Tonic – Open Up Your Eyes

From their 1996 album Lemon Parade, The song never charted but I remember seeing the video a lot on MTV at the time.

From Wikipedia.

Tonic was founded by Emerson Hart and guitarist Jeff Russo, long-separated childhood friends who randomly crossed paths at a Los Angeles, California area pool hall in 1993. The pair quickly began collaborating on music writing, and soon added bass player Dan Rothchild, whom they met at a venue named the Kibitz room. The final addition to the band was drummer Kevin Shepard, who was recruited at an L.A. venue named Masker’s Cafe.

Hart later said the original choice for the band’s name was Radio Flyer, but upon learning that name was unavailable, selected Tonic instead (the band later referenced the term Radio Flyer in their song “Top Falls Down”). The newly formed group performed gigs around the Los Angeles, California area prior to signing their first professional recording contract in 1995. Earning a reputation as a “relentlessly gigging” band, Tonic played over 300 shows in less than two years during the mid-to-late 1990s.

The band actually recorded two versions of the song a harder version and a softer version. The video below is the softer version.

Open Up Your Eyes

Choosing stones
Big enough to drag me down
Where I am
People’s voices make hollow sounds
Just be quiet
They’ll go away
Open up your eyes
Don’t let your mind tell the story here
Open up your eyes
Just let me goIt’s so safe
It’s so safe floating in the glass
While above
While above all your troubles pass
Just be quiet
They’ll go away
Open up your eyes
Don’t let your mind tell the story here
Open up your eyes
Just let me go
Open up your eyes
Don’t let your mind tell the story here
Open up your eyes
Just let me go, let me go, let me go
Open up your eyes
Just let me go
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Emerson Hart / Jeff Russo / Jeffrey Russo

 

Robert Bradley’s Blackwater Surprise – Once Upon A Time

I thought I would reblog this. I really love the song.

freefallin14's avatarFree Fallin'

The song was released in 1996. It was written and recorded in the wrong decade. it would have been a hit if it had been released just 10 years earlier.

From Wikipedia,

Robert Bradley’s Blackwater Surprise is an American band. It formed in 1994 when former members of the band Second Self met the blind street performer Robert Bradley. Bradley was born in Alabama, and gained musical experience and spirit by singing as a child at The Alabama School for the Blind. He had spent several years in Detroit by 1994, performing occasionally on the street, and playing on Saturdays in Detroit’s Eastern Market,  when guitarist Michael Nehra, bassist Andrew Nehra, and drummer Jeff Fowlkes overheard Bradley through an open window while rehearsing for a new project. After listening to Bradley sing for an hour, they invited him up to the studio to record several acoustic songs, then asked him…

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Bad Company – Shooting Star

This is my contribution to Song Lyric Sunday for Jim Adams blog. This weeks theme song that references another group in it… https://jimadamsauthordotcom.wordpress.com/2019/08/17/singing-about-another/

From their 1975 album Straight Shooter, The song never charted but it was played a bunch on the radio in the 80s. The song was written by lead singer Paul Rodgers.

From songfacts.

This tells the story of young boy who grows up to be a rock star, but succumbs to rock and roll excess and dies of a drug overdose. According to Bad Company lead singer Paul Rodgers, who wrote it, the song is a warning. He wrote it about the casualties of the music business; people like Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin as well as others who didn’t make it.

In a Songfacts interview with Bad Company drummer Simon Kirke, he said, “It was a sort of homage to the pitfalls of being in the rock world. You can let the success go to your head and you can get strung out and you can die. It’s very, very simple. And, unfortunately, it’s happening with alarming frequency to this day. Addiction will always be with us. But ‘Shooting Star’ was based on a composite of musicians.”

An eerie parallel to the character in this song is Paul Kossoff, who was Paul Rodgers’ bandmate in the group Free. Kossoff died of a heroin overdose in 1976, a year after this was released. The guitarist was just 25 years old when he died.

Shooting Star

Johnny was a schoolboy
When he heard his first Beatles song
‘Love Me Do’ I think it was
And from there it didn’t take him long
Got himself a guitar
Used to play every night
Now he’s in a rock and roll outfit
And everything’s all right
Don’t ya know
Johnny told his mama
Hey, Mama, I’m going away
I’m gonna hit the big time
Gonna be a big star someday
Momma came to the door
With a teardrop in her eye
Johnny said “Don’t cry Momma,
Smile and wave goodbye.”
Don’t you know
Don’t you know
That you are a shooting star, (don’t you know, don’t you know)
Don’t you know that you are
A shooting star
And all the world will love you
Just as long, as long as you are?
Johnny made a record
Went straight up to number one
Suddenly everyone loved to hear him sing his song
Watching the world go by
Surprising it goes so fast
Johnny looked around him
And said “Well I made the big time at last.”
Don’t you know
That you are a shooting star, (don’t you know, don’t you know)
Don’t you know that you are
A shooting star
And all the world will love you
Just as long, as long as you are?
A shooting star
Don’t you know
That you are a shooting star, (don’t you know, don’t you know)
Don’t you know that you are
A shooting star
And all the world will love you
Just as long, as long as you are?
Johnny died one night
Died in his bed
Bottle of whiskey, sleeping tablets
By his head
Johnny’s life passed him
By like a warm summer day
If you listen to the wind
You can still hear him play
Don’t you know
Don’t you know
That you are a shooting star, (don’t you know, don’t you know)
Don’t you know that you are
A shooting star
And all the world will love you
Just as long, as long as you are?
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Paul Rodgers / Paul Bernard Rodgers

Pointer Sisters – Fire

From their 1978 album Energy, The song peaked at #2 on Billboards Hot 100 in February of 1979. Bruce Springsteen originally wrote this song for Elvis. It was written after he saw Elvis perform at a May 28, 1977 concert in Philadelphia. Bruce sent a demo to Elvis but it arrived after Elvis had passed away.

From songfacts and Wikipedia

This smoldering song was written by Bruce Springsteen, who at the time was embroiled in litigation with his former manager, which kept him from recording his own songs. His friend Robert Gordon was the first to record it, releasing it on his 1978 album Fresh Fish Special. The song became a hit when the Pointer Sisters recorded it later in 1978 at the suggestion of their producer Richard Perry.

The first single by the Pointer Sisters as the trio of Anita, June and Ruth Pointer, “Fire” was recorded for the group’s November 1978 album release Energy with Anita Pointer on lead. Record producer Richard Perry had introduced the song to the Pointers by playing them a tape of Bruce Springsteen singing it, causing Anita Pointer to say: “It’s too low for me: I guess you want Ruthie to sing it” to which Perry replied: “No – I want you to sing it.” Knight Ridder music critic Christine Arnold cited “Fire” as “Energy ‘s [main] highlight……Springsteen has created a song that might well have been done by the Ronettes in the ’60s, and the Pointers inherit and develop the legacy nicely. Lyrically it’s a simple song, but one that captures the indecision of a woman who wants and does not want a man all at the same time. And when the Pointers sing [the lyric] fire it’s enough to sear your turntable.

Fire
I’m ridin’ in your car
You turn on the radio
You’re pullin’ me close
I just say no
I say I don’t like it
But you know I’m a liar
‘Cause when we kiss, ooh
Fire
Late at night
You’re takin’ me home
You say you want to stay
I say I want to be alone
I say I don’t love you
But you know I’m a liar
‘Cause when we kiss, ooh
Fire
You had a hold on me right from the start
A grip so tight I couldn’t tear it apart
My nerves all jumpin’, actin’ like a fool
Well, your kisses they burn, but my heart stays cool
Well, Romeo and Juliet
Samson and Delilah
Baby you can bet
A love they couldn’t deny
My words say split
But my words they lie
‘Cause when we kiss, ooh
Fire
Ooh fire
Hot kisses like fire
Burn me up with fire
I like what you’re doin’ now,
Fire
Touchin’ me with fire
Touchin’ me, burnin me with fire
Take me home
Fire
Kisses like fire
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Bruce Springsteen

The Rockets – Desire

From their 1980 album No Ballads, The song reached #70 on Billboards Hot 100 chart in March of 1980.

From Wikipedia.

The Rockets are an American rock band from Detroit, Michigan founded by guitarist Jimmy McCarty and drummer Johnny “Bee” Badanjek, both former members of the group Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels.

Along with slide and rhythm guitarist Dennis Robbins, bass guitarist John Fraga, and lead vocalist David Gilbert.

The Rockets were formed in 1972 by former Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels members Johnny “Bee” Badanjek and Jim McCarty.[1] Vocals and drums were handled by Badanjek, McCarty was on lead guitar, John Fraga was on bass guitar and Marc Marcano was on keyboards. Johnny Bee was the driving force and primary songwriter for the Rockets.

I included both the live and studio versions of the song.

Unfortunately, no web site has the correct lyrics to this song.

J. Geils Band – Love Stinks

The title track from their 1980 album, The song peaked at #38 on Billboards Hot 100 chart in May of 1980.

From songfacts.

Many songs written since the invention of music can be summed up in two words: Love Stinks. This one tells it like it is, with lead singer Peter Wolf explaining that he’s been through every hue of love (blue, red, pink), and he’s come to the conclusion that love does indeed stink.

Like most J. Geils Band hits, this song was written by Peter Wolf and the band’s keyboard player, Seth Justman, who was also their producer.

This was the title track to the band’s ninth album, which found them moving in a pop direction while remaining rooted in blues. Their next album, Freeze Frame, was a commercial breakthrough, making them stars on MTV and Top 40 radio.

Adam Sandler sang this in the 1998 movie The Wedding Singer. It was also used in the film Opie Gets Laid (2005), and the “Foreign Exchange Student” episode of My Name Is Earl (2007). It’s also in the 2007 “The Boys of Bummer” episode of The Simpsons as “Bart Stinks.”

Love Stinks

You love her
But she loves him
And he loves somebody else
You just can’t win
And so it goes
Till the day you die
This thing they call love
It’s gonna make you cry
I’ve had the blues
The reds and the pinks
One thing for sure
Love stinks yeah yeah
(Love stinks)
Love stinks yeah yeah
Love stinks yeah yeah
(Love stinks)
Love stinks yeah yeah
Two by two and side by side
Love’s gonna find you yes it is
You just can’t hide
You’ll hear it call
Your heart will fall
Then love will fly
It’s gonna soar
I don’t care for any Casanova thing
All I can say is
Love stinks
Love stinks yeah yeah
(Love stinks)
Love stinks yeah yeah
Love stinks yeah yeah
(Love stinks)
Love stinks yeah yeah
I’ve been through diamonds
I’ve been through minks
I’ve been through it all
Love stinks
Love stinks yeah yeah
(Love stinks)
Love stinks yeah yeah
Love stinks yeah yeah
(Love stinks)
Love stinks, love stinks yeah yeah
(Love stinks)
Love stinks, love stinks yeah yeah
(Love stinks)
Love stinks, I mean it stinks yeah yeah
(Love stinks)
Love stinks, love stinks yeah yeah
(Love stinks)
Love stinks, love stinks yeah yeah
(Love stinks)
Love stinks, love stinks
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Peter Wolf / Seth Justman

Cheap Trick – Voices

From their 1979 album Dream Police, The song peaked at #32 on Billboards Hot 100 chart in 1979. Steve Lukather from the band Toto played guitar on this song uncredited. You can hear a heavy influence of the Beatles in this song.

From songfacts.

I fell in love with you again
Please, can I see you every day?

Except that it’s coming from inside his own head. “You hear voices in your head or somebody’s just messing with your brain and hears voices,” the song’s writer, guitarist Rick Nielsen, told The A/V Club. “You hear something, it’s like you didn’t know what you were listening for until you heard the voices. Somebody, your mind’s eye, has some talking to do to you.”

Arnold Levine directed the video for this song, which was done on the same shoot for the “Dream Police” clip.

Voices

You didn’t know what you were lookin’ for
Til you heard the voices in your ear
Hey, it’s me again
Plain to see again
Please can I see you every day
I’m a fool again
I fell in love with you again
Please can I see you every day
You didn’t know what you were lookin’ for
Til you heard the voices in your ear
You didn’t know what you were lookin’ for
Til you heard the voices in your ear
Words don’t come out right
I try to say it oh so right
I hope you understand my meaning
Hey, it’s me again
I’m so in love with you again
Please can I see you every day
You didn’t know what you were lookin’ for
Til you heard the voices in your ear
You didn’t know what you were lookin’ for
Til you heard the voices in your ear
I remember every word you said
(Word you said)
I remember voices in my head
(In my head)
I remember ever word you said
(Word you said)
I heard your voice-it
Your voice is-cool voices
Warm voices
Just what I needed, too
Words don’t seem right
But its
Cool voices-warm voices
Your voice is
Just what I needed for
Love is the word-it’s
Warm voices-your voice is
Cool voices
Just what I needed, too
I heard your voice-it was
Your voice is-cool voices
Warm voices
Just what I needed, too
Just what I needed, too
Just what I needed, too
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Rick Nielsen

Sheryl Crow – Steve McQueen

This is my contribution to Song Lyric Sunday for Jim Adams blog. This weeks theme is famous people mentioned in songs… https://jimadamsauthordotcom.wordpress.com/2019/08/10/such-an-honor/

From her 2002 album C’ mon C’ mon, The song peaked at #88 on Billboards Hot 100 chart and #13 on Billboards Adult Top 40 chart.

From songfacts.

Steve McQueen is an actor famous for his cool persona and attitude that the lyrics allude to. In the video, Crow recreates the car chase scene from McQueen’s movie Bullitt and the motorcycle chase from his film The Great Escape.
Sheryl Crow won a Grammy for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance for this song.

 

 

Steve McQueen

Well I went to bed in Memphis
And I woke up in Hollywood
I got a quarter in my pocket
And I’d call you if I could
But I don’t know why
I gotta fly
I want to rock and roll this party
I still want to have some fun
I want to leave you feeling breathless
Show you how the west was won
But I gotta fly
I gotta fly
Like Steve McQueen
All I need’s a fast machine
And I’m gonna make it all right
Like Steve McQueen
Underneath your radar screen
You’ll never catch me tonight
I ain’t takin’ shit off no one
Baby that was yesterday
I’m an all American rebel
Making my big getaway
Yeah you know it’s time
I gotta fly
Like Steve McQueen
All I need’s a fast machine
And I’m gonna make it all right
Like Steve McQueen
Underneath your radar screen
You’ll never catch me tonight
Like Steve McQueen
Like Steve McQueen
We got rock stars in the White House
All our pop stars look like porn
All my heroes hit the highway
They don’t hang out here no more
You can try me on my cell phone
You can page me all night long
But you won’t catch this free bird
I’ll already be long gone
Like Steve McQueen
All we need’s a fast machine
And we’re gonna make it all right
Like Steve McQueen
Underneath your radar screen
You’ll never catch us tonight
Like Steve McQueen
All we need’s a fast machine
And we’re gonna make it all right
Like Steve McQueen
Underneath your radar screen
You’ll never catch me tonight
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: John Shanks / Sheryl Crow

 

 

 

John Fogerty – The Old Man Down The Road

From his 1984 album Centerfield, the song peaked at #10 on Billboards Hot 100 chart in March of 1985. Fogerty keeps his same musical style.

From songfacts.

This song deals with John Fogerty’s extensive legal troubles, which weighed on him for over a decade. An early contract he signed forced him to relinquish the rights to his Creedence Clearwater Revival songs but at the same time obligated him to keep recording. After the band broke up, he was so disillusioned with the industry that he refused to play the Creedence songs, in part because so many of them were joyful tunes, and he was feeling anything but.

“The Old Man Down The Road” is a depiction of the Devil using imagery found in many blues songs where a Faustian deal is struck. This is how Fogerty felt about his contract: he gave up his songs (and to some extent, his soul) so he could make music, and now he was paying the price.

“It tells the story about a man standing in your way with a suitcase covered in rattlesnake hide, eyes as black as coal,” Fogerty said. In his case, this demon is the record company.

Saul Zaentz, who owned the publishing rights to the Creedence Clearwater Revival songs, sued Fogerty, claiming “The Old Man Down The Road” sounded too much like the 1970 Creedence song “Run Through The Jungle.” This bizarre lawsuit may have been the first time an artist was sued for plagiarizing himself. The case went to a jury and was eventually dismissed in Fogerty’s favor, although appeals kept the case alive until 1993. A frustrated Fogerty even refused to play any Creedence songs on his 1986 tour.

During the trial, Fogerty at one point was trying to explain that there are only so many ways to play Swamp Rock. After a demonstration on his guitar, he said, “Yeah, it’s the same interval. What am I supposed to do, get an inoculation?” In a 1997 interview with Goldmine, Fogerty said: “I proved that, no, I didn’t copy myself, I invented something new that really sounds a lot like me. Do you find fault with Elvis for sounding like Elvis? When McCartney sounds like McCartney or Dylan sounds like Dylan? No one else ever had to go through that.”

Fogerty had quite a catharsis the first time he heard this song on the radio. He was driving in Northern California from El Cerrito to Berkeley on the Bayshore Freeway when he heard it come on. To him, it represented vindication from his oppressors in the industry. Fogerty told the radio show Soundcheck: “I was overjoyed, and I said, ‘Take that you old man!'”
This song not only revived Fogerty’s career, but it also gave him a presence on MTV where he gained a whole new following. The video was directed by Mick Haggerty, who did many of the Hall & Oates clips.

 

The Old Man Down The Road

He take the thunder from the mountain
He take a lightning from the sky
He bring a strong man to his begging knee
He make the young girl’s mama cry.
You got to hidey-hide
You got to jump and run
You got to hidey-hidey-hide
The old man is down the road…
He got the voices speakin’ riddles
He got the eye as black as coal
He got a suitcase covered with rattlesnake hide
And he stands right in the road.
You got to hidey-hide
You got to jump up run away
You got to hidey-hidey-hide
The old man is down the road.
He make the river call your lover
He make the barking of the hound
Put a shadow ‘cross the window
When the old man comes around.
You got to hidey-hide
You got to jump and run again
You got to hidey-hidey-hide
The old man is down the road
The old man is down the road.
You got to, you got to, you got to hidey-hidey-hide

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers – You Got Lucky

From their 1982 album Long After Dark, the song peaked at #20 on Billboards Hot 100 chart and #1 on Billboards Top Tracks chart where it stayed for 3 weeks in 1982.

From songfacts.

In this song, Tom Petty does some posturing, telling a girl that she got lucky when he found her, and warning her that she can do no better. All that posturing is wrapped in a chorus with a simple message: “Good love is hard to find.”

The song does not appear to based on Petty’s real life; he had been married since 1976.
Musically, this is one of the more distinctive Tom Petty songs, which helped it endure as a Classic Rock favorite. In a Songfacts interview with Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell, he said: “‘You Got Lucky’ was written to a drum loop. I had made a drum loop in my studio and put the music together. We went into the studio and actually recreated another drum loop. The drummer would go out and play, then we’d cut the tape and tape the loop together. We ran it around the room over some mic stands and through the tape heads, and then printed that for 3 or 4 minutes and then recorded the song over that drum loop.”

Petty added the lyrics and came up with the idea for the guitar solo. He suggested they do sort of a surf guitar with a tremolo arm, like in the Clint Eastwood movie The Good, The Bad And The Ugly.

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers were one of the few established American rock bands to embrace the concept of music videos, and MTV loved them for it. The “You Got Lucky” video was pioneering because the song didn’t start until over a minute into the clip. Inspired by the Mad Max films, we see a desolate, futuristic landscape where Petty discovers and old boom box which plays the song. The band wrote the treatment themselves, and Jim Lenahan directed.

You Got Luck

One, two
You better watch what you say
You better watch what you do to me
Don’t get carried away
Girl, if you can do better than me, go
Yeah, go but remember

Good love is hard to find
Good love is hard to find
You got lucky, babe
You got lucky, babe, when I found you

You put a hand on my cheek
And then you turned your eyes away
If you don’t feel complete
If I don’t take you all of the way then go
Yeah, go but remember

Good love is hard to find
Good love is hard to find
You got lucky, babe
You got lucky, babe, when I found you

Yeah, go just go, but remember

Good love is hard to find
Good love is hard to find
You got lucky, babe
You got lucky, babe, when I found youWriter/s: MICHAEL W. CAMPBELL, TOM PETTY