365 Day Song Challenge

365 Day Song Challenge: Day 34 – “Odds Are”

Posted on by Joe Parker

Day 34. A song that you try to get stuck in your head to replace the one that’s currently stuck there

“Odds Are” – Barenaked Ladies

Earworms. We all get them. Songs that you hear and they get stuck in your head, no matter what you try to do. And more often than not, it’s a song you don’t even like.

Wait a minute… That seems awfully familiar…

Oh yeah, yesterday’s post was a lot like this. So, now that you’ve got a song you hate stuck in your head and need to get it out? As a I mentioned in yesterday’s post you need to pass it on to someone else. But what if no one is around? Then what?

Well, since I feel bad about getting yesterday’s song stuck in your head, I’m going to give you a good song to replace it.

Actually, I still don’t feel bad about yesterday, because I continue to be “Lovin’ You”-free, but I will honor my promise to give you a good song to replace it. Because I’m nice like that. All right, fine, it’s because I have to for today’s post. Be that way.

The easiest choice, of course, is the theme to “I Dream Of Jeannie.” You laugh, but I guarantee it’s already stuck in your head. But you’re really no better off, are you? So the key, then, is to find something catchy but not annoying.

In truth, there are a lot of choices. But one I’ve come across recently is “Odds Are” by Barenaked Ladies.

Some quick answers to your questions about BNL:

  • Yes, they’re still around.
  • No Stephen Page isn’t with them anymore.
  • Yes, they still do the songs that Stephen Page used to sing lead on. Other band members, like keyboardist Kevin Hearn, have taken over vocal duties on those.
  • No, Kevin Hearn can’t sing.

And with that, let’s talk about “Odds Are.” (Rest easy, Kevin Hearn does not sing lead.) I was first introduced to it via the video, which is hilarious. BNL’s humor is one of the things that drew me to them in the first place. Songs like “If I had $1,000,000, “Pinch Me,” “Who Needs Sleep?” and “Shopping” always make me chuckle, but their last few albums (after 2003’s Everything for Everyone) were full of bland songs with bad melodies. It was like they were in a bit of a funk. And I suppose if you’re not getting along with one of your band members, your output will suffer. Their previous album (their first post-Stephen Page) was a Wings-esque democratic exercise trying to show they were a band, but it was uneven. But with their most recent effort, Grinning Streak, they seemed to have righted the ship.

“Odds Are” is a catchy tune with lyrics that talk about how terrible certain deadly possibilities (being struck by lightning, plane crashes, etc) are, but the whole point is that odds are in our favor that those things are just never going to happen to the average person. “Sure things go wrong, but I’ll take my chances/Odds are long, so why not play?”

It’s a nice counterpoint to the doom and gloom we hear from the media every day in the name of ratings. (Hmm… seems like I also wrote another post about a song that sends up the media.) And it’s catchy. A good song to replace “The Macarena,” “Lovin’ You” or whatever horrendous song happens to be stuck there.

Buy it (I give you a handy linkabove), listen to it, let it get stuck in your head for a little while.

Or you can stick with “Lovin’ You” or go with “I Dream of Jeannie.” Your choice.

For a chuckle or two:


365 Day Song Challenge: Day 33 – “Lovin’ You”

Posted on by Joe Parker

Day 33. A song that you can’t even think of without it getting stuck in your head

“Lovin’ You” – Minnie Riperton

Earworms.We all get them. Songs that you hear and they get stuck in your head, no matter what you try to do. And more often than not, it’s a song you don’t even like.

Such is the case here. I find this to be a very good example of a song from the 70s. I could stop there, but that’s not the whole thought. This is: I find this to be a very good example of a song from the 70s that is simply terrible. Just awful.

And yet, all it takes is a few notes to get it stuck in my head. And the worst part is, it’s not even the whole song that gets stuck there. It’s just this part:

La la la la la
La la la la la
La la la la laa
Laa laaa la laaa la la.


If you’re good, and you happen to not be familiar with the song by name or artist, you might be able to place the song just from that. But probably not. That’s like trying to figure out a song by simply tapping out the notes. Possible but unlikely. So I suggest you click on the play button to the right. You’ll know what I mean. (It’s the last part of the sample.)

I should probably say I’m sorry for planting that in your head. But I’m not. Sorry that is. The fact is that this &$@!ing song has been stuck in my head for days now in preparation for this post. So the sooner I can pass it on to someone else and get it the hell out of my head, the better.

