-sounding title of this hit by folkie Edwards, the guy wants the sunshine to "go away today," because somebody's trying to tell him how to live his life. But he does say the sun can come back later, because he's determined to turn things around. Good for him.
6 - "Never Been to Spain," Three Dog Night
I didn't really know this 3DN offering, but I kind of like it. It's got some meat on its bones. The lyrics are about dreaming and searching, and the vocals are solid. Good job, boys.
5 - "Without You," Nilsson
Harry can't survive without his lady, apparently. This is really good broken-heart stuff. Mariah Carey's cover was showy and unnecessary, but then again, that's a good description of Mariah's entire career.
4 - "Day After Day," Badfinger
These Welsh Beatles proteges actually wrote and performed "Without You" first, and now here they are, one spot above it with there own hit about loneliness. Very very good.
3 - "Brand New Key," Melanie
Folksinger Safka's biggest hit, which is probably some sort of sex metaphor. Fluffy fun. And of course it accompanied the Rollergirl/Eddie seduction scene in Boogie Nights. I will never forget Burt Reynolds' advice from that scene as long as I live. And it makes it even weirder that Sharon, Lois and Bram once covered this song.
2 - "Let's Stay Together," Al Green
Yes, of course I know this one. But don't congratulate me yet. I don't think I heard Al's version until the Pulp Fiction soundtrack, and perhaps worse, the first version I heard was Tina Turner's. Not that Tina's was bad, it's just that I have zero credibility when it comes to Rev. Green.
And the song of songs 39 years ago this week was...
1 - "American Pie," Don McLean
First of all, I didn't get to hear this last night, because a radio station glitch caused the end of last week's '79 show to be played again. Oh well, I know this one pretty well, it would have been a short version anyway, and I did get to hear "Le Freak" again, so it's a win all around. Anyway, we all know that the first part is about the death of Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and the Big Bopper, and the rest of the song contains cryptic references to people and events in rock history. Most people believe Bob Dylan is "the Jester," and Elvis is of course "the King, but Wikipedia seems to think Connie Francis might be "the Queen." Really? "I'm Sorry," but not Aretha? Crazy if true. But who really knows?
NotCasey gave us Neil Young's "Heart of Gold," Cher's "The Way of Love," and Sly and the Family Stone's "Runnin' Away" this week.
I know when we're going next week, but I'll leave it as a surprise.
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