Tommy Roe – "Jam Up and Jelly Tight" (1969)

You won’t say you will but

There’s a chance that you might

When the Federal Reserve Board tapered its bond purchases after the financial crisis of 2008, the bond market did not react well – bond prices fell, and interest rates shot up.  Wags called the extreme bond market reaction to the Fed’s decision to taper its bond purchases a “taper tantrum.”

The Fed is worried about making a misstep that will trigger a second “taper tantrum” and throw a monkey wrench into the nascent economic recovery from the covid-induced recession of 2020.  It has taken pains to assure the markets that it isn’t talking about tapering just yet.

In fact, the Fed has said that it isn’t even talking about talking about tapering yet.

The Federal Reserve Board’s  
headquarters in Washington, DC

At some point – maybe later this year, or maybe 2022 – the Fed will start tapering bond purchases, which may or nor trigger another taper tantrum.  But before it starts to taper, of course, it will have to talk about tapering.

And before it talks about tapering, it will have to talk about talking about tapering.

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2 or 3 lines is much bolder than the Federal Reserve Board.  Not only have we talked about talking about who deserves to be in the 2021 class of the 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE’ HIT SINGLES HALL OF FAME, we have actually talked about it.

And not only have we talked about who deserves to be included in this year’s group of inductees, we have actually decided who deserves to be included.

During the month of July, while 2 or 3 lines is whiling away the hours biking, visiting breweries, and playing with grandchildren on Cape Cod, we staff will be posting about each of the eleven new members of the 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE’ HIT SINGLES HALL OF FAME.

But before we do that, let’s remember the records that have already been honored. 

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Here’s the class of 2018:

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

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

Who – “I Can See for Miles” (1966)

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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Here’s the class of 2019:

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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And last but certainly not least, here’s the class of 2020:

Beach Boys – “I Get Around” (1964)

Rolling Stones – “Paint It, Black” (1966)

Four Tops – “Reach Out I'll Be There” (1966)

Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart -- “I Wonder What She's Doing Tonight” (1968)

Iron Butterfly – “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” (1968)

Shocking Blue – “Venus” (1969)

Simon and Garfunkel – “Bridge Over Troubled Water” (1970)

Blues Image – “Ride Captain Ride” (1970)

Free – “All Right Now” (1970)

Grand Funk Railroad – “I’m Your Captain (Closer to Home)” (1970)

Who – “Won't Get Fooled Again” (1971)

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Geez Louise, that’s an a-m-a-z-i-n-g group of records – 33 hit singles that were great when they were released, and which sound just as good today.  

Kudos to me for doing one hell of a job so far!

And here’s another clue for you all – the records included in this year’s class are just as bangin’ as those in the classes of ’18, ’19, and’20!

You don’t believe me?  Just watch this space over the next month, boys and girls.  

 

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Tell the truth.  When a Tommy Roe record comes on the radio – like “Sweet Pea,” or “Dizzy,” or today’s featured song, “Jam Up and Jelly Tight” – you not only don’t change stations, but also tap your toe and sing along until the very last note is played.  

Am I right, or am I right?

I’m guessing that “Jam Up and Jelly Tight” was a favorite of the young Harvey Weinstein thanks to lyrics like these:

I said the first day I met you

Someday I’m gonna pet you

Now you’re here and baby I love it

So come on and give me some lovin’!

Click here to listen to Tommy Roe’s last top ten hit record, “Jam Up and Jelly Tight,” which he co-wrote with Freddy Weller.  (Weller is best known as a country music recording artists with a half-dozen top ten country singles to his credit, but he got his start as Paul Revere and the Raiders’ lead guitarist.) 

Click on the link below to buy today’s featured song from Amazon:

Friend and Lover – "Reach Out of the Darkness" (1968)

Reach out in the darkness

And you may find a friend

On Father’s Day, the Washington Post ran a story about Annie Lazor, a swimmer who had qualified for the U.S. Olympic team two days earlier – some seven weeks after the death of her father, Dave Lazor, who was only 61.  (You can click here to read his obituary.)

The late Dave Lazor

Lazor was his daughter’s biggest fan.  It’s probably redundant to say that – I don’t know any female athlete whose father isn’t her biggest fan.

My late father was certainly my sister’s biggest fan.  She was a star basketball and softball player – she was inducted into her college’s athletic hall of fame based on her prowess in both sports – but he would have been just as big a fan if she had been just average.

And I was my twin daughters’ biggest fan – I saw hundreds of their soccer and basketball games over the years, and bitterly regretted the few that I did miss.  (It so pissed me off whenever one of their games was cancelled due to rain or snow – I took it as a personal affront when the weather prevented me from seeing them play.)