You see, that’s the other part of the earworm phenomenon: you have to pass it to someone else to truly get it out of your head.

And this one is evil. All it takes is for Laura to sing “La la la la la” and it’s over. Five notes. Hours of torture. This is now your fate.

So, now that I’ve been mean and planted this insidious beast on you, I can also pass along some interesting trivia about the song. Because it seems to have a little more than the average.

  • Minnie Riperton was the mother of Maya Rudolph (of SNL, Bridesmaids, that awful show with Christina Applegate and Gob Bluth).
  • Maya Rudolph was in the studio when this song was recorded. (The amount of therapy she had to undergo afterward is unknown.)
  • The song went to #1 in 1975 (probably only because it was stuck in everyone else’s heads, too; an earworm is a powerful force). It was the 400th #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
  • According to Wikipedia, “Lovin’ You” was among the first several songs to top the U.S. pop chart without the help of a percussion instrument. Prior examples of percussionless #1s include “Time In A Bottle” by Jim Croce (maybe I should have used that song yesterday) and (ha!) “Yesterday” by The Beatles.

On a sad and serious note, Minnie Riperton died in 1979 (at only 31 years old) of breast cancer, mostly because she didn’t get diagnosed until it had metastasized. Once diagnosed, she was given only about six months to live. It’s hard to believe in this day and age, but in the 70s, talk of breast cancer was still sort of taboo, and she was one of the first celebrities to publicly talk about her diagnosis. Now football players wear pink to continue to raise awareness. How far we’ve come (in a very good direction). I don’t joke about cancer. I do crazy things to help fight cancer instead. Donations are still open. Consider donating. The proceeds go to Dana Farber.

Or else I’ll get another song stuck in your head.

365 Day Song Challenge: Day 32 – “All Of Me”

Posted on by Joe Parker

Day 32. A song that plays to your inner hopeless-romantic.

“All Of Me” – John Legend

Y’know, I had this post all figured out until the Grammys came along and screwed everything up. I was all set to talk about Jim Croce’s “Time In A Bottle” which is about as good as a sappy hopeless-romantic songs as you get, and then John Legend plays “All Of Me” live and I had to scrap it. How dare he introduce me to such a pretty song and make me change my well-laid plans? The big jerk.

Actually, it’s probably for the best. It wasn’t that long ago that I wrote about another Jim Croce song and since my selections thus far have trended old, I needed a recent song to prove that I’m still relevant and hip.  Or something. (Just to show you how hip I am, I’d never even heard of John Legend before last year’s Grammys. At least I can still learn.)

While “Time In A Bottle” is mostly about stopping time and shutting out the world to spend every second with the one you love, “All Of Me” is more about sharing everything you have with the person you love. Not in a “hey, I just farted under the covers” sort of way. But in a “even when you’re being a little crazy or even when we fight, you’re still my soul mate” kind of way (which is much nicer sentiment than the first one, at least for most people).

Both songs are minimalist, with voice and very little instrumentation. These guys can pull this off, unlike some other people we know. They’re both “nice” songs and a bit sappy. And from time to time I like sappy and mooshy. I’m a romantic at heart, so these types of songs kinda get me right there. Big deal. You wanna fight about it? (Points if you get the reference.)

I do have to say, the album version of “All Of Me” doesn’t quite have the life of the version John Legend performed at the Grammys.There was a live recording available, too, but even that wasn’t quite up to par with the Grammys. I guess he just keeps getting better at performing it. At any rate, the album version does the job.

On a complete side note, I may need to reconsider my position on going to live shows. It seems like the music that has grabbed me the most lately are things that I’ve seen live (as in, they were being performed live, and not just on an album, even if it wasn’t me actually being there to see them live.) I’ll just have to keep weighing the pros and cons of this “being a shut-in” thing.

Okay, back to less sappy things now.

(Who else is impressed that I’ve made it to month #2 without missing a day? Cool huh? Give me time.)

365 Day Song Challenge: Day 31 – “Don’t Forget My Name”

Posted on by Joe Parker

Day 31. Your class song (or what you want your class song to be).

“Don’t Forget My Name”

I’m going to assume that by “class song” they mean “prom theme.” Because otherwise, I have no clue what to put here.

