Roy Orbison – Oh, Pretty Woman

The song was released in August of 1964 it was written by Roy Orbison and Bill Dees. It spent 3 weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 Charts. It also topped the UK charts for 3 weeks. The record sold 7 million copies and it marked the high point in Orbison’s Career. In October of 1964, the single was certified gold by the RIAA. It was ranked the number four song of 1964 by Billboard.

The song was recorded in 1964 at RCA Studio B in Nashville. This is the same studio that Elvis recorded most of his hits at. The Everly Brothers also recorded most of their hits at RCA studio B. Oh, I thought I would mention that’s my cousin Grady Martin playing that guitar riff.

From Songfacts.

Roy Orbison was writing with his songwriting partner Bill Dees at his house when he told Dees to get started writing by playing anything that came to mind. Orbison’s wife Claudette came in and said she was going to go into town to buy something. Orbison asked if she needed any money, and Dees cracked, “Pretty woman never needs any money.” Inspired, Orbison started singing, “Pretty woman walking down the street.” Bill Dees recalls in 1000 UK #1 Hits by Jon Kutner and Spencer Leigh: “He sang it while I was banging my hand down on the table and by the time she returned we had the song. I love the song. From the moment that the rhythm started, I could hear the heels clicking on the pavement, click, click, the pretty woman walking down the street, in a yellow skirt and red shoes. We wrote Oh Pretty Woman on a Friday, the next Friday we recorded it, and the next Friday it was out. It was the fastest thing I ever saw. Actually, the yeah, yeah, yeah in Oh Pretty Woman probably came from The Beatles.”

In the same book Bill Dees recounts how the distinctive growling cry of “Mercy” came about: “I can’t do that growl like Roy, but the “Mercy” is mine. I used to say that all the time when I saw a pretty woman or had some good food. Still do.”

 

Oh, Pretty Woman

Pretty woman, walkin’ down the street
Pretty woman the kind I like to meet
Pretty woman I don’t believe you, you’re not the truth
No one could look as good as you, mercy
Pretty woman won’t you pardon me
Pretty woman I couldn’t help but see
Pretty woman that you look lovely as can be
Are you lonely just like me
Pretty woman stop awhile
Pretty woman talk awhile
Pretty woman give your smile to me
Pretty woman yeah, yeah, yeah
Pretty woman look my way
Pretty woman say you’ll stay with me
‘Cause I need you, I’ll treat you right
Come with me baby, be mine tonight
Pretty woman don’t walk on by
Pretty woman don’t make me cry
Pretty woman don’t walk away, hey, OK
If that’s the way it must be, OK
I guess I’ll go on home, it’s late
There’ll be tomorrow night, but wait
What do I see?
Is she walkin’ back to me?
Yeah, she’s walkin’ back to me
Oh, oh, pretty woman.
Songwriters: Bill Dees / Roy Orbison

Valley Girl movie

This movie was released in 1983. It was the wrong side of the tracks kind of movie. It was about a Valley Girl Julie played by actress Deborah Foreman that had a boyfriend that took her for granted. She met Randy who was played by actor Nicolas Cage who was raised in Hollywood. No Valley Girl would be seen dead with someone from Hollywood. Julie’s parents were old hippies that had turned into yuppies. Julie’s father played by Frederick Forest reminded me of Sonny Bono because of his mustache and the 60’s clothes he wore. Julie and Randy fell in love but peer pressure started to get to Julie and she broke it off but it was not the end for them things go crazy at the high school prom.

I loved this movie mostly because it was about an outcast like Randy but in real life, most outcasts don’t look like Nicolas Cage. The soundtrack was not great but did have one bright spot Modern English’s Melt With You. Nicolas Cage became a huge star but Deborah Foreman had a couple more movies like April Fools Day and then fell off the map. She was a good actress I do not understand why she did not have more success?

 

Henry Lee Summer – I Wish I Had a Girl

The song hit number 20 on Billboards Hot 100 charts and hit number 1 on mainstream rock hits in 1988. The song was originally recorded in 1985 but was re-recorded 3 years later for his self-titled album in 1988.