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From the Post article:

Dave Lazor wasn’t like the other swim dads you may have come across, the ones with their marked-up heat sheets in one hand and a running list of their kid’s best times in the Notes app of their phone. Half the time, he left one of Annie’s meets not even remembering her times or what place she finished. . . .

He was, however, the first to raise his hand to accompany Annie to meets, especially the many in Indianapolis, 4½ hours from his house in Beverly Hills, Michigan. . . .

“He wasn’t a times guy,” Annie Lazor said Saturday. “He was an experience guy.  ‘I get to spend four days with my daughter in one of my favorite cities?   Hell yes, I’m going.’  That’s what it was about for him.  Because he was just so invested in being there with me.  He just didn’t care about how well I swam.  Not that he didn’t care about me having good results.  Of course he cared because I cared.  But that’s not why he was there.”

That’s exactly the way I felt about seeing my daughters’ games.  Of course, I wanted to see them make goals and score baskets.  But mostly I just wanted to see them playing hard and enjoying being part of a team – win or lose.

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Annie Lazor did so badly at the 2016 Olympic trials that she decided to retire from competitive swimming.  But she changed her mind two years later and started training again, hoping to make the U.S. team for the 2020 Olympics – which were delayed a year due to covid-19.

Last Friday, she earned a trip to Tokyo by winning the 200-meter breaststroke finals at the Olympic trials in Omaha.

From the Post:

That would have been the moment when an athlete in Lazor’s position might be expected to dedicate her performance to her late father, to look into a camera and say she wanted to win it for him.  But it was the one thought, she said, that never crossed her mind.

That surprised me.  I was expecting a feel-good Father’s Day story along those lines, but that’s not what I got.  

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Annie Lazor’s mother said she was praying that no one would come up to Annie and tell her to win it for her dad.  “I didn’t want her to come into this meet thinking, ‘I have to do this for my dad,’ ” Annie’s mother told the Post reporter.  “As if swimming well — or even if she swam badly — would be some sort of reflection about how much she loved her dad.”

I guarantee you that if her father had been alive to see her swim last week, he would have been just as proud of her even if she hadn’t qualified.  

Of course, he would have been overjoyed by her victory – as Annie said above, he cared about how well she did because she cared.  

But win or lose, he would have been immensely proud to see his daughter competing at the very highest level of her sport.  

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Annie may not have been swimming for her father, but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t swimming for someone other than herself.  

She told the reporter that she wanted to win in part to give her mother and her two brothers something to be happy about after all the sadness that resulted from her father’s death:

“The thing I thought about the most this week was that I just really want to give them something to be happy about,” Annie Lazor said, tears streaming down her face . . . . “They’ve been through so much these last couple months. I just really wanted to give them something to be excited about.  That doesn’t mean it overrides the grief we’re feeling, that it makes everything okay.  It definitely doesn’t.  But I just wanted to do this for them, more than anything.”

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In her post-event news conference, Lazor described eloquently the difficulty of “trying to achieve the greatest thing that's ever happened to me while going through the worst thing that's ever happened to me.”

She was able to do so thanks in part to the help she received from her teammate, Lilly King, who won two gold medals in the breaststroke in the 2016 Olympics.

Lilly King and Annie Lazor celebrate

When Lazor decided to come out of retirement, she asked King if she could join her training group.  To her surprise, King agreed to Lazor's request.

“I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Lilly,” Lazor said in 2019.  “I was pretty surprised.  I would think if it were my competitor and she had this program that’s working really well for her, why would you want to share that with her other competitors?”

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For the next three years, the two women trained together, becoming fast friends.  

But they also competed against each other in a number of international swimming competitions.

After the death of Dave Lazor, Lilly King told Annie Lazor and her mother that she would do everything she could to help Annie earn a spot on the Olympic team.  

That didn’t include letting up and allowing Annie to beat her in the trials – I want to be perfectly clear about that.  In fact, Lilly King won the 100-meter breaststroke finals last Tuesday, helping to prevent Annie from qualifying for the Olympics in that event.

And she pushed Lazor hard in the 200-meter finals, finishing less than three-quarters of a second behind her friend.  (Lazor’s time was 2:21.o7, while King’s was 2:21.75.)

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I’m sure that Lilly King – like most other U.S. Olympians – doesn’t just want to do well individually, but wants her team to do as well as possible.

But swimming isn’t like soccer or basketball or other team sports, where every team member wins a medal if the team wins.  Most Olympic swimming events are individual events.  Only one woman can win gold in the 200-meter breaststroke in Tokyo. 

By agreeing to allow Lazor to join her training group, King not only helped a potential American teammate, but also someone who could very well take an Olympic medal away from her.   

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Lilly King lived up to her promises to do everything she could to help Annie Lazor make the Olympic team.  

Last Tuesday night, when King won the 100-meter breaststroke finals and Lazor was half a second too slow to earn an opportunity to compete in that event in Tokyo, King “tempered her own celebration out of concern for her friend and teammate,” according to the Post.

And on Friday, when the two swimmers were assigned adjacent lanes for the finals of the 200-meter event – which represented Lazor’s last chance to qualify for the Olympic team – King caught her eye and mouthed two sentences: “I love you,” and “We’ve got this.”

Lazor and King finished one-two in the qualifying finals, so both will get to swim that event – and maybe win a medal – in Tokyo.  But it didn’t have to turn out that way.

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It comes as no surprise to read a story about a father putting his child first – that comes naturally for most fathers.  

But no one expects an athlete to bend over backwards to help one of her primary competitors be successful.  

Lilly King’s unselfishness seems truly remarkable to me.  I usually don’t pay much attention to the Olympics, but I’ll make sure I’m in front of the television when she and Annie Lazor are swimming in Tokyo later this summer.

It would be perfect if King wins gold in the 100-meter event and Lazor finishes first in the 200-meter race.

But even if neither of them wins a medal, they deserve as much respect and applause as any athlete at this year’s Olympics.

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Today’s featured song, “Reach Out of the Darkness,” first appeared on the Billboard “Hot 100” on June 1, 1968 – just a few days before the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.  

Maybe that’s why the song was played during an episode of Mad Men that depicted people watching television when news of the Kennedy assassination was breaking.

Click here to listen to “Reach Out of the Darkness.”  (Did you notice that the song title is “Reach Out of the Darkness” but the singer sings “Reach out in the darkness”?)

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

Hollies – "King Midas in Reverse" (1967)

It’s plain to see it’s hopeless

Going on the way we are

My grandson Jack (who will turn five next month) came over tonight to sleep at my house.

While we were driving back from dinner, today’s featured song – one of my personal favorites – came on the radio.

Jack often asks “What’s that song about?” when he’s in the car with me and I have the radio on – as he did tonight when “King Midas in Reverse” came on.

I explained to him that King Midas, who lived a long time ago, was a greedy man who once wished that everything he touched be turned into gold.

Midas’s wish was granted.  He was delighted to find that sticks and stones were instantly transformed into hunks of gold when he picked them up.

But when Midas’s lunch was transformed into indigestible precious metal when he started to partake of it, he began to realize that his wish might have been a bad idea.

The light bulb really went on over his head when he touched his beloved daughter, instantly turning her into a golden statue:

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Jack’s a very sensitive little guy, and we try to avoid talking about people, animals, and even insects dying when he’s around.  

I was afraid that the image of Midas’s daughter being turned into a lifeless statue would upset him, so I left that part out when I told him the story of King Midas.

To tell the truth, that part of the story disturbs me as well.  I’d just as soon not think about it.

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When we got home, I broke out the DVD of the movie adaptation of C. S. Lewis’s 1950 novel, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, for Jack to watch.

Years ago, I read Lewis’s seven Narnia books to my kids, and I’ve been looking forward to the time when I could read them to my grandkids.  (Even if you don’t have kids or grandkids, you need to read the Narnia books – they are wonderful on so many levels.)

I wasn’t sure if Jack was old enough for the movie, but thought I would give it a shot – I told him that the movie was boring or confusing or scary, we could turn it off and watch Paw Patrol, or PJ Masks, or maybe his newest favorite show – My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.  

I found out later that the people who reviewed the movie for the Common Sense Media website generally were of the opinion that the movie was too intense for kids who were younger than nine or ten years old, so I might have jumped the gun with Jack.

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The movie opens with a scene of as mother and her four children running for shelter as bombs rain down on London during World War II.  (The father isn’t with them because he’s an RAF pilot.)  The next day, the mother puts her children on a crowded train that will take them to stay at a friend’s house in the country for the duration of the Blitz.

I was afraid that the thought of the children being separated from their mother might make Jack sad, so I explained to him that the mother was sending them away to a nice place where they would be far away from the war.

That didn’t satisfy Jack.  “But what will happen to the mom?” he asked, visibly upset.