I barely remember my Senior Prom. And it has nothing to do with alcohol. It’s more that, much like a wedding, it’s there and then it’s gone. If you don’t actually remind yourself to take it in, it sort of happens in spite of you and it’s all a big blur. I have a few pictures, but given the cameras of the time (remember film?) most of those are even more blurry than my memories. I have one photo that’s so blurry you can’t tell if it’s my friend Kris or George Burns. It wasn’t like it is today where you can take 600 pictures. And video. And instantly post them on social media. And then instantly regret that you posted them on social media because of all the incriminating things you’re doing in said photos and videos.

On second thought, thank God it wasn’t like it is today.

I barely remember our prom theme either. You see, today’s post is a little difficult, because outside of the just-shy-of-500 people who graduated from Cathedral High School in 1989, there probably aren’t too many people who have heard this song.

We were given the “normal” choices. (I seem to remember “Angel” by Aerosmith and “Forever Young” by Rod Stewart being choices. There were others on the list, but damned if I can remember them.) But in a slightly different move, some members of our class wrote and recorded the song that became our prom theme.

There are pros and cons to this.

Pros:

  • It’s pretty cool that someone had enough talent and drive to write and record a song.
  • I’m sure lots of classes had “Angel” or “Forever Young” as their theme, but one and only one school in the United States had ours. And that is also really cool.
  • It was a pretty good song if I remember correctly.

Cons:

  • If you didn’t buy the tape you had no way to hear it outside the prom.
  • I haven’t heard the song in 25 years. (I didn’t buy the tape.)

In this particular case, it’s too bad it wasn’t like it is today. The song would be available as MP3 and probably on iTunes. Which would be pretty cool.

Anyway, as a result of Facebook, I’m in contact with more people from my high school class than I ever would have thought possible even 10 years ago. In fact, there are people I’m in contact with on Facebook that I didn’t even talk to in high school. (I’ll count this as a good thing.)

So there’s hope. I recently got in touch with the composer of the song and asked about a digital copy. He didn’t have one, but he said it had been on his to-do list for some time, and that he would try to get me a copy. So maybe I’ll be able to revisit this post shortly. It’ll be like a little time capsule on the Internet.

Maybe it’ll make it on iTunes yet.

365 Day Song Challenge: Day 30 – “Crazy On You”

Posted on by Joe Parker

Day 30. A song from a band/artist that you are planning to see in the next 6 months:

“Crazy On You” — Heart

Heart - Crazy On YouAh, to hear “Crazy On You” for the first time again. When the acoustic guitar starts, with Nancy Wilson plucking out those notes, you know she’s good, but you still don’t have a clue as to what’s coming. When she starts strumming the chords on the acoustic, you can start to feel where this might be going. And then the electric guitar riff kicks in. Brilliant.

Add Ann Wilson’s vocals and it goes to another level. It all becomes more frenetic and impassioned as the song continues. Until, by the last chorus, you feel a little spent.

“Barracuda” may be Heart’s signature song, but for my money, “Crazy On You” is the better song. I was 5 when this song came out, but thanks to my brother and myriad classic rock stations, I’ve known about it for a long time. I gained a whole new appreciation for it last year when we watched the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction. Heart (the entire original line-up) took the stage and launched into this song. It packs a punch on record, but it scored a wallop during that live performance. I get this thing when a song really gets me where my face flushes. Well, I don’t know if it actually flushes, but I can feel it in my cheeks. The second the electric guitar started, I felt it. I was blown away.

Ann Wilson has taken care of her voice. Nearly 40 years after this song first appeared, she can still hit the notes. It was amazing. (Compare this to Geddy Lee’s cringe-inducing performance —at around 3:40— at the same induction ceremony. I love Rush, but please, Geddy, hang it up.)

“Barracuda” followed and that was really good, too, but like I said, “Crazy On You” is the one that does it for me. Watching it we agreed that if Heart came around, we really ought to go see them. Which is saying something, because as I’ve mentioned before, I don’t go to a lot of live shows anymore.

And then in December I got the email saying that they were coming to the Providence Performing Arts Center. I didn’t hesitate. I promptly purchased tickets, even though it means we’ll be out late on a school night. (Oh, wait, we’re adults with no kids. We can do whatever we want!)

I’m pretty excited for this show. It won’t have the acrobatics of a Pink show, but that’s okay. I think we’ll be properly entertained anyway. Heart’s been doing  this since before Pink was born. That’s got to count for something.

I think we can pretty well rest assured that we’ll hear “Crazy On You.” We may have to wait a while for it, but we’ll hear it.

And I bet my cheeks flush.

The performance that directly led to ticket purchase: