Bobby Helms – Jingle Bell Rock

The song was recorded in October of 1957 at Owen Bradley’s studio in Nashville, TN. It peaked at #6 on Billboards Best Sellers chart and #13 on Billboards Most Played C&W by Jockeys chart.

Brenda Lee – Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree

Brenda Lee was only 13 years old when she recorded this song. Recorded in October of 1958 at Owen Bradley’s studio in Nashville. The song was written by Johnny Marks. It would be one of the first stereo recordings to come out of Nashville. The song did not sell well until Brenda Lee had gotten more popular. In 1960 it reached #14 on Billboard’s Hot 100 pop singles chart. It peaked at #3 on Billboard’s Christmas singles chart in 1965. SoundScan has estimated total sales of 1,000,000 digital downloads in 2016. Update…The song has now reached #1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart for the first time since it was recorded 65 years ago. It also makes Brenda Lee the oldest recording artist ever to have a #1 song on the Hot 100 chart at 79 years old.

From Wikipedia.

The song’s declaration of a rock and roll sound notwithstanding, its instrumentation also fits the country music genre, which Lee more fully embraced as her career evolved. The recording features Hank Garland and Harold Bradley on guitar, Floyd Cramer on piano, Boots Randolph on sax, Bob Moore on bass, and veteran session player Buddy Harman on drums. The song is written in the key of A-flat major.
An instrumental version of the song appears as background music in the 1964 television special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, which exclusively featured music written by Marks. It can be heard in the scene where Rudolph first arrives at the Reindeer Games and meets another reindeer named Fireball. A fully sung version of the song would later appear in Rankin/Bass’s 1979 sequel Rudolph and Frosty’s Christmas in July. The song was also used in the 1990 film Home Alone during a scene when Kevin McCallister pretends that there is a holiday party taking place in his house, and discourages the burglars from robbing it.

Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree

Rockin’ around the Christmas tree
At the Christmas party hop
Mistletoe hung where you can see
Every couple tries to stop
Rockin’ around the Christmas tree
Let the Christmas spirit ring
Later we’ll have some pumpkin pie
And we’ll do some caroling
You will get a sentimental feeling when you hear
Voices singing, let’s be jolly
Deck the halls with boughs of holly
Rockin’ around the Christmas tree
Have a happy holiday
Everyone dancin’ merrily
In the new old-fashioned way
You will get a sentimental feeling when you hear
Voices singing, let’s be jolly
Deck the halls with boughs of holly
Rockin’ around the Christmas tree
Have a happy holiday
Everyone dancin’ merrily
In the new old-fashioned way
Songwriters: Johnny Marks

Kool & the Gang – Misled

From their 1984 album, Emergency. The song peaked at #10 on March 9, 1985, on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart. In the Rock & Soul hit the girl has a real power over the guy, but is she real or just a figment of his imagination? There is a blood curdling scream through a part of the song. The song was written by the entire band. The music video borrows from the movie Indiana Jones and has a surprise ending …Happy Halloween!

Kool & the Gang – Misled

Late at night, body’s yearning
Restless night, wanna be with you
Someone’s playing in the garden
So enticing, he’s sure to take a bite
I don’t know what’s come over me, yeah

She’s as heavy as a Chevy
Pure excitement, misled
When she touches, can’t resist her
I’m a puppet when she’s playing me
She’s outgoing, but I love her so misled
So I’m saying now

Baby, baby, what’s your claim to fame?
Got me out of bed, heard you call my name
What’s this crazy place you wanna take me to?
Tell me, what’s the price if I go with you?

My heart, my soul, my love
Is that the goal?
It’s a thrill, then I will
Be misled, be for real

Thought I knew her, this lady
Opportunist, misled
Always searching for adventure
Like Pandora’s box, misled
And I don’t know what I’m gonna do without her

Baby, baby, what’s your claim to fame?
Got me out of bed, heard you call my name
What’s this crazy place you wanna take me to?
Tell me, what’s the price if I go with you?

My heart, my soul, my love
Is that the goal?
It’s a thrill, then I will
Be misled or be for real

I’ve got this feeling, and it’s blocking my way
But I love her just the same, just the same
Oh yes, I do

Misled, heard you call my name
Misled, what’s your claim to fame?
Misled, took me by the head
Misled, said I would understand

Misled, with a bomb of broken Venus
Misled, not a word is said
Misled, baby, that’s your name
Misled, what’s your claim to fame?

My heart, my soul, my love
Is that the goal?
It’s a thrill, then I will
Misled, won’t you be for real?

Baby, baby, what’s your claim to fame?
Got me out of bed, heard you call my name
What’s this crazy place you want to take me to?
Tell me, what’s the price if I go with you?

My heart, my soul, my love
Is that the goal?
It’s a thrill, then I will
Hey misled, won’t you be for real?

Misled, misled
Misled
Misled, misled
Misled
Misled, misled
Misled (I was misled by you)
Misled, misled
Misled
Misled, misled
Misled, I was misled by you

Misled, misled
Misled

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Claydes Smith / Ronald Nathan Bell / Robert Bell / George Brown / James Taylor / Curtis Fitzgerald Williams / James L. Bonnefond

Polly Brown – Up in a Puff of Smoke

Very heavily influenced by The Supremes. Polly Brown sounds like Diana Ross. I can’t believe that Motown did not offer her a contract. I also hear a little bit of Disco starting to creep in. The song reached #16 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart on March 15, 1975.

From Wikipedia,

The songwriting/production team of Gerry Shury and Ron Roker had admired Brown’s voice from her Pickettywitch recordings. Shury, who had arranged Brown’s 1972 self-titled album release, described her as a cross “between Diana Ross and Dionne Warwick”. In 1974, Shury and Roker had Brown record the neo-Motown number “Up in a Puff of Smoke”. In the same session Brown, with Roker as co-vocalist, recorded a cover of the ABBA song “Honey, Honey“, which was released under the name Sweet Dreams.

“Up in a Puff of Smoke” proved to be a UK Top 40 shortfall although it did spend five weeks in the Top 50, peaking at #43. However, the track became a hit in several English speaking countries: Australia (#22), Canada (#11), New Zealand (#13), and the US (#16).

Up in a Puff of Smoke

Going up, going up
Going up, up, up
Going up, going up
Going up, up, up

Going up, going up
Going up, up, up
Going up, going up, oh

Like a bubble
Headed for trouble
Wind is blowing
In the wrong direction
I was headed into danger
Too much in love to see

I pledged my trust in him
Believed in everything
Just had me on a string
And then he let me blow away

And now it’s going
Up, up, up in a puff of smoke
It ain’t no joke the way
He broke my heart
Going up, up, up in a puff of smoke
And I’m all choked up inside
To see my dreams just
Turn into ashes and all my
Hopes go up in a puff of smoke

Going up, going up
Going up, up, up
Going up, going up, oh

I aspire, took me higher than
A rocket on it’s way to Heaven
Couldn’t see those dangers coming
Cause I was flying blind

It hurt me deep inside
And broke my foolish pride
That my sweet talking guy
Was only talking lies

He took me higher than a kite
Then dropped me like a light
Going up, up, up, up, up, up ,up
Thought I had a chance
But let me set you down
Going up, up, up, up, up, up ,up

Ooh, ooh, yeah
Going up, up, up, up, up, up ,up

Going up, up, up in a puff of smoke
Ooh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Going up, up, up in a puff of smoke
Ooh, yeah, yeah, yeah
Going up, up, up in a puff of smoke

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Gerry Shury / Phillip Swern / Ron Roker

Clarence Carter – Patches

The first part of this song reminds me of my grandfather. He was a sharecropper during the depression in rural Tennessee. He and my grandmother had 5 kids, and they literally lived in shacks. The Waltons were well off in comparison. At some point when the kids got older, they moved into a regular house and also owned and operated a small grocery store. A few years after that they moved to the big city, Nashville and lived next to my uncle in a duplex. My grandfather died at the age of 80 in 1975. My grandmother would go on to live until 1992 and died at the age of 95.

The song peaked at number 04 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart on September 19, 1970.

From Wikipedia,

The song was written by General Johnson, the lead singer of Chairmen of the Board, with Ron Dunbar, who worked in A&R and record production at the Invictus record label, owned and overseen by Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, and Eddie Holland, formerly of Motown. Dunbar was often credited with co-writing hit songs at Invictus with “Edyth Wayne”, a pseudonym used by Holland-Dozier-Holland during the time when they were in legal dispute with Motown and its music publishing arm Jobete to which they had been contracted.

The song tells a story about a boy born and raised in poverty on a backwoods farm in Alabama by a father who endured much suffering in life; the father dies before the boy is 13, entrusting the boy with the family and estate. The boy is forbidden from quitting school (as the father never could attend), so he must do all of the farm work before and after school so that he and his family have food. The burden is almost too much for the boy, especially after a flood wipes out a crop, but determination not to let his father down, along wth his mother’s prayers, keep him going. Years later, his mother has died and he and his younger siblings are adults, and he looks back on his father’s words as what helped him pull through those hard times.

The blind blues singer Clarence Carter heard the song, later saying: “I heard it on the Chairmen of the Board LP and liked it, but I had my own ideas about how it should be sung. It was my idea to make the song sound real natural…” Initially he thought “that it would be degrading for a black man to sing a song so redolent of subjugation,” but was persuaded to do so by record producer Rick Hall.

Carter recorded the song at the FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, with Hall as producer and musicians including Junior Lowe (guitar), Jesse Boyce (bass), and Freeman Brown (drums). Carter’s recording was released in July 1970 and was described by a Billboard reviewer as a “powerful blues item” featuring a “blockbuster vocal work-out.” The record rose to No. 4 on the Hot 100, No. 2 on the R&B chart, and No. 2 on the UK singles chart.

Following Carter’s success, the song won the 1971 Grammy Award for Best Rhythm & Blues Song for its writers, Johnson and Dunbar.

Clarence Carter – Patches

I was born and raised down in Alabama
On a farm way back up in the woods
I was so ragged that folks used to call me Patches
Papa used to tease me about it
‘Cause deep down inside he was hurt
‘Cause he’d done all he could

My papa was a great old man
I can see him with a shovel in his hands, see
Education he never had
He did wonders when the times got bad
The little money from the crops he raised
Barely paid the bills we made

For, life had kick him down to the ground
When he tried to get up
Life would kick him back down
One day Papa called me to his dyin’ bed
Put his hands on my shoulders
And in his tears he said

He said, Patches
I’m dependin’ on you, son
To pull the family through
My son, it’s all left up to you

Two days later Papa passed away, and
I became a man that day
So I told Mama I was gonna quit school, but
She said that was Daddy’s strictest rule

So every mornin’ ‘fore I went to school
I fed the chickens and I chopped wood too
Sometimes I felt that I couldn’t go on
I wanted to leave, just run away from home
But I would remember what my daddy said
With tears in his eyes on his dyin’ bed

He said, Patches
I’m dependin’ on you, son
I tried to do my best
It’s up to you to do the rest

Then one day a strong rain came
And washed all the crops away
And at the age of 13 I thought
I was carryin’ the weight of the Whole world on my shoulders
And you know, Mama knew What I was goin’ through, ’cause

Every day I had to work the fields
‘Cause that’s the only way we got our meals
You see, I was the oldest of the family
And everybody else depended on me
Every night I heard my Mama pray
Lord, give him the strength to make another day

So years have passed and all the kids are grown
The angels took Mama to a brand new home
Lord knows, people, I shedded tears
But my daddy’s voice kept me through the years

Saying
Patches, I’m dependin’ on you, son
To pull the family through
My son, it’s all left up to you

