october 26
Hans 2021 Song Draft: Round Seven-Pick Ten-Somebody’s Baby-Pat Benatar (1993)
Hanspostcard has a song draft challenge. This is my Round Seven pick.
Pat Benatar exploded on the music scene in the Summer/Fall of 1979 with her debut album In The Heat of the Night. I was in 8th grade and the first song I remember hearing on the radio from the album was Heartbreaker. I went to my hometown’s only mall and headed into a store called Stereo Village. I wanted this song and, when I asked for it, the guy trying to help me automatically thought I was talking about Led Zepplin. When I mentioned Pat Benatar’s song, he didn’t know what I was talking about. He told me to sing some of the music for him…so, my 13 year old self obliged, right there in the middle of the store, “in front of God and everybody” (Southern colloquialism). He still didn’t know the song but, said “Nice voice!” I never did get that 45 and a few months later, rolling into the new decade, We Live For Love was released in February and, I liked it even better than Heartbreaker. Crimes of Passion, her sophomore album, came out the following August and the hits kept coming. You Better Run (The Young Rascals cover) became the second video broadcast on the debut of MTV, behind Video Killed the Radio Star by The Buggles (a 45 I managed to get my hands on). I was a devoted fan at that point without owning a single song or album. By the time of my 16th birthday, a young man I was dating presented me with the Crimes of Passion album. I was overjoyed.
I nearly got to see her perform during the 1986 Seven the Hard Way tour. It started in January 1986 and stopped, abruptly, in April. She was a mom by then and family pressures caused cancellations. Greensboro Coliseum lost out. I did get to see her for the Can’t Stop Rockin’ tour in 1995 in Raleigh. Prior to those two, my mother considered me too young to see the earlier concerts. 😭
Gravity’s Rainbow was her ninth, and the last studio album to be in the Billboard 200 chart in the top 100s, peaking at #85 on June 19, 1993 and making it to #44 in Canada for one week on July 31, 1993. Named after the Thomas Pynchon novel, it was also the last album released on Chrysalis Records. It was not one of her better albums, statistically speaking but, it yielded three singles, two of which, I love. My favorite album of hers is, of course, the tour that got cancelled in 1986. That being said, after all these years of her music catalog, Somebody’s Baby is my favorite single, released July 5, 1993 (my second favorite single is Le Bel Age). She and Spyder James had already geared down quite a bit, releasing the blues-themed True Love in 1991, to much less fanfare than Wide Awake in Dreamland from 1988. True Love was her first album that did not rate with RIAA.
Somebody’s Baby did not chart on Billboard but, it did chart in the UK on the Singles Chart (#48), in Canada (#41) and in New Zealand (#36).
I am a fan of Benatar like Hans & Max are of the Beatles. I love this one because of the lyrics, the mood, the blend of the music and her stunning voice, though, in this piece, it is not quite as “up there” as when she sings Invincible (she has a four octave range). I am normally indifferent to most lyrics, choosing to immerse myself in musical arrangements and wonderful voices but, the writing speaks to my heart and I confess that, the first time I heard this, it brought me to tears. ~Vic
Additional:
BenatarGiraldo (Official Website)
Gravity’s Rainbow (RockWired/Brian Lush/06-12-2018)
Pat Benatar (Hip Online/01-05-2008)
Pat Benatar: Gravity’s Rainbow (Rolling Stone/Andrea Odintz/2003/Web Archive)
Richmond: Benatar’s Rise to Fame (Richmond Times-Dispatch/Nicole Kappatos/04-11-2017/Web Archive)
Unofficial Video?
Live On Leno
Regis & Kathie Lee Show (Stripped Down Short Version)
Wayback Wednesday: Guy Fawkes Convicted 1606
The Gunpowder Plot of 1605, […] often called the Gunpowder Treason Plot or the Jesuit Treason [in earlier centuries], was a failed assassination attempt against King James I by a group of provincial English Catholics led by Robert Catesby.
The plan was to blow up the House of Lords during the State Opening of Parliament on [November] 5, 1605, as the prelude to a popular revolt in the Midlands, during which James’s nine-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, was to be installed as the Catholic head of state. Catesby may have embarked on the scheme after hopes of securing greater religious tolerance under King James had faded, leaving many English Catholics disappointed. His fellow plotters were John and Christopher Wright, Robert and Thomas Wintour, Thomas Percy, Guy Fawkes, Robert Keyes, Thomas Bates, John Grant, Ambrose Rookwood, Sir Everard Digby and Francis Tresham. Fawkes, who had 10 years of military experience fighting in the Spanish Netherlands in the failed suppression of the Dutch Revolt, was given charge of the explosives.
The plot was revealed to the authorities in an anonymous letter sent to William Parker, 4th Baron Monteagle, on [October] 26, 1605. During a search of the House of Lords in the evening on [November] 4, 1605, Fawkes was discovered guarding 36 barrels of gunpowder, enough to reduce the House of Lords to rubble, and [was] arrested. Most of the conspirators fled from London as they learned of the plot’s discovery, trying to enlist support along the way. Several made a stand against the pursuing Sheriff of Worcester and his men at Holbeche House […]. [In] the ensuing battle, Catesby was one of those shot and killed. At their trial on [January] 27 1606, four hundred, fifteen years ago, today, eight of the survivors, including Fawkes, were convicted and sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered.
The thwarting of the Gunpowder Plot was commemorated for many years afterwards by special sermons and other public events such as the ringing of church bells, which evolved into the British variant of Bonfire Night of today.
Wikipedia Summary
Additional Reading:
The Trial of the Gunpowder Conspirators (The Tudor Society/Claire Ridgway/January 27, 2018)
Movie Monday: Die rote Hand 1960
Sixty years ago, today, the Italian-German film Die rote Hand or The Red Hand was released. Directed by Kurt Meisel, written & produced by Ernst Neubach, it starred Paul Hubschmid, Hannes Messemer and Eleonora Rossi Drago.
Finding specific information on this film has been difficult. It appears that this was based upon a French terrorist organization’s bombings and assassinations that took place in Germany in September 1956, June 1957, October 1958, March 1959 and November 1959. IMDb doesn’t have a summary or synopsis but, I did find a translated plot from the German side of Wikipedia (Translate The Web Link):
This arms dealer drama takes place in Germany and Switzerland […] during the Cold War.
Manora Khan, consul of an unspecified Asian country, intends to hunt down his Cuban colleague Maria Gomez’s supply of weapons intended for her country. To this end, he orders the help of the smart Johnny Zamaris, with whom he has a common past: Johnny had once [been involved with] his great love, the actress Violetta Scotoni. [It] soon becomes apparent that no one is what he seems to be […]. Consul Khan turns out to be the leader of a secret organization called “The Red Hand” that deliberately kills competing gun-pushers. Competitor Johnny is more than just a smart Sonnyboy [sic]. [In] truth, he works as a defensive officer in his country, with the task of smashing “The Red Hand” again. Both men, who once competed for Violetta, die while serving in their respective [fatherlands], with Johnny being knocked down in the back of a black sedan with a machine gun after a final tender embrace with Violetta.
The writer and producer of this film was born in Austria but, emigrated to France after Anschluss. Unhappy with a Der Spiegel report, he wrote an opposite viewpoint. Der Speigel, in turn, panned the film.
I couldn’t find a trailer on YouTube. ~Vic
Additional Reading:
The State as a Terrorist: France and the Red Hand (Perspectives on Terrorism)