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Later in the movie, the White Witch – a villainess who was a very nasty piece of work indeed – pointed her magic scepter at a brave fox who had tried to foil her evil plan, turning him into a statue.

Not a golden statue – just a plain old stone statue.

Jack became distraught when he saw that scene.  I assured him that the movie’s heroes would defeat the White Witch and turn the statue back into a living fox who was as good as new.  That calmed him down.

I stopped the movie about halfway through, promised Jack that we watch the rest on his next visit, and took him upstairs to get into his pajamas.

I sure hope I’m right about the way the movie comes out.  Jack’s not going to be happy with me if I don’t deliver on my promise that that the fox will be turned from a statue back into a living, breathing fox by the end of the movie.

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“King Midas in Reverse” was released by the Hollies as a single in September 1967:  

The song – written by Graham Nash – barely snuck into the top 20 in the UK, and peaked at #51 on the U.S. charts.  That’s pretty bad when you realize that 12 of the 13 previous Hollies singles had made it into the top ten in the UK, and nine of those singles cracked the top five.  

The ho-hum reaction of the public to “King Midas in Reverse” – a more complex and ambitious record than the Hollies’ more successful singles – caused the band to go back to releasing simpler material.  When Nash’s bandmates refused to follow up “King Midas in Reverse” by recording his "Marrakesh Express," he packed up and moved to Los Angeles, where he hooked up with Stephen Stills and David Crosby.

Click here to listen to “King Midas in Reverse.”

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

Hard Working Americans – "Throwing the Goats" (2016)

 

As he was dynamite fishing

For some compliments

Off the banks of old Lake Providence

Are you familiar with the expression “fishing for compliments”?

When you fish for compliments, you say something modest and self-deprecating about yourself in hopes that your listener will disagree and say something complimentary about you.

Women are much better at doing this than men, but I like to think that I can hold my own when it comes to fishing for compliments . . . as a recent e-mail exchange with a very special fan of 2 or 3 lines demonstrated.

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I have a pretty high opinion of 2 or 3 lines, but I’m not completely deluded when it comes to my wildly successful little blog.

So I was pleasantly surprised when a friend of mine shared an e-mail she had sent to the editor of a magazine. 

She urged said editor to publish a feature story about 2 or 3 lines in said magazine, telling the editor that I was “amazingly prolific,” “articulate,” and “an indefatigable researcher,” and describing 2 or 3 lines as “quite remarkable.”

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I was touched by her gesture – it was very nice of her to go to so much effort on my behalf.

But what really stunned me was that someone as smart and talented as my friend really believed what she had written about 2 or 3 lines.

I e-mailed her to thank her for her letter to the magazine editor, but also expressing doubt that 2 or 3 lines really deserved all the compliments she had paid to it.  (I like to think that I’ve published some very good posts, but I’m self-aware enough to know that the quality of 2 or 3 lines is very uneven.  A lot of my posts are just meh – I’m basically pretty lazy, and sometimes I just phone it in rather than putting my best effort into a post.)

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Here’s what my friend e-mailed me in response to what a cynic would describe as fishing for compliments on my part:

What you have done is AMAZING!  And you will never convince anyone that you are lazy – you, like many of the greats, are more compulsively creative.  I have many artist friends who would give anything to be like you. Your oeuvre is dazzling.

You're the most impressive creative person I've met in years!

Please believe me – your blog is fabulous!!!

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It’s shameless of me to toot my own horn by quoting what my friend’s e-mail.  Deep down inside, I don’t believe for a minute that I am worthy of her comments.  

But it appears that she was being 100% sincere – which blows me away.

I can’t express in words how good her e-mail made me feel.  Having felt that feeling once, I want to feel it over and over.  So I’ve decided to exploit my friend's kindness by fishing for compliments from her on a regular basis.

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So far, my strategy is working beautifully!  For example, here’s a recent exchange of e-mails between us:

Me: Can you look at the photo attached to this e-mail and tell me if you think that the pants I am wearing make me look fat?

Her: Not at all – you look great in those pants!

Me: You really think so?  I feel like I look fat in these pants.  Are you sure you're not saying I don't look fat just to make me feel good?

Her: What you look like in those pants is AMAZING!  You will never convince anyone that you look fat in those pants – I have many artist friends who would give anything to look the way you look in those pants!  You're the most impressive-looking pants-wearing person I've met in years!  

Me: Do you really mean that?

Her: YOUR DERRIERE IS DAZZLING IN THOSE PANTS!

Me: OK . . . if you're sure.

Her: Please believe me – your ass looks fabulous!!!

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The Hard Working Americans are often described as a rock “supergroup.”

