Music
Tune Tuesday: May 21, 1979
Forty years ago, today, the #1 song on the Billboard Hot Country chart was If I Said You Have A Beautiful Body Would You Hold It Against Me by The Bellamy Brothers from Pasco County Florida. Written by David Bellamy, the song’s title is a reference to the Groucho Marx line from You Bet Your Life. Bellamy was fond of the show and Marx’s comment stuck with him.
Released in March, it was the second single from the album The Two and Only and their first #1 hit on Billboard’s Hot Country Singles chart, with Let Your Love Flow reaching #1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 in May of 1976. The title […] shown on the original single was “If I Said You Have a Beautiful Body Would You Hold It Against Me” but, on the album and subsequent releases, the title is shown as “… Had …”.
Lyrics
If I said you have a beautiful body, would you hold it against me?
If I swore you were an angel, would you treat me like the devil tonight?
If I was dying of thirst, would your flowing love come quench me?
If I said you have a beautiful body, would you hold it against me?
Now we could talk all night about the weather
Could tell you about my friends out on the coast
I could ask a lot of crazy questions
Or ask you what I really wanna know
If I said you have a beautiful body, would you hold it against me?
If I swore you were an angel, would you treat me like the devil tonight?
If I was dying of thirst, would your flowing love come quench me?
If I said you have a beautiful body, would you hold it against me?
Now rain can fall so soft against the window
Sun can shine so bright up in the sky
But Daddy always told me, “Don’t make small talk”
He said, “Come on out and say what’s on your mind”
So if I said you have a beautiful body, would you hold it against me?
If I swore you were an angel, would you treat me like the devil tonight?
If I was dying of thirst, would your flowing love come quench me?
If I said you have a beautiful body, would you hold it against me?
If I said you have a beautiful body, would you hold it against me?
If I swore you were an angel, would you treat me like the devil tonight?
If I were dying of thirst, would your flowing love come quench me?
If I said you have a beautiful body, would you hold it against me?
Tune Tuesday: May 14, 1979
Forty years ago, today, the #1 song on the Billboard Hot R&B chart (and the Hot 100 chart, simultaneously, plus Cash Box) was Reunited by Peaches & Herb (Herb Fame & Linda “Peaches #3” Greene). The song was co-written by Dino Fekaris and Freddie Perren, whom also co-wrote Shake Your Groove Thing, a previous Peaches & Herb song and, I Will Survive, the Gloria Gaynor hit. This was a sequel piece to the duo’s (Herb Fame & Francine “Peaches” Hurd Barker) previous song (We’ll Be) United released in 1968, a cover of The Intruders hit from 1966.
The song sold over two million copies, was the Billboard #5 song for 1979 and the RPM (Canadian) #9 song for 1979 (Wayback Machine). Artists Louise Mandrell (with husband R. C. Bannon), Faith No More and Lulu (with Cliff Richard) have done cover versions. [This link reflects David Hasselhoff and Raven-Symone as cover artists but, I can’t verify. ~Vic]
Nominated for:
American Music Award: Favorite Soul/R&B Song
Grammy: Best R&B Vocal Performance By A Duo, Group Or Chorus
Lyrics
[Verse 1:]
I was a fool to ever leave your side
Me minus you is such a lonely ride
The breakup we had
Has made me lonesome and sad
I realize I love you cause
I want you back, hey, hey
I spent the evening with the radio
Regret the moment that I let you go
Our quarrel was such
A way of learning so much
I know now that I love you
Cause I need your touch, hey, hey
[Chorus:]
Reunited
And it feels so good
Reunited
Cause we understood
There`s one perfect fit
And sugar, this one is it
We both are so excited
Cause we`re reunited
Hey, hey
[Verse 2:]
I sat here staring
At the same old wall
Came back to life just when I got your call
I wished I could climb right
Through the telephone line
And give you what you want
So you will still be mine
Hey, hey
I can’t go cheating
Honey, I can’t play
I found it very hard to stay away
As we reminisce on
Precious moments like this
I`m glad we`re back together
Cause I missed your kiss
Hey, hey
[Repeat Chorus:]
Reunited
And it feels so good
Reunited
Cause we understood
There`s one perfect fit
And sugar, this one is it
We both are so excited
Cause we`re reunited
Hey, hey
Yeah, yeah, yeah, baby
[Verse 3:]
Oh, lover, lover
This is solid love
And you`re exactly what I`m dreaming of
All through the day
And all through the night
I`ll give you all the love I have
With all my might
Hey, hey
[Repeat Chorus:]
Reunited
And it feels so good
Reunited
Cause we understood
There`s one perfect fit
And sugar, this one is it…
Tune Tuesday: May 7, 1979
Forty years ago, today, the #1 song on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart was Love Is The Answer by England Dan & John Ford Coley. Released on March 4, the song was written by Todd Rundgren for his band Utopia. It is the last track on the 1977 album Oops! Wrong Planet. Rundgren’s version didn’t chart but, this cover version reached #10 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart.
From John Ford Coley:
Of all the songs we released as singles, that was my favorite. The song, first of all, had a classical base and the middle had a gospel section, which I loved.
From Todd Rundgren (on what the song meant to him):
We were doing an album at the time and, usually, we try and be collaborative when we write the songs because, we had made an agreement that we would share the publishing on all of our songs so that specific writers don’t get the credit. But, that was a song that I came up with. We put it on a bummer album like Oops! Wrong Planet thinking, maybe, we need to put something a little hopeful on it.
The song still has meaning to me. I perform it every night with Ringo. Ringo has his “three hit rule” and I’m taking advantage of a technicality in that Love Is The Answer was a hit but, it wasn’t a hit for me or Utopia. It was a hit for England Dan & John Ford Coley.
Originally, Ringo wanted me to do Hello It’s Me and I just felt that the song, in the context of what the rest of the band was playing, didn’t represent the message I wanted to convey because, “Hello It’s Me” is a kind of a selfish song. It’s me, me, me…it’s all about me. I’m in charge and, all this other stuff. I thought a better song, especially for Mr. Peace & Love, Ringo himself, would be “Love Is The Answer” and, people would know the song because it was a hit. […] they, maybe even, would just gloss over the fact that it wasn’t a hit for me and think, ‘Oh Yeah! Now, I remember him singing this song.’ So, for me, it’s a high point of the evening and, hopefully, the audience is getting the message.
Glen Campbell recorded the song in 2004 on his Love Is The Answer: 24 Songs of Faith, Hope and Love album. It remains a favorite of Christian artists.
Lyrics:
Name your price
A ticket to paradise
I can’t stay here anymore
And I’ve looked high and low
I’ve been from shore to shore to shore
If there’s a shortcut
I’d have found it
But there is no easy way around it
Light of the world
Shine on me
Love is the answer
Shine on us all
Set us free
Love is the answer
Who knows why someday
We all must die
We’re all homeless boys and girls
And we are never heard
It’s such a lonely, lonely, lonely world
People turn their heads
And walk on by
Tell me
Is it worth just another try
Light of the world
Shine on me
Love is the answer
(Let it shine)
Shine on us all
Set us free
Love is the answer
Tell me
Are we alive
Or just a dying planet?
(What are the chances?)
Ask the man in your heart
For the answer
And when you feel afraid
(Love one another)
When you’ve lost your way
(Love one another)
And when you’re all alone
(Love one another)
And when you’re far from home
(Love one another)
And when you’re down and out
(Love one another)
And when your hopes run out
(Love one another)
And when you need a friend
(Love one another)
And when you’re near the end
(Love, we got to love
We got to love one another)
Light of the world
Shine on me
Love is the answer
Shine on us all
Set us free
Love is the answer
Light of the world
Shine on me
Love is the answer
(Shine, shine, shine)
Shine on us all
Set us free
Love is the answer
Light of the world
Shine on me
Love is the answer
Shine on us all
Set us free
Love is the answer
Light of the world
Shine on me
Love is the answer
Tune Tuesday: April 30, 1979
Photo Credit: recort.nl
Forty years ago, today, the #1 song on the Billboard Hot 100 chart was Heart of Glass by Blondie. Written by Harry and Stein in 1974-75, its working title was Once I Had A Love. The inspiration for its writing came from The Hues Corporation‘s song Rock the Boat.
From The Guardian:
Heart of Glass was one of the first songs Blondie wrote but, it was years before we recorded it properly. We’d tried it as a ballad, as reggae but, it never quite worked. At that point, it had no title. We just called it “the disco song”. Back then, it was very unusual for a guitar band to be using computerised sound. People got nervous and angry about us bringing different influences into rock. Although we’d covered Lady Marmalade and I Feel Love at gigs, lots of people were mad at us for “going disco” with Heart of Glass. There was the Disco Sucks! movement, and there had even been a riot in Chicago, with people burning disco records. Clem Burke, our drummer, refused to play the song live at first. When it became a hit, he said: “I guess I’ll have to.” The lyrics weren’t about anyone. They were just a plaintive moan about lost love. At first, the song kept saying: “Once I had a love, it was a gas. Soon turned out, it was a pain in the ass.” We couldn’t keep saying that, so we came up with: “Soon turned out, had a heart of glass.” We kept one “pain in the ass” in – and the BBC bleeped it out for radio. ~Debbie Harry
*************
As far as I was concerned, disco was part of R&B, which I’d always liked. The Ramones went on about us “going disco” but, it was tongue-in-cheek. They were our friends. In the video, there’s a shot of the legendary Studio 54, so everyone thought we shot the video there but, it was actually in a short-lived club called the Copa or something. I came up with the phrase “heart of glass” without knowing anything about Werner Herzog or his movie of the same name, which is a great, weird film. It’s nice people now use the song to identify the period in films and documentaries. I never had an inkling it would be such a big hit, or become the song we’d be most remembered for. It’s very gratifying. ~Chris Stein
An Oral History of Blondie
From CityBeat:
In season one, DJ Johnny Fever not only plays Blondie’s “Heart of Glass” on his broadcast but, home audiences actually hear him announce the band’s, and the song’s, names. It was fantastic promotion for the up-and-coming Blondie, whose huge breakthrough album, Parallel Lines (with other seminal singles like Hanging on the Telephone and One Way or Another), came out the same month WKRP in Cincinnati debuted. The band reportedly gave the show a Gold record plaque celebrating the album’s major sales numbers as a “Thank You” card. It can be seen in the background as set design on several episodes in later seasons.
From NPR:
Unlike many DJs from that era, Fever played punk as well as rock and soul. The range of music on the show gave this fictional radio station a better playlist than most of the era’s real ones. […] although the show helped break Blondie’s “Heart of Glass” big, the exception, in Fever’s case, was disco. “I asked him to play one disco record and he threatened to throw himself in front of Donna Summer‘s tour bus,” Travis complains in “Baby, If You’ve Ever Wondered,” from season two.
As of April 20, 2011, Heart of Glass is #259 of Rolling Stone Magazine’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
Awards & Nominations
♦ Best Selling International Single (Juno 1980)
♦ Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (2006)
♦ Grammy Hall of Fame (2016)
Lyrics:
[Verse 1]
Once I had a love and it was a gas
Soon turned out had a heart of glass
Seemed like the real thing, only to find
Mucho mistrust, love’s gone behind
Once I had a love and it was divine
Soon found out I was losing my mind
It seemed like the real thing but I was so blind
Mucho mistrust, love’s gone behind
[Chorus]
In between
What I find is pleasing and I’m feeling fine
Love is so confusing, there’s no peace of mind
If I fear I’m losing you, it’s just no good
You teasing like you do
[Verse 2]
Once I had a love and it was a gas
Soon turned out had a heart of glass
Seemed like the real thing, only to find
Mucho mistrust, love’s gone behind
[Chorus]
Lost inside
Adorable illusion and I cannot hide
I’m the one you’re using, please don’t push me aside
We could’ve made it cruising, yeah
[Bridge]
Yeah, riding high
On love’s true bluish light
[Verse 3]
Once I had a love and it was a gas
Soon turned out to be a pain in the ass
Seemed like the real thing only to find
Mucho mistrust, love’s gone behind
[Chorus]
In between
What I find is pleasing and I’m feeling fine
Love is so confusing, there’s no peace of mind
If I fear I’m losing you, it’s just no good
You teasing like you do
National Lineman Appreciation Day
April 18 has three fixed celebrations, two ‘Third Thursday’ celebrations and one floating celebration. Today is National Lineman Appreciation Day.
From National Day Calendar:
If the power is on where you are reading this article, you likely have a lineman to thank. From the power plant, the grid crisscrossing the country, both above and underground, and right up to the meters on our homes, these men, and women, build and maintain the system that keeps our nation running. Regardless of the source, the electricity has to be transported by employing transformers and other equipment. Due to the dangerous conditions power poses, safety is of utmost importance for both the lineman and the consumer.
When mother nature destroys what our linemen have built up, they are on call to build it back up again as quickly as possible. These men and women work tirelessly to get emergency systems back in working order and, urgently, return service to remaining areas. Even when there is no crisis, they work under dangerous conditions on a daily basis. Whether they are working in trenches, near water or on high towers, the risks are extreme.
This day was first recognized on April 10, 2013, by the U.S. Senate [via] Resolution S Res 95.
Northwest Lineman College Appreciation Day Tribute Gallery
[I think some Glen Campbell would be appropriate…or, REM, if you prefer. ~Vic]
Tune Tuesday: April 16, 1974
Forty-five years ago, today, the #1 song on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop chart was Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me by Gladys Knight & The Pips. Written by Jim Weatherly, a former quarterback for the University of Mississippi, is the same songwriter that penned what became known as Midnight Train to Georgia, a previous hit for Gladys & her Pips. The song was originally recorded in 1973 by country music artist Ray Price.
From Wikipedia:
Weatherly told Tom Roland in The Billboard Book of Number One Country Hits that he wrote the song in 1971 and let his father-in-law first record it as a Christmas present for the latter’s wife. “I thought it was really strange that nobody’d written a song with that title — possibly somebody had but, I’d never heard it — so, I just sat down and let this stream of consciousness happen. I basically wrote it in a very short period of time, probably 30 minutes or an hour.”
Other artists to cover the song were Dean Martin, Steve Lawrence, Andy Williams, The Persuaders and, James Cleveland & The Charles Fold Singers.
The song made it to #3 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Lyrics:
I’ve had my share of life’s ups and downs
But fate’s been kind, the downs have been few
I guess you could say that I’ve been lucky
Well, I guess you could say that it’s all because of you
If anyone should ever write my life story
For whatever reason there might be
Ooo, you’ll be there between each line of pain and glory
‘Cause you’re the best thing that ever happened to me
Ah, you’re the best thing that ever happened to me
Oh, there have been times when times were hard
But always somehow I made it, I made it through
‘Cause for every moment that I’ve spent hurting
There was a moment that I spent, ah, just loving you
If anyone should ever write my life story
For whatever reason there might be
Oh, you’ll be there between each line of pain and glory
‘Cause you’re the best thing that ever happened to me
Oh, you’re the best thing that ever happened to me
I know, you’re the best thing, oh, that ever happened to me
Tune Tuesday: April 9, 1974
Forty-five years ago, today, the #1 song on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart was A Very Special Love Song by Charlie Rich. It was, also, the #1 song on the Billboard Hot Country chart, simultaneously. Written by Billy Sherrill and Norro Wilson, it was released as a single in January 1974 from the album Very Special Love Songs. Inspiration for the song came from the soundtrack of the movie The Summer of ’42, composed by French pianist Michel LeGrand. Track listing #8, The Summer Knows, was the lyrics version of the movie’s main theme. Rich was quoted by Tom Roland of Billboard:
“I don’t think I stole from them [at] all but, that’s my favorite theme of all time. There’s not a similarity, and yet, you can understand what I was thinking about and where I was coming from.”
The song garnered a Best Country Song Grammy for songwriters Sherrill & Wilson. Rich won an AMA for Favorite Country Male Artist of 1975 (for 1974) and the album was nominated for Favorite Country Album. He also won a CMA for Entertainer of the Year (1974) and the album won Album of the Year (1974).
Lyrics:
Babe, somewhere I know I’m gonna find it, babe
It’ll have my love behind it
And it will be a symphony of all you mean to me
A Very Special Love Song
And babe, if there’s a way you know I’m gonna say it babe
If there’s a melody I’ll play it
I’ll play it through especially for you and all the words are true
A Very Special Love Song
So don’t be surprised if you’re sittin’ alone and you hear it
‘Cause I’m goin’ to sing it to the whole big lonely world
So turn your radio way down low and get near it
And I’ll tell the world I love you, girl
Babe, if there’s an ounce of love I’m gonna give it to you
Babe, if there’s a breath of life I’m gonna live it every day for you
And all the whole night through, singin’ just for you
