Saints – "I'm Stranded" (1976)

Like a snake calling on the phone

I’ve got no time to be alone

(I don’t know what the hell it means either.)

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Who was the first punk rock group?  Good question!

The Sex Pistols, the Damned, the Clash, and the Buzzcocks were all great punk bands – but none of them were the first punk band.

Some people say that the Ramones were the first true punk band, while others point to the Dictators.  

The Dictators were formed before the Ramones were, and their first album was released almost a year earlier than the Ramones’ eponymous debut album.  But while the music of the Dictators sounded pretty punk, their original songs had a certain tongue-in-cheek character – I’m not sure how seriously to take them.

(Green Day was NOT
the first punk rock band)

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“I’m Stranded” clearly wasn’t the first punk rock record, but the Saints – who were formed in Brisbane, Australia, in 1973 – arguably deserve the title of “First True Punk Rock Band” as much as anyone.  

The group couldn’t find a record company that wanted to sign them, so they decided to record and release “I’m Stranded” on their own in September 1976 – which was about a month before the Damned released their iconic first punk single, “New Rose.”  

I’m not sure when I first became aware of “I’m Stranded,” but it had been off my radar for some time until very recently, when I heard it while listening to a punk-rock playlist on Spotify.  (Thanks to my older son for giving me a year’s subscription to Spotify for Christmas.)

It is a m-o-n-e-y record – relentless and truly punk in attitude.  But it’s only my second-favorite Saints record.

Tune in to the next 2 or 3 lines to find out which Saints record is my favorite.

Click here to listen to “I’m Stranded.”

Click here to buy the recording from Amazon.

 

Monkees – "Words" (1967)

Words with lies inside

But small enough to hide

Till your playin’ was through

I recently had the pleasure of reconnecting with Brienne Walsh, who’s an old friend of 2 or 3 lines.

Those of you have been reading my wildly little popular blog for a long time know all about Brienne.  But if you’re relatively new to 2 or 3 lines, you may want to click here, and then click here, and then click here, and then click here.

Brienne holds nothing back in her blog, A Brie Grows in Brooklyn.  She is less guilty of self-censorship than any writer I know – including myself.  I leave a lot out of 2 or 3 lines because I worry about what others would think about me if I revealed more about myself, but that doesn’t seem to be a problem for Brienne.  She’s much braver than I am.

Brienne Walsh

Brienne’s honesty is not the only reason to read A Brie Grows in Brooklyn.  Brienne is smart and thoughtful, and her writing is often very, very funny – but what sets her apart from anyone else I know is that honesty.  

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Brienne and I spoke last week because she is writing an article about online dating, and she wanted to interview me about my experiences on one particular dating website last year.  

When the article comes out, it will be interesting to see if she was able to use anything from our conversation.  (As is my wont, I subjected her to a tsunami of personal anecdotes, most of which were probably not germane to her writing assignment in the least.)

I seriously doubt that I will share her article with my friends and family.  As I noted above, I’m not as brave as Brienne is – I hold a lot back.

Maybe the real problem is that I do a lot of things that I have good reason to hold back.  If I cleaned my act up, maybe I’d feel less inhibited when it comes to revealing myself in my writing.

Fat chance of that happening . . . 

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Today’s featured song was written by Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart – a great songwriting team best known for “I Wonder What She’s Doing Tonight,” one of the best truly great pop records of the sixties.

“Words” was originally recorded by the Leaves in 1966 and released on their Hey Joe album.  The Monkees covered it the next year.

The original Monkees recording of “Words” featured a number of session musicians – all that the Monkees contributed to that version were the vocals.

The group was allowed to play their instruments on a second recording of the song, which reached #11 on the Billboard “Hot 100” later that year.

I don’t know how I missed “Words,” which I don’t remember ever hearing until recently.  It is a GREAT record – unlike any other record of that era that I’m familiar with.

Click here to hear the first version of “Words,” which I prefer.

Click here to buy that recording from Amazon.

 

Ginny Arnell – "Dumb Head" (1963)

I must be insane

Or else I was born with

A peanut for a brain

The lyrics of today’s featured record are certainly applicable to Angela Harrison, but the song couldn’t have been inspired by the 53-year-old Oklahoman – she was born eight years after “Dumb Head” was recorded. 

It appears from this photo that those 53 years have been very, very hard ones:

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Harrison – who used to work at a Waffle House – was arrested by police in Tulsa, Oklahoma recently when she was observed driving a white Jeep Liberty that had been reported stolen last year.

She claimed that she had run into a former customer of hers at a gas station just an hour before her arrest, and that he had given her the Jeep – plus a $10 bill – when she told him that she had a birthday coming up soon.

