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Friday is dance day ‘round these parts. Today’s party playlist kicks off with birthday woman Anita Pointer, who leads her sisters in telling us how excited she is to turn 67 today.
Have a terrific weekend!
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Today is the birthday of two music icons – Jam-Master Jay of rap pioneers Run-D.M.C. and disc jockey Wolfman Jack. Besides their place in their history of rock and roll, both men have another thing in common – they were the subjects of songs. That inspired me to put together today’s playlist – songs named after real people.
I found fifty songs whose titles are actual people. Actually I found more than fifty, but I didn’t want to subject you to Chiddy Bang or Mac Miller. I made a few rules for myself:
1) The title can’t have words besides the person’s name, hence no Kim Carnes’ “Bette Davis Eyes” or Sleater-Kinney’s “I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone.”
2) The title has to be the full name the person is known by, so no “Springsteen” by Eric Church or “Jessica” (about Jessica Simpson) by Adam Green. Allowed are “Galileo,” “Joan of Arc” and “King Tut,” as that is how most people identify Galileo Galilei, Joan d’Arc and Tutankhamun.
3) The song doesn’t have to be about the person after whom it is titled, so “Jack the Ripper” and “Rosa Parks” are in.
4) The track has to be on Spotify. This means I left out Bob Dylan’s “George Jackson” and Hoodie Allen’s “James Franco.”
Amazingly for a playlist based on such a goofy concept, it holds together quite well, if I say so myself.
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25 Things You Don’t Know About Me:
1. I never wear flip-flops in public, except on the beach.
2. The first time I met Chaka Khan, I said to her “You are the ultimate sex goddess of life.” Her mouth said “Thanks.” Her eyes said “SECURITY!!!”
3. I have two eyes and two ears, but only one nose.
4. I can name every letter of the alphabet.
5. I sleep in a bed.
6. I can bench press over 18 pounds.
7. I eat solid food.
8. I’m an American citizen.
9. I know every word to the theme from S.W.A.T.
10. I celebrate my birthday once a year.
11. I’m always listening to music, except when I’m not.
12. I can recite the Pledge of Allegiance by heart.
13. Some of my best friends are gay.
14. I know how to say hello in English.
15. Everyone in my family is a homo sapien.
16. I’ve never met Barack Obama or Millard Fillmore; however, I did meet Jermaine Stewart, the guy who sang “We Don’t Have to Take Our Clothes Off.”
17. I’ll often wear the same jeans two or three times in a given month.
18. I’ve never gotten high, drunk, or a legendary engram.
19. I have no idea what a legendary engram is.
20. I am 5’9½” tall, though I was shorter at the time of my birth.
21. If I’m outside in the rain and I don’t have an umbrella, I usually end up getting wet.
22. I’ve never been pregnant.
23. I’m unable to leap tall buildings in a single bound.
24. I was not in the movies Star Wars, Rear Window or Beethoven 2.
25. I don’t know what a slide rule is for.
Friday is dance day at Tunes du Jour. Our party kicks off with Sade. Sade, the lead singer of Sade, turns 56 today, which reminds me: 26. I once rode in an elevator with Sade, the lead singer of Sade.
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On January 13, 1962, Chubby Checker returned to #1 with “The Twist,” a record he previously took to #1 in September of 1960, making it the only record to hit #1 in two separate chart runs.
The song was originally recorded and released in 1959 by its writer, Hank Ballard, and his band, The Midnighters, as the b-side to their single “Teardrops on Your Letter.” A Baltimore DJ named Buddy Deane played “The Twist” on his television dance party program and got a good response. He told Dick Clark, host of American Bandstand about the tune.
Depending on what account you read, Ballard was unavailable to appear on American Bandstand or Clark was wary of Ballard, who previously hit with such lascivious songs as “Work with Me, Annie” and “Sexy Ways.” Either way, Clark had Chubby Checker (born Earnest Evans; his stage name was a take-off on popular singer Fats Domino) record “The Twist.”
Checker’s version is an extremely faithful cover of the Ballard recording. It is difficult to tell them apart; even Ballard thought the Checker recording was his!
In its 1960 release, Chubby Checker’s record launched a national dance craze. On the second release of the Chubby Checker version, “The Twist” became a worldwide phenomenon. Other twist hits included “Slow Twistin’,” “Dear Lady Twist,” “Twist, Twist Señora,” “Twistin’ the Night Away,” “Percolator (Twist),” “Soul Twist,” “Twist and Shout,” “Hey, Let’s Twist,” “Twistin’ Matilda (and the Channel),” “Twist-Her,” “Bristol Twistin’ Annie,” “Twistin’ Postman” and The Chipmunks’ “The Alvin Twist” – and that was just in 1962!
Chubby Checker’s “The Twist” spent one week at #1 in 1960 and two more weeks at #1 in 1962 before it was knocked from the top by…”The Peppermint Twist,” by Joey Dee & the Starlighters.
Here are twenty twistin’ favorites.
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God needs better marketers. That guy wearing an ill-fitting sportsjacket who stands on a box outside the Port Authority shouting incoherently through a megaphone or that guy in a diaper on the corner of Hollywood and Highland holding the sign about end days? I’m supposed to walk by them and think “If this person says God exists, it must be true.” It doesn’t work for me.
Then there are God’s marketers with slightly bigger megaphones, like that pastor who recently penned an op-ed claiming that Taylor Swift turns kids gay, and they can’t shake it off. Swift’s not really my cup of chamomile, but if I need to choose between that writer’s brand of religion and homosexuality, then crank up the 1989 CD.
There’s also your Fred Phelps types, picketing concerts and high-profile funerals with signs reading GOD HATES FAGS. Many self-appointed religious leaders say the same thing, albeit with less colorful language. I’m supposed to walk by them and think “If this man has a sign that says God Hates Fags, it must be true.” Similar signs are held up in the “counter protest” area during the Gay Pride parade. Shockingly, the parade goers weren’t swayed. If only there was somewhere else these self-proclaimed religious folks should be on a Sunday morning. If only.
Some of His messengers kill cartoonists. God hates fags and cartoonists. Their marketing technique is the old “Buy our product or we’ll murder you.” It didn’t work for Kellogg’s and it won’t work for Him.
By now you’re probably saying “Glenn, what does this have to do with Mary J. Blige, the multiple Grammy Award-winning multi-million-selling r&b singer who celebrates her 44th birthday today?
When I read that Mary J. Blige considers herself a born-again Christian, my stomach sank. Oh, no. Another diva hero gone to the dark side. Songs of hers I like will now have the association with the slogan “Live and let live provided you live the way I tell you to live,” and nothing mars a good groove like a bad ad campaign.
Turns out I was wrong. The guy standing on the box, the guy who listened to a pop singer and turned homosexual, the guys who picket parades – they all misled me. Not all of God’s marketing reps are assholes.
Says Mary J: I’m not God. God said not to judge anyone lest you be judged. That’s it. Who am I to point my finger? You’ve got to walk in love. To say you do not want people to be happy is so mean, so not me.
She told PrideSource:
“I believe [Christ] died to give us a deep relationship with God, and in having a deep relationship and walk with God, there is no judgment. We cannot judge or think we’re better than anybody.
“I have nothing but love for everyone in the universe. I believe we can all teach each other something, and I believe we can all grow and learn from one another. I’m a spirit, so I need spiritual assistance – that means I need to pray, I need to read The Word, I need to share The Word with people. That’s what it’s for. It’s not for me to be like, “You’re gonna burn in hell.” That’s not what I believe God wants me to testify about.
“The fact that I’ve been through so much, and my trials and tribulations are out in the open, is to heal other people. And that I’ve come through it isn’t to say I’m better; it’s to say we all can do it.”
Isn’t that refreshing? I still don’t believe in God, but it’s nice to find someone who does and is full of love and support. If He wants to sell the product, He needs to recruit more marketers like MJB.
Let’s get it percolating with these twenty career highlights.
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Rod Stewart wrote his 1977 hit “The Killing of Georgie (Part I and II)” about a close friend of his. He tells us Georgie was cast out of his home by his parents after coming out as gay to them. Georgie moves to New York City, where he finds adulation from people who love to be around him and becomes “the toast of the Great White Way.” In the summer of 1975 he tells Rod he’s in love. Leaving a Broadway show, Georgie and his boyfriend are walking arm in arm in Manhattan when they encounter a gang from New Jersey. The original intention of the gang is to mug the couple, but as you may gather from the song’s title, it doesn’t end well for Georgie.
That the story of an unambiguously gay man should become a top 30 hit in 1977 amazes me. How many hit songs have such a main character? There’s the cross-dressing man who calls himself Lola in The Kinks song of that name and then there’s um, hmmmm, uh…there’s our list, then.
Stewart told Mojo magazine that when he wrote the song, “everyone around me was gay.” He had a gay manager and a gay publicist. “I don’t know whether that prompted me into it or not. I think it was a brave step, but it wasn’t a risk. You can’t write a song like that unless you’ve experienced it. But it was a subject that no one had approached before.”