 

 

 

I Wish I Had a Girl

Wooow, hey
Mmm mmm mmm mmm
You can have your Cajun queens
Down in New Orleans
And take the movie stars
Who drive impress me more cars
Take your high class show and tell
Don’t need no modern day Jezebel
All I want, ain’t no lie
Check it out, Leroy
They breeze by
Wish I had a girl who
Walked like that, ooh, yeah
Wish I had that girl, uh huh
Wish I had a girl who
Walked like that, yeah
Wish I had that girl, yeah
That’s it, that’s it, ha ha
Woo, have mercy, woo
Come on
You can have your socialites
Mmm, caviar, honey, champagne nights
Me, I’ll take the nine to five stuff
Oh, and I’ll tell you what
Me, I’ll take what I can now
So you know it’s hard to understand
Not all it takes to satisfy
Check it out, Leroy, they breeze by
Wish I had a girl who
Walked like that, ooh, yeah
Wish I had that girl, uh huh
Hey, wish I had a girl
Who walked like that, yeah
Well, I wish I had a girl like that
And I’d take her home and
Walk her all night long, yeah
Hey, hey, hey
Ooh, yeah (have mercy)
Mmm, have mercy (ooh, yeah)
I wish I had a (had a, had a)
I wish I had a (had a, had a)
I wish I had a girl
I wish I had that girl
I wish I had that girl, ooh, yeah
Lookie there, lookie there
Lookie there, yeah, wow
Wish I had a girl
Who walked like that
Ooh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Wish I had that girl, girl ,girl
Wish I had a girl
Who walked like that
Yes, I do, yeah
I wish I had a girl
I wish I had a girl
I wish I had a girl
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Wish I had a girl
Who walked like that
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Wish I had that girl……
Songwriters: Henry Lee Summer

 

Robert Bradley’s Blackwater Surprise – Once Upon A Time

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 to become their vocalist.

 

 

 

Once Upon A Time

Once upon a time, when I was in high school
I was in love with you, lady and you treated me so cool
I was drivin’ a Chevy ’72 had 4 on the floor, girl
A hundred twenty it would do

I remember Marvin Gaye, singin’
Let’s Get It On

There was a war, baby, somewhere across the sea
I didn’t wanna go and fight, girl, ’cause you were really lovin’ me
I remember Martin Luther King
Lord he was the man, baby, that gave us all a dream

I remember Marvin Gaye, singin’
Let’s Get It On
Don’t play with my love, no
I remember Marvin Gaye, singin’, Let’s Get It On

We used to have sweet music in the park
Lord up at Monterey, a they sang throughout the dark
You used to wear girl, those hot pants
When you strolled down the hall
All the boys wanted a chance

I remember Marvin Gaye, singin’
Let’s Get It On
Don’t play with my love, no
I remember Otis Redding, Sittin’ at the Dock of the Bay
Ahh, he went away
I remember Sam Cooke ya’ll, Bring It On Home To Me
From your love I can’t be free
I remember Elvis Presley, and the Blue Suede Shoes
Ahh they gave me the blues
I remember Marvin Gaye, singin’ Let’s Get It On

Tom Petty – Free Fallin’

Released in October of 1989 From the Full Moon Fever album it peaked at #7 on Billboards top 100 charts in January of 1990. even though it was released at the end of the 80’s when I remember the 80’s this song always is the first thing that comes into my mind.

How the song was written by Billboard.com.

“Free Fallin’”: “Jeff Lynne and I were sitting around with the idea of writing a song and I was playing the keyboard and I just happened to hit on that main riff, the intro of the song, and I think Jeff said something like, ‘That’s a really good riff but there’s one chord too many,’ so I think I cut it back a chord and then, really just to amuse Jeff, honestly, I just sang that first verse. Then he starts laughing. Honestly, I thought I was just amusing Jeff but then I got to the chorus of the song and he leaned over to me and said the word, ‘freefalling.’ And I went to sing that and he said, ‘No, take your voice up and see how that feels.’ So I took my voice up an octave or two, but I couldn’t get the whole word in. So I sang ‘freeee,’ then ‘free falling.’ And we both knew at that moment that I’d hit on something pretty good. It was that fast. He had to go somewhere, and I wrote the last verse and kind of just polished the rest of the song and when I saw him the next day I played him the song and he was like, ‘Wow, you did that last night?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah.’ And he said. ‘We’ve got to go cut this,’ and we just took off to Mike Campbell’s studio where we knew we could get in and get it done that day. So we went in and made the record that day.”

Living in Reseda:  “I don’t know the girl in ‘Free Fallin’ is. I was having to make this drive every day. The studio was in the valley and I was driving from Beverly Hills to the valley and back every day and on that drive I just used to look at Ventura Boulevard, and just life’s great pageant was going in up and down that street. And I tried to grab a little bit of these characters on the road and it was kind of how I saw it. It’s pretty true of that time and that era, I remember…maybe it’s still that way, I don’t know. The skateboarders and the shoppers and the young kids in the trendiest possible clothes and the auto-tellers and the drive-thru banks. It’s a scene, it’s a never-ending scene. I thought, you could probably start at one end of this road and by the time you got to the end of it you could purchase everything you could ever need in your life. It was kind of like that.”

 

Free Fallin’

She’s a good girl, loves her mama
Loves Jesus and America too
She’s a good girl, crazy ’bout Elvis
Loves horses and her boyfriend too

It’s a long day living in Reseda
There’s a freeway runnin’ through the yard
And I’m a bad boy ’cause I don’t even miss her
I’m a bad boy for breakin’ her heart

And I’m free, free fallin’
Yeah I’m free, free fallin’

All the vampires walkin’ through the valley
Move west down Ventura boulevard
And all the bad boys are standing in the shadows
All the good girls are home with broken hearts

And I’m free, free fallin’
Yeah I’m free, free fallin’
Free fallin’, now I’m free fallin’, now I’m
Free fallin’, now I’m free fallin’, now I’m

I want to glide down over Mulholland
I want to write her name in the sky
Gonna free fall out into nothin’
Gonna leave this world for a while

And I’m free, free fallin’
Yeah I’m free, free fallin’

Nazareth – Love Leads To Madness

From the 1982 album 2XS it peaked at #19 on the Billboard mainstream rock charts. Nazareth went with a softer sound in the 80’s. The video was another MTV staple.

 

Love Leads To Madness

Do I feel alright?
I’ll go anywhere you say you wanna to take me
Save me, run away-ay-ay, steal away-ay-ay
‘Cause I feel alright
I’ll do anything you say you wanna make me
Take me, far away-ay-ay, run away-ay-ay

We’ve been up all night
Tryin’ to avoid a situation
Hold me, let me feel your way
‘Cause I wanna stay
Let them all start talkin’
We won’t give ourselves away

Our love leads to madness
Our love leads to madness
Our love leads to madness

Do you feel alright?
An’ can you see me when you’re lookin’ in your mirror
Crazy, try to find a way, so your heart don’t pay
Run away-ay-ay
Don’t you give yourself away

Our love leads to madness
Our love leads to madness
Our love leads to madness
Our love leads to madness

Jefferson Starship – Find Your Way Back

Released in 1981 from their Modern Times album it hit #29 on the Billboard charts in the spring of 1981. The video was in heavy rotation on MTV. The song just rocks.

 

It’s been a long, long road
Since I packed up and left on my own
And I carry a heavy load
Just try ‘n’ get back to her heart

I sure ain’t got no home
I seem to find love where I ramble
And when it’s time to go
I hear that voice again… Say’n’

Chorus
Find your way back…
Find your way back to her heart
Find your way back…
Find your way back to her heart

Leave a message with the rain
You can find me where the wind blows
The snow across the pain
And the frost upon the heart

(you got no place to be
Still you wonder where you’re goin’)
And why I had to leave
I hear a voice… It says to me

Repeat chorus

I know it’s too late now
But, I wish I could go back in time
And start all over somehow
And get it right from the start

 

Nils Lofgren – Across The Tracks

Released in 1983 it never charted. Nils Lofgren was known as being part of Bruce Springsteen’s band The E-Street Band but I saw the video for this song on MTV and just loved it.

Across the tracks there’s a girl who loves me
Just as much as I love her
We are unified still crucified
Just because we live across the tracks, yeah

White or black, day or night
What’s the difference when you’ve hurt someone?
You can walk tall, you can act small
Any fool can fire a gun

Across the tracks there’s a girl who loves me
Just as much as I love her
We are unified still crucified
Just because we live across the tracks, yeah alright yeah

So we slip away and pretend to play
And it said how families make you run
If my daddy ever caught me kissing her
I believe he would shoot his son

But we’re growin’ up and there’ll come a day
When the real world makes us run away
Now we live in shame and play their silly game
Soon we’ll be gone and I don’t have to say, yeah

Across the tracks there’s a girl who loves me
Just as much as I love her
We are unified still we’re crucified
Just because we live across the tracks, yeah

Across the tracks, across the tracks
We won’t stand forever across the tracks
Across the tracks, across the tracks, oh

 

Gene Vincent – Be Bop A Lula

Recorded by Gene Vincent and the Blue Caps in 1956 its influence would be huge on Rock N Roll. The song was released in June 1956 on Capitol Records’ single F3450, and immediately sold well. The song was successful on three American singles charts it peaked at No. 7 on the US Billboard pop music chart, No. 8 on the R&B chart, and also made the top ten on the C&W Best Seller chart peaking at No. 5. In the UK, it peaked at No. 16 in August 1956. In April 1957, the record company announced that over 2 million copies had been sold to date.