The Tulsa po-pos were skeptical of her explanation because they had a surveillance photo of Harrison in the Jeep that had been taken on January 14.  Harrison admitted that she was the woman in that photo but stuck by her story that she had been given the car as a gift just an hour earlier.

Casting further doubt on her account of how she came to be in possession of the Jeep was the fact that its owner had died months ago.

Hopefully, she met a really good lawyer during her Waffle House days – I’m guessing she’s going to need one.

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“Dumb Head” – the story of a girl who regrets rejecting a boy who said he loved her – was a minor hit for Ginny Arnell in 1963.  

Arnell – who was born Virginia Mazarro in New Haven, Connecticut in 1942 – was not a fan of the song when it was first presented to her:

I didn’t like calling myself a dumb head, especially as I had just graduated high school with high honors.  How could I call myself dumb and feel good about it?  But when we recorded it, with the kazoos in the background and all, it was fun.  It came out really good.

Arnell had a good voice – she was compared by some to Lesley Gore – but if you ask me, it was the kazoos that made “Dumb Head.”

Click here to listen to “Dumb Head.”

X – "I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts" (1983)

I must not think bad thoughts!

I must not think bad thoughts!

I must not think bad thoughts!

Have you met my landlord, Mr. Macbeth?

From act 2, scene 2 of Shakespeare’s Scottish play:

Methought I heard a voice cry “Sleep no more!

Macbeth does murder sleep,” the innocent sleep,

Sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleeve of care,

The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath,

Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,

Chief nourisher in life’s feast . . .

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Signs that read as follow were posted all over my apartment building yesterday:

Please be aware that the fire alarm will be sounding off 4/4/2024 between 9 AM to 5 PM.

I’ve been going to bed too late and waking up too early the last few days, but I was sleeping soundly this morning when the fire alarm went off at 8:55 AM – a slightly premature start.  My landlord – let's call him “Mr. Macbeth,” shall we? – couldn’t have waited until 9:00 AM to begin the testing?

There’s a speaker directly over my bed, so the fire warning came through loud and clear.  Click here to hear it.

I would have thought three or four repetitions of the recorded message would have been plenty to test the system.  But I swear they played the warning at least a hundred times.  

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The rest of the day was just as bad.

I spent the next hour on the phone trying to figure out how to file my federal income tax return without also filing my state return.  (TurboTax wants me to pay $64 to file a state return, but my state has a free website that I’ve used for years – it works very well.  I thought about saying the hell with it and just paying the damn $64, but after wasting half an hour on the phone with them, there was no f*cking way I was going to give another penny to TurboTax.)  

The next half hour was spent on the phone with my online brokerage.  I was trying to do an online transaction so I would have enough cash to pay my income taxes, but I kept getting error messages.  So I had to call a rep and do the transaction over the phone.

It’s been a l-o-n-g time since I’ve been in a fouler mood than I was in at the end of that call.  (Like maybe two or three days?)  

Winning at trivia would have cleansed my palate of the bad taste the first half of the day had left in my mouth.  My team got off to a great start – we had a perfect score and a decent lead at the halfway point – but we inexplicably screwed up a relatively easy question about the Liberty Bell, and ended up out of the money.  Poopy!

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Upon my return home from trivia, I found this e-mail from my landlord in my inbox:

Good morning. 

I hope this finds everyone well.  We were informed today that, as part of the fire alarm testing, we need to enter each apartment.  Originally, they thought they could perform the test without.  They will only crack your door open.  Confirm they can hear the alarm sounding.  Then they will close the door. 

Apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Please reach out to the office with any questions or concerns. 

Sincerely, 

[Mr. Macbeth] 

That e-mail didn’t specify what time this will all take place, but I’m betting on 8:55 AM.

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I can assure you that there is no need for the maintenance staff to open the apartment doors to hear the alarm – that motherf*cker is plenty loud enough to hear through the door.  

I can only imagine how long it will take the maintenance staff to go to each and every one of the several hundred apartments in my 18-story building, unlock each door, open it, stick their head in to verify that the speakers in each apartment are working, and then close the door and lock it before moving on to the next unit.  (Hopefully they’ll use the stairs to go from floor to floor rather than waiting for an elevator, WHICH CAN TAKE FOREVER.)

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“I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts” was released in 1983 on X’s fourth studio album, More Fun in the New World.  That album was produced by Ray Manzarek, who is best known as the co-founder and keyboard player of the Doors.

Click here to listen to “I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts.”

Click here to buy that recording from Amazon.