I’m reserving judgment on whether I concur in that appellation until I become better acquainted with their entire body of work.  

But my friend is all in: “What this group has done is AMAZING,” she once told me. “Their oeuvre is dazzling!”  

Click here to listen to “Throwing the Goats,” which was released in 2016 on the Hard Working Americans’ Rest in Chaos album.

Click on the link below to buy that recording from Amazon:

Talking Heads – "Memories Can't Wait" (1979)

Everyone has gone to sleep

I’m wide awake on memories

These memories can’t wait

As I noted in the previous 2 or 3 lines, the biggest pop music superstars – e.g., the Beatles,  the Stones, Led Zeppelin, Elton John, Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, Madonna, Taylor Swift – never performed live in my hometown of Joplin, Missouri.

You can’t blame them.  When I graduated from high school in Joplin in 1970, the city’s population was only 39,526 – making it only the 527th-largest burg in the U. S. of A.  (Joplin’s current population is just over 50,000, which might or might not be enough to make it one of the 500 most populous American cities.) 

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A little over a year ago, the Joplinite website began to count down the 100 greatest concerts in the history of Memorial Hall, the city’s 4000-seat convention center and concert hall, which opened in 1925:

I was astonished to see how many prominent recording artists had performed there over the years.

The first few decades featured concerts by a number of first-rate jazz musicians – including Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Nat King Cole, and Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys.

A number of classic rock performers played at Memorial Hall in the sixties and seventies – among them Paul Revere & the Raiders, Chicago, Badfinger, the Guess Who, and Steely Dan.

The eighties and nineties featured visits by hair/metal bands like Nazareth, Ratt, Great White, Megadeath, and Sammy Hagar.

Not surprisingly, Memorial Hall attracted the crème de la crème of country music – including both older artists (like Roy Acuff, Ernest Tubb, Bill Monroe, Hank Thompson, Ray Price, and Johnny Cash) and more contemporary stars  (including Garth Brooks, Kenny Chesney, Alan Jackson, Willie Nelson, Brad Paisley, and Hank Williams, Jr.).

Last but not least, there were a number of performers that don’t fit into any of those genres – like John Philip Sousa (who came to Joplin in 1929), Weird Al Yankovic, and Snoop Dogg.

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Of course, Memorial Hall isn’t the only concert venue in Joplin.

As I noted in a previous post, Junge Stadium – where Joplin High School plays its football games – has hosted a few outdoor concerts (including a 1973 Rare Earth/Sugarloaf/Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show extravaganza that I heard from afar).

And while Missouri Southern State University’s 2000-seat Taylor Performing Arts Center is utilized mostly for theatrical productions, it has hosted concerts by some well-known recording artists – including the Talking Heads.

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I learned only recently that the Talking Heads performed in Joplin in 1979.  I still can’t quite wrap my head around the idea of that cutting-edge art-rock group – who in their heyday were the darlings of the New York City punk/new wave scene – playing songs like “Psycho Killer” and “Life During Wartime” in my little ol’ hometown.

The Talking Heads

After appearing on Saturday Night Live on February 10, 1979, the Talking Heads spent the next few months recording their third studio album, Fear of Music.  

The band spent June touring Australia and New Zealand.  In July, they visited London, Berlin, Paris and several other European cities before flying to Japan for five shows in five nights.

Between August 8 and November 17, the Talking Heads travelled the United States from pillar to post to promote Fear of Music.  Their tour stops were divided roughly 50-50 between big cities (e.g., New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia) and college campuses (including the University of Massachusetts, Penn State, the University of Illinois, the University of Arizona, and San Diego State).  Why the tour promoters decided to include Joplin and Missouri Southern on their itinerary is a mystery to me.

The night before the Talking Heads played at Missouri Southern, they performed in St. Louis and reportedly drew a crowd of only about 100.  If that figure is accurate, I shudder to think what the attendance at the Joplin show was.

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I bought Fear of Music shortly after it was released, but I never listened to it as much as I listened to the Talking Heads’ first two albums, Talking Heads:77 and More Songs About Buildings and Food – which were two of my favorites from that era.

The most familiar song from Fear of Music is “Life During Wartime”:

This ain’t no party, this ain’t no disco

This ain’t no fooling around

No time for dancing, or lovey-dovey

I ain’t got time for that now

But the track that follows – “Memories Can’t Wait” – may be the best song on the album.

Click here to listen to “Memories Can’t Wait,” which was the penultimate song on the setlist of the Talking Heads’ concert in Joplin.

Click on the link below to buy that recording from Amazon: