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American Jesus Album: Recipe for Hate (1993) I Love My Computer Album: The New America (2000) by Bad Religion In accordance with their band name, Bad Religion often takes on what they feel is misguided religious sentiment in their songs, and "American Jesus" flogs the concept of a nation believing it more blessed by God than other countries. Lead singer Greg Graffin and guitarist Brett Gurewitz wrote the song in response to US President George H. W. Bush's comment that the US would win the Gulf War (the first one) because God is on their side. It's pretty much a satirical view on the general American thought that the United States is the most powerful nation in the world because it is "One nation under God." Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam sang backup on American Jesus. Gore Verbinski, who also did the Bad Religion clips for "Atomic Garden," "Stranger Than Fiction" and "21st Century (Digital Boy)," directed the American Jesus video, which shows the band performing while various people walk around with giant crosses (which were made of styrofoam). The New America is the eleventh studio album by Bad Religion. It was released in 2000 and is their last album on Atlantic Records. The New America is also Bad Religion's last album with Bobby Schayer on drums. Though not yet credited as a member of the band, then-former and now-current guitarist Brett Gurewitz co-wrote and played guitar on the song "Believe It". The album was re-released by Epitaph Records on September 15, 2008. Like its predecessor, none of the album's songs would develop into live staples; only the title track is performed live occasionally. "I Love My Computer" is track 9. The New America was recorded from October to December 1999 at Victor's Barn, Kauai, Hawaii and produced by Todd Rundgren. Rundgren had been one of the musicians Greg Graffin looked up to while growing up. However, working with Rundgren proved to be a disappointment to the band and especially Graffin, because they did not get along well with each other. Graffin however would later write in his book, Anarchy Evolution, that although Rundgren was difficult to work with, they remain friends to this day. Graffin reflected on the recording of The New America with Rundgren in an even more positive light in his 2023 memoir Punk Rock Paradox, calling it a "great experience." The New America was released on May 9, 2000 and is the last Bad Religion album distributed via Atlantic Records to date. The release of The New America marked the band's fulfillment of their four-album contract with Atlantic Records, allowing the band to reconvene with former band-mate, Brett Gurewitz, for their next album, 2002's The Process of Belief, released on Epitaph Records. The album was initially titled The Last Word, before being changed to The New America as a large number of people thought the band was breaking up. The album marks a departure for the band, as some of the songs are personal, rather than political in nature, and more optimism is employed. Topics range from singer Greg Graffin's recent divorce to his past growing up as a punk kid in the early '80s. Apart from Brett Gurewtiz's guest contribution, it is the only Bad Religion album solely written by Graffin. Bad Religion was formed in the Woodland Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles in 1980 by high school students Greg Graffin (vocals) and Brett Gurewitz (guitar). The band considers their first show to be a gig in 1980 when they opened for Social Distortion in an empty warehouse. Bad Religion chose their band name because it's provocative and fit their punk rock ethos. "The motivation for the name was pretty juvenile," Greg Graffin explained in the book Rock Names. "However, it was a time when there was a lot of televangelism, if you remember. So it was sort of timely that we would poke fun at some aspect of American culture. And it turns out that the name, although it started out on a juvenile foundation, became actually a pretty good name over the years because we use religion as a metaphor for organized, dogmatic thought - really the opposite of what punk rock is all about, which stresses independence and individuality more than anything else." Bad Religion Greg Graffin – lead vocals, backing vocals Greg Hetson – guitar Brian Baker – guitar, backing vocals Jay Bentley – bass guitar, backing vocals Bobby Schayer – drums

Slave Album: Tattoo You (1981) by The Rolling Stones This rocker is a musical showcase for the band, with a blues feel and a saxophone solo by the jazz great Sonny Rollins. Lyrically, there's not much to it, with Mick Jagger repeating "do it" and "don't wanna be your slave" over and over. There is a short spoken part where he asks the lady to steal something for him at the supermarket, but that's as far as the story develops. Originally recorded at the Black And Blue sessions in 1974, this song went on for a while and was called "The Black And Blue Jam" before being reworked for the 1981 album Tattoo You. It runs 4:55 on most versions of the vinyl album, but on CD and in digital forms of the album, a longer version running 6:34 was used. Pete (Townsend pre-mandela effect) Townshend from The Who sang backup. Some connections between Townshend and The Stones: Townshend (Townsend pre-mandela effect) claims he stole his legendary windmill arm swing from Keith Richards. The Who played at The Stones Rock And Roll Circus concert event in 1968. The film wasn't released until 1996. In 1976, Townshend (Townsend pre-mandela effect) contributed to Ron Wood and Ronnie Lane's Mahoney's Last Stand project. In 1982, following the end of the Stones' European tour, Mick Jagger accompanied The Who for parts of their farewell tour. The following year, on Mick's 40th birthday, Townshend (Townsend pre-mandela effect) wrote an unflattering letter in the London Times commenting on the significance of this event. Townshend (Townsend pre-mandela effect) played on Mick Jaggers first solo album in 1984. In February 1986, Townshend (Townsend pre-mandela effect) was one of those present when the Stones gave their London club performance in honor of Ian Stewart, joining the band onstage for some Blues numbers. In January 1989, he inducted The Stones into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2001, he played on the songs "Gun" and "Joy" for Jagger's Goddess In The Doorway album. The original version recorded in 1974 featured Billy Preston on organ, Jeff Beck on guitar, and Nicky Hopkins on piano. Their parts were erased when it was reworked. The Stones didn't have a problem working the word "slave" into their songs. Note the opening lines of "Brown Sugar": Gold Coast slave ship bound for cotton fields Sold in the market down in New Orleans Sonny Rollins played sax on three Tattoo You tracks: This song, "Waiting On A Friend," and "Neighbours." Uncut magazine asked the jazz great how he ended up playing with The Rolling Stones on their album. "My wife, Lucille, convinced me to get involved," he said. "I was a little bit dismissive when they asked me, but she said, 'Man, it's the Stones!' I was always more of a Beatles man - that Paul McCartney is a great songwriter. But I used to look down on music that I thought wasn't on the same level as jazz. Anyway, the Stones got me into a studio and played me a few songs they'd recorded and asked me to play over the top. Kinda riffing, really. They sent me a copy of the record and a lovely letter, but I never listen to my old recordings. It was only when I was in some grocery store in Upstate New York, quite a long time later, where I heard one of those tracks again, and I thought, hey, that's me! Slave was it called? Yeah, they could get funky, those guys!" Called "...a standard Stones blues jam" in the album review by Rolling Stone magazine, "Slave" was the result of the Stones' experiments with funk and dance music during the Black and Blue recording sessions of 1974/75. The lyrics are sparse outside of a brief spoken verse by Jagger and the refrain of "Don't want to be your slave". Keith Richards provide the electric guitar part for the song, with Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman supporting on drums and bass, respectively. The song was never performed by the Stones on stage - although rehearsed in 2002 - and appears on no compilation album. The 1994 Virgin Records and 2009 Polydor CD reissues of Tattoo You contain an additional 90 seconds of "Slave". Do it, do it, do it, do it, do it Do it, do it, do it, do it, do it Do it, do it, do it, do it, do it Don't want to be your slave Don't want to be your slave Don't want to be your slave Don't want to be your slave Don't want to be your slave Don't want to be your slave Twenty-four hours a day Hey, why don't you go down to the supermarket, get something to eat Steal something of the shelves Pass by the liquor store, be back about quarter to twelve Don't want to be your slave Don't want to be your slave Don't want to be your slave (go, baby) Don't want to be your slave (yeah) Don't want to be your slave (go, baby) Don't want to be your slave (yeah, baby) (Go, yeah, go, baby, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah) Don't want to be your slave Don't want to be your slave Don't want to be your slave Don't want to be your slave Don't want to be your slave Don't want to be your slave Do it, do it, do it, do it, do it Do it, do it, do it, do it, do it

Come Sail Away Album: The Grand Illusion (1977) by Styx Written and sung by Styx keyboard player Dennis DeYoung, Come Sail Away is about following your dreams by embarking on a journey into the unknown. In the second verse, he misses out on the pot of gold, but continues to carry on. The song is a personal one for DeYoung, who wrote it about struggling to break through to the next level with Styx. Formed in the early '70s, they grew a solid fanbase but were always the support act (for Bob Seger, Foghat, Rush, Kiss, Aerosmith, etc.), never the headliner. Released as the first single from The Grand Illusion, "Come Sail Away" helped get them to this next level, as the Styx became one of the top arena rock acts of the next few years. At the end of this song, the journeyman is visited by aliens, who at first he thinks are angels. "Come sail away with me" they tell him, before riding off in their spaceship. This was a very intergalactic time, as the album was released a little over a month after Star Wars hit theaters. In a 2020 interview with Dennis DeYoung, he talked about the meaning behind this song. "'Come Sail Away' is a song about yearning to be in a better place," he said. "How do you get there? You go on a boat, on a ship, angels waving their wings as you ascend to heaven with them. Is there something going on? A starship to the stars? Are they aliens? Is it Captain Kirk? You tell me." Running 6:05 (in the album version), this song plays like a ballad for the first 2:20, then kicks in with the big guitars and chorus. It's quite a transition, and one that quickly brought couples apart on the dance floor. In the first episode of the first (and sadly, only) season of the 1999 TV series Freaks and Geeks, this song is playing when a geeky freshman finally gets to dance with his dream girl, but as soon as they hit the dance floor, the song goes from ballad to rocker, so they end up dancing apart. Dennis DeYoung loves this scene. "I watched it cold and had tears in my eyes because of what it captured," he told Songfacts. "All we want as human beings is approval, a pat on the head, to have somebody tell us we're OK and 'we love you.' At that moment, it showed the vulnerability of all of us." This being the '70s, radio stations played a big role in promoting songs, and program directors could often be swayed with gifts of money and drugs. Payola, was of course, illegal, but that didn't stop Styx guitarist Tommy Shaw and the band's promo man Jim Cahill from traveling to many of the stations with bags of cocaine in an effort to get more airplay for this song. The tactic worked; Cahill explained on the Styx Behind The Music that program directors were like penguins, since they'd follow you around if you had "snow." The radio edit runs just 3:07 and removes the entire second verse, pulling the uptempo transition up to 1:10. Styx purists see this as butchery. The last part of this song where the angels/aliens come to visit can be seen as an allusion to the Bible verse of Ezekiel chapter 1:1-28 where a large wheel/cloud (depending on text) appears to Ezekiel and gives him instructions from God. The passage concludes: This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord The lyric has a similar theme: A gathering of angels appeared above my head They sang to me this song of hope And this is what they said (later in song)... I thought that they were angels But to my surprise They climbed aboard their starship And headed for the skies. Some people believe the figure Ezekiel saw was not a messenger sent from God but an alien space craft or a time machine from the future. The band had to push for this to be the lead single from the album, as their management wanted "Superstars" released first. This regained popularity in 1999 when it was used in the raunchy, animated cartoon show South Park. One of the characters, Cartman, was compelled to sing it every so often. Cartman's version was released on a soundtrack album and the song was introduced to a new generation. Styx performed this during the pre-game show of Super Bowl XXXV in Tampa. Swashbucklers sailed into the stadium pirate ship while the band performed. Captain Harlock (キャプテン・ハーロック, Kyaputen Hārokku, also known as "Captain Herlock" in the English release of Endless Odyssey and some Japanese materials) is a fictional character and protagonist of the Space Pirate Captain Harlock manga series created by Leiji Matsumoto. Harlock is the archetypical Romantic hero, a space pirate with an individualist philosophy of life. He is as noble as he is taciturn, rebellious, stoically fighting against totalitarian regimes, whether they be Earth-born or alien. In his own words, he "fight[s] for no one's sake... only for something deep in [his] heart." He does not fear death, and is sometimes seen wearing clothing with the number 42 on it. In Japanese culture, the number 42 is associated with death (the numbers, pronounced separately as "four two," sound like the word "shini"—meaning "dying/death"). The character was created by Leiji Matsumoto in 1977 and popularized in the 1978 television series Space Pirate Captain Harlock. Since then, the character has appeared in numerous animated television series and films, the latest of which is 2013's Space Pirate Captain Harlock. Though there are slight variations in each telling of Harlock's story, the essentials remain the same. Matsumoto presents a future (2977 AD) in which the Earth has achieved a vast starfaring civilization, but is slowly and steadily succumbing to ennui or despair, often due to defeat and subjugation by a foreign invader. Rising against the general apathy, Harlock denies defeat and leads an outlaw crew aboard his starship Arcadia to undertake daring raids against Earth's oppressors. Even though they have defeated Earth and devastated its peoples, the invaders are often presented in a sympathetic light, being shown as having some justification for their actions.

I Know A Little Album: Street Survivors (1977) by Lynyrd Skynyrd You won't find diatribes on the complexities of interpersonal relationships in the Skynyrd catalog, but you will find simple explanations. I Know A Little is a great example. Why to people get the blues? From digging what they can't use. And if you want to hold on to a man, a good way to do it is through commitment. You only need to know a little about love - the rest you can guess. I Know A Little is a great example of Skynyrd guitarist Steve Gaines' contributions to the band. He wrote the song himself, and also wrote or co-wrote three other songs on the album. Gaines replaced Ed King as the band's guitarist in 1976, but died in the 1977 plane crash that also claimed the lives of lead singer Ronnie Van Zant and Gaines' sister Cassie, who was a backup singer for the group. This song provides a glimpse of his clever songwriting, as Van Zant sings about a guy who has a strong feeling that his girl is cheating on him. Skynyrd guitarist Gary Rossington told Guitar School magazine, July 1993, that he'd never heard anybody, including the current guitarists in the band, play the picking on this song quite right - the way Steve Gaines did. This is one of many Skynyrd songs that was never released as a single but endured as a classic track in their catalog. It earned lots of airplay on Classic Rock radio and became one of their most popular live songs, performed at most of their shows when they re-organized after the plane crash. Yes sir Well the bigger the city, well the brighter the lights The bigger the dog, well the harder the bite I don't know where you been last night But I think mama, you ain't doin' right Say I know a little I know a little about it I know a little I know a little 'bout it I know a little 'bout love And baby I can guess the rest Well now I don't read that daily news 'Cause it ain't hard to figure Where people get the blues They can't dig what they can't use If they stick to themselves They'd be much less abused Say I know a little Lord I do know a little about it I know a little I know a little 'bout it I know a little 'bout love Baby I can guess the rest Play me a little, oh yeah Yeah Well if you want me to be your only man Said listen up mama, teach you all I can Do right baby, by your man Don't worry mama, teach you all I can Say I know a little Lord I do know a little about it I know a little I know a little 'bout it I know a little 'bout love Baby I can guess the rest Well I know a little 'bout love Baby I want your best

Is It My Body Album: Love It to Death (1971) Clones Album: Flush The Fashion (1980) Billion Dollar Babies Album: Billion Dollar Babies (1973) by Alice Cooper In 1971, Alice Cooper released the breakthrough album, Love It To Death. It has become one a quintessential rock and roll album. “Is It My Body,” the fifth track on Love It To Death, asks a critical question – “have you got the time to find out who I really am?” It may seem simple and to the point, but the question begs a deeper, more complex answer. Alice inquires what it is about him that has captured the affection of his admirer. And, as the song continues, it’s evident that the real question pertains more to an actual, deeper, more genuine connection than just some random fling, hookup, or acquaintance. What is it that attracts us to the opposite sex? Is it purely physical, or is it more than that? “Is it (their) body, someone (they) might be; somethin’ inside (them)?” What makes us want to be connected to that other person? One of the fascinating things about the Alice Cooper phenomenon is the cerebral nature of the music and lyrics. Buried underneath the lines and chords, a story is being told. Some are to the point, and some are a little more hidden. “Is It My Body” is to the point, “what is it about me that makes you want to love me?” The question is straightforward and demands an answer. The answers to such a question are different for each listener. "Clones" is an attack on forced conformity - it was very popular with high school students. The lyrics paint a future where all traces of the human race have been replaced by dehumanized clones: "We've destroyed the government, we're destroying time. No more problems on the way." Clones was written by the late guitarist/vocalist/songwriter David Carron, who had been a member of Arlo Guthrie's touring band, Shenandoah, in the 1970s. He was also a member of the short-lived band Gulliver after that. Clones song peaked at #40 on the US Hot 100. It was Cooper's first single to reach the Top 40 in two years. The track also saw some chart action in other parts of the world. It climbed to #36 on the singles chart in Australia and reached #58 in Germany. This was the first single from Cooper's album Flush the Fashion. Due to the sluggish sales of his previous album, From the Inside, Cooper decided to take his sound in a new direction. With that goal in mind, he tapped Roy Thomas Baker to produce album. Baker was best known for his production work with Queen (he co-produced A Night at the Opera with the band) and The Cars. Under his production, the tracks on Flush the Fashion have a synth-laced New Wave sound, which was a significant departure from the rougher-edged hard rock and glam metal of Cooper's previous records. This sonic makeover proved successful in boosting Cooper's record sales; the album was his most successful LP in three years, climbing to #44 in America and #56 in the UK. The Smashing Pumpkins covered Clones. Their version appears on the The Aeroplane Flies High collection. Billion Dollar Babies is about the dangers of overindulgence. It came just as Cooper was getting famous and exposed to rock star excess, and accordingly it helped make him rich and famous. Alice used the cash to buy a house in Los Angeles and finance more elaborate stage shows and videos. He lived the rock star lifestyle for a while, but in later years settled into a very sensible upper class lifestyle, living in Arizona, playing lots of golf, and making shrewd business decisions. He never became a billionaire, but he did very well for himself. Cooper and his band recorded Billion Dollar Babies at a mansion they rented out to record the album in Greenwich, Connecticut, which is a very wealthy suburb of New York City. Billion Dollar Babies is credited as written by Cooper, his guitarist Michael Bruce, and a session guitarist they worked with named Reggie Vinson. The Billion Dollar Babies album was re-released with new packaging as a DVD in 2000. It contains all the songs plus interviews and bonus tracks. As part of his stage show, Cooper would mutilate dolls when he performed Billion Dollar Babies. The tour for the album introduced the props Cooper became famous for, including the guillotine, the snake, and hundreds of cans of beer. Billion Dollar Babies took on new meaning when Cooper started playing casinos in the '90s. 1973 was the last year that Alice Cooper was recognized as a group, rather than just the lead singer. Since the singer, Vincent Furnier, drew most of the attention, many fans did not know the difference between him and the Alice Cooper Band. Muscle of Love was the last album as the group. As lead singer Vincent Furnier became the known as Alice Cooper and sucked up all the notoriety the band received, the guitarist, bass player, and drummer from The Alice Cooper Band left and formed a group called The Billion Dollar Babies. They released an album called Battle Axe in 1977. The background vocals for Billion Dollar Babies was sung by Donovan of "Mellow Yellow" fame. Donovan was recording at Willesden's Morgan Studios around the same time as Alice, and got roped into the session. In a 2016 interview with Donovan, he told the story: "Here was this guy that I just met. He played me the song, and said, 'Would you like to put a vocal on?' I said, 'OK. Give me the chorus.' I listened to the chorus, and his guitar player was playing like Keith Richards - something very powerful that he'd learned from Keith or from Brian Jones in the Stones. And when I listened to the chorus, I said, 'OK. I'll give it a go.' But I learned something: I had to sing in falsetto. Power bands in Britain had already learned that to have a singer in a power rock outfit, you need a singer who can go into falsetto. That's why you've got Robert Plant in Zeppelin, Jon Anderson with Yes. They have to raise their voices into the high range. Chris Squire of Yes, who was a friend at the time, I said, 'Why is it?' And he said, 'Well, it's very easy. If you want your voice to be heard, you've got to climb above the guitars in the mid-range, or else you won't even hear the vocal.' And it's true. So, I immediately said, 'Hey Alice, what do you think of [singing falsetto] Biiiillion Dollar Babies? So I did the falsetto, Alice loved it, and then I forgot about it, and never even thought about it, until someone told me later, it went to #1. And I was half the vocal! So Alice and I, when we meet, we have a chuckle and a laugh about it. It was a great pleasure. And the best thing about it was nobody knew it was me for so long!" Notwithstanding the sometimes grotesque subject matter, Cooper told Gibson.com that one of his main inspirations for the album was Chuck Berry. "[Berry] was my favorite lyricist," said Cooper. "When I first heard something like 'Nadine,' or 'Maybelline,' I understood those songs told a story. As the lyrics went along, you really got a picture of what was going on. He took the girl out; he couldn't get his seat belt off - things like that. I always wanted to write three-minute stories that were funny, or maybe not just funny, but also dramatic. The idea was to compact everything into three minutes, which is really hard to do."

Cereal Killer Album: Cereal Killer Soundtrack (1993) Anarchy In Bedrock Album: Triple Live Möther Gööse at Budokan (1989) by Green Jello/Jelly Cereal Killer was originally released on video in 1992, as were all of the songs on this album. The video for this song showed several mascots of various cereals being viciously murdered. The cereal companies got so upset that when the songs were released in a music-only format, the band had to put out an edited version. Their name was originally Green Jello, named as such because of their dislike for that particular flavor and because they thought it accurately described their musical sound. They had to change it to Green Jelly after a demand by General Foods, owner of the Jello trademark and many of the Cereal Products mentioned in "Cereal Killers". Triple Live Möther Gööse at Budokan was recorded and mixed at s.p.l studio van nuys. This record credits the band as Green Jellö on the cover, not Jellÿ. Also available on green with white splatter and black vinyl. The album was recorded in a garage in about the same amount of time it takes to play it. A rare video was also released for this album with music videos for each song. It featured a much more defined sound, as well as far better production and songwriting. Thanks to hard rock band Gwar, Green Jelly began using elaborate homemade props and costumes in their live shows. They once appeared on The Gong Show, claiming to be the world's worst band. After releasing an "album" on video, with music videos accompanying each of the songs, they billed themselves as the world's first "video-only" rock band. Manspeaker goes by the names Marshall "Duh" Staxx and Moronic Dicktator. Former vocalist Gary Helsinger is now the Director A&R, West Coast, for Universal. He was also Tour Manager for A Perfect Circle. The band has had anywhere from 75-115 members since its inception. They hail from Kenmore, New Jersey. Tool vocalist Maynard James Keenan and Tool drummer Danny Carey were both members of Green Jelly. That's where they met, before they broke off to form Tool. "Cereal Killer" Green Jelly Follow your nose It always knows The flavor of death Where ever it goes Terror in the supermarket, shoppers are in horror Shredded boxes in the aisles, corpses on the floor Those who ran, this joy is mine Now they're gonna to pay Sugar-coated slaughter Now the order of the day! Toucan, Son of Sam! Silly rabbit, Trix are for kids Follow your nose It always knows The flavor of death Where ever it goes Orphaned at the age of five Parental guidance missed Rice Krispies wouldn't talk to him And he got really pissed The remittal chemicals Have driven him insane Now we know the calling Like it's ringing 'round his brain Toucan, Son of Sam! Snap! Crackle! Pop! Toucan Son of Sam! Part of your nutritious breakfast! ~ Anarchy in Bedrock... twitch, twitch (one, two, three, four) Right now, hahaha... I am an antichrist I am an anarchist, Don't know what I want But know how to get it. Want to destroy Mr. Slate Cause I wanna be Fred Flintstone Anarchy in Bedrock Stop it sometime it makes Betty and Wilma Try some flint upside down rubble bubble Or you can just try Fruity Pebbles Cause I wanna be Fred Flintstone In bedrock its the only way to be Many ways to get what you want I use Ministry I use Barney Rubble I use anarchy Cause I wanna be, Fred Flintstone YABBA DABBA DOO! Is this the USPA? Is this Hollywood? Is this Bedrock? I thought it was Hollyrock Cause I wanna be Fred Flintstone And I wanna be Fred Flintstone And I wanna be Fred Flintstone Wilma!

Ghost Town Album: The Singles Collection (1981) A Message To You Rudy Album: Specials (1979) You're Wondering Now Album: Too Much Too Young (1996) by The Specials The Specials keyboardist Jerry Dammers wrote and recorded Ghost Town in a Tottenham, London apartment. On the surface, it is about the decline of Coventry, where the band grew up, but the latent meaning is quite different. Ghost Town was written just as three band members - Neville Staples, Lynval Golding and Terry Hall - were leaving The Specials to form Fun Boy Three. According to Dammers, the song was inspired by the band's split. He said in 2008: "'Ghost Town' was about the breakup of the Specials. It just appeared hopeless. But I just didn't want to write about my state of mind so I tried to relate it to the country as a whole." Many in the UK could relate to Ghost Town. Coventry was a thriving industrial town in 1960s, but fell on hard times in the 1980s. "Ghost Town" caught the mood of Summer 1981 as levels of civil unrest not seen in a generation hit the UK. The song was influenced by scenes noted during the band's UK tour. Dammers recalled in an interview in the music magazine Mojo, "In Liverpool, all the shops were shuttered up, everything was closing down. In Glasgow there were little old ladies on the streets selling their household goods." "Ghost Town" was the seventh UK Top 10 for The Specials and their second #1, following "Too Much Too Young." The song wasn't even released as a single in America, where the band tried and failed to break through in 1980 with a tour and an appearance on Saturday Night Live. They learned that getting on the radio and placed in record stores there was nearly impossible because there was no classification for ska or two-tone, and they didn't fit under the aegis of pop, punk, reggae or rock. It wasn't until the '90s that America warmed to the sound they helped create. Dammers took a year to write "Ghost Town" and "begged" his bandmates to record it to his specifications. The lyric, "All the clubs have been closed down," refers to the Locarno in Coventry. The site is now the city library. (above two from Q magazine, March 2008) Ghost Town was featured in the 2000 Guy Ritchie-directed film Snatch. "Rudy" (or Rudi, Rude boy) is a Jamaican term for criminal juveniles; The Clash sing about one in "Rudie Can't Fail." The message to Rudy is straightforward: stop your messing around and think of your future. Jamaican immigrants to England in the aftermath of World War II brought their music and culture to that country, influencing bands like The Specials. "A Message To You Rudy" was originally recorded by the reggae artist Dandy Livingstone in 1967. His original recording was a portrait of social unrest amongst the youth in Kingston, Jamaica. The Specials' update is a comment on British disaffection in the late 1970s that led to the 1978-79 Winter of Discontent when a succession of strikes seriously disrupted everyday life and later the riots in the Summer of 1981. "A Message To You Rudy" was the second Specials single, following "Gangsters." After it climbed to #10 in the UK in November 1979, the group toured America, where they found audiences were indifferent or perplexed by their sound, which didn't have a handy classification. Despite an appearance on Saturday Night Live, they didn't make much impact and didn't return, focusing instead on their stronghold of Britain. The trombonist on A Message To You Rudy, Rico Rodriguez, also played on Dandy Livingstone's original recording.

Dead Mans Party Album: Dead Man's Party (1985) Weird Science Album: Dead Man's Party (1985) by Oingo Boingo Dead Mans Party is about attending funeral and being buried. The lyrics make a few clever references to it Even from the opening line of "All dressed up with nowhere to go/Walking with a dead man over my shoulder." Later Danny Elfman sings, "Got my best suit and my tie, Shiny silver dollar on either eye, I hear the chauffeur comin' to the door, Says there's room for maybe just one more..." Being dressed in his best suit refers to the tradition of dressing the dead in their finest clothes, the silver dollars were once used to weight the eyelids closed, and the dead would pay the ferryman to cross the River Styx from Greek mythology. The chauffeur saying there is room for one more refers to campfire horror story were a man is woken up in the night by a car honking and as he looks out the window. He sees six of his friends in the car dressed in suits, the driver then tells the man that there is room for one more. Later the man tells a friend the story before dying in car wreck and the friend believes the man had predicted his own death. Dead Mans Party was featured in the Rodney Dangerfield movie Back To School, where Oingo Boingo play at a college party. The song was one of Oingo Boingo's most loved by fans, and the dancing skeletons became one of the most recognized symbols of the band. Danny Elfman of Oingo Boingo is the well-known composer for many Tim Burton movies, including The Nightmare Before Christmas (on which he is also the singing voice of Jack Skellington), Batman, the theme for the Simpsons, and many, many others. He is also the uncle to actress Jenna Elfman, star of Dharma And Greg. Oingo Boingo was formed by Richard Elfman to provide music for a film he was working on. The group ended up writing music for their own releases as well as other movies, including Back To School. "Weird Science" was written for the John Hughes movie Weird Science, about two kids who find a way to create a beautiful woman through science. The band had to rush this out and didn't like the song, but it became well known due to its use in the movie, and was included on their album Dead Man's Party. Danny Elfman (Richard's brother), was lead singer of the group. He went on to write theme music for many popular movies and TV shows, including The Simpsons, Beetlejuice, Batman and Edward Scissorhands. The Weird Science movie was turned into a TV series in 1994 starring Vanessa Angel as the female creation. The series ran for five seasons, and used this song as its theme.

Driver's Seat Album: Fickle Heart (1978) by Sniff 'n' the Tears "Driver's Seat" is a 1978 song by the British band Sniff 'n' the Tears that appears on their debut album, Fickle Heart. The band is considered a one-hit wonder as "Driver's Seat" was their only hit, except in the Netherlands, where they had a second Top 40 single. The genesis of the song dates back to 1973 and a demo tape recorded for a French record label by Sniff 'n' The Tears with singer/guitarist Paul Roberts, guitarists Laurence "Loz" Netto and Mick Dyche, and bassist Chris Birkin. The drummer Luigi Salvoni was a new addition at the time coming from the breakup of Moon, the band he'd been in. They shopped the demo tape and signed with the small Chiswick label in 1977. Keith Miller played the Moog solo and also toured America with the band. Noel McCalla sang the backup vocals. The song is not really about the joys of driving, according to the official Sniff 'n' the Tears website. Rather, it is about the fragmented, conflicting emotions that occur after the end of a relationship. The line, "The news is blue. I'll never remember my time with you," points out the difficulty of imagining never being with the significant other again. An early version of this song was demoed back in 1973 by singer/guitarist Paul Roberts' then-band, Moon, for a French label. However, that band broke up and, at the suggestion of drummer Luigi Salvoni, Roberts reformed it as Sniff 'n' the Tears with guitarists Laurence "Loz" Netto and Mick Dyche, and bassist Chris Birkin. They shopped the demo tape and signed with the London indie label Chiswick in 1977. Released as a single, "Driver's Seat" was a relative failure in their home country, but more successful in the US where it reached #15 on the Hot 100 in August 1979. "It was a pretty massive hit everywhere apart from Britain," reflected Roberts to Mojo March 2011. "Britain is perverse in some respects, but it did get a lot of radio play. We were accused of ripping off Dire Straits. I never understood that, but I think it was more that we were different to the post-punk scene." Any potential break at home was derailed by outside factors. "We did Top of the Pops as a last-minute replacement for the Gang of Four, they wouldn't go on for some political reason," recalled Roberts to Mojo. The following week the EMI pressing plant (where Chiswick's records were manufactured), went on strike and you couldn't buy 'Driver's Seat' for four or five weeks." Sniff 'n' the Tears consistently found an audience outside Britain - in the USA and continental Europe - until they quit in 1983. They reformed in 1992 after Driver's Seat featured in a Dutch TV ad for Pioneer Stereos. The BBC DJ Steve Wright has called this song his all-time favorite record. Doing all right A little jiving on a Saturday night And come what may Gonna dance the day away Jenny was sweet She always smiled for the people she'd meet On trouble and strife She had another way of looking at life The news is blue (the news is blue) It has its own way to get to you (ooh) What can I do? (what can I do?) I'll never remember my time with you Pick up your feet Got to move to the trick of the beat There is no elite Just take your place in the driver's seat Driver's seat, ooh Driver's seat, yeah We're doing all right (ooh) A little jiving on a Saturday night (yeah) And come what may (ooh) Gonna dance the day away (yeah) Driver's seat, ooh Driver's seat, yeah Jenny was sweet (ooh) There is no elite (yeah) Pick up your feet (ooh) Pick up, pick up (yeah) Pick up your feet (ooh) Gonna dance the day away (yeah) Driver's seat, ooh Driver's seat, yeah Driver's seat, ooh Driver's seat, yeah Yeah Driver's seat

Send In The Clowns Album: The Broadway Album (1985) by Barbra Streisand "Send In the Clowns" is a song written by Stephen Sondheim for the 1973 musical A Little Night Music, an adaptation of Ingmar Bergman's 1955 film Smiles of a Summer Night. It is a ballad from Act Two, in which the character Desirée reflects on the ironies and disappointments of her life. Among other things, she looks back on an affair years earlier with the lawyer Fredrik, who was deeply in love with her, but whose marriage proposals she had rejected. Meeting him after so long, she realizes she is in love with him and finally ready to marry him, but now it is he who rejects her: He is in an unconsummated marriage with a much younger woman. Desirée proposes marriage to rescue him from this situation, but he declines, citing his dedication to his bride. Reacting to his rejection, Desirée sings this song. The song is later reprised as a coda after Fredrik's young wife runs away with his son, and Fredrik is finally free to accept Desirée's offer. Sondheim wrote the song specifically for Glynis Johns, who originated the role of Desirée on Broadway. The song is structured with four verses and a bridge, and uses a complex compound meter. It became Sondheim's most popular song after Frank Sinatra recorded it in 1973 and Judy Collins' version charted in 1975 and 1977. Subsequently, numerous other artists recorded the song, and it has become a standard. In 1985, Sondheim added a verse for Barbra Streisand to use on The Broadway Album and subsequent concert performances. Her version reached No. 25 on the Billboard Hot Adult Contemporary chart in 1986. Streisand started her career on Broadway, and so considered this album in sense returning to her roots, after two decades of recording popular music of the day. Streisand's record label, Columbia Records, objected to the planned content as it was not pop songs, but Streisand had signed a contract at the beginning of her career which gave her full creative control in exchange for lower earnings; at this point she stressed that, due to the contract, she had "the right to sing what I want to sing". She considers the tracks music she has great respect for, deeming it some of the best music and lyrics ever written. The lead single, "Putting It Together" from Sondheim's Sunday in the Park with George, was rewritten to be about the dichotomy between art and commerce in the music industry. Streisand hired her previous The Way We Were director Sydney Pollack, as well as David Geffen, head of Geffen Records to play the parts of the antagonistic studio heads. Streisand wanted to record the entire piece live to capture the atmosphere of Broadway shows. Many of the musicians also played in Funny Girl 22 years earlier, and a month of rehearsals with Stephen Sondheim was undertaken before recording. The album's cover art was shot by photographer Richard Corman at the Plymouth Theatre in New York City in the summer of 1985. In addition to the photos used, showing Streisand sitting in a chair on the stage surrounded by sheet music, Corman shot additional portraits of her sitting in the seats.

Breakfast in America Album: Breakfast In America (1979) by Supertramp Supertramp is a British band whose main songwriters were keyboard player Rick Davies and bass player Roger Hodgson. Although they shared songwriting credits, most of their songs were written separately. Hodgson wrote this one when he was in his late teens and still living in England. The song describes an English youth who dreams of going to America and becoming famous, which is exactly what Supertramp did. When we spoke with Hodgson in 2012, he told us that he put himself in character for the song, and was in a whimsical mood when he wrote it. Said Roger: "The line 'playing my jokes upon you,' I think that kind of sums up the song. It was just mind chatter. Just writing down ideas as they came - fun thoughts all strung together. And I do remember the Beatles had just gone to America, and I was pretty impressed with that. That definitely stimulated my dream of wanting to go to America. And obviously seeing all those gorgeous California girls on the TV and thinking, Wow. That's the place I want to go." Roger did go to California - he moved there in 1973 and has lived there ever since. Roger Hodgson and Rick Davies were at odds over naming the album after the song. Says Hodgson, "He [Davies] didn't want the album title 'Breakfast In America' either. So I guess I won out on both counts." The Breakfast In America album was very different from Supertramp's previous albums, which were more conceptual and elaborate. Breakfast was designed to have pop appeal, which is why they included this song that Hodgson had written eight years earlier. Hodgson and Davies had a specific disagreement over the first line in the song: "Take a look at my girlfriend, she's the only one I got." Hodgson explained to Melody Maker in 1979: "He never liked the lyric to 'Breakfast.' It's so trite: 'Take a look at my girlfriend.' He's much more into crafting a song. He would have been happier if I'd changed the lyric to either something funnier or more relevant. I tried, but it didn't work out, so I was stuck with the original." Hodgson added in his Songfacts interview, "I don't believe I had a girlfriend at that time, and if I did it wouldn't have lasted much longer after that." This song was powered by an old pump organ. Hodgson explained: "I think I was 17 when I found this wonderful pump organ - a harmonium that you pump with your feet. I found it in this old lady's house in the countryside near where I lived in England. I bought it for £26, and when I brought it back I proceeded to write all these songs on it: 'Breakfast In America,' 'Two Of Us,' 'Soapbox Opera,' even the beginning of 'Fool's Overture' and 'Logical Song.' It's amazing what this instrument pulled out of me." A dazzling array of unusual instruments were used on this track, including some that rarely are heard on rock songs. Supertramp could be very musically adventurous thank to band member John Helliwell, who could play a number of instruments, including woodwinds. It's nearly impossible to identify every instrument used on this track with the naked ear, so we contacted Helliwell to find out. He got in touch with Peter Henderson, who was a co-producer and engineer on the album, and Henderson provided the list. All instruments were played by the band members - Roger Hodgson, Rick Davies, Dougie Thomson, John Helliwell and Bob C. Benberg - except for the tuba and trombone, which were played by session musician Dick "Slide" Hyde. "Breakfast In America" song instrumentation: Steinway 9-foot Piano Music Man 4-string Stingray Bass Ludwig Drums with Ludwig Supraphonic 6.5-inch snare Harmonium (pump organ) Clarinet Fender Stratocaster guitar, doubled Tuba Trombone Calliope and tack piano to give fairground sound Orchestra cymbals on last chorus Roger Hodgson lead vocal, double tracked Roger Hodgson backing vocals, double tracked "Girlfriend" answer vocal - Dougie Thomson or John Helliwell, possibly both "What she got - not a lot" backing vocal - Rick Davies 1941 is a 1979 American comedy film directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale. THESE ARE THE VERY PEOPLE RESPONSIBLE FOR MANY FILM BASED CONSPIRACIES! The film stars an ensemble cast including Dan Aykroyd, Ned Beatty, John Belushi, John Candy, Christopher Lee, Tim Matheson, Toshiro Mifune, Robert Stack, Nancy Allen, and Mickey Rourke in his film debut. The story involves a panic in the Los Angeles area after the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. Co-writer Gale stated the plot is loosely based on what has come to be known as the Great Los Angeles Air Raid of 1942, as well as the bombardment of the Ellwood oil refinery, near Santa Barbara, by a Japanese submarine. Many other events in the film were based on real incidents, including the Zoot Suit Riots and an incident in which the U.S. Army placed an anti-aircraft gun in a homeowner's yard on the Maine coast. The film received heavily mixed reviews from critics with criticism towards the script, pacing and humor but praise towards the visual effects, sound, production design, John Williams's score and cinematography. Although 1941 was not as financially nor critically successful as many of Spielberg's other films, the film was still a box office success and it received belated popularity after an expanded version aired on ABC, with subsequent television broadcasts and home video reissues, raising it to cult status. On Saturday, December 13, 1941, at 7:01 a.m. (six days after the attack on Pearl Harbor), an Imperial Japanese Navy submarine, commanded by Akiro Mitamura and carrying Kriegsmarine officer Wolfgang von Kleinschmidt, surfaces off the Californian coast. Wanting to destroy something "honorable" in Los Angeles, Mitamura decides to target Hollywood. Later that same morning, a 10th Armored Division M3 Lee tank crew, consisting of Sergeant Frank Tree, Corporal Chuck Sitarski, and Privates Foley, Reese, and Henshaw, are having breakfast at a cafe in Los Angeles where dishwasher Wally Stephens and his friend Dennis DeSoto work. Wally is planning to enter a dance contest at a club that evening with his girlfriend, Betty Douglas. Sitarski, who has an extremely short temper, instantly dislikes Wally and trips him, causing a fight and leaving Wally humiliated. In Death Valley, United States Army Air Forces Captain Wild Bill Kelso lands his Curtiss P-40 Warhawk fighter at a roadside store and gas station, which he accidentally blows up. Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, Major General Joseph W. Stilwell attempts to calm the public, who believe Japan will attack California. During a press conference at Daugherty Field in Long Beach, Captain Loomis Birkhead, Stilwell's aide, meets his old flame Donna Stratton, who is General Stilwell's new secretary. Aware that Donna is sexually aroused by airplanes, Birkhead lures her into the cockpit of a B-17 bomber to seduce her. When his attempt fails, Donna punches him; as he falls, Birkhead accidentally releases a bomb, which rolls against the conference's grandstand and explodes, though Stilwell and the crowd escape unhurt. At the Santa Monica oceanside home of her father Ward Douglas and his wife Joan, Betty and her friend Maxine Dexheimer, who have just become USO hostesses, tell Wally that they are only allowed to dance with servicemen as they are now the only male patrons allowed in the club. Wally hides in the garage when Ward, who disapproves of him, appears. Sgt. Tree and his crew arrive and inform Ward and Joan that the army wants to install an anti-aircraft battery in their yard. Sitarski begins flirting with Betty, and Wally falls from the loft where he was hiding. Wally and Sitarski recognize each other from the cafe, and the Sgt. Tree’s crew dumps Wally into a passing garbage truck after ejecting him from the premises. Meanwhile, the Japanese submarine has become lost trying to find Los Angeles after their compass malfunctions. A landing party goes ashore and captures lumberjack Hollis "Holly" Wood. Aboard the sub, Hollis is searched and the crew is excited to find a small toy compass, which Hollis swallows. After the crew attempts to make Hollis excrete the compass by forcing him to drink prune juice, he escapes from the submarine. Ward's neighbor, Angelo Scioli of the Ground Observer Corps, installs Claude and Herb in the Ferris wheel at the Ocean Front Amusement Park to scout for enemy aircraft. Determined to get Donna into an airplane, Birkhead drives her to the 501st Bomb Disbursement Unit in Barstow, where the mentally unstable Colonel "Mad Man" Maddox lets them borrow a plane. Donna, aroused from finally being in an airplane, begins to ravish Birkhead during the flight.

New Sensation Album: Kick (1987) Suicide Blonde Album: X (1990) Devil Inside Album: Kick (1987) by Inxs Like all the original tracks on Kick, "New Sensation" was written by lead singer Michael Hutchence along with Andrew Farriss, who played a number of instruments in the group. Farriss came up with a guitar riff that carries the track musically; Hutchence added the "seize the day" lyric, encouraging us to live boldly, seeking out new sensations. "I felt that a lot of the lyrics on the Kick album were very positive lyrics," Farriss said. "When I listen to that album, a lot of the lyrics are about celebrating life, and I find them particularly positive." Listen carefully under the guitar and you'll hear a banjo line, which Andrew Farriss added using a sampler. The video shows a different side of Michael Hutchence, putting him in a suit and ponytail (très chic in 1987) as the band performs the song at the Municipal House in Prague. INXS was fond of their visual effects, and this one used a combination of light waves mixed with a strobing look pioneered in the Wang Chung "Everybody Have Fun Tonight" video. Like most of their early videos, New Sensation was directed by Richard Lowenstein, their good friend from Australia. INXS guitarist/horn player Kirk Pengilly played the saxophone part, and yes, Michael Hutchence yells "trumpet!" just before it plays. This was an in-joke: The group's other guitarist, Tim Farriss, wanted to play trumpet on the track, but Pengilly overruled him and got his sax solo. In the video version, Hutchence's call for trumpet is removed because it sounds really dumb when you actually see the saxophone. This was the third single from the Kick album, which took the band to a new level. Outside their home country of Australia, they had just a modest following, but the first single from the album, "Need You Tonight," was a monster, going to #1 in America. "Devil Inside" followed, reaching #2, so by the time "New Sensation" was released, there was no question it would get airplay. It followed the sequence, peaking at #3 in July 1988 (the next single, "Never Tear Us Apart," stopped at #7). INXS ruled MTV in 1988. At the Video Music Awards on September 7, they were the big winners, taking home five awards for the "Need You Tonight/Mediate" video. They closed the ceremony with a performance of "New Sensation." With the promise of a "new sensation," this song is irresistible to ad agencies, who have placed it in commercials for Toyota, Sea World and McDonald's. This plays in the Charmed episode Coyote Piper (2001), and in the Mr. Robot episode "eps3.1_undo.gz" (2017). It also shows up in these movies: The Way Way Back (2013) Towelhead (2007) Shattered Glass (2003) 40 Days and 40 Nights (2002) The song title comes from a phrase describing a woman who colors her hair blonde as "dyeing" from her own hand, making her a "suicide blonde." It was written by Andrew Farriss and Michael Hutchence, who were the primary songwriters in the group. The lyric was inspired by Kylie Minogue, who was INXS lead singer Michael Hutchence's girlfriend at the time. When she told him she was planning to dye her hair "suicide blonde," he used it as the title (this according to Lucy O'Brien's Michael Hutchence obit in Q magazine). One of Hutchence's favorite hobbies was "corrupting Kylie" because of her wholesome image. When they attended the premiere of Kylie's film The Delinquents, she wore an extreme look with the "suicide blonde" hair that made her unrecognizable to many. INXS hit it big with their sixth album, Kick, released in 1987. They spent all of 1988 and much of 1989 supporting the album, which was huge, bringing them to a U2 level of superstardom. Getting the band back in the studio was a challenge though, especially when Michael Hutchence started a side project with his old mates called Max Q. INXS' label, Atlantic, indulged Hutchence by releasing the Max Q album in 1989, but they buried it, eager to get him working again with their moneymaker. Kick producer Chris Thomas returned to helm X, which was released in 1990. "Suicide Blonde" was the first single and a substantial hit, but X was a big drop off critically and commercially. To their credit, the band didn't use their existing hits as templates or bring in outside writers, choosing instead to push forward in new musical directions. The song has nothing to do with suicide, and despite the uneasy title, the band continued to perform it when they toured with other lead singers following Michael Hutchence's death by suicide in 1997. That's Charlie Musselwhite playing the harmonica on this track, although his part was played though a sampler programmed by Andrew Farriss. Musselwhite played directly on two other tracks from the album: "Who Pays The Price" and "On My Way." Musselwhite, a Mississippi-born white bluesman, has released over 20 albums and guested on Bonnie Raitt's Grammy-winning Longing In Their Hearts. He was reportedly the inspiration for Dan Aykroyd's character in the Blues Brothers. In America, Suicide Blonde hit the mark on Modern Rock radio, where edgy "alternative" acts were the focus. "Suicide Blonde" rose to #1 on Billboard's Modern Rock chart. The band's good friend Richard Lowenstein directed the video of Suicide Blonde, which shows an array of composited images of the band members traveling across the screen, a look he often used in their visuals. Dance remixes of Suicide Blonde by Paul Oakenfold (the "Milk Mix") and Nick Launay (the "Devastation Mix") were released in 1990 and proved popular in clubs. Suicide Blonde was the last song Michael Hutchence performed live. It was the closing number at the last INXS show before his death, a concert in Burgettstown, Pennsylvania, on September 27, 1997. There is a devil inside all of us, but some wear it outward, like the woman in the song "raised on leather with flesh on her mind." We also meet a man "fed on nothing but full of pride," one of the seven deadly sins. "I was on a God and the Devil phase there," INXS lead singer Michael Hutchence said of the Devil Inside lyric in the book Classic Albums. "I suppose it's to do with the chaos of everything, you know? And we can put it into religious terms, I suppose. The Devil is chaotic. So that every time you think something's right, he comes in and changes everything." For the Kick album, Michael Hutchence and Andrew Farriss did all of the songwriting. Farriss, who played keyboards, guitar and other instruments in the group, got "Devil Inside" started with a sinister guitar riff he came up with in 1985 when he was cooped up in the Kenilworth Hotel in London. Hutchence added the lyrics to complete Devil Inside. Devil Inside was the second single from Kick, the album that elevated the group to international stardom. Their previous five albums made them household names in their native Australia, but in the rest of the world they were mainly known for the song "What You Need" from their previous album, Listen Like Thieves. Kick was far from a sure thing - their record label, Atlantic, didn't like it at all. INXS manager Chris Murphy reported that executives complained there was "no way they could get this music on rock radio." But with a push in America starting with a tour of colleges, the first single, "Need You Tonight," took off, climbing to #1 in January 1988, four months after the album was released. That song cleared a path for "Devil Inside," which was warmly welcomed on radio and MTV. It rose to #2 in April, behind "Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car" by Billy Ocean. Kick stayed on the US albums chart for all of 1988 and much of 1989, with "New Sensation," and "Never Tear Us Apart" also charting as singles. The video of Devil Inside was directed by Joel Schumacher, an A-list moviemaker whose films include St. Elmo's Fire and Falling Down. He also did a vampire movie called The Lost Boys that was released in 1987 and featured two INXS songs from 1986 they recorded with singer Jimmy Barnes: "Good Times" (a cover of an Easybeats song from 1968) and "Laying Down The Law." Returning the favor, Schumacher made the "Devil Inside" video in the same style, shooting it in Balboa, California, a ritzy part of Newport Beach. The band is seen performing at a club where lots of beautiful people come in and out of the shadows. It was a new look for the band, whose previous videos took place in studio settings with the camera trained on Hutchence. It was Schumacher's first music video. He later shot Seal's "Kiss From A Rose" as a tie-in with his film Batman Forever. It was only a matter of time before this song was used in a TV show about a demon. It finally happened in 2016 when it appeared on the "Pops" episode of Lucifer. "Devil Inside" also shows up in the 2001 movie Rock Star and the 2007 Samantha Who? episode "The Car." Michael Hutchence used to love "Devil Inside," but Andrew Farriss wasn't so enthusiastic. "I used to struggle with the song a little bit, because I didn't write the lyric," he admitted to The Tennessean in 2022. "He wrote the lyric and I, you know, I have some beliefs about life and the afterlife." Though Farriss questioned Hutchence's lyric, he took the view of "Well, that's art."

There's Gonna Be Some Rockin Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap (1976) Problem Child Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap (1976) by AC/DC All the kiddos out of skool. Don't ya' just feel like matriculating more of this sh1t? When vocalist Bon Scott introduced this song at concerts he would say half-jokingly that it was about lead guitarist Angus Young. In his biography of the band, Paul Stenning says it could have been written about any of them, but Angus himself said, "I wasn't really a bad sort of kid". Young did though invariably dress as a schoolboy on stage, so this humorous remark may have had a double meaning. The song was written by Malcolm Young, Angus Young and Bon Scott. Bassist Cliff Williams told Hard Rock magazine in 1996: "A friend of mine gave me a phone call telling me AC/DC was looking for a bassist and that my name was on their list. The boys in the band thought they had greater chances to find the right man in England rather than in Australia because the talent pool was more important there. I was auditioned in a small room at the Victoria studio. The first tracks I played were "Live Wire" and "Problem Child" and a few old blues songs if I remember well. The manager of the band told me I had the job. The plan was as follows: I was to leave London to Australia, because we were supposed to prepare the recording of Powerage. But the Australian Immigration Department didn't act cool with me. The guy in charge of my file told me, 'I don't understand why a Brit got the job, an Australian could have had it.' I answered, 'You're crazy, you could have me lose my job.' Yes, I had a few problems but finally I was able to go to Australia where we recorded Powerage." There's Gonna Be Some Rockin' Well me and the boys Are out to have some fun Gonna put on a show Come on, let's go There's gonna be some rockin' There's gonna be some rockin' There's gonna be some rockin' at the show tonight Every night there's a rock 'n' roll queen Gonna quiver and quake Gonna shake her thing Gonna be some rockin' There's gonna be some rockin' There's gonna be some rockin' at the show tonight It's a rock 'n' roll show We got a big fat sound Wanna share it round Got a big bass drum Gonna have some fun Gonna be some rockin' There's gonna be some rockin' There's gonna be some rockin' at the show tonight C'mon There's gonna be some rockin' There's gonna be some rockin' (Yeah) There's gonna be some rockin' There's gonna be some rockin' There's gonna be some rockin' at the show tonight There's gonna be some rockin' (Does that rock, or what?) Hey, there's gonna be some rockin' There's gonna be some rockin' Gonna be some rockin' There's gonna be some rockin' There's gonna be some rockin' at the show tonight Hey, there's gonna be some rockin' at the show tonight Oh, there's gonna be some rockin' at the show tonight

Rock You Like A Hurricane Album: Love At First Sting (1984) by Scorpions In an interview with Scorpions guitarist Rudolf Schenker, he said: "I think 'Rock You Like A Hurricane' is a perfect rock anthem, which talks about attitude and sexuality. It's very important to recognize the tension between the verses and the chorus. I think Klaus (Meine) went over the lyrics around eight or nine times because the first lyrics of the song went something like 'blah blah blah blah.' And we said, 'No! The song is not feeling right.' But at the ninth or tenth time, it came. The lyric goes: 'The bitch is hungry, she needs to tell, so give her inches and feed her well.' This was the tension between the 'Rock You Like A Hurricane' chorus, and the words to the verses. This is what makes the song great. And the funny thing is, the girls, when they're talking about 'Rock You Like A Hurricane,' they say, 'Oh, I love your song 'Rock Me Like A Hurricane.''" The video for Rock You Like A Hurricane, which features a leopard, a black panther, women wearing next-to-nothing, and the band inside a makeshift cage which is being rocked back and forth by the crowd outside, was targeted by Tipper Gore in an interview about her reasons behind co-founding the PMRC (Parents Music Resource Center). Stated Gore, in an interview with Gary James, "At that time, there was Van Halen's 'Hot For Teacher,' Motley Crue's 'Looks That Kill,' The Scorpions' 'Rock You Like A Hurricane' - I mean, there were some very violent images. Through the eyes of a 6 or 8-year-old, when they see these scantily clad women kind of rounded up by the band members and put in cages, and there's whips, and there's a sort of menace and there's a sort of a sexuality, they pick up on that." The PMRC was founded in 1985 by four wives of powerful political men. They became known as the "Washington Wives." Their objective was to have record companies voluntarily place warning labels on records that contained sexually explicit or violent lyrics or images, or which were suggestive of drug use. Although many recording artists testified against the use of any labels on their material, citing their rights to freedom of speech and no censorship, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) began placing warning labels on its merchandise, and continues to do so. The RIAA represents the US recording industry, and count among its members record labels and distributors responsible for the creation and distribution of 90% of recorded music sold there. The video was directed by David Mallet, who had done AC/DC's "You Shook Me All Night Long" and Billy Idol's "White Wedding." Rudolf Schenker credits him with capturing the essence of the Scorpions, saying in I Want My MTV, "He said, 'Don't be serious, let's get crazy.' That video is about attitude, craziness, and sexuality. That's how we survived into the video generation." This song is played at the home games of the National Hockey League's Carolina Hurricanes as they take the ice. It was #31 in the 2006 installment of VH1's "40 Greatest Metal Songs," and is considered as one of the most influential rock anthems in history. This song is played in Adam Sandler's film Little Nicky during the scene when Nicky (played by Sandler), upon returning to Hell, says to his mother, "I'm gonna rock that place like a hurricane!" The Scorpions are by far the most successful German rock band in America and the UK. Says Schenker: "In the beginning of our career, we had a problem in Germany because nobody expects a German band to play rock music. With rock music, there are more bands from England or America, which are more exotic than the Scorpions, who are from Germany. But when we went to America in '79, we became the exotic ones. They said, 'Hey, what kind of crazy guys are these?' (laughs) We were already exotic, with a different view, and we also play our rock music with a little bit of an ethnic touch. You'll notice that Americans come from the blues side, whereas we come from the classical side, which is different." "Rock You Like A Hurricane" shows up in TV commercials from time to time, often for comedic effect. In 2008, it was used in an Allstate commercial where NASCAR driver Kasey Kahne does a dance routine to the song. In 2014, it was used in a spot for General Mills Fiber One cookies where a nerdy employee's shipment of the tasty treat is met by delighted female customers, leading him to wrongly conclude they're checking him out. "Be the man that every woman wants with new Fiber One cookies," the ad claims. In the TV series Scorpion, a group of geniuses works under the name "Scorpion," and uses this as their theme song. Something we learned on the show: a group of scorpions is called a cyclone. This introduces the character Billy Hargrove in the season 2 premiere of Stranger Things, "MADMAX." Rock You Like A Hurricane plays as he steps out of his car in the school parking lot and the girls admire his posterior.

In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida Album: In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida (1968) by Iron Butterfly Jarosław Jaśnikowski iron butterfly inagita davita One of the most blissfully indulgent rock songs, "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" is animal-instinct rock and roll, playing out for just over seventeen minutes in its unabridged form and taking up an entire album side. The mysterious title is one of the great legends in rock. You might think it has a deep, mystical meaning, but it's really a translation error. The title was supposed to be "In The Garden Of Eden." Drummer Ron Bushy wrote it down as "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" because he couldn't understand was vocalist Doug Ingle was singing. Their record company was OK with the title because it sounds exotic and Eastern spirituality was big at the time, with The Beatles going to India and The Rolling Stones experimenting with Indian instruments. As for the meaning of the song, it's just a guy affirming his love for his special girl. This was written by Doug Ingle, Iron Butterfly's vocalist and keyboard player. His father was a church organist, which influenced the drawn-out organ riffs in this song. When he wrote the song, Doug Ingle didn't intend for it to be over 17 minutes long, but that's how it played out when the band recorded it at what they thought was merely a soundcheck to test levels for engineer Don Casale while they waited for producer Jim Hilton to arrive. Casale, though, kept tape rolling, and the band got in a groove. After the rehearsal was completed they agreed that the performance - filled with mistakes but also with raw energy - was of sufficient quality that another take wasn't needed. The single was edited down to 2:52, shaving over 14 minutes off the song! Some pop stations played the single, but much of the airplay came from progressive FM stations that played the long version, which wasn't available as a single (a 45 RPM vinyl disc couldn't hold nearly that much music). So to get the full song, listeners had to buy the album, and they did. In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, the album, ended up selling over 4 million copies. Until Led Zeppelin came along, it was the best selling album in the history of Atlantic Records. The band's original guitar player quit before this was recorded. He was replaced by Eric Braun, who had only played the guitar for three months. The title loosely translates as "In The Garden Of Life." This was the first hit song that could be classified as "heavy metal." The phrase was introduced that year in the Steppenwolf song "Born To Be Wild." Iron Butterfly would have performed this at Woodstock, but they didn't make it because they were stuck at the airport. Hip-hop artist Nas has two different songs that sample "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida." The first is "Thief's Theme" from his 2003 double album Street's Disciple. The second is the title track of his 2006 album Hip-Hop is Dead. >> Danny Weiss of Iron Butterfly was recommended to Al Kooper by David Crosby (of Crosby, Stills, & Nash), right when Kooper was forming Blood Sweat & Tears. As given in Backstage Passes and Backstabbing Bastards, "I loved the guitarist, introduced myself, and explained this concept to him. He thought it was a good idea, but insisted that he was committed to the band he was in. His name was Danny Weiss, and his band was Iron Butterfly. He left soon after we met anyway, and joined the great but doomed band Rhinoceros." Ron Bushy's drum solo is not as long as people think; it only runs about 2 1/2 minutes, from 6:30 to a little past 9 minutes. Doug Ingle's organ solo immediately follows. The song was used in The Simpsons episode "Bart Sells His Soul," where Bart switches a hymn out for this song and convinces the Reverend Lovejoy it is penned by I. Ron Butterfly. The whole 17-minute version is played by the First Church of Springfield's exhausted church organist. There are only 30 different words in this song, even though it is 1022 seconds long. Jaroslaw Jasnikowski was born in Legnica, Poland in 1976. He is a prolific painter of modern surrealism. His themes have a wide range, but some of his finest and most evocative imagery focuses on machines of flight. Jasnikowski has a large following in his native Poland, and has had numerous solo exhibitions of his meticulous fantasy paintings. I have the access to a huge, magnificent world, which is totally different from the one which surrounds us. I stroll and admire its veiled secret landscapes. I inhale its smell and taste its fruit. I talk to the creatures eho live there and from time to time I set windows, so the old people from grey streets could look through them and admire this splendid world too. The Alternative World.... In the earliest years in my life I was fascinated by the subject of the future. I used to wonder where we were headed and what the world was going to look like in 10, 100, 1000 years. It was then that I had the visions of space conquest, star journeys and a completely automatised world relying on highly advanced techniques. Although the more grown-up I became the less the vision appealled to me. The world in the future can more or less be foreseen, therefore, I was just searching for something more profound and original. At the age of 18, I have discovered the surrealism of Salvadore Dali and I have noticed the huge possibilities before me. In a gadda da vida, honey Don't you know that I'm lovin' you In a gadda da vida, baby Don't you know that I'll always be true Oh, won't you come with me And take my hand Oh, won't you come with me And walk this land Please take my hand In a gadda da vida, honey Don't you know that I'm lovin' you In a gadda da vida, baby Don't you know that I'll always be true Oh, won't you come with me And take my hand Oh, won't you come with me And walk this land Please take my hand

Son of a Preacher Man Album: Dusty In Memphis (1969) Spooky Single: (1968) The Windmills of Your Mind Album: Dusty In Memphis (1969) by Dusty Springfield Son of a Preacher Man was written by John Hurley and Ronnie Wilkins. Dusty's version is the most popular, but it has been covered by many artists, including Elvis Presley, Bobbie Gentry, Foo Fighters, Chet Atkins, Joss Stone, and Natalie Merchant. The song was originally offered to Aretha Franklin (who is a preacher's daughter), but she turned it down because she thought it was disrespectful. She subsequently changed her mind and did a cover version of it. Dusty Springfield was born Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'Brien in London on 4/16/1939. She died in 1999 or breast cancer. Shortly before her death she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and was given the Order of the British Empire (OBE). Some famous preachers' sons: Marvin Gaye, Wyclef Jean, Tim Curry, John Hurt, John Ashcroft, Martin Luther King Jr. The backup vocals were by a female group called the Sweet Inspirations, who were made up of Cissy Houston, Sylvia Shemwell, Myrna Smith and Estelle Brown. They were the sought-after female backup vocalists in the New York area, having performed on albums by Aretha Franklin, Wilson Picket, Van Morrison and many others. With four singers, they could create a rich, soulful sound that suited this song perfectly. Later in 1969, the Sweet Inspirations went to work for Elvis Presley, touring and recording with him. Cissy Houston left the group at this time so she could spend more time with her children, including her young daughter, Whitney Houston. There is a drink called a "Son Of A Preacher Man." It's made with peppermint schnapps, vodka or gin, and lemonade. Son of a Preacher Man was used for a key sequence in the movie Pulp Fiction, which made the song popular again in 1994. Director Quentin Tarantino said he would have cut the scene if he hadn't been able to get the rights to the tune. The rap group Cypress Hill sampled Son of a Preacher Man at the beginning of their song "Hits from the Bong." Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker's son Jay Bakker has written an autobiography titled Son Of A Preacher Man. The Bakkers were televangelists who were disgraced in the late '80s when it was revealed that Jim had a sexual encounter with Jessica Hahn and bilked his followers out of lots of money. Jim Bakker went to jail for tax evasion. This was also featured in the 2000 thriller Frequency, starring Dennis Quaid and Jim Caviezel. The song is skipping on a record player in a dead girl's apartment. Son of a Preacher Man was used in a 1997 Dr. Pepper commercial, where a preacher's son uses the soft drink to woo his crush. In The Office episode "Baby Shower" (2008), Jan Levinson sings Son of a Preacher Man to her baby. It was also used on Sons Of Anarchy in the 2008 episode "Seeds" and on Ally McBeal in the 1999 episode "The Green Monster" (sung by Courtney Thorne-Smith). "Spooky" is originally an instrumental song performed by saxophonist Mike Sharpe (Shapiro), written by Shapiro and Harry Middlebrooks Jr, which first charted in 1967 hitting No. 57 on the US pop charts and No. 55 on the Canadian charts. Its best-known version was created by James Cobb and producer Buddy Buie for the group Classics IV when they added lyrics about a "spooky little girl". The vocalist was Dennis Yost. The song is noted for its eerie whistling sound effect depicting the spooky woman. It has become a Halloween favorite. A version of "Spooky" was recorded by Dusty Springfield in 1968, released as a single worldwide except in the US. This gender-flipped version was featured prominently in the Guy Ritchie film Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Springfield's version was certified silver by BPI in 2022. Jerry Wexler, president of Atlantic Records, heard "The Windmills of Your Mind" on the soundtrack of The Thomas Crown Affair and championed having Dusty Springfield record the song for her debut Atlantic album Dusty in Memphis, overcoming the singer's strong resistance; Springfield's friend and subsequent manager Vicki Wickham would allege: "Dusty always said she hated it because she couldn't identify with the words." During the first sessions for the track at American Sound Studio in Memphis, problems with getting the proper chords down arose, and at Springfield's suggestion the song was arranged so the first three verses were sung in a slower tempo than the original film version. In April 1969, the third A-side release from Dusty in Memphis was announced as "I Don't Want to Hear It Anymore" with "The Windmills of Your Mind" as the B-side. However Wexler was prepared to promote "Windmills" as the A-side if it won the Oscar for Best Song, reportedly instructing mailroom clerks at Atlantic Records' New York City headquarters to listen to the Academy Awards broadcast the night of 14 April 1969. Hearing "The Windmills" announced as the Best Song winner was the clerks' cue to drive a station wagon loaded with 2500 copies of a double-sided promo single of Springfield's version – identified on the label as "Academy Award Winner" – to the New York City general post office, where the copies of the single were mailed out to key radio stations across the US. Although its Hot 100 debut was not effected until the 5 May 1969 issue of Billboard and then with a No. 99 ranking, Springfield's "The Windmills" made a rapid ascent to the Top 40 being ranked at No. 40 on the Hot 100 of 24 May 1969 only to stall over the subsequent three weeks peaking at No. 31 on the Hot 100 of 14 June 1969 with only one additional week of Hot 100 tenure, being ranked at No. 45 on the 21 June 1969 chart. On the Cash Box chart, the song rose as high as No. 22. Local hit parades indicate that Springfield's "Windmills" had Top Ten impact in only select larger markets: Boston, Southern California, and Miami. The track did reach No. 3 on the Easy Listening chart in Billboard, a feat matched by Springfield's third subsequent single "Brand New Me" which therefore ties with "The Windmills" as having afforded Springfield her best-ever solo showing on a Billboard chart. Dusty Springfield was born Mary O'Brien to a Catholic family in North London, England. She was considered to be a tomboy and was given the nickname Dusty because she liked to play soccer with the boys. Later, her distinctive smoky voice earned her the nickname "The White Queen of Soul." Showing tremendous diversity, Springfield recorded in numerous genres, including rock, pop, folk, and country. Buddy Rich and soul and pop singing icon Dusty Springfield played a residency together in New York City at the Basin Street East club in 1966. Buddy Rich is known to this day for his wild temper and his tendency to behave abusively toward his own band. PerTrack Drummer, a secret recording made by one of Rich's bandmates — known in some circles as simply "The Tape" — is filled with the bandleader's ridiculously profane and insulting rants directed at the rest of the band after a set and while riding a tour bus. Rich expected perfection from the people he played with, and when they didn't live up to his outsized demands, he'd explode and denigrate them at the top of his lungs. The very first sentence of a 1974 article in The New York Times about Rich's karate hobby that may have helped tame his wild temper noted Rich's reputation for screaming insults, breaking furniture, throwing cymbals, and getting in fights in the very first sentence. Dusty Springfield had her own reputation for expecting perfection from her musical collaborators and behaving in an explosive, sometimes violent manner, although it doesn't come close to that of Buddy Rich. The 2019 Daily Express article noted her penchant for throwing food, dishes, and even her famous wigs when she was upset. A former girlfriend, singer Julie Felix, recalled Springfield once hitting her in a jealous, alcohol- and drug-fueled rage. In an interview that ran in the British magazine Melody Maker in 1966, Dusty Springfield described her feud with Buddy Rich during their joint residency at the Basin Street East club in New York. "Mr. Rich is a little difficult to get on with — and that's the British understatement of 1966," she explained, saying that the drummer had taken up most of the rehearsal time that was supposed to apply to the both of them. This forced her to go on stage without having rehearsed half of the songs with Rich's band, who were also backing her up during her sets. Springfield alleged that Rich was upset that she had received top billing over him during the residency and therefore attempted to sabotage her performances, including "telling the trumpet section not to play high notes for me and standing in front of the stage shouting during my act." Springfield claimed she offered to switch places with Rich and perform first, but Rich allegedly didn't like that idea either, complaining the band would then be too tired to perform well with him. She kept her top billing but said, "I'd rather be on before him because I never know what he is going to pull or what he will tell the audience about me — his introduction is very patronizing to say the least." Dusty Springfield didn't speak to Melody Maker about how she came to slap Buddy Rich, but the story circulated and exists to this day with few inconsistencies. In her 1999 obituary published in The Independent, journalist Keith Altham claimed that the two performers got into an argument regarding billing and the sizes of their names on the marquee outside Basin Street East, with Rich's name appearing in larger letters than Springfield's. According to The Independent, Dusty decided to take matters into her own hands and climb a ladder up to the marquee to change it, at which point Rich called her "a name," and she "whacked him one" in response. According to The Telegraph, the name Rich used to describe Springfield was "a f****** broad," and it made her so angry that she responded by hitting him hard enough to make his toupee fly off. Salon told a slightly different version of the story, claiming that Springfield confronted Rich in his dressing room about his tendency to insult her during his time on stage (as alluded to in the Melody Maker interview) and his refusal to give her enough rehearsal time, which ended with the slap. Whatever preceded the physical altercation, the incident made such an impression on Buddy Rich's backing band that at the end of the residency, they presented Springfield with a gift addressed to "Slugger Springfield" — a pair of boxing gloves.

How's It Going To Be Album: Third Eye Blind (1997) Semi-Charmed Life Album: Third Eye Blind (1997) Never Let You Go Album: Blue (2000) by Third Eye Blind On the HBO show Reverb, Stephan Jenkins of Third Eye Blind described "How's It Going To Be" as "The emotional side of mortality, as played on a zither." He explained: "'How's It Going to Be' started with an autoharp that Kevin was playing. It's an antique instrument, and it inspired a nostalgic, emotional condition in me. And the lyrics really came out of that very quickly. I think the song's just about the fear you have when you've been close friends and that gets knocked back to becoming acquaintances again. So I think it's sort of a song about the emotional side of mortality." In an interview with Third Eye Blind lead singer Stephan Jenkins, he said Semi-Charmed Life is "about falling apart." It relates specifically to a drug-induced high that makes everything fleetingly better. Said Jenkins: "Perfection is the moment right before gravity comes back in." Semi-Charmed Life describes a drug user's descent into crystal meth addiction. The line, "I want something else..." contains a reference to crystal meth in the song. Stephan Jenkins explained on the HBO show Reverb that they intentionally put a chipper melody to the dark lyrical content. Said Jenkins: "When I wrote 'Semi-Charmed Life,' the guitar riff was intended to have this sort of bright duh-nuhnuh-nunt, this shiny thing, because that was a feeling of speed. You know, it's sort of a bright, shiny drug. And we all were sort of into hip-hop, and so it has a hip-hop flow over it." The line: "Doing crystal meth will lift you up until you break" was a little racy for some radio stations, who played an edited version with the words "Crystal Meth" distorted. Talking about the deeper meaning of Semi-Charmed Life on Reverb, Jenkins said: "It's a song about always wanting something. It's about never being satisfied, and reaching backwards to things that you've lost and towards things that you can never get. I think everybody has some identification with that. The story line between the people, the demise of this relationship, is just an extreme example of that condition. I think that's what makes people really relate to 'Semi-Charmed Life.'" The band has admitted that they borrowed the "doot doot doot" part of the song from Lou Reed's "Walk On The Wild Side." This was Third Eye Blind's first single. The group's name could be a reference to a penis, but The Third Eye is also a metaphysical term in new age spirituality referring a state of enlightenment and is associated with the pineal gland. The original line on Semi-Charmed Life was "I want nothing else..." but when the song was eventually released, it was changed to "I want something else." No explanation has ever been given for this, however recordings of the original can be found. Semi-Charmed Life was played in the Norm MacDonald movie Dirty Work as Norm's character, Mitch, returns home after being fired to find his girlfriend is also kicking him out. In 2015, when asked Stephan Jenkins how he felt about Semi-Charmed Life, he replied: "I don't feel like it's really mine. It's participating in the experiences that other people are having with it." "Never Let You Go" is a song by American rock band Third Eye Blind. It was released on January 4, 2000, as the second single from their second album, Blue. The song peaked at number 14 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and spent three weeks at number one in Canada. It also reached number 26 in Iceland, number 15 in New Zealand, and number six on the UK Rock Chart. Jenkins commented in the liner notes of the band's compilation album A Collection that it was written about a muse of his at the time (allegedly Charlize Theron), and it was written to "freak her out" when she heard it on the radio. The writing credits of the song are a subject of debate among frontman Stephan Jenkins and former bassist Arion Salazar. Despite Jenkins being credited as the sole writer of the song, Salazar claims to have written the bass melodies, bridge, and chord progressions. In an interview with RIFF Magazine, Salazar claimed that Jenkins approached him, stating, "I really want to get the credit on [Never Let You Go]. Maybe if I give you a little more percentage [of the song's profit] I could just leave my name on it?". A music video for Never Let You Go was released in January 2000, directed by Chris Hafner. It features the band performing on a metal platform high in a sunset-filled sky. Interspersed with the platform scenes are scenes of the band eating in a dimly-lit Chinese restaurant with several girls, going to a nightclub, and lead singer Stephen Jenkins meeting a girl backstage at a concert. During the first verse, Jenkins hangs from the bottom of the platform while his bandmates and several girls hang onto him, looking down apprehensively. In the first chorus, another girl dressed in a black latex outfit and matching thigh-high boots appears and climbs this human ladder up to the platform. Meredith Gottlieb of MTV News referred to the video as "abstract". Stephan Jenkins – vocals, guitar Kevin Cadogan – guitar Arion Salazar – bass Brad Hargreaves – drums

Get It Right Next Time Album: Night Owl (1978) Night Owl Album: Night Owl (1978) Right Down The Line Album: City To City (1978) by Gerry Rafferty "Night Owl" is the title track to Gerry Rafferty's third solo album, the follow-up to his best-seller, City To City. At the time, Rafferty had left his native Scotland and relocated to England. Night Owl was released as a single backed by "Why Won't You Talk to Me?" Like the rest of the album, it was written by Rafferty and produced by Hugh Murphy on the United Artists label. The album was recorded at Chipping Norton Recording Studios, Chipping Norton, England. The Los Angeles Times called the songs of Night Owl "concise, wry tales of love and ambition, inventively arranged and sung in a dry whine that carries just the right amount of detachment." The Lyricon solo was played by Raphael Ravenscroft, the guy who performed the famous sax solo on "Baker Street." The Lyricon is a breath-controlled analog synthesizer invented by Bill Bernardi and Roger Noble of Computone Inc. in Massachusetts in the early 1970s. It was the first electronic wind instrument to be constructed. Gerry Rafferty enjoyed some success with his group Stealers Wheel, particularly the single "Stuck In The Middle With You." However, after the band disbanded, legal issues meant Rafferty could not release any material for three years. Once the disputes were resolved, he released his smash hit "Baker Street." "Right Down The Line" is the follow up. Rafferty married his fellow Scot, hairdresser Carla Ventilla, in 1970, and here he pays tribute to how she stuck by him through thick and thin. He praises Carla for helping him through all the bad times and tells her every day he loves her more and more. Rafferty had always been partial to a drink or two, which he alludes to in his 1979 single "Night Owl." But a growing alcohol problem placed his marriage under an intolerable strain, and Carla divorced him in 1990, though they remained close. "Right Down The Line" peaked at #12 on the Hot 100 and also spent four non-consecutive weeks on top of the adult contemporary chart. In Canada, the song reached number five on both the pop singles and adult contemporary charts. Bonnie Raitt covered Right Down The Line for her 2012 Slipstream album, adding a faux-reggae groove. Released as a single, it reached #17 on the US Adult album alternative chart. Right Down The Line plays in the first episode of the second season of the American teen drama TV series Euphoria.

Original Prankster Album: Conspiracy Of One (2000) Army of One Album: Let The Bad Times Roll (2021) You're Gonna Go Far, Kid Album: Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace (2008) by The Offspring The main riff played in the intro, verse and bridge all contain samples from "Low Rider" as performed by War, a popular funk group from the 1970s. Although the sample is quiet, it acts as a foundation for these sections of Original Prankster. The title Original Prankster is a play on the 1991 Ice-T song and album "O.G. Original Gangster." But instead of keeping it OG, The Offspring are keeping it OP, retaining their sense of humor in a world that takes everything too seriously. That's the rapper Redman delivering the "original prankster" line in the chorus. He also appears in the video. In an early effort at digital music distribution, this song was made available as a free download from the band's website before the album was released. Fans who downloaded it were entered in a $1 Million sweepstakes. The money was given away on MTV's Total Request Live. The two finalists agreed to split the money before the final question was asked (The question: Who is the oldest member of The Offspring). Originally, the video Original Prankster, directed by Dave Meyers, was banned from MTV. It contained a scene with two naked schoolgirls on the lap of their principal, who is holding a paper that reads: "Principal arrested for molesting students." MTV objected to the word "molesting" and made them take it out before they would air the video. Another scene had to be altered as well: A kid puts dog poop on his father's sandwich. MTV would not let them show the man biting into the sandwich, but would let them show him spit it out. A spokesman for the channel said, "At MTV, we don't eat s--t." Original Prankster was the first single from the album Conspiracy Of One. The band originally planned to make the whole album available as a free download, but could not because of contract obligations. The "You can do it!" line that repeats throughout Original Prankster comes from the 1998 movie The Waterboy, where Rob Schneider's character says it. To the best knowledge, Original Prankster is the first Hot 100 hit to get the word Prozac in the lyrics ("Prozac can make it better"). The lyrics mention Janet Reno ("Rockin' like Janet Reno"), the first female Attorney General of the United States. She was nominated by President Bill Clinton for the position in 1993 and served until 2001. Track 4 Army of One is on Let the Bad Times Roll which is the tenth studio album by the Offspring, released on April 16, 2021. Produced by Bob Rock, it is the band's first release on Concord Records, and their first studio album in nine years since Days Go By (2012), marking the longest gap between two Offspring studio albums. Let the Bad Times Roll also marks the band's first album without bassist and co-founding member Greg K., who was fired from the Offspring in 2018. Even though new bassist Todd Morse had already joined the band and appeared in the video for the album’s title track and "This Is Not Utopia", bass guitar accompaniment was provided by guitarist and vocalist Dexter Holland. It is the second and last album to feature drummer Pete Parada, who was fired from the band in July 2021 for refusing to get a COVID-19 vaccination, due to suffering from Guillain–Barré syndrome. The band's tour schedules, lineup changes, legal issues and the search for a new label after their split with Columbia Records, who released the Offspring's previous six albums, contributed to a years-long delay behind Let the Bad Times Roll. The band started recording new material for the album with Rock as early as the summer of 2013, and after re-recording it at various studios and at various periods between 2013 and 2020, it had been completed by 2020 and was ready for release later that year. However, due to the aforementioned issues, other inner disputes and the COVID-19 pandemic, the album's release was pushed back to 2021. Let the Bad Times Roll received mixed to negative reviews from music critics, appearing on multiple worst of the year lists. Offspring frontman Dexter Holland explained the meaning behind "You're Gonna Go Far, Kid" in an interview with the Argentina's Pagina 12: "The guy from 'Pretty Fly' was hooked on the latest fashion culture and [the guy from] 'You're Gonna Go Far, Kid' is busy manipulating other people. You can take him as a high school kid who tries to form his own social group, but on the way he manipulates others with a behavior disorder that will never leave him. You might see that guy later as a United States deputy or running a corporation. Even if that boy has grown up, his idea of manipulating will always be with him." Bob Rock, who is best known for his work with Motley Crue and Metallica, produced this song along with the rest of the album. You're Gonna Go Far, Kid reached #1 on the US Modern Rock tracks chart. The lyrics of "You're Gonna Go Far, Kid" mention Lord of the Flies, William Golding's 1954 novel about a group of British schoolboys who resort to savagery after being stranded on an uninhabited island. The few rational thinkers who resist the descent into chaos are dealt with violently by the others. You're Gonna Go Far, Kid was used during the opening credits of the 2009 comedy National Lampoon's Van Wilder: Freshman Year.

Green Eyed Lady Album: Sugarloaf (1970) Don't Call Us We'll Call You Album: Don't Call Us, We'll Call You (1975) Rollin Hills Album: Spaceship Earth (1979) by Sugarloaf Who is the green-eyed lady? According to lead singer Jerry Corbetta, it was his girlfriend at the time, Kathy, who is bandmates referred to as the green-eyed lady. He wrote the song with producer J.C. Phillips and a songwriter named David Riordan. Since "Green-Eyed Lady" gets almost daily play on US radio stations to this day and none of their other songs do, many will be surprised to know that Sugarloaf is not a one-hit wonder; their other hit is "Don't Call Us, We'll Call You" from 1975 at #9 on the Billboard Hot 100. "Green-Eyed Lady," at #3, is their best-known (and somewhat overplayed) single. One of the reasons that the hook is so catchy is that it's based on a piece of a scale exercise that frontman Jerry Corbetta found in a book. The band was originally called "Chocolate Hair" but after getting signed to a record label, they had to change their name because managers were nervous about the potentially racist interpretation of that name (that and the name would have permanently branded them as '60s psychedelics). They chose "Sugarloaf" after a small mountain west of Boulder, Colorado. Jerry Corbetta played the organ solo on this track in addition to singing lead. He played it in the style of jazz musician Jimmy Smith, his idol. In the single version of Green Eyed Lady, which is all you'll hear on the radio and also in most compilation albums, the song length is about three and a half minutes. The album version is extended to seven minutes for Corbetta's lengthy - but dazzling - organ solo. Sugarloaf was formed from the remains of the band The Moonrakers, with five members of that group carried over. Interestingly, "Moonraker" doesn't just refer to a James Bond film, but also to a nickname for people from Wiltshire in South West Country England. The story goes that the people there were discovered running a rake through a pond at night, trying to retrieve treasure. When a revenue man asked what they were up to, their excuse was that they were trying to retrieve a wheel of cheese from the pond (the reflection of the full moon). The revenue guy walked off chuckling at their simple-mindedness, and the villagers didn't have to pay taxes. Sugarloaf found themselves without a label in 1974. They made some calls, trying to find a taker, but couldn't get much interest. This song recounts that experience, using many industry clichés they heard along the way. A big part of the game was getting a foot in the door by buttering up the A&R guys at the label, with lines like, "I got your name from a friend of a friend." The reply is the classic blowoff: "Don't call us, we'll call you." The group ended up getting signed to the Claridge label, which was rewarded when Don't Call Us We'll Call You became a hit, reaching #9 in 1975. One of the labels that turned down the band was CBS Records. Sugarloaf got retribution by revealing the unlisted phone number of the label in this song by playing the sound of the touchtones when the number is dialed. Listeners with good ears could identify which tone corresponded to each number, and called it to find out where it led. After the song became a hit, CBS changed their number. At the end of the song Don't Call Us We'll Call You, there's another set of tones; this one led to the main number at the White House. They didn't change their number, but the band got a visit from a State Department official trying to figure out why they were getting so many calls talking about Sugarloaf. Sugarloaf frontman Jerry Corbetta wrote Don't Call Us We'll Call You with John Carter, who co-wrote the Strawberry Alarm Clock hit "Incense And Peppermints." Don't Call Us We'll Call You kept Sugarloaf out of one-hit wonder territory, making them ineligible for all those playlists, specials and books on the subject. Accordingly, little is known about the band, which formed in Colorado and took their name from a nearby mountain. "Rollin' Hills" has harmonica and country vibe to it as he sings about those rollin' hills, sunshine and his friends the trees.

Glycerine Album: Sixteen Stone (1994) Comedown Album: Sixteen Stone (1994) Swallowed Album: Razorblade Suitcase (1996) by Bush Bush frontman Gavin Rossdale wrote "Glycerine" about his relationship with his girlfriend at the time, a model named Jasmine Lewis, who is credited as a backup vocalist on the Sixteen Stone album. Rossdale dated her for about five years before their breakup, which was exacerbated by busy schedules that kept them apart. Gavin's next relationship was with Gwen Stefani, whom he met when her band No Doubt was opening for Bush on the Sixteen Stone tour. They got married in 2002. Glycerine is a chemical used in perfumes and medicines and also to preserve food. The title comes from the explosive applications of glycerine to stabilize nitro. Rossdale said the song was about how love was like a bomb. This song came together very quickly for Rossdale, who wrote it in his London flat. When he played it for the band, he felt there was something "ancient and mystical" about it. "I was like a conduit," he told Entertainment Weekly in 2017. "Something about it was bigger than anything we were doing." The video, directed by Kevin Kerslake, won the Viewer's Choice Award at the 1996 MTV Video Music Awards. Kerslake directed four Nirvana videos, and also worked with Soundgarden, R.E.M. and Stone Temple Pilots. When a popular producer named Desmond Child heard this song, he thought Rossdale was singing "Kiss The Rain." When he found out that wasn't the title, he started writing a song called "Kiss The Rain" for Billie Myers. It became her first single and hit #15 in the US. The Beatles song "Strawberry Fields Forever" is referenced in the line, "We live in a wheel where everyone steals, but when we rise it's like strawberry fields." Bush loved The Beatles and it was John Lennon and Paul McCartney who inspired them to form a band. Gavin Rossdale talked about his Beatles reference and the meaning of the song in an interview with Fuse: "In 'Glycerine,' it's a cynical world. 'Strawberry Fields' is a Beatles reference because when people think of that song it makes them happy: it elevates you and it lifts you up. For me, it's like a soft pillow. Most of my lyrics and most of the songs that I've written are about rising up against struggle and what you do within problems like the human condition. How we can screw up and how we can make up for it and what we can escape from and what we can win." Lead singer Gavin Rossdale wrote Comedown about his ex-girlfriend, Suze DiMarchi. She was lead singer of a band called Baby Animals. Rossdale had written songs with other people, but Comedown was the first one he wrote on his own. It gave him a lot of confidence and inspired him to keep writing. Rossdale said of Comedown: "It was written in the context of half regret, half celebration and just being objective about the situation of coming down from that high and dealing with those intense emotions." Reflecting on Comedown in 2017, Rossdale told Entertainment Weekly: "I liked the idea of euphoria. But having that euphoria has a comedown. It's inside your brain and just says, 'I'm having the greatest time, and I don't want to stop.' But most of the time, people lose that zone and it changes and you're like, 'No, I didn't want this.' And that's such a common feeling. I watched it being sung every night - it's one of the songs where I can step back and let the people sing. It's the best feeling in the world as a songwriter." The video was directed by Jake Scott, who used perspective and other camera tricks to create some odd optics, as the viewer sees the band performing as if looking through a peephole. Swallowed was written in response to the success of Bush's multi-million-selling debut album Sixteen Stone after years of failure. Frontman Gavin Rossdale told NME: "When you first climb that ladder if you're lucky enough, and I was lucky enough to have that insane success with it, it's a bit overwhelming in some ways. I didn't go to school where you learn how to prepare for any kind of success, I was English, I'd failed for many years, I was not used to being successful – and there's something about being swept up in that success that's daunting and really overwhelming... it wasn't a complaint, it was just an observation." Rossdale added that "Swallowed" was a bit like his version of "Help!," although he was quick to say he's not "as good as The Beatles." The video of Swallowed, directed by Jamie Morgan, shows the band performing at a house party with some odd characters. The neon crucifix later appeared on the cover of the band's 1997 album Deconstructed. Swallowed was nominated for a 1996 Grammy for Best Hard Rock Performance, but lost to the Smashing Pumpkins' "The End Is the Beginning Is the End." Asked about his favorite lyric from Swallowed, Rossdale replied: "There was a girlfriend I had at the time, and the line 'heavy about everything but my love' – it's that thing where you have a girlfriend who's talking to everyone else about things but you think 'where am I?' It was just that line. It always tickled me a bit." Rossdale explained in a 2017 interview with Entertainment Weekly: "I didn't even know it was possible to get as successful as we got. 'Swallowed' was a sense of getting lost in that tidal wave. I mean, it's the greatest tidal wave you'll ever be in. But at the same time, there's something... when you're doing it constantly and you tour for three years and you're strung out and disconnected from everyone you know and your relationship is suffering because you're away, I just felt like this sense of being swallowed up and eaten up by the life and lost to it. I mean, it's such a high-class problem that now you talk about it and go, 'Really?'"

Would I Lie To You Album: Be Yourself Tonight (1985) Sweet Dreams Album: Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) (1982) Sexcrime Nineteen Eighty Four Album: 1984 (For the Love of Big Brother) (1984) by Eurythmics For Eurythmics third album, Dave Stewart set out to make a "killer R&B riff." He found it one morning when he was having breakfast with his acoustic guitar on his knee. He took the riff to Annie Lennox, who wasn't sure about it at first, since it didn't fit their sound. As Stewart explained in The Dave Stewart Songbook: "When we started putting it down Would I Lie To You had a lot of energy and inspired Annie to come up with the great lyric, 'Would I Lie To You" and a melody with very odd answering harmonies, 'Now, would I say something that wasn't true.' These harmonies are very unusual and Annie is a genius at working them out very quickly in her head. The song started to be a fusion between Stax type R&B and Eurythmics." Lennox sings this from the perspective of an angry girlfriend who walks out on her cheating lover. It was not directed at Stewart, although they were a romantic couple before forming Eurythmics, but inspired by the breakup of her first marriage, to a Hare Krishna named Radha Raman. "I was always looking for a good relationship, and you can see it in the songs, all this unrequited love," Lennox told Q magazine regarding her songwriting during this period. "I was never in one spot, so my emotions were in turmoil." Eurythmics recorded Be Yourself Tonight in a small room they set as a recording studio in the suburbs of Paris. Lennox and Stewart lived in apartments on top of each other while they were making the album. Benmont Tench from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers played the Hammond organ on Would I Lie To You; he and Stewart previously worked together on "Don't Come Around Here No More." Martin Dobson was brought in for horns. In the book Annie Lennox: The Biography, Lennox explained that Sweet Dreams is about the search for fulfillment, and the "Sweet Dreams" are the desires that motivate us. "Sweet Dreams" is a song of contrasts, with a heart-pumping beat but a lyric that carries a dark undercurrent. Listeners have adapted it accordingly. In a 2022 Songfacts interview with Dave Stewart of Eurythmics, he explained: "A lot of people use it as a very uplifting dance record at EDM festivals and raves and parties. When the DJ puts that on there's always a lot of hands in the air. But it's actually a very sort of existential, spooky record asking if this is what the world has come to. Is this what our dreams are made of? And then some people want to use you, some want to abuse you. So it goes into a topic that could go massive if you want it to. Eurythmics songs always had a bit of that in it, a juxtaposition between the music and the lyric." "I suppose it was reality, basically, what we were writing about," he added. "It wasn't a Disney kind of world." Eurythmics are British: Annie Lennox hails from Aberdeen, Scotland, and Dave Stewart is from the Northern England city of Sunderland. They came together in London, where Lennox went to study at the Royal Academy of Music. "Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)" is the title track to their second album and their breakout hit, but it took a while to get noticed. "We thought we'd made something really special but we had no idea, really, the impact it would have," Stewart told Songfacts. "Neither did the record label, which didn't even think it was a single." Three other songs from the album were released as singles in the UK before their label, RCA, finally issued "Sweet Dreams." When they did, it took off, climbing to #2 in March 1983 behind "Total Eclipse Of The Heart" Bonnie Tyler. After it became a UK hit, RCA put it out as Eurythmics' first single in America, where it shot to #1 in September 1983. Like many early '80s British acts with synthesizers (Human League, A Flock Of Seagulls), it was MTV that broke Eurythmics in America. The duo was well equipped for video age: Dave Stewart was always coming up with concepts, and Annie Lennox had a striking look and talent for acting. The innovative video for "Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)," directed by Stewart with Chris Ashbrook, presented Lennox with close-cropped orange hair and a tailored black suit, making it the first popular video presenting an androgynous female. The cow in the video was Dave Stewart's idea - he was a big fan of surreal artists Salvador Dali and Luis Bunuel. Said Stewart: "A few people were saying, 'Dave, why the cow? Annie is so good looking.' Those people should go buy a copy of Purple Cow by Seth Dogin, about how to make your business remarkable. It was written 20 years after I had the purple cow in our video - which certainly did the trick and made my whole life remarkable." The cow, while very eye-catching, posed a logistical problem because most studios can't accommodate them. Eurythmics found a basement studio in London with an elevator big enough to transport the animal. Lennox recalls the shoot with the bovine walking around as being one of the more surreal experiences of her life. Regarding what it all meant, she said in the book I Want My MTV: "The video is a statement about the different forms of existence. Here are humans, with our dreams of industry and achievement and success. And here is a cow." Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart were a couple for about three years while they were members of a band called The Tourists. They only wrote one song together in this time (an instrumental), but when The Tourists broke up, they formed Eurythmics as a duo and began writing together. A short time later, Lennox and Stewart broke up. Stewart tells the story in The Dave Stewart Songbook: "When we broke up as a couple for some strange reason it was like we were always going to be together, no matter what. We couldn't really break that spell so we just carried on making music. This causes many problems, yet through all of this we ended up writing a lot of great songs, some were about 'our' relationship and some were about our relationship with the world around us. Whatever we wrote always had a dark side and a light side and in a way I describe it as 'realistic music,' full of the ups and downs of real relationships and life itself." In the New York Times October 30, 2007, Annie Lennox recalled that this was written by the duo just after they'd had a bitter fight. "I thought it was the end of the road and that was that," she said. "We were trying to write, and I was miserable. And he just went, well, 'I'll do this anyway.'" Dave Stewart came up with a beat, Annie Lennox improvised the synthesizer riff, and suddenly they realized they had a potential hit. The first Eurythmics album made little impact, so they had to bootstrap to make their second. They were thrilled when a bank gave them a loan to buy some equipment to make it. They made the most of their meager budget, using an 8-track recorder and a complicated drum machine Stewart drove 200 miles to procure. They made the most of their eight tracks, with Stewart's Roland synthesizer and Lennox' Kurzweil keyboard added to the drum pattern Stewart created, forming the basis for the song. As Stewart tells it in his Songbook, Lennox was a bit depressed, but coming up with this track snapped her out of it and she quickly came up with the "Sweet Dreams are made of this" and "Some of them want to use you" lyrics. In a 2008 interview with Stewart, he said: "I suggested there had to be another bit, and that bit should be positive. So in the middle we added these chord changes rising upwards with 'Hold your head up, moving on.' To us it was a major breakthrough. It just goes from beginning to end and the whole song is a chorus, there is not one note that is not a hook." The song ends with a keyboard fadeout, but when Eurythmics played it live, they changed the arrangement and ended the song with the lyrics "Keep your head up" so it would end with a sense of hope. In November 2007, Annie Lennox was interviewed extensively by Malcolm Bragg on The South Bank Show. In this program she said she didn't regard "Sweet Dreams" as a song but as a mantra. She added that people have identified with it over the years and that it's open to interpretation; it contains an overview of human existence; whatever it is that makes you tick, that is what it is. When "Sweet Dreams" went to #1 in America, Eurythmics became a sensation there, appearing on the cover of Rolling Stone and playing sold-out shows. Stewart fell in with the Los Angeles music scene and bought a house there. He and Tom Petty became good friends and wrote three songs together for Petty's 1985 album Southern Accents, including the hit "Don't Come Around Here No More." Stewart's house became a hang-out for Petty, George Harrison, Bob Dylan and Jeff Lynne, who teamed with Roy Orbison to form the Traveling Wilburys in 1988. They recorded their first album over two weeks using Stewart's house and attached studio. Stewart couldn't participate because he was working on the Eurythmics album We Too Are One. Hands up those of you who think Annie Lennox sings here: "Sweet dreams are made of cheese, who am I to disagree?" Relax, it's not just you. This tune's lyrics came top of a 2013 Spotify poll to find out which songs music fans most commonly hear people singing incorrectly. Marilyn Manson covered this song in 1995, giving it a much darker tone. Weezer did a lighter version for their 2019 Teal Album. Nas sampled it for his 1996 song "Sweet Dreams." That big computer Dave Stewart taps on in the video is actually a drum machine - that's what they looked like in 1983! Movies to use this song include: Ready Player One (2018) X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) Sucker Punch (2011) TRON: Legacy (2010) Under the Salt (2008) Slipstream (2007) American Wedding (2003) Duets (2000) Big Daddy (1999) Striptease (1996) Roommates (1995) Bitter Moon (1992) Portfolio (1986) Sweet Dreams also appears in episodes of Parks and Recreation ("Telethon" - 2010) and The Simpsons ("Half-Decent Proposal" - 2002) In 1978, Squeeze had a UK hit with "Take Me I'm Yours," which features the line "Dreams are made of this" in the chorus. This song is discussed in the 2013 romantic comedy I Give It A Year after Rose Byrne's character angers her husband by flubbing the lyrics. She sings, "I travel the world in generic jeans," instead of, "I travel the world and the seven seas." Pomplamoose, a band that has been sustaining themselves mostly on YouTube since 2008, mashed up "Sweet Dreams" with "Seven Nation Army" by The White Stripes in 2019. It works surprisingly well; the video has over 25 million views. Eurythmics wrote and recorded this song for the film adaptation of George Orwell's novel 1984, for which they were working on the soundtrack. Just one problem: another musician (Dominic Muldowney) was also doing a soundtrack to the film, something the film's producer Simon Perry and director Michael Radford didn't tell the Eurythmics. Perry and Radford disavowed the Eurythmics soundtrack, with Perry calling it "crass rubbish." This didn't sit well with Dave Stewart of Eurythmics, who said, "Basically the producer is a two-faced rat." Richard Branson, head of Virgin Films, insisted that the Eurythmics' soundtrack be used, so their songs made it along with some of Dominic Muldowney's work. The soundtrack album, 1984 (For the Love of Big Brother) was released ahead of the film and "Sexcrime" released as a single. Eurythmics were vindicated when the song became a big hit in the UK, where the film went to #1 at the box office. Eurythmics wrote and recorded Sexcrime Nineteen Eighty Four for the film adaptation of George Orwell's novel 1984, for which they were working on the soundtrack. Just one problem: another musician (Dominic Muldowney) was also doing a soundtrack to the film, something the film's producer Simon Perry and director Michael Radford didn't tell the Eurythmics. Perry and Radford disavowed the Eurythmics soundtrack, with Perry calling it "crass rubbish." This didn't sit well with Dave Stewart of Eurythmics, who said, "Basically the producer is a two-faced rat." Richard Branson, head of Virgin Films, insisted that the Eurythmics' soundtrack be used, so their songs made it along with some of Dominic Muldowney's work. The soundtrack album, 1984 (For the Love of Big Brother) was released ahead of the film and "Sexcrime" released as a single. Eurythmics were vindicated when the song became a big hit in the UK, where the film went to #1 at the box office.

Metal Health (Bang Your Head) Album: Metal Health (1983) Slick Black Cadillac Quiet Album: Riot II (1978) Highway To Hell Album: Highway to Hell (2016) by Quiet Riot "Metal Health", sometimes listed as "Metal Health (Bang Your Head)", "Bang Your Head" or, as it was listed on the Billboard Hot 100, "Bang Your Head (Metal Health)", is a song by the American heavy metal band Quiet Riot on their breakthrough album, Metal Health. One of their best known hits and receiving heavy MTV music video and radio play, "Metal Health" was the band's second and final top 40 hit, peaking at #31 on the Billboard Hot 100. Being about the headbanging subculture, the song caught the attention of many heavy metal fans on its release. The single contained both the studio-recorded version and a live version, which was later released on their Greatest Hits compilation. The lyric, "well now you're here, there's no way back", eventually became the title for Quiet Riot's documentary, released in 2015. The song title is a play on the phrase "Mental Health," and is a celebration of the rebellious nature of heavy metal and fans who bang their heads to the music. Lead singer Kevin DuBrow wrote the lyric, which is based on the slights he heard throughout his life. DuBrow, who died of a drug overdose in 2007 at age 52, did indeed have a "mouth like an alligator," as he would always speak his mind. Thanks to a video that got lots of airplay on MTV, this song helped bring heavy metal music with a pop sheen into the mainstream, paving the way for photogenic hair bands of the '80s like Mötley Crüe and Twisted Sister. Quiet Riot had been around for a while, releasing their first album in 1977 with Randy Rhoads, who later became Ozzy Osbourne's go-to axeman, on guitar. By the time they released their third album, Metal Health, they were polished and poised for stardom. "Metal Health" was the first single, but it went nowhere. Their cover of the Slade song "Cum On Feel The Noize" was released as a follow-up, and that one caught on in America, going to #5 in November 1983, the same month the Metal Health album topped the chart, becoming the first metal album to do so. With the band now established, "Metal Health" went up the chart, landing at #31 in February 1984. Guitarist Carlos Cavazo and drummer Frankie Banali are the co-writers on this track along with Kevin DuBrow. "We were huge fans of AC/DC, so we wanted something that had a very simple, straight ahead groove at a certain tempo," Banali said in a Songfacts interview. "It went through a lot of different changes, and what I mean by 'changes,' a lot of that song has to do with the tempo. I listen to a lot of classical music and jazz, and the thing that I found interesting about both classical music and jazz is that certain parts of a song only work at a certain tempo, and they don't work at another tempo. With jazz, they shift gears - the same thing with classical. With rock 'n' roll, you basically start at a tempo and you end at that tempo. So the tempo on that record is not slow, but it really digs into the groove. It didn't work at that tempo live, which is why we actually played it a little faster live - because it gets the energy of the audience. So that is something that we paid attention to. And at one point, Metal Health was much longer than it is now. Kevin was really good about trimming fat." The video, directed by Mark Rezyka, is a case study on how to make a memorable clip on the cheap. It was the band's first video, and the budget was very tight. They got a community collage to let them film it there for free, and recruited student to form the crowd in the stage scenes. As opposed to many early MTV favorites, it has a cohesive storyline: Kevin Dubrow is strapped into a straightjacket, wearing a Hannibal Lecter mask, trapped in a padded room. He makes a daring escape from the asylum, then drops from the rafters to rock the crowd at the concert. MTV loved it, since zeroed in on their target demographic of young male rock fans, but it didn't do well at first. After "Cum On Feel The Noize" (also directed by Rezyka) took off, the network revived "Metal Health." Dubrow's asylum look became one of the iconic images of MTV. On the album, the song is listed as "Metal Health." The single was released as "Bang Your Head (Metal Health)" in most territories, and a version of the song is published as "Metal Health (Bang Your Head)," which Frankie Banali says is the official title. This song provided not just the title track for the album, but also the visual presentation. The album cover shows DuBrow in a straightjacket and mask, as later seen in the video. The mask became a kind of talisman for the band, showing up in their promotional materials and on later album art and videos. The songwriter/producer Spencer Proffer produced the album, including this track. Proffer owned a recording studio and was key to giving Quiet Riot their start, but much of his later work was far less Metal: he was the music consultant on the show Sabrina, The Teenage Witch, and produced the TV series Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child. The song can be heard in the movie Footloose, playing in car of the character Ren. It was also used as the entrance theme for Randy The Ram in the 2008 movie The Wrestler. In 1998, Kevin Dubrow sang on an acoustic version with The Neanderthal Spongecake that appeared on their album The Side Effects Of Napalm. Cevin Soling of The Neanderthal Spongecake explained how this came together: "Eric Clapton had done his cover of 'Layla,' of his own song. I thought it was just atrocious, doing this mellow version and that acoustic thing. I thought it was an abomination, and so as sort of a joke I played this acoustic version of Quiet Riot's 'Metal Health.' And so, I was working out in the studio while we were working on our album, and it just started coming out really, really well - an acoustic version of the ultimate headbanging song. But it came out brilliantly, and I started adding strings and a choir, and it got pretty insane. But the problem was the original concept of the vocals was supposed to be this hard core kind of slacker vocals over this acoustic sound. But the music was just too good to sort of do that to. So I managed to get in touch with Kevin Dubrow, the lead singer of Quiet Riot, and asked him if he was interested in singing on it. His initial response was no, because I guess Marilyn Manson was responsible for getting the band back together again, and then they were actually going to be cutting a new version of that song to sort of exploit it. But he agreed to listen to it anyway. And then after I sent it out to him, he called me immediately and said, 'I have to sing on this. Please let me sing on this.' Because it was such a radical departure, and so unexpected. He was working as a DJ out in Vegas at the time, and so I flew out to Vegas and recorded with him, and Lindsey Buckingham's son actually was the engineer there. The whole experience was just a lot of fun, working with him. And he was great. I wasn't so much into the heavy metal music, but he was telling me how he had this terrible reputation, but I didn't know anything about his reputation or anything about him being difficult. Because he could not have been easier to work with, could not have been more professional. The whole thing was a pleasure. And I thought, hey, this could be kind of fun to do this kind of concept for a whole album. But not necessarily having people do their own materials, pairing people up with the least likely song that you could imagine them doing. The main riff/structure of the song come from an older track entitled "No More Booze," which was originally performed by Snow, Carlos and Tony Cavazo's pre-Quiet Riot band. A live version of the song can be heard on the At Last recordings, which finally received a release in 2017. Quiet Riot II is the second studio album released on December 2, 1978. The album's opening track, "Slick Black Cadillac", was re-recorded by Quiet Riot for their 1983 breakthrough album Metal Health. As with Quiet Riot's debut album, Quiet Riot II was released only in Japan, and to this day has never been officially released anywhere else. This is the final Quiet Riot album to feature lead guitarist and founder Randy Rhoads, who departed the following year to join former Black Sabbath vocalist Ozzy Osbourne in a new group. Although bassist Rudy Sarzo is credited and pictured on the album cover, Quiet Riot II was recorded before he joined the band, and the work of bassist Kelly Garni is featured on the album. Tensions between Garni and vocalist Kevin DuBrow boiled over during the album's recording, with Garni hatching a plan to shoot and kill DuBrow at the studio. Garni was arrested and immediately fired from Quiet Riot. Quiet Riot chose to cover Highway to Hell to pay homage to AC/DC and showcase their musical prowess. Quiet Riot Kevin DuBrow – lead vocals Carlos Cavazo – guitars, backing vocals Rudy Sarzo – bass, backing vocals Frankie Banali – drums, backing vocals Chuck Wright – bass The Killer Bees – backing vocals