Part I of the song ends with Stewart sharing with us Georgie’s philosophy on life: Never wait or hesitate / Get in kid, before it’s too late / You may never get another chance / ’Cos youth’s a mask but it don’t last / live it long and live it fast.
Today Rod Stewart turns 70 years old. Here are twenty of his finest moments.
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Every Friday Tunes du Jour presents a dance playlist to get your weekend started on an upbeat note. This week’s party kicks off with Haddaway, who turns 50 today. That’s right – I know Haddaway’s birthday. Have a great weekend!
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“I’m gay and always have been.”
– David Bowie, January 1972, in Melody Maker
In June of 1972, the same month he released The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, named the “Greatest, Gayest Album of All-Time” by Out magazine, David Bowie recorded “John, I’m Only Dancing.” In the song Bowie, as the narrator, tell his boyfriend John not to get jealous just because Bowie is with a girl, for all they are doing is dancing, though he does say that she turns him on.
Released as a single in the UK, “John, I’m Only Dancing” became Bowie’s third hit, following “Space Oddity” and “Starman.” His US label, RCA, declined to release the song until 1976 when they included it on the compilation Changesonebowie. (RCA also issued Bowie’s The Man Who Sold the World album in the US in 1972 with a photo of Bowie on-stage in slacks kicking a leg up as opposed to using the image that graced the UK version of the album, a long-haired Bowie reclining in a dress.)
By 1982 it was well-known that Bowie was not gay. Rolling Stone made that clear with their cover story entitled “David Bowie Straight.” Did he exploit gay sexuality to achieve fame? Yes. Is that a bad thing? Tom Robinson (“Glad to Be Gay”) doesn’t think so. “For gay musicians, Bowie was seismic. To hell with whether he disowned us later.”
Nicholas Pegg, star of Doctor Who and David Bowie expert, suggested that “John, I’m Only Dancing” may not be a gay song after all. Perhaps the narrator was telling John, the boyfriend of the girl with whom the narrator is dancing, that he needn’t worry about his intentions.
In January 1973 Bowie re-recorded “John, I’m Only Dancing” for his Aladdin Sane album, though it did not make that release. This version, referred to as the “sax version,” was issued in the UK as a single in April of that year utilizing the same catalogue number as the earlier single. In the US, the first 1000 copies of Changesonebowie pressed included the sax version.
In 1974 Bowie recorded “John, I’m Only Dancing (Again).” This version retains the chorus of “John, I’m Only Dancing” but the verses use new lyrics and a different melody in which the narrator expresses his joy of dancing.
Today is David Bowie’s 68th birthday. Here are nineteen songs he wrote or co-wrote, plus “Walk on the Wild Side,” which he co-produced. He may not be gay, but as you will hear, a lot of his music is.
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My friend and fellow improviser Josh asked me to compile a playlist consisting of my thirty favorite new wave songs. This proved challenging, for what is new wave? As a genre there is no clear definition of the term. For some it’s any musical act from England that emerged between 1977 and 1985. For some it includes any band that wasn’t punk that played at CBGBs. For some new wave was defined by the way the synths or guitars were played. For others it was a look.
I decided to not get too caught up on a precise definition; otherwise, I’d make myself crazy. For example, initially I was hesitant to include songs by Cheap Trick, Cyndi Lauper, Kid Creole and the Coconuts and even Pet Shop Boys (the latter because the song I chose was a poppy number that hit in 1988), but then I decided a case could be made for each to be considered new wave.
I limited myself to one song per artist. The limitation imposed by using Spotify to create the playlist proved to not be so bad – only one song I would put in my top thirty is not on the service, that being Yoko Ono’s “Kiss Kiss Kiss.” I see some people writing Spotify thank you notes already.
Herewith are my thirty favorite new wave songs. Did I leave out any of your all-time favorites? Tell me in the Comments.
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Many folks poo-poo the idea of making New Year’s resolutions. They say you’re only setting yourself for failure by doing so. You’ll break the resolutions, hate yourself for breaking your resolutions, and fall into a downward spiral that leaves you lonely, depressed and listening to nothing but Justin Guarini.
I say don’t throw out the whole idea of resolutions. The trick is to make resolutions you can keep. With that in mind here are my New Year’s resolutions for 2015:
1) Eat more sugary treats.
2) Watch more television.
3) Maintain a cluttered home.
4) Spend more money.
5) Spend more time on Facebook.
6) Don’t help anyone.
7) Blow a gasket.
8) Think negatively and laugh less.
9) Win the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.
10) Stay single.
With your help, I think I can keep these.
Today is Michael Stipe’s birthday. Our playlist consists mostly of his work as the lead singer of R.E.M., with a few side gigs thrown in.
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