AC/DC – Rock N Roll Train (Live At River Plate, December 2009)

From their 2008 album Black Ice. As Rodney Dangerfield used to say “What a crowd, What a crowd, but in this case AC/DC gets all the respect from the crowd of around 85,000 people at Argentina’s River Plate stadium. The band was in their 50’s and 60’s at this point. This concert had an unreal energy about it. The song peaked at number 1 on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Tracks chart.

From songfacts

This was AC/DC’s first new single in eight years, their longest gap to date. Black Ice debuted at the top of the album chart selling 784,000 copies the first week. It was AC/DC’s first chart-topping release in the US since For Those About To Rock in 1981.

This song was one of four tracks on Black Ice that featured the word ‘Rock’ in the title, the others being “She Likes Rock ‘n’ Roll,” “Rock ‘n’ Roll Dream” and “Rocking All the Way.” Vocalist Brian Johnson explained to Vancouver 24 Hours: “I just think we’re trying to tell people that normal service has been resumed. We’re back, and this is a rock ‘n’ roll record. It cannot be mistaken. We’re ramming it down their throat, me son! But I must admit, we didn’t notice. We went, ‘F—ing hell, there’s four songs with rock ‘n’ roll in the title.’ But that’s just what we do.”

This featured in promo ads for season 4 of the CBS crime drama Criminal Minds plus in Episode 69 of the show.

Rock N Roll Train

One hot angel
One cool devil
Your mind on the fantasy
Living on the ecstasy

Give it all, give it
Give it what you got
Come on give it all a lot
Pick it up and move it
Give it to the spot
Your mind on a fantasy
Living on ecstasy

Runaway train
(Running right off the track)
Runaway train
(Running right off the track)
Runaway train
(Running right off the track)
Yeah the runaway train
(Running right off the track)

One hard ring a bell
Old school rebel
A ten for the revelry
Jamming up the agency

Shake it, shake it
Take it to the spot
You know she made it really hot
Get it on, give it up
Come on give it all you got
Your mind on a fantasy
Living on the ecstasy

Runaway train
(Running right off the track)
Yeah the runaway train yeah
(Running right off the track)
On the runaway train
(Running right off the track)
Runaway train
(Running right off the track)

One hot southern belle
Son of a devil
A school boy’s spelling bee
A school girl with a fantasy

One hard ring a bell
All screwed up
A ten on the revelry
Jamming up the agency

Shake it, take it
Take it to the spot
You know she make it really hot
Give it all, give it up
Come on give it all you got
You know she just like it

Runaway train
(Running right off the track) she’s coming off the track
Runaway train
(Running right off the track)

Get it on, get it up
Come on give it all you got
Runaway train
(Running right off the track)
Runaway train
(Running right off the track)

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Angus Young / Malcolm Young

Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes Wake Up Everybody

The title song from their 1975 album. I remember this song mostly from a teachers PSA back in the 70s and 80s. The song reached number 9 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart on February 28, 1976.

From Wikipedia

“Wake Up Everybody” is an R&B song written by John Whitehead, Gene McFadden and Victor Carstarphen.

Originally recorded by Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes, with Teddy Pendergrass singing lead vocals, the song had a somewhat unconventional structure, starting subdued and building slowly to a climax. The title track from their 1975 album, the song spent two weeks at number one on the Hot Soul Singles chart in early 1976. It also enjoyed success on the pop charts, peaking at number 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, number 34 Easy Listening, number 33 in Canada, and number 23 in the UK Singles Chart. They performed the song on Soul Train on November 22, 1975.

From Songfacts

This was their last Top 40 hit with drummer/lead singer Teddy Pendergrass. He left for a solo career that was cut short by an automobile accident. David Ebo became lead singer in 1976, after Pendergrass’s departure.

Wake Up Everybody

Wake up everybody no more sleepin’ in bed
No more backward thinkin’ time for thinkin’ ahead
The world has changed so very much
From what it used to be
There is so much hatred war an’ poverty
Wake up all the teachers time to teach a new way
Maybe then they’ll listen to whatcha have to say
‘Cause they’re the ones who’s coming up and the world is in their hands
When you teach the children teach em the very best you can

The world won’t get no better if we just let it be
The world won’t get no better we gotta change it yeah, just you and me

Wake up all the doctors make the ol’ people well
They’re the ones who suffer an’ who catch all the hell
But they don’t have so very long before the Judgment Day
So won’tcha make them happy before they pass away
Wake up all the builders time to build a new land
I know we can do it if we all lend a hand
The only thing we have to do is put it in our mind
Surely things will work out they do it every time

The world won’t get no better if we just let it be
The world won’t get no better we gotta change it yeah, just you and me

Change it yeah, change it yeah, just you and me
Change it yeah, change it yeah
Can’t do it alone, need some help y’all
Can’t do it alone
Can’t do it alone yeah, yeah
Wake up everybody, wake up everybody
Need a little help y’all
Need a little help
Need some help y’all

Change the world
What it used to be
Can’t do it alone, need some help
Wake up everybody
Get up , get up, get up, get up
Wake up, come on, come on
Wake up everybody

Writer/s: GENE MCFADDEN, JOHN WHITEHEAD, VICTOR CARSTARPHEN

Dan Fogelberg – Same Old Lang Syne

From his 1980 album, The Innocent Age. The song peaked at #9 on Billboards Hot 100 chart on February 20, 1981.

From Songfacts.

As Fogelberg tells it on his official website, the song is totally autobiographical. He was visiting family back home in Peoria, Illinois in the mid-’70s when he ran into an old girlfriend at a convenience store.

After Fogelberg’s death from prostate cancer in 2007, the woman who he wrote the song about came forward with her story. Her name is Jill Greulich, and she and Fogelberg dated in high school when she was Jill Anderson. As she explained to the Peoria Journal Star in a December 22, 2007 article, they were part of the Woodruff High School class of 1969, but went to different colleges. After college, Jill got married and moved to Chicago, and Dan went to Colorado to pursue music. On Christmas Eve, they were each back in Peoria with their families when Jill went out for egg nog and Dan was dispatched to find whipping cream for Irish coffee. The only place open was a convenience store at the top of Abington Hill, at Frye Avenue and Prospect Road, and that’s where they had their encounter. They bought a six pack of beer and drank it in her car for two hours while they talked.

Five years later, Jill heard “Same Old Lang Syne” on the radio while driving to work, but she kept quiet about it, as Fogelberg also refused to reveal her identity. Her main concern was that coming forward would disrupt Fogelberg’s marriage.

Looking at the lyrics, Jill says there are two inaccuracies: She has green eyes, not blue, and her husband was not an architect – he was a physical education teacher, and it’s unlikely Fogelberg knew his profession anyway. Regarding the line, “She would have liked to say she loved the man, but she didn’t like to lie,” Jill won’t talk about it, but she had divorced her husband by the time the song was released.

Same Old Lang Syne

Met my old lover in the grocery store
The snow was falling Christmas Eve
I stood behind her in the frozen foods
And I touched her on the sleeve

She didn’t recognize the face at first
But then her eyes flew open wide
She went to hug me and she spilled her purse
And we laughed until we cried

We took her groceries to the check out stand
The food was totaled up and bagged
We stood there lost in our embarrassment
As the conversation lagged

We went to have ourselves a drink or two
But couldn’t find an open bar
We bought a six-pack at the liquor store
And we drank it in her car

We drank a toast to innocence
We drank a toast to now
We tried to reach beyond the emptiness
But neither one knew how

She said she’s married her an architect
Who kept her warm and safe and dry
She would have liked to say she loved the man
But she didn’t like to lie

I said the years had been a friend to her
And that her eyes were still as blue
But in those eyes I wasn’t sure if I saw
Doubt or gratitude

She said she saw me in the record stores
And that I must be doing well
I said the audience was heavenly
But the traveling was Hell

We drank a toast to innocence
We drank a toast to now
We tried to reach beyond the emptiness
But neither one knew how

We drank a toast to innocence
We drank a toast to time
Reliving, in our eloquence
Another “Auld Lang Syne”

The beer was empty and our tongues were tired
And running out of things to say
She gave a kiss to me as I got out
And I watched her drive away

Just for a moment I was back at school
And felt that old familiar pain
And, as I turned to make my way back home
The snow turned into rain

Songwriters: Dan Fogelberg

Counting Crows – A Long December

From their 1996 album, Recovering The Satellites. The song peaked at #5 on the US Hot Modern Rock Tracks chart and #1 on the Canadian RPM Top Singles chart. The video takes on a new meaning after the death of Matthew Perry.

From Songfacts

During the taping of a VH1 Storytellers performance, lead singer Adam Duritz talked about the song: “In the middle of December of ’95 my friend Jennifer got run over by a car, just creamed. And I spent that whole month, while we were just beginning the record and most of January and February in the hospital. Each morning and early afternoon then I’d go to the studio, the house where we were recording, and we’d play all afternoon and all night.It was a very weird time because there is a lot of stress, not that it’s a big deal being a second album, but any album. They’re just not that easy to make. It’s a very stressful process, especially when you’re first starting out. I spent a lot of time in the hospital which is pretty weird. But one day I just left the studio about 2 in the morning, and I went to my friend Samantha and Tracy’s house which is Hillside Manor, that’s what we call it anyway, it’s just a little house and I sat there talking with them. I woke them up, got them out of bed and made them talk to me for a couple hours, then I went home to my house. I wrote this song between about 4 and 6 and then went to the hospital the next day, and came to the house and I played it for the guys before dinner and taught it to them after dinner.

