Rolling Stones – "Paint It, Black" (1966)

I could not foresee this thing happening to you

I’ve never opened a 2 or 3 lines post by quoting just a single line from a song.  But I think this is a very special line.  

I think “foresee” it what makes it so special.  That’s a very grown-up word – a word you just don’t come across in sixties song lyrics. 

Regardless of the line’s meaning or its connotation, it sounds really good when you say it.

It’s poetry!

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The lyrics to most sixties songs don’t really work as poems.  If you read them from the printed page without the accompanying music, they fall flat.

That’s even true of Bob Dylan’s songs.  Dylan was awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature, but he’s not really a poet – he’s a songwriter, and that is something very different from a poet.  (Songs need music to work – poems don’t.)

“Paint It Black” – it was originally released as “Paint It, Black” thanks to some doofus at the record company – is one of the very few sixties songs that has lyrics that work as poetry.  In fact, it may be the only sixties song that is true of – I can’t think of any others right now.

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Between the summer of 1965 and the summer of 1966, the Rolling Stones released “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” “Get Off Of My Cloud,” “19th Nervous Breakdown,” “Paint It Black,” and “Mother’s Little Helper.”

I had just turned 14 years old when “Paint It Black” hit #1.  I loved “Eight Days a Week” and “Ticket to Ride” and “Help!” and “Day Tripper” and the other Beatles hits from 1965 and 1966, but those songs – which were written about teenagers, for teenagers – pale in comparison to the aforementioned Stones songs, which were written about adults, for adults.  

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Virtually all sixties pop music was written for teenagers.  

Some – including first-generation Beatles hits like “I Want to Hold Your Hand’ and “She Loves You” – were written for really young teenagers.  (I’m talking 12-year-olds, not 18-year-olds.)

The great songs that were written by Brill Building duos like Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil (“We Gotta Get Out of This Place”), Gerry Goffin and Carole King (“Will You Love Me Tomorrow”), and Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich (“River Deep, Mountain High”) were written for more mature teenagers.

The difference between the saddest of the Brill Building songs and “Paint It Black” is like the difference between Romeo and Juliet and King Lear.  Both of those plays were tragedies, but one is a tragedy for teenagers while the other is a tragedy for adults.  

You probably cried when Romeo and Juliet died, but I bet you got over your sadness pretty quickly.

King Lear is an altogether different story, boys and girls – it is DARK.  And so is “Paint It Black.”

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Speaking of  Shakespeare . . .

Shakespeare famously used iambic pentameter in his plays, as did many other famous English poets.

As you may remember from English 101, an iambic “foot” is an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable:

da DUM  

A line of iambic pentameter consists of five iambic feet:

da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM

Here’s an example of strict iambic pentameter from one of Shakespeare’s sonnets:

When I do COUNT the CLOCK that TELLS the TIME

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The meter used for “Paint It, Black” is iambic hexameter – six iambic feet instead of five:

I SEE a RED door AND I WANT it PAINT-ed BLACK

Or, to use the line quoted at the beginning of this post:

I COULD not FORE-see THIS thing HAP-pen-ING to YOU

You have to go back to the 17th century to find much in the way of English poetry written in iambic hexameter.  God only knows where Mick Jagger got the idea of using that meter.

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The musical arrangement and performances on “Paint It Black.”are just as impressive and unique as the song’s lyrics.

I love Charlie Watts’ drumming on “Paint It Black.”  Charlie is usually a pretty cool character, but he lets his inner Keith Moon out on “Paint It Black” – he holds nothing back.

“Paint It Black” wasn’t the first sixties record to feature a sitar, but it was the first #1 hit single to feature a sitar.  And while a sitar is an Indian instrument, one critic correctly noted that the song has more of a Middle Eastern than Indian feel.  (It is somewhat reminiscent of the bar mitzvah favorite,  “Hava Nagila.”)

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Five years ago, I would have said that “Satisfaction” was the numero uno Rolling Stones single.

Today, I would say that “Satisfaction” is the quintessential Stones song – the Stones’ primary asset has always been their attitude, and “Satisfaction” has attitude out the wazoo.

But “Paint It Black” is a work of art.  I can’t think of any sixties that resembles it in the slightest – it’s sui generis.  (Also relentless.)

Click here to listen to a song that truly deserves to be in the 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” HIT SINGLES HALL OF FAME.  

Click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon:

Beach Boys – "I Get Around" (1964)

I’m a real cool head

I’m makin’ real good bread 

I vividly remember finding a copy of “I Get Around” in the street in front of my grandmother’s house in Joplin, Missouri, when I was 12 years old.

The Schwinn 2-speed bike I was riding
when I found “I Get Around”

The 45 had warped in the hot sun, so I couldn’t play it on the record player I had won in a local radio station’s spelling bee.  (That was a great disappointment.  I could afford to buy only a very few records when I was a kid, and getting a great one like “I Get Around” for free would have been musical manna from heaven.)

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Even though I’ve heard “I Get Around” hundreds of times since it became the Beach Boys first #1 hit single in 1964, I had never deciphered the lyrics from the chorus that are quoted at the beginning of this post. 

“I Get Around” was released only a few months after the Four Seasons’ “Rag Doll” – which is the oldest song in the 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” HIT SINGLES HALL OF FAME.  Both songs are as innocent as can be – perfectly matched to my equally innocent 12-year-old sensibility circa 1964 – but they otherwise couldn’t be more different.  “I Get Around” marks a quantum leap forward in the growth and development of American pop music, foreshadowing the increasingly complex masterpieces that Brian Wilson would craft over the next few years.

“I Get Around” is the musical embodiment of mid-sixties Southern California car culture.  For the singer of the song, girls are great but cars are greater.  Saturday nights are for drag racing – not for dates with your steady girlfriend.

Click here to listen to “I Get Around.”

And click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon: 

Radiohead – "The Bends" (1995)

I wish it was the sixties, I wish I could be happy

I wish, I wish, I wish that something would happen

I bet you’ve been wondering when the new members of the 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” HIT SINGLES HALL OF FAME are going to be announced.

Wonder no more, boys and girls!  The next eleven 2 or 3 lines posts will feature our 2020 hall of famers.  (I see you shiver with an-ti-ci- . . . PAY-tion!)

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Why do I induct eleven records into the my wildly popular hit singles hall of fame each year?

When I announced the first hall of fame class in 2018, the plan was for it to have ten members.  But after I had announced those ten members, I remembered a record that absolutely, positively had to be included.  

Leaving Richard Harris’s “MacArthur Park” out of the initial group of HOF’ers would have cut off my credibility as a pop music guru at the knees.  So I gave myself a mulligan.  All of the first ten inductees clearly deserved their status, so I couldn’t replace one of them with “MacArthur Park.”  That meant I had to follow a sort of baker dozen’s approach – buy ten, get one free.

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Going with eleven songs instead of ten turned out to be a brilliant move.  So I did it again in 2019, picking “Fire” – that unforgettable stick of dynamite by the Crazy World of Arthur Brown – as inductee number eleven.

Fear not . . . this year’s group of hit singles that are going into the 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” HIT SINGLES HALL OF FAME will also include eleven records, not ten.  (As my grandmother used to say, “It if ain’t broke, leave the damn thing alone!”)

But before I announce the first member of the class of 2020, let’s take a moment to remember the first group of inductees:

Animals – “House of the Rising Sun” (1965)

Bob Dylan – “Like a Rolling Stone” (1965)

Who – “I Can See for Miles” (19660

Association – “Along Comes Mary” (1966)

Beach Boys – “Good Vibrations” (1966)

Byrds – “Eight Miles High” (1966)

Steppenwolf – “Born to Be Wild” (1968)

Grass Roots – “Midnight Confession” (1968)

Marvin Gaye – “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” (1968)

Richard Harris – “MacArthur Park” (1968)

Creedence Clearwater Revival – “Fortunate Son” (1969)

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Take another gander at that list.  You’d best believe that every song on it is a winner, winner, chicken dinner!

But the second group of inductees – which were announced in 2019 – is just as good:

Four Seasons – “Rag Doll” (1964)

Beatles – “Eight Days a Week” (1965)

Rolling Stones – “Satisfaction” (1965)

Animals – “It’s My Life” (1965)

? and the Mysterians – “96 Tears” (1966)

Supremes – “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” (1966)

Turtles – “Happy Together” (1967)

Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell – “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” (1967)

Doors – “Light My Fire” (1967)

Deep Purple – “Hush” (1968)

The Crazy World of Arthur Brown – “Fire” (1968)

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I originally defined the 2 or 3 lines “GOLDEN DECADE” as spanning the years 1964 to 1973.  But I’ve decided to tweak that definition slightly.  (My blog, my rules.)

From this day forward, the “GOLDEN DECADE” is officially declared to have commenced in mid-1964 and ended in mid-1974.  

Why?  Because those years represent the decade when the best pop music the world has ever known was released.  

It also covers the time period that spans my years in junior high school, high school, and college.  (I entered the 7th grade – not to mention puberty – in August 1964, and graduated from college in May 1974.)

(By the way . . . everyone thinks that the best music ever recorded was the music that was popular when he or she was a  teenager. I’ve got news for you: the best music ever recorded was the music that was popular when I was a teenager.  That’s a fact, Jack!)

All 22 of the records that have been inducted into the 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” HIT SINGLES HALL OF FAME to date were released in the sixties – before I graduated from high school.  But this year’s class is going to include some songs from my college years.

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Radiohead’s frontman and chief songwriter, Thom Yorke – who was born in October 1968 – has been quoted as saying, “No, I don’t wish it was the fucking sixties.”  So I guess he didn’t mean it when he wrote the lyrics quoted at the beginning of this post.

Click here to listen to “The Bends.”

Click below to buy the song from Amazon:

Jan and Dean – "Surf City" (1963)

You know we’re goin’ to Surf City 

‘Cause it’s two to one . . . 

Two girls for every boy!

Imagine living in a place where there were two girls for every guy.  If that’s not heaven on earth for guys, I don’t know what is.

But I don’t think the reverse is true.  I don’t think most women would want to live in a place where there are two guys for every girl.  

American women already complain about having to put up with unwanted attention from sexed-up men.  Just imagine how much worse it would be for them if the U.S. population had twice as many men as women.

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If I’m right about that, you ladies do NOT want to move to China, where there are 34 million more men than women.

There are 100 million only children
under the age of 40 in China

China has the worst population gender imbalance in the world for three reasons.  First, the Communist Party told couples for decades that they could have only one child.  Second, Chinese families much prefer boy babies to girl babies.  Third, abortions were easy to get in China.

  

Put those three things together and what do you get?  You get Chinese wives who want their one and only child to be a boy opting for abortions when they find out they are pregnant with a girl.  That way they can try again, hoping that their next pregnancy will result in an XY instead of an XX.

Abortion for the purposes of sex selection was supposed to be illegal in China, but relatively inexpensive scanning machines that enabled a pregnant woman to determine the gender of her fetus became widely available in the 1990s.  One researcher has estimated that China’s “One Child Policy” resulted in 80 million selective abortions of girls on the basis of their gender.

Admiral/General Aladeen would have approved:

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In 1990, the Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen estimated that there were 100 million “missing” Asian women.  

That’s the equivalent of the entire female population of the UK, France, and Italy never existing because their parents either aborted them, killed them after they were born, or allowed them to die through neglect.  (Poor families sometimes scrimp on food and medical care for baby girls, preferring to use their scarce resources to keep their boy babies healthy.)

Drowning was the most popular way
of getting rid of unwanted baby girls

Given the “One Child Policy,” it’s not surprising that most of the missing Asian women were Chines.  But gender ratios are also skewed in India and Pakistan due to preferences for boy babies in those societies.

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Three years ago, China reversed course and began to encourage couples to have at least two babies.  But the birth rate remains low, which could result in China’s population not only declining in the future but also becoming much older on average – what a recent Washington Post article referred to as a “demographic time bomb” that could bring economic growth in the country to a crashing halt.

Economics professor Yew-Kwang Ng recently published an article suggesting that China consider allowing women to have more than one husband – which is known as “polyandry.”

“If two men are willing to marry the same wife and the woman is willing, too, what reason does society have to stop them sharing a wife?” Ng asked, citing polygamy as a common custom in ancient times and a continuing practice in some strains of Islam.  

Those of a libertarian bent would agree with Professor Ng’s argument.  But unfortunately, he then stuck his foot into his mouth big time.  

From the Post article:

Plus, [polyandry] would just be more efficient, [Ng] continued, suggesting that women would have no trouble meeting the physical needs of multiple husbands.

“It’s common for prostitutes to serve more than ten clients in a day,” Ng wrote.

The good professor must have missed school the day the teacher taught the class about the “First Law of Holes,” which states that “If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.”  He mos’ definitely didn’t stop digging:

“Making meals for three husbands won’t take much more time than for two husbands,” he added.

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Not surprisingly, many Chinese women took exception to Professor Ng’s line of reasoning.

“It made me throw up,” one woman tweeted.

“Let me translate what he means: he wants to legalize sex slaves,” wrote another.

That woman wasn’t far off.  Professor Ng followed up with an article proposing that prostitution be legalized.  From the Post:

Because China’s gender mismatch has caused a fierce competition among men looking for wives, he said, “a man’s right to achieving sexual satisfaction is being severely violated if legal sex work is not allowed.”

Legalizing sex work and building more brothels would allow men to attend to their “urgent needs,” he wrote.

Professor Ng may be proposing legal polyandry and legal prostitution as alternative solutions to the gender imbalance situation in China.  

But upon further reflection, I think you may need to legalize both to take care of the problem.

Think about it.  Polyandry would provide wives for many of those extra 34 million Chinese men.  But not all of them will be able to find a wife – so you’ll need to allow prostitution to take care of them.

Would it work to legalize prostitution only for unmarried men?  After all, married men don’t need to go to a brothel to attend to their “urgent needs” – that’s what wives are for, correct?  

But what if polyandry is legalized and both husbands suffer a simultaneous attack of “urgent needs”?  Presumably the wife can take care of only one of them at a time.  

In that case, husband #2 may not be able to wait for husband #1 to get ’er done – necessitating a quick trip down to the neighborhood brothel.

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“Surf City,” the first surf-rock song to reach the #1 spot on the Billboard “Hot 100,” was co-written by members of the two greatest surf-rock groups ever: Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys and Jan Berry of Jan and Dean.

Mentioning Jan and Dean in the same breath as the Beach Boys seems almost blasphemous today.  But at the peak of Jan and Dean’s popularity, they were certainly the equals of the Beach Boys.  

Jan and Dean were so popular that they were chosen to host the 1964 concert movie, The T.A.M.I. Show, which featured the Rolling Stones, Chuck Berry, the Supremes, James Brown, the Beach Boys, and many others – arguably the greatest collection of pop music talent ever assembled in one place at one time.

I was very familiar with “Surf City” when I was a teenaged boy.  One of the first LPs I ever owned was Jan and Dean's Surf City and Other Swingin’ Cities – which included not only "Surf City" but also covers of Bobby Bare's “Detroit City,” Wilbert Harrison's “Kansas City,” and Freddy Cannon's “Way Down Yonder in New Orleans” and “Tallahassee Lassie.”  (It also included a cover of “I Left My Heart in San Francisco,” which was not really a good choice for Jan and Dean.)

The quintessential middle-aged man's fantasy may be having two women at the same time.  But that’s not what “Two girls for every boy!” is all about.

If you were a teenaged boy in 1963, you couldn’t have really wrapped your head around the concept of a threesome.  Just getting one girl to make out with you was a daunting enough task.  The attraction of a place like Surf City – which existed only on Jan and Dean's record, alas – was that there were so many girls there that even losers could feel confident of ending up with one.

Click here to listen to “Surf City.”

Click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon:

Gilbert O'Sullivan – "Get Down" (1973)

Get down, get down, get down

You’re a bad dog, baby

The famed psychologist Abraham Maslow once said, “I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.”

Hunter, my #4 grandson, has a slightly different take on that.  Hunter treats everything as if it were a bed.

When Hunter gets tired, he simply lies down and goes to sleep.  It matters not a whit to him if he is in the kitchen, or in the basement playroom, or in the front yard – everything is a bed to him:

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Contrary to what Gilbert O’Sullivan sang in his 1973 hit, Remy is not a bad dog:

Click here to listen to “Get Down,” which inspired KC and the Sunshine Band’s 1975 hit, “Get Down Tonight.”

Click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon:

Foghat – "Slow Ride" (1975)

Slow down, go down

Got to get your lovin’ one more time

Hold me, roll me

Slow ridin’ woman, you’re so fine

Radio Caroline was a legendary pirate radio station that began broadcasting rock ’n’ roll hits to the UK and Europe in 1964 from a converted Danish ferry anchored in international waters:

 (The first record that Radio Caroline played?  “Not Fade Away,” by the Rolling Stones.)

The British government, which was determined to maintain its legal monopoly on radio broadcasting, eventually forced Radio Caroline off the air.  

But the station later resurfaced as an internet streaming station.  Click here to go to its website.

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A couple of months ago, I began to follow Suzy Wilde – the self-proclaimed “superannuated rock chick” who broadcasts a weekly Radio Caroline show from her home in the south of France – on Facebook.

Suzy Wilde

Suzy recently challenged her followers to ruin a band’s name by changing one letter.

At first, this seemed like a rather silly attempt to getting more people to post on her Facebook page.  But many of the responses posted by her readers were quite brilliant.

Here are some of the best:

– Jethro Dull

– Rolling Scones

– Moldy Blues

– Canned Meat

– Poo Fighters 

– Alice Pooper

– Huey Lewis and the Jews

– Guns ’n’ Moses

– The Belch Boys

– The Small Feces

– Cheap Prick

– The Boobie Brothers

– T. Sex

– Pearl Ham

– AC/AC

– DC/DC

– Grand F*ck Railroad

– Blue Öyster Cu*t

and, last but not least:

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“Slow Ride” was a top-20 hit for Foghat in 1975.

There’s not a lot to the song, but Foghat stretched the hell out of it.

Director Richard Linklater chose to play “Slow Ride” over the final scene and closing credits of Dazed and Confused.  It was the perfect choice.

(I miss Joey Lauren Adams . . . )

Click here to listen to the album version of “Slow Ride” – all eight minutes and 14 seconds of it.

Click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon:

Bon Jovi – "Wanted Dead or Alive" (1987)

I’m standing tall

I’ve seen a million faces

And I’ve rocked them all

You might think that Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora were thinking about 2 or 3 lines when they wrote the lyrics to “Wanted Dead and Alive.”

After all, I’m certainly standing tall – six feet, one-and-a-half inches tall to be exact.  (I used to be closer to six feet three, but I’ve shrunk a little over the years.)

And as of today, 2 or 3 lines has been viewed almost 1.1 million times – so while 2 or 3 lines may not have literally seen a million faces, a million-plus faces have seen 2 or 3 lines.

Finally, has 2 or 3 lines “rocked them all”?  The question answers itself, boys and girls.

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Bon Jovi and Sambora wrote today’s featured song in 1987 – over two decades prior to the birth of 2 or 3 lines – so they definitely weren’t thinking about this blog when they penned the lines quoted above.

What were they thinking about?  I don’t know about Bon Jovi, but I’d bet you dollars to doughnuts that Sambora was thinking about Heather Locklear, who would become his wife in 1994.  (Sure, she was married to Tommy Lee in ’87, but you can’t wait until the last minute.)

Heather Locklear

Yes, that photo is completely gratuitous.  But the most viewed 2 or 3 lines post ever features a picture of the late rock star Ric Ocasek’s wife, Paulina Poriskova.  (If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.)

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2 or 3 lines celebrated the tenth anniversary of its very first post last November.  

That means we’re a little over halfway through the first year of the second decade of 2 or 3 lines – tempus fugit, don’t you know!

I pledged at the beginning of this very special year that 2 or 3 lines would steer clear of the usual nonsense this year and focus on the music.  And that is exactly what I’ve done.

There’s been a lot of stuff in 2 or 3 lines about 2 or 3 lines, of course – after all, that’s what makes my wildly successful little blog so special.

Overall, I feel like 2 or 3 lines is KILLING it this year.  Don’t you agree?

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I’ve taken it on myself to introduce my grandchildren to 2 or 3 lines-worthy music at a very young age.

I’ve written about teaching my grandson Jack (who turns 4 next month) the chorus to the Spiral Staircase classic, “More Today Than Yesterday.”

Here are a couple of videos of Jack singing that song to his little brother just over a year ago:

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I was driving with my grandson Sully recently when today’s featured song came on the radio, and I decided that it was high time Sully (who is 2 1/2) learned to sing for his supper as well.

He quickly picked up the first line of the chorus – “I’m a cowboy” – and when I visit him next week, we’ll work on the next lines.

Sully is a pretty quick study, so I expect to have a video of him belting out “Wanted Dead or Alive” toot sweet.

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Until then, click here to watch the official music video for “Wanted Dead or Alive.”  It’s a remarkably self-absorbed and self-glorifying piece of work, which makes it just perfect for 2 or 3 lines.

The Official Street of 2 or 3 Lines

Click below to buy the song on Amazon: