Back to my birth year. These were the sounds my two-month-old ears could not escape.
40 - "Rags to Riches/Where Did They Go Lord," Elvis Presley
39 - "I Love You for All Seasons," The Fuzz
38 - "Don't Change on Me," Ray Charles
37 - "I Don't Blame You at All," Smokey Robinson and the Miracles
36 - "Friends," Elton John
35 - "Soul Power," James Brown
34 - "You're All I Need to Get By," Aretha Franklin
33 - "Baby Let Me Kiss You," King Floyd
32 - "Timothy," The Buoys
31 - "Dream Baby (How Long Must I Dream)," Glen Campbell
Three legends whose hitmaking careers date back to the beginnings of what Casey always called "the rock era" are in this group. The King himself is here with another of those double-sided hits. The A-side was a cover of the Tony Bennett classic "Rags to Riches," and the B, which Casey played, is a big ballad about the passage of time and what gets left behind. Honestly, these 70s Elvis ballads all blend together. Ray Charles had his second last Top 40 with a soulful love ballad that sounds like it could have been recorded a decade earlier. I don't know if the same could be said of his last hit, but the fact that it was titled "Booty Butt." makes me wonder. And the Godfather of Soul busts out more of the kind of funk that only he could provide. We do need soul power, James, and we always will. Thank you for supplying enough to last until the end of time.
There are four more R&B hits here. The Fuzz had their first and biggest of a two-hit career with this pretty-but-hardly-essential song about loving someone a lot. Smokey Robinson and the Miracles had their last hit together with a record that reminds me quite a bit of "Tears of a Clown." Which is fine, but I'd still rather hear the original. Or "Love Machine." Aretha is here with a cover of a Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell classic. It sounds pretty similar, and normally I'd consider such a cover unnecessary. But I don't think you can ever say that about three minutes of the voice of Lady Soul. And King Floyd, of "Groove Me," fame, is here with another decent bit of strutting funk. And yes, I think it was the right choice to once again do the "Awww, sookie sookie" thing. Can't go wrong with that.
Two more songs here fit into your basic easy-listening category. Sir Elton's first hit "Your Song," has become a ubiquitous pop standard., but the same cannot be said for his second, this title song of an obscure British film. Having heard it for the first time, I can say the world isn't missing anything. And Glen Campbell is here with a cover of a Roy Orbison hit. Now this is an unnecessary cover. It sounds the same, just without Roy's inimitable vocal power. No reason for this to exist at all.
And then there's "Timothy," certainly one of the most infamous pop hits of all time. If you haven't heard it, or never paid close enough attention to the lyrics, well, here goes: It's about three miners who get trapped in a cave-in. There's the unnamed narrator, his friend Joe, and their friend Timothy. Anyway, time goes on, the men are overcome with fear, fatigue, and hunger, and eventually the narrator loses consciousness. Later, he awakes to find that he and Joe have been rescued, but no one has been able to find Timothy. How can this be? But then the narrator realizes that he's not hungry anymore. Don't tell me...We didn't...did we? Yes, you did. You and Joe sustained yourself with the only meat you could find. How the hell did a song about cannibalism of all things become a Top 40 hit, you ask? Well, it was a calculated effort to couch a disquieting lyric in a sunny pop song in hopes that the ensuing controversy would draw attention to the then unknown Buoys. It worked, at least for one hit. And the man who had this bright idea was none other than the song's writer, Rupert Holmes, who would later have a #1 smash as an artist with that immortal disco-era artifact "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)" This was going to win this week's Uneasy Rider Award from the moment I knew it was on this list, but if there was any doubt, it was cemented by how deadly serious Casey took the subject matter in his introduction, even going so far as to recount the tale of the Donner Party. Anyway, as I've said before, the fact that both this and "D.O.A." were hits during the first months of my life fascinates me. But it's obviously just a coincidence. Right?
30 - "Blue Money," Van Morrison
29 - "Oye Como Va," Santana
28 - "Power to the People," John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band
27 - "Heavy Makes You Happy," The Staple Singers
26 - "I Play and Sing," Dawn
25 - "Chick-a-Boom (Don't Ya Jes' Love It)," Daddy Dewdrop
24 - "Temptation Eyes," The Grass Roots
23 - "We Can Work it Out," Stevie Wonder
22 - "I'm Eighteen," Alice Cooper
21 - "Stay Awhile," The Bells
We start with classic rock. Van Morrison was at the peak of his blue-eyed soul powers on the swinging "Blue Money." I love the scatting at the end, though I'm not even going attempt to write it out. Santana had one of their best-known hits with a cover of a 1963 composition by salsa legend and one-time Springfield Elementary music teacher Tito Puente. Probably the biggest hit to contain the word "mulatta." John Lennon had another of his early solo hits with an anthem in the same style as "Give Peace a Chance." Right on! And back when Alice Cooper wasn't just the name of the singer but his entire band, they had their first taste of pop success with this legendary sludge-ballad about adolescent angst. "I got a baby's brain and an old man's heart." Yeah, I think that was me at 18.
R&B is represented twice here. The Staple Singers aren't saying that putting on weight is the key to inner joy on their hit here, but going over the lyrics, I'm not really sure what they are trying to say. And Stevie Wonder finds the funk in a Beatles classic. This cover, unlike some, is very, very necessary.
MOR will always be with us. "I Play and Sing" was Dawn's first Top 40 hit not to go Top Ten, and I can declare that this failure was more than merited. Not much of a hook here. The Grass Roots are back from last time with their song about those oh-so-fetching peepers. Again, nice song, shame about the lack of Creed. And the Bells, a Canadian band formed by a pair of South African immigrants, had their biggest worldwide success with this ballad that I find more disturbing than romantic. Especially the way the breathy chick sings about the guy sneaking into her room and spying on her dreams. Well, I suppose some people are into that, but I would find it more creepy than erotic. I don't hate this song, I just don't get it.
We end this half of the chart with a song that might have won an Uneasy Rider in another, cannibalism-free week. Daddy Dewdrop was a guy named Dick Monda who at this time was writing songs to be used in the cartoon series Sabrina and the Groovie Goolies. "Chick-a-Boom" was one of these songs, but for some reason, he ended up re-recording it as a pop single, and it made it all the way to #9. In a raspy, almost Wolfman Jack-ish voice, Dewdrop describes a dream he had about a bikini-clad lady who then disappears around a corner. He follows her and finds himself in front of three doors. Behind the first door, he finds her bikini top in the middle of a wild party. Behind the second door, he finds the bikini bottom in a place that he believes to be Africa. And behind the third, he finally finds the woman, but when he says hello to her, she responds with the same phrase as the other people in the other rooms did when he asked them where he could find her: "Chick-a-boom, chick-a boom, don't ya jes' love it?" Yes, it's nonsensical. But it's fun and disposble, so I've got no beef with it.
Tomorrow: Three Dogs find a Cat amongst the Partidges. Yeah, that's awful. Sorry.
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