Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
Father Christmas (1977)
With Christmas right around the corner, I thought I'd write about some of my favorite Christmas songs leading up to the big day. Without a doubt, one of my all-time faves is "Father Christmas," the cynical and ass-kicking rocker from the Kinks.
One of the best things about the song is it doesn't take a treacly or solemn look at the holiday, but rather looks at the commercialization of Christmas from a working class point of view. Frontman Ray Davies sings from the perspective of a department store Santa who gets mugged by a group of kids. The single was released in November 1977; it was later included on the hits collection Come Dancing with the Kinks and added as a bonus track on the CD reissue of the 1978 album Misfits.
"When I was small I believed in Santa Claus/Though I knew it was my dad/And I would hang up my stocking at Christmas/Open my presents and I'd be glad/But the last time I played Father Christmas/I stood outside a department store/A gang of kids came over and mugged me/And knocked my reindeer to the floor/They said/Father Christmas, give us some money/Don't mess around with those silly toys/We'll beat you up if you don't hand it over/We want your bread so don't make us annoyed/Give all the toys to the little rich boys."
The song starts with Christmas bells, but then Dave Davies kicks in with a vicious guitar riff, making "Father Christmas" one of the first really rocking Christmas songs.
"Don't give my brother a Steve Austin outfit/Don't give my sister a cuddly toy/We don't want a jigsaw or monopoly money/We only want the real McCoy/Father Christmas, give us some money/We'll beat you up if you make us annoyed/Father Christmas, give us some money/Don't mess around with those silly toys/But give my daddy a job 'cause he needs one/He's got lots of mouths to feed/But if you've got one I'll have a machine gun/So I can scare all the kids on the street."
The song has since become a Christmas staple and has been covered by tons of bands, including Green Day, Bad Religion, Warrant, Bowling for Soup, Gigolo Aunts, Cheap Trick and the Riverboat Gamblers.
"Have yourself a merry merry Christmas/Have yourself a good time/But remember the kids who got nothin'/While you're drinkin' down your wine."
Christmas can be a tough time of year for some folks, so it helps to have a little motivation to get in the holiday spirit. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played two hours of Christmas jams to get in the mood. But if that's not enough, there's always this guy.
This playlist lives in a sleigh down by the river:
Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
The Reds, Pinks and Purples - Don't Be So Morbid This Christmas/Single
Young Satan in Love - Christmas in Hell/Single
Crocodiles - Christmas in Hell/Have Yourself a Merry Indie Christmas, Vol. 1
Swansea Sound - Happy Christmas to Me/Have Yourself a Merry Indie Christmas, Vol. 1
Hard Left - Skinheads Home for Christmas/Have Yourself a Merry Indie Christmas, Vol. 2
The Pocket Gods - Apocalyptic Christmas/Have Yourself a Merry Indie Christmas, Vol. 2
Dean & Britta & Sonic Boom - He's Coming Home/A Peace of Us
Grandaddy - It Was a Silent Night At Least Until Jeff Lynne Arrived/Have Yourself a Merry Indie Christmas, Vol. 4
The Raveonettes - Christmas Ghost/Have Yourself a Merry Indie Christmas, Vol. 4
April March and Los Cincos - Last Train to Christmas/Have Yourself a Merry Indie Christmas, Vol. 4
Los Campesinos! - A Doe to a Deer/A Los Campesinos! Christmas
Deer Tick - Country Ham/Hit Kringles
Me Against Misery - It Must Be Christmastime Again/Have Yourself a Merry Indie Christmas, Vol. 1
The Detox Twins - I Don't Like Christmas (But I Love the Sound)/Have Yourself a Merry Indie Christmas, Vol. 2
The Portrait - Elf Riot!/Have Yourself a Merry Indie Christmas, Vol. 2
Hour 2
The Ramones - Merry Christmas (I Don't Want to Fight Tonight)/Brain Drain
The Kinks - Father Christmas/Single
The Hives and Cyndi Lauper - A Christmas Duel/Single
Charles Brown - Merry Christmas, Baby/The Ultimate R&B Christmas
Donny Hathaway - This Christmas/The Ultimate R&B Christmas
Run DMC - Christmas in Hollis/Tougher Than Leather
St. Vincent - At the Holiday Party/Daddy's Home
Eldridge Rodriguez - Christmas Eve (At Old Country Buffet)/Christmas on the Allston-Brighton LIne
Slade - Merry Xmas Everybody/Single
T. Rex - Christmas Bop/T. Rexmas!
The White Stripes - Candy Cane Children/Merry Christmas from the White Stripes
Diet Cig - Happy Holiday/Simply Having a Wonderful Compilation
The Dollyrots - Messed Up Xmas/A Very Dollyrots Christmas
The Pursuit of Happiness - All That You Got Me for Christmas/Love Junk Deluxe
The Flaming Lips - Christmas at the Zoo/Clouds Taste Metallic
Illuminati Hotties - Xmas Wish List (What We All Asked For)/Simply Having a Wonderful Compilation
Sad13 - Shit for Christmas/Simply Having a Wonderful Compilation
Lilith - That Was the Worst Christmas Ever/A Very Allston Christmas Vol. 2
Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
Instant Karma! (1970)
In January 1970, the Beatles had already split up, but the world didn't know it yet. John Lennon told the other members he was leaving in a September 1969 band meeting, but the Let It Be album and movie hadn't come out yet, so he agreed to keep his departure quiet for the time being.
Lennon got the idea for "Instant Karma!" after a dinner conversation with his wife Yoko Ono and her former husband Tony Cox and his wife Melinde Kendall. They were discussing the idea that the consequences of your actions could occur immediately: instant karma. Lennon went into the studio and wrote the song with the idea that he would record and release it immediately. He then called fellow Beatle George Harrison, who he was still on good terms with, to come help him record it. Harrison brought in producer Phil Spector and the rest of the band included Klaus Voorman on bass, Billy Preston on Hammond organ and Alan White (who would go on to play with prog rock gods Yes) on drums. Later, a group of people from a nearby nightclub was recruited to provide backing vocals.
The song was recorded on January 27, although Spector's "Wall of Sound" technique required mucho overdubs--taking many sounds and making them sound like one--that took a week to finish. Even with all that work, Lennon released the song as his third single (previously released were "Give Peace a Chance" and "Cold Turkey") on February 6 in the U.K., crediting it to Lennon/Ono with the Plastic Ono Band. A remixed version came out on February 20 in the U.S., where it was titled "Instant Karma! (We All Shine On)" and credited to John Ono Lennon.
It immediately became one of Lennon's most memorable songs.
"Instant karma's gonna get you/Going to knock you right on the head/You better get yourself together/Pretty soon you're going to be dead/What in the world are you thinking of/Laughing in the face of love?/What on earth you trying to do?/It's up to you, yeah, you/Instant karma's gonna get you/Going to look you right in the face/You better get yourself together, darling/Come and join the human race/How in the world you gonna see?/Laughing at fools like me?/Who on earth do you think you are?/A superstar? Well, right you are."
The drunken revelers join in on the chorus.
"Well, we all shine on/Like the moon and the stars and the sun/Well, we all shine on/Everyone, come on."
"Instant Karma!" was an instant success. It went to #3 on the Billboard Hot 100, #2 in Canada and #5 in the U.K. The song became the first solo Beatle single to sell 1 million copies in the U.S.
"Instant karma's gonna get you/Gonna knock you off your feet/Better recognize your brothers/Everyone you meet/Why in the world are we here?/Surely not to live in pain and fear?/Why on earth are you there when you're everywhere?/Come and get your share/Well, we all shine on/Like the moon and the stars and the sun/Yeah, we all shine on/Come on and on and on, on, on."
Pleased with Spector's work on "Instant Karma," Lennon had him take over production work on the unfinished Beatles album, which was retitled Let It Be. McCartney didn't like Spector's approach. Two months after "Instant Karma!" came out, McCartney ended up spilling the beans about the Beatles breakup while promoting his first solo album. The Let It Be album was released in May 1970, followed by the documentary of the same name. Lennon, Harrison and Ringo Starr all released solo albums later in 1970.
The various Beatles would continue releasing music throughout the decade but never succumbed to the temptation to reunite, despite a $50 million offer from promoter Bill Sargent to do a reunion concert in 1974. Lennon released five more solo albums before taking a hiatus in 1975 after the birth of his son Sean to become a househusband. He released the single "(Just Like) Starting Over" in October 1980 and the album Double Fantasy the following month. On December 8, 1980, Lennon was shot to death by deranged fan Mark David Chapman; just hours earlier, Lennon had signed a copy of Double Fantasy for Chapman.
Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
Dancing with Myself (1980)
Like many others in the early 1980s, Billy Idol used the new medium of music video to become a star. But he got his start in the London punk scene of the mid-'70s.
Young William Broad joined the band Chelsea as a guitarist in late 1976, but quit after a few weeks along with bassist Tony James and drummer John Towe to form Generation X. Broad changed his name to Billy Idol and became the frontman of the band, adding guitarist Bob Andrews. The group soon started writing their own songs and recorded a demo. Towe was replaced by Mark Laff and in July 1977 the band signed with Chrysalis Records. They avoided the political lyrics of contemporaries like the Clash and combined the energy of punk with more melodic sounds influenced by older acts like the Who and the Kinks.
After releasing a few singles, the group released their self-titled debut in 1978 and toured constantly. The album hit #29 on the U.K. albums chart, and a single, "King Rocker," went to #11 on the U.K. singles chart in 1979. But the follow-up album, 1979's Valley of the Dolls, didn't fare as well, only reaching #51. Idol was beginning to indulge in hard drugs and the band quibbled over musical direction; Andrews was inspired by Joy Division and wanted more input in the songwriting, but Idol and James were going in more of a commercial dance-punk direction. Andrews quit the band in late '79 and Laff ended up leaving to join Andrews in a new band called Empire.
Idol and James recruited Terry Chimes (original drummer of the Clash) and guitarist Steve New and renamed the band Gen X, going with a New Romantic image. In addition to New, other guitarists came in to work on the band's new album including John McGeoch (Magazine, Siouxsie and the Banshees), Steve Jones (Sex Pistols) and Danny Kustow (Tom Robinson Band). The 1981 album was produced by Keith Forsey and called Kiss Me Deadly; Idol and James ultimately decided not to include New in the band because of HIS drug problem.
Despite that, New played lead guitar on the single "Dancing with Myself," which was released in October 1980, while Jones and Kustow provided additional guitar. Idol and James wrote the song after touring Japan in 1979 and seeing the patrons of a Tokyo disco dancing with their own mirrored reflections instead of each other.
"On the floors of Tokyo/Or down in London town to go, go/With a record selection and a mirror's reflection/I'm dancing with myself/When there's no one else in sight/In the crowded lonely night/Well, I wait so long for my love vibration/And I'm dancing with myself."
The song didn't do much in the U.K., only getting as high as #62 on the U.K. Singles chart.
"If I looked all over the world/And there's every type of girl/But your empty eyes seem to pass me by/Leave me dancing with myself/So let's sink another drink/And it'll give me time to think/If I had the chance, I'd ask the world to dance/And I'd be dancing with myself, oh oh/Dancing with myself, oh oh oh oh."
The album failed to make the U.K. charts and the band did a short tour, playing their last show in January 1981. By this point, Idol indicated to manager Bill Aucoin (known for his work with KISS) that he wanted to go solo, Chrysalis Records dropped the band, and the group broke up in February.
Idol moved to New York City and began working with guitarist Steve Stevens, recording an EP called Don't Stop. The EP featured a cover of Tommy James and the Shondells' hit "Mony Mony" and a re-recording of the Gen X song "Untouchables."
"Dancing with Myself" was also on Don't Stop, but it wasn't re-recorded. Instead, it was remixed from the 6-minute extended version of the song, fading down the guitars and bass and boosting the vocal and percussion tracks. The new 3:19 single was labeled as "Billy Idol featuring Generation X" and only reached #102 on Billboard's Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart and #27 on the Hot Dance Club Play chart.
But "Mony Mony" became a radio hit and then Idol's self-titled 1982 debut album scored hits with "Hot in the City" (#23 on the Hot 100) and "White Wedding," which got plenty of play on MTV and later reached #36 on the charts when it was reissued in 1983. The label also reissued "Dancing with Myself" along with a Tobe Hooper-directed video that also become popular on MTV.
The self-titled album hit #45 on the Billboard 200, but Idol's next album, 1983's Rebel Yell, was a huge hit. It reached #6 on the Billboard 200 and had four successful singles: the title track, "Eyes Without a Face," "Flesh for Fantasy" and "Catch My Fall." Idol's videos were played constantly on MTV and he became a huge star. His next album, 1986's Whiplash Smile, sold well, albeit not as well as Rebel Yell.
He was set to have two major acting roles in Hollywood movies, The Doors and Terminator 2, but had to pass after getting into a serious motorcycle accident in 1990 that nearly cost him a leg. His 1990 album Charmed Life hit #11 and "Cradle of Love" was a big hit, but Idol was unable to tour because of his injuries. His next album, 1993's Cyberpunk, was recorded using a Macintosh computer but it flopped in the U.S.
Idol has only released three albums since then, the most recently one coming in 2014. But he's continued to tour and released a best-selling autobiography, Dancing with Myself, in 2014.
Part 1 of my conversation with guest Jay Breitling about our favorite music of 2024. Listen to the episode below or download directly (right click and "save as").
Show notes:
The 16th annual year in review
First one was in 2009
Cybertrucks are dumb
Self-driving cars are also dumb
Taylor Swift just ended a monster tour
Music is a dead-end business for most
Spotify sucks
Country music is huge
Breitling: There are some good underground country artists
A good year for Tracy Chapman
Social media landscape is shifting
Lots of big music deaths: Quincy Jones, Kris Kristofferson, Steve Albini, Paul Di'Anno, Greg Kihn, Karl Wallinger
Getting out to some rock shows: Hallelujah the Hills, Nuggets tour, Gang of Four, Hoodoo Gurus, Sloan in Toronto
Breitling's honorable mentions: The TV show The Bear, Bug Club's song "Quality Pints," Fontaines D.C.'s "Favourite," Tsunami box set, Spectres, Kal Marks
Kumar's honorable mentions: Dale Crover, Buffalo Tom, Ekko Astral, Jack White, Ducks Ltd., Mary Timony, Los Campesinos
To be continued
Completely Conspicuous is available through Apple Podcasts. Subscribe and write a review!
The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.
Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
Steady, As She Goes (2006)
I just wrote about a side project that turned out to be a big hit for all involved (The Postal Service's "Such Great Heights") and here's another one. While it wasn't as huge as the Postal Service song, "Steady, As She Goes" by the Raconteurs was a catchy rocker that immediately caught the attention of indie rock fans everywhere.
In 2005, Jack White and the White Stripes were riding high with their fifth album Get Behind Me Satan, which hit #3 on both the Billboard 200 and U.K. album charts. White and his friend, singer-songwriter Brendan Benson, lived near each other and got together when Benson asked for help on a song he was working on. Benson had recorded a demo for the song "Steady, As She Goes" but was stuck on the line "Find yourself a girl and settle down," so White helped him with the lyrics. When bassist Jack Lawrence and drummer Patrick Keeler of the Cincinnati garage rock act the Greenhornes stopped by a few days later, White and Benson asked them to play on the song.
The recording of "Steady, As She Goes" was the first thing the four had done together and they liked it so much they kept an early version as the one they used on the eventual album they made, Broken Boy Soldiers. White's lyrics examined the notion of settling down and getting married.
"Find yourself a girl and settle down/Live a simple life in a quiet town/Steady as she goes (steady as she goes)/Steady as she goes (steady as she goes)/So steady as she goes. Your friends have shown a kink in the single life/You've had too much to think, now you need a wife/Steady as she goes."
The song features a crunchy guitar riff and '60s-inspired power pop construction, just a perfectly infectious ripper.
"Well here we go again/You've found yourself a friend that knows you well/But no matter what you do/You'll always feel as though you tripped and fell/So steady as she goes/When you have completed what you thought you had to do/And your blood's depleted to the point of stable glue/Then you'll get along/Then you'll get along."
Calling themselves the Raconteurs, the band made two videos for the song, one a performance video directed by Jim Jarmusch and the other starring Paul Reubens and featuring the band members racing soapbox derby cars. The song hit #54 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #1 on the Alternative Airplay chart, while reaching #4 on the U.K. Singles Chart. They were known as the Saboteurs in Australia, where a band already had the name Raconteurs and wouldn't give it up.
The album was released in March 2006 and the Raconteurs started touring, selling out mid-sized venues thanks to White's popularity. It was nominated for two Grammy awards but didn't win either.
White went back to the White Stripes, who released Icky Thump in 2007, and Benson, a prolific solo artist, released My Old, Familiar Friend in the same year. The Raconteurs returned in 2008 with their second album, Consolers of the Lonely, and toured again, playing big festival dates including Coachella and Bonnaroo. After a hiatus, the band played some festival dates in 2011. But no new Raconteurs material emerged until 2019's Help Us Stranger.
In the meantime, the White Stripes split up in 2011 and Jack White began a solo career, which continued with this year's No Name album. Benson continued to release solo albums. Lawrence played on numerous projects, including another Jack White group, the Dead Weather. Keeler joined the Afghan Whigs in 2014.
Things are quiet on the Raconteurs front at the moment, but that doesn't mean they won't get together in the future. Still, the first song they worked on remains their best.
Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
Two Tribes (1984)
Younger generations who only know life in the 1980s from watching old TV shows or retro creations like Stranger Things might have the impression that the '80s were all bright colors, big music and cocaine. And there certainly were those elements, but there was also plenty of Cold War tension between the West and the Soviet Union. For a while there, it seemed like thermonuclear war was inevitable.
It was an interesting time. ABC aired a movie called The Day After about the aftermath of a nuclear missile attack on the U.S. The movie aired on November 20, 1983, and was the seventh-highest rated non-sports show to that point, with more than 100 million estimated views of the initial broadcast. There was so much hype around it that we had a whole class discussion dedicated to it at school.
Naturally, pop culture reflected this atmosphere through movies like War Games and Red Dawn and from songs as varied as "Red Skies" by the Fixx, "1999" by Prince and "2 Minutes to Midnight" by Iron Maiden. A different, more exuberant take on the topic was presented by English dance pop act Frankie Goes to Hollywood, which made a big splash in the fall of '83 with their first single, "Relax."
Formed in Liverpool in 1980 by lead singer Holly Johnson, the first version of the group split up fairly soon after forming, but it was reformed by Johnson in 1982 with Peter Gill on drums and brothers Mark and Jed O'Toole on bass and guitar, respectively. Jed O'Toole left and was replace by his cousin Brian Nash, and the band later added dancer/backup singer Paul Rutherford. Johnson and Rutherford were openly gay and made no attempt to hide it in the band's music or performances, which was revolutionary for the time.
After performing on the British show The Tube wearing fetish gear, Frankie Goes to Hollywood was signed by ZTT Records, a new label co-founded by producer Trevor Horn (who was best known for his stint in the Buggles and as the post-Jon Anderson singer of Yes for one album and tour). Impressed by the band's in-your-face gay sexuality at a time when society was still pretty repressed, Horn recommended "Relax" as their first single and created a completely electronic version of the song without the band. The first video for the song was set in an S&M club and the band performed it on BBC's Top of the Pops in January 1984. The song was soon banned by the BBC, which created more publicity for the band, and it soon hit #1 on the U.K. singles chart; after four weeks in the top spot, the BBC reversed the ban.
The label also launched a promo blitz that included a line of t-shirts with slogans like "FRANKIE SAY RELAX" that became hugely popular. The song was also featured in the Brian De Palma thriller Body Double, spawning another video featuring scenes from the movie, which starred Melanie Griffith and also featured the band.
In June 1984, Frankie Goes to Hollywood released their second single, the anti-war banger "Two Tribes," which featured a funky guitar riff and a thumping bass line as Johnson gleefully sang about nuclear war. Add to that a video directed by Godley & Creme that features doppelgangers for U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Konstantin Chernenko, the Soviet secretary of the Communist Party, wrestling in front of the band and representatives from other world nations.
"When two tribes go to war/A point is all that you can score/(Score them all, score them all)/When two tribes go to war/A point is all that you can score/(Working for the black gas)/Cowboy number one/A born again poor man's son/(Poor man's son)/On the air America/I modeled shirts by Van Heusen/(Working for the black gas)."
The single was a huge success in the U.K., entering the singles chart at #1 on June 10 and staying there for nine straight weeks, while "Relax" climbed back up the charts to #2. It was the longest-running #1 single in the U.K. for the decade. The song featured snippets of narration from British public information films about how to survive a nuclear war.
"We got two tribes/We got the bomb/We got the bomb, yeah/Yeah/Sock it to me biscuits, now? Are we living in a land/Where sex and horror are the new gods?/Yeah/When two tribes go to war/A point is all that you can score."
The song wasn't quite as big in the U.S., where it hit #43 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #3 on the Dance Club Songs chart. But the video got plenty of play on MTV. It ends with Reagan and Chernenko realizing that everyone else is fighting around them, and the world explodes.
The band released their debut album, Welcome to the Pleasuredome, featuring both "Relax" and "Two Tribes," in October 1984. A follow-up single "The Power of Love" was released in November and also went to #1 in the U.K., and the fourth single. "Welcome to the Pleasuredome," went to #2.
By the end of 1984, Johnson began distancing himself from the band, which left the U.K. in 1985 for tax purposes and wrote songs for their second album in Ireland. There were media reports of band divisions and Nash later claimed that Simon Le Bon of Duran Duran was approached to replace Johnson but declined. Johnson stuck around and completed the album, called Liverpool. But it didn't fare nearly as well as the band's debut; the first single went to #4 but the album received bad reviews and the following singles were less successful. After the tour, the relationship between Johnson and the rest of the band was so strained that the band broke up. Johnson later told ZTT he planned to sign with MCA Records and ZTT filed an injunction to prevent the move; the High Court found in Johnson's favor and the band members were released from their contract. Nash, O'Toole and Gill tried to reform the band with a new singer, but Johnson blocked the project.
Johnson's first solo album, 1989's Blast, went to #1 in the U.K., but his 1991 follow-up was a flop. He was diagnosed with HIV that year and took time off to recuperate. The other members of Frankie had less success. In 1998, a band using the name Frankie Goes to Hollywood started touring the U.S., led by an American singer who claimed he was Johnson's brother and performed uncredited on the first Frankie album. Horn and the real band members disputed this, but the fake band kept performing at small clubs in the U.S. until an article was published in Spin about the controversy in September 2000.
The original members of Frankie Goes to Hollywood appeared on a 2003 episode of the VH1 show Bands Reunited but did not perform. A year later, the band reunited without Johnson and Nash (who declined to participate) to perform at a Prince's Trust charity concert at Wembley to celebrate Horn's 25 years as a record producer. Ryan Molloy was picked to be the new singer and Jed O'Toole replaced Nash. The band played a series of concerts in Europe in 2005 and remained active until 2007 as Forbidden Hollywood, since Johnson would not let them use the original name.
The original lineup finally reunited in 2023 for a concert celebrating Liverpool music for the Eurovision Song Contest, but only played one song, "Welcome to the Pleasuredome." A few days later, it was announced that a Frankie Goes to Hollywood biopic was in the works, based on Johnson's memoir, to be directed by Bernard Rose, who directed the first "Relax" video.
Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
Such Great Heights (2003)
Artists will often get involved with projects outside their main bands and many of these don't come close to matching the success of their regular gigs. But sometimes, those side projects blow up. It happened in 1995 for Lou Barlow, who had plenty of indie success with his bands Dinosaur Jr. and Sebadoh but scored a top 40 hit ("Natural One") with his side project the Folk Implosion. And several years later, it happened for Ben Gibbard and Jimmy Tamborello.
Both were well known in indie circles for their main gigs: Gibbard was the frontman of Death Cab for Cutie and Tamborello was better known as electronic music artists Dntel. Gibbard had contributed vocals for a song on the 2001 Dntel album Life is Full of Possibilities; the song, "(This is) The Dream of Evan and Chan," was so well received that Gibbard and Tamborello decided to collaborate on more music. They brought in Jenny Lewis, lead singer of Rilo Kiley, to provide backing vocals on several songs and eventually made her a full-fledged member of Postal Service.
The band got its name because of how it made its songs, sending songs on digital audio tapes through the mail to each other. The Postal Service's debut album Give Up was released in February 2003 on Sub Pop; it also featured contributions from Jen Wood and Gibbard's Death Cab bandmate Chris Walla.
"Such Great Heights" was one of the last songs the duo recorded, featuring backing vocals by Wood, and became the album's first single. The single was released along with two covers, one by Iron & Wine of "Such Great Heights" and one by The Shins of the Postal Service song "We Will Become Silhouettes." Both versions of "Such Great Heights" were popular at the same time, with Iron & Wine's downtempo version used in the film and soundtrack of the movie Garden State.
Gibbard went against type with the song's lyrics, opting to write about being in love instead of his usual focus on heartbreak.
"I am thinking it's a sign/That the freckles in our eyes/Are mirror images/And when we kiss they're perfectly aligned/And I have to speculate/That God himself did make/Us into corresponding shapes/Like puzzle pieces from the clay/And true it may seem like a stretch/But it's thoughts like this that catch/My troubled head when you're away/And when I am missing you to death/And when you are out there on the road/For several weeks of shows/And when you scan the radio/I hope this song will guide you home."
The Postal Service is airy and delicate, with Gibbard's vocals riding on top of the bleep bloop of electronic sounds bubbling underneath.
"They will see us waving from such great heights/Come down now, they'll say/But everything looks perfect from far away/Come down now but we'll stay."
The song hit #21 on the Billboard Hot 100, but it became ubiquitous thanks to judicious licensing by the band. In addition to being featured on Garden State, the song was used on commercials for M&Ms, Target, Ask.com, UPS and Kaiser Permanente. It was the original theme song for Grey's Anatomy, was used in the Broadway production of Moulin Rouge! The Musical and was in the teaser trailer for Disney/Pixar's 2025 film Elio. And it has been covered by Ben Folds, Amanda Palmer, Streetlight Manifesto and Joy Kills Sorrow. The album became Sub Pop's second most successful release behind Nirvana's debut Bleach.
"I tried my best to leave/This all on your machine/But the persistent beat/It sounded thin upon the sending/And that frankly will not fly/You'll hear the shrillest highs/And lowest lows with the windows down/And this is guiding you home."
The Postal Service toured for the album before Gibbard and Tamborello went back to their main projects, but the song kept rolling. In 2007, it was announced that they were working on a new Postal Service album, but Gibbard and Tamborello were so busy with their other projects that it never happened. However, in 2013, the two reunited with Lewis and recorded two new songs that were included on a 10th anniversary reissue of Give Up. They put a band together and did a world tour, and also released a hilarious video directed by Tom Scharpling of fictional 2002 auditions for the band featuring some great guest stars (see below). They called it their final tour and released a documentary concert film called Everything Will Change in 2014.
In 2020, the Postal Service released a live album, Everything Will Change, and in 2023, the band reunited to do a co-headlining tour with Death Cab for Cutie. The Postal Service performed Give Up in its entirety while Death Cab played its Transatlanticism front to back, in celebration of both albums' 20th anniversaries. The tour lasted into September 2024.
Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
To Live and Die in L.A. (1985)
In the 1980s, movie soundtracks were big business...as were movies, and, well, music. People actually bought stuff. But with the advent of MTV and shows like Miami Vice that melded music and visuals, a movie's soundtrack became a big part of the film.
Director William Friedkin had made some huge movies in the '70s (The French Connection, The Exorcist), but by 1985, his career was in a bit of a lull. That year, he came back with a strong film in To Live and Die in L.A., a neo-noir action thriller in which two Secret Service agents chase a counterfeiter. The movie starred William Petersen as agent Richard Chance and Willem Dafoe as counterfeiter Eric Masters and both give excellent performances. I saw the movie in the theaters when I was home from my freshman year of college and really enjoyed it.
But the big surprise was that Friedkin chose the English synth pop act Wang Chung to compose the movie's soundtrack, based on their previous studio album, 1984's Points on the Curve. Friedkin was a fan of the album, especially the songs "Dance Hall Days" (the band's big hit to that point, which hit #16 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #1 on the Hot Dance/Disco chart) and "Wait." He used both those songs in the movie and then had the band record new music.
Wang Chung got its start in 1980 as Huang Chung (which means "yellow bell" in Mandarin), formed by Jeremy Ryder (who used the stage name Jack Hues) on lead vocals and guitar, Nick Feldman on guitar and Darren Costin on drums. They released a self-titled album as Huang Chung in 1982 on Arista Records but none of the singles nor the album charted. After signing with Geffen, the band changed the spelling of its name to Wang Chung to make the pronunciation easier for English speakers and released Points on the Curve in 1983. "Don't Let Go" got up to #38 on the Billboard Hot 100 and "Dance Hall Days" became a bigger hit.
Wang Chung toured with the Romantics, Berlin and the Cars. Costin left the band after the tour, starting his own band called Heroes, and Hues and Feldman continued as a duo. In addition to their work on Friedkin's film, the group recorded songs for the soundtracks of The Breakfast Club and First Born. Producer Peter Wolf (not the J. Geils singer, but the guy who co-wrote "We Built This City") was used as the group's drummer for this work.
Friedkin specifically asked Wang Chung not to record a theme song for To Live and Die in L.A., but after seeing a cut of the movie, the group made one anyway and gave it to the director. He was impressed and kept it as part of the film and soundtrack.
I remember seeing videos for the band's Points on the Curve songs and not being overly impressed, but "To Live and Die in L.A." reached another level. It was dramatic and gritty, like the movie, really capturing the mood of a very dark film.
"In the heat of the day, every time you go away/I have to piece my life together/Every time you're away/In the heat of the day/In the dark of the night, every time I turn the light/I feel that God is not in heaven/In the dark of the night/The dark of the night/I wonder why I live alone here/I wonder why we spend these nights together/Is this the room I'll live my life forever?/I wonder why in L.A./To live and die in L.A./I wonder why we waste our lives here/When we could run away to paradise/But I am held in some invisible vice/And I can't get away/To live and die in L.A."
I haven't listened to the rest of the soundtrack, which essentially served as Wang Chung's third album, so I couldn't tell you what that sounds like, but man, what a killer title song. It was released as a single and the video got plenty of play on MTV. The song got to #41 on the Billboard Hot 100; the album hit #85.
"If I let myself go and for where I just don't know/I'd maybe hit some cold new river/That led out to the sea/An unknown sea/I'd either swim or I'd drown, or just keep falling down and own/I think it's that that makes me quiver/Just keep falling down/Down, down, down/I wonder why I live alone here/I wonder why we spend these nights together/Is this the way I'll live my life forever?/I wonder why in L.A./To live and die in L.A."
The movie was a hit, getting mostly good reviews and grossing $17.3 million, spending six weeks in the top 10 at the box office. Petersen, who had been mainly a stage actor to that point, followed it up with a terrific performance in Michael Mann's 1986 film Manhunter (best known for featuring the first appearance of Hannibal Lecter, played by Brian Cox). Dafoe had played some bit roles in the previous few years, but this was the first movie to really highlight his unique style; he shot to stardom the following year in Platoon and has had an interesting and successful career since.
As for Wang Chung, they followed the soundtrack up with their fourth studio album Mosaic in 1986, which featured two top 10 hits in "Everybody Have Fun Tonight" (which included the immortally fun/stupid line "Everybody Wang Chung tonight") and "Let's Go." Their next album, 1989's The Warmer Side of Cool, was a disappointment and the band split up in 1990.
Feldman teamed up with Culture Club drummer Jon Moss to form the band Promised Land, which released an album in 1992. Hues worked on soundtracks and recorded a solo album that was never released; he later teamed with Tony Banks of Genesis to form Strictly Inc., which released an album in 1995.
Wang Chung reunited in 1997, releasing a greatest hits collection. They did a Club 80s Flashback Tour with A Flock of Seagulls, Missing Persons and Gene Loves Jezebel. In the years since, they've reunited periodically to release songs or play shows. Hues went on hiatus in 2016 and was replaced by Cutting Crew vocalist Gareth Moulton, but he returned the following year. They did another '80s tour earlier this year.
The song "To Live and Die in L.A." had a bit of a renaissance earlier this year when comedian John Mulaney used it as the theme of his six-episode Netflix talk show Everybody's in L.A.
Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
867-5309/Jenny (1981)
Back with another one-hit wonder, although in the case of Tommy Tutone, that's not actually true. Everybody (including me until 5 minutes ago) thinks that "867-5309/Jenny" is the band's (it's a band, not a dude) only hit, but they actually had a top 40 song a year earlier with "Angel Say No," which hit #38 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Nevertheless, the group is known for one song and one song only.
The band was formed in San Francisco in 1978 by Tommy Heath (lead vocals, rhythm guitar, keyboards), Jim Keller (lead guitar) and Terry Nails (bass). The band name came from Heath's nickname. Over the years, the band has had many different bassists and drummers, and indeed on their second album, Tommy Tutone 2, Jon Lyons and Victor Carberry play bass and drums, respectively, on side 1's five songs and Lonnie Turner and Rick Cutler perform those duties on side 2.
Side 1 featured the band's big hit, "867-5309/Jenny." The song had a mythology built around it, with both Heath and Keller claiming it was written about a real woman whose number was written on a men's room wall. But co-writer Alex Call said in a 2004 interview that he came up with the idea of Jenny and the phone number while sitting in his backyard, and then his friend Keller suggested the number was written on a bathroom wall.
Kicking off with a great riff, the song features Heath singing about Jenny.
"Jenny Jenny, who can I turn to?/You give me something I can hold on to/I know you think I'm like the others before/Who saw your name and number on the wall/Jenny, I've got your number/I need to make you mine/Jenny, don't change your number/867-5309/867-5309/867-5309/867-5309."
The song led to a fad of people dialing the number to see if Jenny was there. People who had the misfortune of having the number would report getting bombarded with calls, even as much as 20 years after the song came out.
"Jenny Jenny, you're the girl for me/Oh, you don't know me but you make me so happy/I tried to call you before but I lost my nerve/I tried my imagination but I was disturbed/Jenny I've got your number/I need to make you mine/Jenny, don't change your number/867-5309/867-5309/867-5309/867-5309/I got it (I got it) I got it/I got your number on the wall/I got it (I got it) I got it/For a good time, for a good time call."
It took a while to get some traction, but once the song started getting radio play, it would get plenty of requests. The song got as high as #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #1 on the Rock Top Tracks chart; the album hit #20 on the Billboard 200. It's one of those undeniably '80s songs
Tommy Tutone released another album, National Emotion, in 1983, but it didn't get much promotion from Columbia and barely cracked the Billboard 200. The band broke up after the album came out and didn't reunite until 1996; they released albums in 1996 and 1998. The latest album came out in 2019. Heath is the only original member left in the band.
The song has been covered by many artists, including Fitz of Depression, Everclear and even David Lee Roth.
Hey, it's Friday the 13th so I suppose I shouldn't be totally surprised. I was traveling for work this week so I put together an episode of Stuck In Thee Garage before I left and then uploaded it to BFF's website last night. And then when it was time for the show to run on the station...it didn't. This happens every so often where there's a technical glitch and the robo DJ just keeps running. What are you gonna do? Anyhoo, the show featured songs about going forward in hour 1 and going backward in hour 2, and here it is (and it's listenable on-demand on the BFF site).
This playlist has returned from the grave:
Hour 1: Forward
Artist - Song/Album
The Hellacopters -Where the Action Is/Payin' the Dues
Temple of the Dog - Pushin' Forward Back/Temple of the Dog
Poptone - Go!/Poptone
Sweeping Promises - Falling Forward/Hunger for a Way Out
Youth Brigade - Full Speed Ahead/Single
Nine Inch Nails - Ahead of Ourselves/Bad Witch
David Bowie - Move On/Lodger
Eddie Kendricks - Keep On Truckin' (Part 1)/Eddie Kendricks
Shana Falana - Go/Set Your Lightning Fire Free
Poster Children - Carrie Look Ahead/Toreador Squat
Drakulas - Fashion Forward/Terminal Amusements
Superchunk - What Do You Look Forward to?/Here's to Shutting Up
The Tragically Hip - Ahead by a Century/Trouble at the Henhouse
Ben Kweller - I Gotta Move/Ben Kweller
Spoon - Something to Look Forward to/Kill the Moonlight
Yo La Tengo - Paddle Forward/Fade
Hour 2: Backward
Frightened Rabbit - Backwards Walk/The Midnight Organ Fight
R.E.M. - Devil Rides Backwards (demo)/Automatic for the People Reissue
Robyn Hitchcock - I Wanna Go Backwards/I Wanna Go Backwards
A Tribe Called Quest - Movin' Backwards/We Got It From Here...Thank You 4 Your Service
David Bowie - Up the Hill Backwards/Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)
Glitterer - Little Backwards Glance/Life is Not a Lesson
World Party - And I Fell Back Alone/Goodbye Jumbo
Ted Leo - Can't Go Back/The Hanged Man
Kurt Vile - Palace of OKV in Reverse/(watch my moves)
St. Vincent - Birth in Reverse/St. Vincent
Obits - Back and Forth/I Blame You
Rancid - Backslide/Life Won't Wait
Speedy Ortiz - Backslidin'/Twerp Verse
Torche - Reverse Inverted/Harmonicraft
Mark Lanegan Band - Sideways in Reverse/Bubblegum
Humdrum - There and Back Again/Every Heaven
Gladie - Born Yesterday/Don't Know What You're In Until You're Out