We played it about six or seven times. It was take number six. We just stopped, that was it. We recorded the song, it was done. We all went into the kitchen and had a cold beer, I grabbed Brad our engineer and ran back out about five minutes later, had him play the tape three times, just recorded all the harmonies, and we’ve never touched it since, that was it. It’s a completely live song except for the harmonies.

It’s a song about looking back on your life and seeing changes happening, and for once for me, looking forward and thinking, ya know, things are gonna change for the better – ‘maybe this year will be better than the last.’ And so, like a lot of songs on the end of an album it’s not about everything turning out great, but it at least it is about hope… and the possibilities.”

Courteney Cox, who was starring in Friends at the time, is the girl in the video (not her first – she was in Bruce Springsteen’s video for “Dancing In The Dark” and Toad the Wet Sprocket’s “Good Intentions”). She and Adam Duritz met on the set and dated for a while. Duritz, dated Cox’ Friends co-star Jennifer Aniston in 1995.

Lawrence Carroll directed the video, which finds Duritz playing a grand piano in the woods and does some serious longing. Carroll used many of the same elements – words scrawled on walls, cutaways to pretty girl looking plaintive – in the Collective Soul video for “Precious Declaration.”

A Long December

A long December and there’s reason to believe
Maybe this year will be better than the last
I can’t remember the last thing that you said as you were leavin’
Now the days go by so fast

And it’s one more day up in the canyons
And it’s one more night in Hollywood
If you think that I could be forgiven I wish you would

The smell of hospitals in winter
And the feeling that it’s all a lot of oysters, but no pearls
All at once you look across a crowded room
To see the way that light attaches to a girl

And it’s one more day up in the canyons
And it’s one more night in Hollywood
If you think you might come to California I think you should

Drove up to Hillside Manor sometime after two a.m.
And talked a little while about the year
I guess the winter makes you laugh a little slower,
Makes you talk a little lower about the things you could not show her

And it’s been a long December and there’s reason to believe
Maybe this year will be better than the last
I can’t remember all the times I tried to tell my myself
To hold on to these moments as they pass

And it’s one more day up in the canyon
And it’s one more night in Hollywood
It’s been so long since I’ve seen the ocean I guess I should

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Writer/s: ADAM FREDRIC DURITZ, BEN G MIZE, CHARLES THOMAS GILLINGHAM, DANIEL JOHN VICKREY, DAVID LYNN BRYSON, MATTHEW MARK MALLEY
Publisher: Universal Music Publishing Group

Donny Hathaway – This Christmas

The song was released as a single on December 9, 1970. The song had reached #38 on Billboards Hot 100 chart on December 13, 2019. This is the very first time the original version has been on the Hot 100 chart.

From Songfacts

Hathaway wrote this soulful Christmas song with Nadine McKinnor. It evokes the spirit of the holiday, as he’s looking forward to spending the season with friends and family. In the memorable chorus, he sings:

And this Christmas, will be
A very special Christmas, for me
Like many Christmas songs, this one took a while to find an audience. Released as a single in 1970, it went nowhere, but later became a modern holiday standard, covered by a wide range of artists including Destiny’s Child, Aretha Franklin and Lady Antebellum. Chris Brown.

This Christmas

Hang all the mistletoe
I’m gonna get to know you better

This Christmas
And as we trim the tree
How much fun it’s gonna be together

This Christmas
Fireside’s blazing bright
We’re caroling through the night
And this Christmas will be
A very special Christmas for me

Presents and cards are here
My world is filled with cheer, and you

This Christmas
And as I look around
Your eyes outshine the town, they do

This Christmas
Fireside’s blazing bright
We’re caroling through the night

And this Christmas will be
A very special Christmas for me, Yeah

Shake a hand, shake a hand now

Fireside’s blazing bright
We’re caroling through the night

And this Christmas will be

A very special Christmas for me

Merry Christmas
Shake a hand, shake a hand now
Wish your brother Merry Christmas
All over the land now

Yeahhh
Merry Christmas
Merry, Merry Christmas
Yeahhh

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: HATHAWAY DONNY E / MC KINNOR NADINE

Stevie Wonder – Someday At Christmas

The title song from his 1967 album. The song reached #17 on Billboards Hot 100 chart on December 18, 2015

From Songfacts

This was written by Motown songwriters Ron Miller and Bryan Wells, the team that also wrote Wonder’s songs “A Place in the Sun” and “Yester-me, Yester-you, Yesterday.” They wrote it for Wonder’s Christmas album, which contained several Christmas standards mixed with some new songs.
This is one of the first Christmas songs with a social and political message. Released during the Vietnam War, it takes a stand for peace and for equality and compassion. John Lennon sent a similar message in his 1971 song “Happy Xmas (War Is Over).”
In late 2015, Wonder performed the song with Andra Day for an Apple TV commercial. In 2016.

Someday At Christmas

Someday at Christmas men won’t be boys
Playing with bombs like kids play with toys
One warm December our hearts will see
A world where men are free

Someday at Christmas there’ll be no wars
When we have learned what Christmas is for
When we have found what life’s really worth
There’ll be peace on earth

Someday all our dreams will come to be
Someday in a world where men are free
Maybe not in time for you and me
But someday at Christmastime

Someday at Christmas we’ll see a Man
No hungry children, no empty hand
One happy morning people will share
Our world where people care

Someday at Christmas there’ll be no tears
All men are equal and no men have fears
One shinning moment my heart ran away
From our world today

Someday all our dreams will come to be
Someday in a world where men are free
Maybe not in time for you and me
But someday at Christmastime

Someday at Christmas man will not fail
Hate will be gone love will prevail
Someday a new world that we can start
With hope in every heart

Maybe not in time for you and me
But someday at Christmastime
Someday at Christmastime

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Bryan Wells / Ronald Miller

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

The Dead Daisies – Resurrected

From their 2018 album Burn It Down. The song did not chart, but the album reached #6 on Billboard’s U.S. Heatseekers chart in 2018. Happy Halloween!

Resurrected

Stare in the mirror, lines on my face, yeah
I wonder where the time has gone
It’s been a long hard road out from the grave
But I keep a moving on
I been up, down, turned around
Kicked hard to the ground
Keep a coming back again

From the ashes, from the flame
I’m here to light the fire again

I’m back, resurrected
I’m back, resurrected

I’m a man on a mission, you better listen
Ain’t nobody gonna stop the show
Riding high on my horse, ass in my saddle
All revved up ready to go
I’ve had nine lives, every time
Roll the dice, pay the price
I do it all again

Another day, another dance
From the dead, a second chance

I’m back, resurrected
I’m back, resurrected

I’m back, I’m back, I’m back, I’m back
I’m back, I’m back, I’m resurrected

I’m back, resurrected
I’m back, resurrected

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Marti Frederiksen / John Corabi / Doug Aldrich / Marco Mendoza / David Lowy

Phil Seymour – Precious to Me

From his self-titled album. The song reached #22 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart on January 24, 1981. I just heard this song for the first time. I want to thank AT40 and Casey Kasem.

From Popdiggers.com

Precious To Me was Phil Seymour’s first solo single after leaving the Dwight Twilley Band. The song, written by Seymour, managed to reach #3 in Australia and #22 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1981.

From philseymour.org

Our hero, Phil Seymour, was an American musician who developed skillfully between the sounds of Power Pop, Rock and New Wave. Singer, composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist (drums, guitar, bass), he left his mark on all the projects in which he participated throughout his professional career between 1974 and 1993. Phil was a brilliant “all terrain” who is well known for the songs “I’m on fire” (with the Dwight Twilley Band) or his wonderful “Precious to me”, already on his own.No doubt, Phil had a major role in the Dwight Twilley Band, a seminal group within the pop and underground world, but his solo work was, and still is, revered among the most exquisite Power Pop fans.Unfortunately, he left us in 1993, after fighting cancer that was detected in 1984.Not only is he the author of a delightful song, but he is the creator of a hymn that will be transmitted from generation to generation. Precious to me.

Precious to Me

Well baby, baby, don’t you leave me here to make it alone
‘Cause I don’t think that I could take it for a day on my own
Why would you wanna hurt me
When I love you, baby, can’t ya see
That you’re precious to me?

(I love you so) and I can’t let you go (can’t let you go)
Maybe one day you’ll see (girl can’t you see)
That you’ll always be (you’ll always be)
So precious to me-e-e-e-e

Why would you wanna hurt me
When I love you, baby, can’t ya see
That you’re precious to me?

(I love you so) and I can’t let you go (can’t let you go)
Baby, one day you’ll see (girl can’t you see)
That you’ll always be (you’ll always be)
So precious to me-e-e-e-e

Well baby, baby ya can tell me when will we meet again
If I can’t be your one and only then I’ll have to pretend
Ah, that you’re still with me
Girl, I love ya so affectionately
‘Cause you’re precious to me

(I love you so) and I can’t let you go (can’t let you go)
Baby, one day you’ll see (girl can’t you see)
That you’ll always be (you’ll always be)
So precious to me-e-e-e-e, to me-e-e-e-e
You’re so precious to me

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