7 posts tagged “70s”

I know that for many this song is cringe-inducing, but I still like it after all these decades, especially that slide guitar part.

A pre-hit video of Maria Muldaur singing "Midnight at the Oasis".

This song is a guilty pleasure for all the wrong reasons. Don't ask me what that means.

A trio of instrumentals that in one way or another share a space theme. Space was the fad concept of the 70s; I have the empty Whip-It canisters to prove it.

Chick Corea interview on the Return to Forever reunion tour.

    Here's a haunting little tune! A new wife who fights the ghost of her husband's deceased first spouse. Jessi Colter wrote the song, and sang and played piano on the recording.
    Two elements are at work here. The lyrics and the passion in the melody, of course, but for me, the most interesting part of this song was that piano!
    Slightly out of tune with that honky-tonk tone, but played as though all the bar's patrons had left while a breeze through an open window blows out the stench of tobacco smoke and overflowing urinals. This was also the first song I ever picked out on a piano, and mastering that slightly out-of-time harmony was a bear, let me tell you.
    "My eyes are not blue, but mine won't leave you." Wow, what a line! So much imagery in those ten short words. The dead blue eyes of a cold, buried wife, the firey-eyed rage that only love can conjure, a bit of contempt for the previous woman for causing such pain in her husband, and finally the continuing love of the living. This is the summit of songwriting, and indeed, this was the only successful song for Jessi Colter.

    I can thank my little sister for this one; she was an Osmonds fanatic. She talked our mother into buying the new 45, "Crazy Horses", and she couldn't wait to get home to hear it.
    The disappointment on her face once she heard the opening screech breaks my heart to this day. I know the pain of having your favorite band go in a direction that you can't stand, much like losing a longtime girl- or boyfriend.
    On the other hand, I loved "Crazy Horses". That hard no-nonsense drumbeat and the wailing guitars with that sneering synth screech totally connected with the direction my tastes in music were headed.
    Interestingly, listen to the horn section, a close variation of that horn riff will appear a few years later in Alice Cooper's song "Welcome To My Nightmare". Alice also pays direct homage to the Osmonds later on that LP in the song, "Department Of Youth", with the lyric:

We're the department of youth.
We've got the power.
And who gave it to you?
Donny Osmond!
What?!

The YouTube video linked above is lip-synched, though done very well.

    Ah, lyrics in the Top 40 of the early 70s rarely get as blatantly sexual as "Brand New Key" by Melanie.

    At first, I passed this novelty record off as fluff, fairly cheeky for a 13-year-old who embraced "Sugar Sugar" as prime musicianship, eh? However, that attitude changed when I overheard my mother and her sister giggling together over the lyrics while pretending faux indignation. So, I gave it another listen and the flashbulb went off in my head, although comprehending the "all around the world" euphemism took another few years.

It almost seems like you're avoiding me.
I'm okay alone, but you got something I need.
Well, I got a brand new pair of roller skates;
You got a brand new key.

and later:

I ride my bike, I roller skate, don't drive no car.
Don't go too fast, but I go pretty far.
For somebody who don't drive,
I been all around the world.
Some people say, I done all right for a girl.