Oh, I can still hear Papa’s voice sayin’
Patches, I’m dependin’ on you, son
I’ve tried to do my best
It’s up to you to do the rest

I can still hear Papa, what he said
Patches, I’m dependin’ on you, son
To pull the family through
My son, it’s all left up to you

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: General N. Johnson / Ronald Dunbar

MTV Launched 44 Years Ago Today

We did not get cable in my area until a year or two after it launched so I never saw the beginning of the channel. Of course, I was crazy about it when we first got cable. It was like nothing else. They showed full concerts which I thought was great and of course the videos, But It also had it’s bad side because some of the artist or bands had hit songs only because of MTV that would have never made it on the radio and unfortunately It pretty much destroyed Billy Squier’s career because of a less than macho video that he made. The very first video MTV showed was the Buggles Video Killed The Radio Star. MTV nowadays is a big joke nothing but reality TV shows permeates the channel. For a day like today why don’t they let the original VJ’s take over the channel and we could have it back at least for a little while. The VJ’s…Martha Quinn, Mark Goodman, Alan Hunter, Nina Blackwood, and the late JJ Jackson. Martha Quinn now works as a DJ on iHeart radio and is syndicated on 35 stations. Alan Hunter and Nina Blackwood can be heard on SiriusXM Radio. I have communicated over X/Twitter with Martha Quinn, Mark Goodman, and Alan Hunter. If someone had told me that back in the 80s, I would’ve not believed them.

Night – Hot Summer Nights

From their 1979 self-titled album. The song reached number 18 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart on September 01, 1979.

From Wikipedia,

Night’s vocalists Stevie Vann (aka Stevie Lange) and Chris Thompson had met when Vann had provided backing vocals for the 1978 album Watch by Manfred Mann’s Earth Band then fronted by Thompson. Soon afterwards Thompson invited Vann to join him in a new outfit, Vann’s session group known as Bones having recently disbanded and Thompson having reduced his involvement with Manfred Mann’s Earth Band. Before officially forming as “Night” in LA, the new group toured the London pub-rock scene in 1978 under the name “Filthy McNasty” performing the mix of originals and covers that became their first album. They are recorded on “A Week at the Bridge” (The Bridge House, Canning Town) and had their UK release event at The Golden Lion, Fulham.

Richard Perry produced two albums by Night for his Planet label; the group’s eponymous 1979 debut album yielded two US Top 40 hits: “Hot Summer Nights” (No. 18) and “If You Remember Me” (No. 17).

“Hot Summer Nights”, a cover of a minor Walter Egan hit, featured Lange on lead vocals and gave Night their one international hit most significantly in Australia at No. 3 with more moderate success in Canada (No. 23), the Netherlands (No. 21), New Zealand (No. 28) and South Africa (No. 13).

Hot Summer Nights

There was a time, not too far gone

When I was changed by just a song

On the radio and in the car

The pounding of an electric guitar

Then the time came to make our stand

We started up a four-piece band

And the heat felt like spotlights

In the heart of a hot summer night, yeah

wooo.ooo.ooo .oooooo… ooo… ooo… oooh

Hot summer nights

wooo.ooo.ooo .oooooo… ooo… ooo… oooh

Hot summer nights

Return with me to when times were best

We were friends that could pass any test

We shared our hopes, our dreams, our goals

And other fundamental roles

As we sang in the hot, dark rooms

Happy just to play our tunes

It felt good when we got it right

It felt good on a hot summer night, yeah

wooo.ooo.ooo .oooooo… ooo… ooo… oooh

Hot summer nights

wooo.ooo.ooo .oooooo… ooo… ooo… oooh

Hot summer nights, yeah

(Guitar solo)

So it lives, and it always will

Those songs we sung are in us still

Ringing out with all their might

In the heart of a hot summer night, yeah

wooo.ooo.ooo .oooooo… ooo… ooo… oooh

Hot summer nights, yeah

wooo.ooo.ooo .oooooo… ooo… ooo… oooh

Hot summer nights, yeah

Writer(s): Walter Lindsay Egan

Y&T – Summertime Girls

From their 1985 album Open Fire. The song reached #55 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart in the summer of 1985.