The story of how the decidedly un-complex lyrics of “Be-Bop-A-Lula” got written is shrouded in a certain amount of controversy. Officially, Gene Vincent’s business manager, Bill “Sheriff Tex” Davis, is credited as the co-writer, but Sheriff Tex, a savvy 40-year-old from Connecticut, seems an unlikely source of such naïve gem. The story that has the greater ring of truth credits a young man named Donald Graves—a buddy Gene Vincent made in a Portsmouth, Virginia, Veteran’s Hospital. Vincent—born Vincent Eugene Craddock in 1935—had just reenlisted in the U.S. Navy in the spring of 1955 when he suffered a devastating leg injury in a motorcycle accident. That injury would land him in hospital for more than a year, where a fellow patient remembers Vincent and Graves tooling around the facility working out the song that would eventually become a classic. By the time Gene Vincent’s demo tape reached Capitol Records the following spring, however, Graves had been bought out of his share in “Be-Bop-A-Lula” by Sheriff Tex, reportedly for just $25.

In early 1956, Gene Vincent performed the song on a radio show in Norfolk, Virginia, and recorded a demo version which was passed to Capitol Records, who were looking for a young singer to rival Elvis Presley. Capitol invited Vincent to record the song and it was recorded at Owen Bradley’s studio in Nashville, Tennessee on May 4, 1956. Cliff Gallup (lead guitar), “Wee” Willie Williams (rhythm guitar), “Jumpin'” Jack Neal (string bass), and Dickie “Be Bop” Harrell (drums) comprised the band. When the song was being recorded, Harrell screamed twice in the background, he said because he wanted to be sure his family could hear it was him on the record.

 

“Be-Bop-A-Lula” is without a doubt the Gene Vincent song that influenced the Beatles the most. Lennon admitted to Barry Miles in 1969, “That beginning – ‘we-e-e-e-e-l-l-l-l-l!’ – always made my hair stand on end” (Lewisohn 2013, page 94). Significantly, John sang the song live for the first time on the day he met Paul McCartney for the first time. Also significantly, Lennon opened his 1975 album Rock ‘n’ Roll with a cover of “Be-Bop-A-Lula”. The song also is a prime example of early so-called ‘nonsense lyrics’. Although lyrics such as “Be-Bop-A-Lula” contain no literary or semantic meaning, they do have musical meaning. The words “Be-Bop-A-Lula” were chosen because the phonetic articulation of those syllables perfectly fit the music – and any meaning of those syllables is largely coincidental. This style of lyric-writing is something that John Lennon would explore in depth in his songs from the later 60’s, such as “Dig a Pony”, “Come Together”, “Strawberry Fields Forever”, “Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey”, and many more. In other words, it’s not much of a stretch from “Be-Bop-A-Lula” to “Goo goo k’joob”.

Vincent also influenced the band’s fashion sense. In the 1963 BBC documentary The Mersey Sound, John Lennon admitted, “[W]e’d always worn jeans ‘cuz we didn’t have anything else … [W]e went back to Germany and we had a bit more money the second time, so we bought leather pants and looked like four Gene Vincents, only a bit younger.

One added note. The first record Paul purchased as a teen was Be Bop A Lula.

Info from Wikipedia and Songfacts.

 

Be Bop A Lula

Well be-bop-a-Lula she’s my baby
Be-bop-a-Lula I don’t mean maybe
Be-bop-a-Lula she’s my baby
Be-bop-a-Lula I don’t mean maybe
Be-bop-a-Lula she’s my baby doll
My baby doll, my baby doll
Well she’s the girl in the red blue jeans
She’s the queen of all the teens
She’s the one that I know
She’s the woman that loves me so
Say be-bop-a-Lula she’s my baby
Be-bop-a-Lula I don’t mean maybe
Be-bop-a-Lula she’s my baby doll
My baby doll, my baby doll
Let’s rock!
Well now she’s the one that’s got that beat
She’s the woman with the flyin’ feet
She’s the one that walks around the store
She’s the one that gets more more more
Be-bop-a-Lula she’s my baby
Be-bop-a-Lula I don’t mean maybe
Be-bop-a-Lula she’s my baby doll
My baby doll, my baby doll
Let’s rock again, now!
Well be-bop-a-Lula she’s my baby
Be-bop-a-Lula I don’t mean maybe
Be-bop-a-Lula she’s my baby
Be-bop-a-Lula I don’t mean maybe
Be-bop-a-Lula she’s my baby doll
My baby doll, my baby doll
Songwriters: Gene Vincent / Tex Davis