From Allmusic.com

Taking their name from a Beatles song, the group was originally formed as Yesterday & Today in San Francisco, around 1973.

From Wikipedia

“Summertime Girls” is a single by American rock band Y&T. It was released as the first single from their seventh studio album Open Fire. It later reappeared on their eighth studio album Down for the Count. The song became the band’s biggest hit, as well as their first and only single to chart on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number 55.

Summertime Girls

Ooh yeah, I
Just want to watch the girls, goin’ by…
It’s like poetry in motion
against a hot summer sky.
I’m in love, yeah yeah…
at least every minute or two…
until the next time a girl walks by
I think I love her too

I can’t help myself
but I just loose my head
everytime you see ’em walkin’ by…

Summertime Girls
You make my whole world go around
Summertime Girls
When you lift me up
I never come down, no, no…

She’s hot!
I dig her wiggle and all that shake
I can read that body language, yeah
a million miles away
Sometimes I, yeah come on just a bit, a bit too strong
But I just like to pretend, yes.
that I can have ’em all.

No time, time to catch my breath
so easily impressed
it doesn’t matter if it’s day or night

Summertime Girls
You make my whole world go around
Summertime Girls
But when you lift me up
I never come down, no, no…

Come here girls…

Summertime Girls
You make my whole world go around
Summertime Girls
When you lift me up
I never come down, no, no…

Summertime Girls
Oh baby..You make my whole world go around
Summertime Girls
The way you lift me up
I never come down, no, no…

Summertime Girls
Summertime Girls
Summertime Girls
You make my whole world go around
Summertime Girls

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Dave Meniketti / Joseph L Alves / Leonard E Haze / Philip M Kennemore

Freda Payne – Bring the Boys Home

I ran across this song a couple of months ago. In 1971 it was banned by Arm Forces Radio. I thought this would be a good post for Memorial Day.

From her 1971 album Contact. The song reached #12 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart on June 5th 1971.

From Wikipedia

“Bring the Boys Home” is a song recorded by rhythm and blues singer Freda Payne in 1971 during the Vietnam War era. It was an anti-war song that was aimed at the sending of troops to fight in an increasingly unpopular war.

The song was produced by Greg Perry and released on the Invictus label. It was backed with “I Shall Not Be Moved”. The song came out at a time when soldiers were returning to America dead and in body bags. A higher than normal amount of the soldiers were black. The soldiers were only boys at the age of 20, which was the average age that many of them were killed. In spite of the healthy amount of airplay it received in the US, the US Command from the American Forces Network banned it. The reason given was that it would be of benefit to the enemy. 50,000 copies of the album Contact were pressed before it was added to the album after it became a hit. It replaced “He’s In My Life” which was the first track on side 1.

The Soul Source section of the May 22 issue of Billboard named it the best new record of the week.

Bring the Boys Home

Fathers are pleading
Lovers are all alone
Mothers are praying
Send our sons back home (tell ’em ’bout it)
You marched them away
Yes, you did now
On ships and planes
To the senseless war
Facing death in vain

Bring the boys home (bring ’em back alive)
Bring the boys home (bring ’em back alive)
Bring the boys home (bring ’em back alive)
Bring the boys home (bring ’em back alive) (why don’t you)
Turn the ships around (everybody oh)
Lay your weapons down

Can’t you see ’em march across the sky
All the soldiers that have died
Tryin’ to get home
Can’t you see them tryin’ to get home?
Tryin’ to get home
They’re tryin’ to get home
Seesaw fire (tell ’em ’bout it
On the battlefield
Enough men have already
Been wounded and killed

Ooh, ooh
Tryin’ to get home
Can’t you see them tryin’ to get home? (Have mercy)
Ooh, ooh
Tryin’ to get home, tryin’ to get home

Bring the boys home (bring ’em back alive)
Bring the boys home (bring ’em back alive)
Bring the boys home (bring ’em back alive)
Bring the boys home (bring ’em back alive)
What they doing over there, now (bring ’em back alive)
When we need them over here, now (bring ’em back alive)
What they doing over there, now (bring ’em back alive)
When we need them over here, now (bring ’em back alive)
Bring ’em home, bring ’em home (bring ’em back alive)
Bring ’em home, bring ’em home (bring ’em back alive)

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Angelo Bond / General N. Johnson / Gregory S. Perry

The Monkees – Last Train To Clarksville

From their 1966 album The Monkees. The song reached number 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart on November 5th, 1966. The train in the video is the Sierra Railway No .03 The Cannonball from the TV show Petticoat Junction. It was also in the movie Back to The Future part III plus hundreds of other TV shows and movies.

From Wikipedia,

The song was written by the songwriting duo of Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart. Boyce has said that the song’s opening guitar part (played by Louis Shelton) was an attempt to emulate the type of memorable and clearly identifiable riff that the Beatles had used in songs such as “I Feel Fine,” “Day Tripper” and “Paperback Writer“. The latter Beatles’ song had reached number one on the U.S. charts three months earlier, around the time that “Last Train to Clarksville” was written and recorded. The lyrics, too, were inspired by “Paperback Writer”: Hart misheard the end of that song on the radio and thought Paul McCartney was singing “take the last train”; Hart then decided to use the line himself, after he found out that McCartney was actually singing “paperback writer.”

Hart knew that the Monkees’ TV series was being pitched as a music/comedy series in the spirit of the Beatles’ film A Hard Day’s Night, and he was hoping that by emulating the Beatles the song might become a successful single.

The lyrics tell of a man phoning the woman whom he loves, urging her to meet him at a train station in Clarksville before he must leave, possibly forever. There is no explicit reference to war in the song, but its last line, “And I don’t know if I’m ever coming home,” was an indirect reference to a soldier leaving for the Vietnam War. Hart has denied any connection by the song to the city of Clarksville, Tennessee, near Fort Campbell, the home of the 101st Airborne Division that was then serving in Vietnam. According to Hart, “We were just looking for a name that sounded good. There’s a little town in northern Arizona I used to go through in the summer on the way to Oak Creek Canyon called Clarkdale. We were throwing out names, and when we got to Clarkdale, we thought Clarksville sounded even better. We didn’t know it at the time, but there is an Army base near the town of Clarksville, Tennessee — which would have fit the bill fine for the storyline. We couldn’t be too direct with the Monkees. We couldn’t really make a protest song out of it—we kind of snuck it in.”

Last Train to Clarksville

Take the last train to Clarksville
And I’ll meet you at the station
You can be here by 4:30
‘Cause I’ve made your reservation

Don’t be slow
Oh, no, no, no
Oh, no, no, no

‘Cause I’m leavin’ in the morning
And I must see you again
We’ll have one more night together
‘Til the morning brings my train

And I must go
Oh, no, no, no
Oh, no, no, no
And I don’t know if I’m ever comin’ home

Take the last train to Clarksville
I’ll be waiting at the station
We’ll have time for coffee flavored kisses
And a bit of conversation

Oh, no, no, no
Oh, no, no, no

Take the last train to Clarksville
Now I must hang up the phone
I can’t hear you in this noisy railroad station, all alone

I’m feelin’ low
Oh, no, no, no
Oh, no, no, no
And I don’t know if I’m ever coming home

Take the last train to Clarksville
And I’ll meet you at the station
You can be here by 4:30
‘Cause I’ve made your reservation

Don’t be slow
Oh, no, no, no
Oh, no, no, no
And I don’t know if I’m ever coming home

Take the last train to Clarksville
Take the last train to Clarksville
Take the last train to Clarksville
Take the last train to Clarksville

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Bobby Hart / Tommy Boyce

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