Spirit – "I Got a Line on You" (1968)

My summer, she's comin' on strong

I can love you, love you, love you, love you 

All year long!

[NOTE: "I Got a Line on You” peaked at #25 on the Billboard “Hot 100” in 1968.  I find it mind-boggling that it didn’t make it all the way to #1.  (I also find it mind-boggling that Randy California of Spirit, who wrote the song when he was 16 years old, was playing guitar in Jimi Hendrix’s band when he was only 15!)  To help make up for the American public’s failure to give “I’ve Got a Line on You” its due, I’ve decided to include that record in this year’s group of 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” HIT SINGLES HALL OF FAME.  Here’s a slightly-edited version of my original August 16, 2013 post about that record.] 

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Summer has been comin' on strong for some time now.  It was beastly hot when we went to Cape Cod for vacation [in July 2013], which is unusual.

I'm hoping the driver of this seafood delivery truck remembered to plug in his refrigeration unit when he parked it for the night.  I hate to think how many people could have been laid low if the oysters, clams, scallops and other fruits de mer in this bad boy had been allowed to ripen.

Speaking of spoiled seafood, here's an amusing little exchange I found on an online discussion board:

CHEESEFUNGUS:  i bought a swordfish felle on monday and just took it out of the fridge, it smelled a little . . . fishy.  [NOTE: I assume "felle" means "filet."]  dude at my work said you have to eat fish right away cause they can go bad quick.  dont have much fish knowledge here.  [NOTE: Or any other kind of knowledge, I'd wager.]  its on the grill and will be done in about 10 min. BADGERBOY1:  if it was frozen the whole time then it should be fine. Unless it was bad before you froze it. Did you check to see if it had an expiration date? CHEESEFUNGUS:  I didn't freeze it I bought it fresh on Monday. 48 hrs can't be too bad?  My friggin grill ran out of gas and I had to run inside and pan fry.  [NOTE: Cheesefungus don't have much gas grill knowledge either.]   looks fine, tastes alright.  i'm about to mix it in to some cheesy noodles should be decent.  [NOTE: Is there anything that cheesy noodles doesn't make better?] Grilled swordfish (sans cheesy noodles) SALMON401: You'll be fine.  Put an extra roll of toilet paper by the throne . . . Just in case. *     *     *     *     *

I'm surprised that 2 or 3 lines has featured well over 500 songs, and that only one of them is a song by Spirit.  That's a major oversight on my part.

How would I describe Spirit's music?  Let me begin by reminding you of the traditional Indian tale of the six blind men and the elephant.

As the story goes, six blind men are asked to touch an elephant and describe it, based on what their hands tell them.  One touches the elephant's tusk, and says the elephant must be very like a spear.  Another touches its trunk, and announces that the elephant is very like a snake.  A third man touches the elephant's knee, and opines that the creature must be very like a tree.  And so on, and so forth.

Each one of the blind men was right, yet each one was wrong.  

The same is true of the music critics who have described Spirit's music as psychedelic, jazz-rock, progressive rock, or just plain pop music.  They're all right, yet they're all wrong.

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Spirit's music is uniquely eclectic, which isn't surprising given the diverse musical backgrounds of its members.

Vocalist/songwriter Jay Ferguson took classical piano lessons when he was a child, but then got interested in the banjo and started a bluegrass group with his brother.  

Drummer Ed Cassidy was a veteran jazz drummer who played with legends like Art Pepper, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, and Gerry Mulligan.  Cassidy – who sported a shaved head, dressed entirely in black, and positioned his bass drum sideways with pedals on both sides so he could play it with either foot – was 44 years old when Spirit's eponymous debut album was released in 1968.  (Cassidy died of cancer less than a year ago.  He was 89 years old – older than my parents.  I can't quite wrap my mind around the fact that there existed a major rock music figure who was older than my parents.)

Ed Cassidy

Cassidy's stepson, guitarist/singer/songwriter Randy California, was not quite 17 when that album hit the stores.  Born Randy Wolfe, Spirit's wunderkind was given his stage name by Jimi Hendrix.  

Randy played in a band that Hendrix formed in New York City in the summer of 1966 – he was 15 years old at the time! – and Hendrix called him "Randy California" to distinguish him from another band member named Randy (whom Hendrix christened "Randy Texas").

Randy California

Hendrix invited California to come to England with him and be part of his new band, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, but his parents wanted him to finish high school.

(Time out, boys and girls.  I have a feeling that most of you who have kids would have made the same decision.  So would have I.  If Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had been our son, we probably would have told him to quit spending so much time playing the piano and do his arithmetic homework because WE ARE MORONS!) 

A Molokai beach

Sadly, Randy California died in 1997, when he was just 45.  He and his 12-year-old son were swimming off the coast of Molokai, Hawaii, when they got caught up in a riptide.  Randy managed to push his son free of the riptide, but he was pulled out to sea and presumably drowned.  (His body was never recovered.)

Spirit's first album was quite good.  Its second album, The Family That Plays Together, which was released less than a year later, was outstanding.  (I got both LPs -- gently used -- from a fellow college student in 1972.  Cost me a buck, as I recall.)

The group's fourth album, Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus, is one of the great albums of all time.  

We'll be featuring some of the great songs from Dr. Sardonicus in the future, but today's post is about the group's only top-40 single.  "I Got a Line on You" (grammar was not the group's strong suit) is a classic three-minute (actually, 2:38) AM-radio, sing-along-to pop song.  It features one of the catchiest riffs ever and some great back-and-forth vocals in the chorus singing.

Click here to listen to "I Got a Line on You."

Click here to buy the song from Amazon.

Amboy Dukes – "Journey to the Center of the Mind" (1968)

Take a ride

To the land

Inside of your mind

Did you know that a man’s finger length ratio – that is, the length of his index finger divided by the length of his ring finger – tends to be lower than a woman’s?  That’s because men tend to have longer ring fingers, while women’s ring and index fingers are usually about the same length.

Another significant difference between men and women is the kind of movies they like.

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ScreenGeek recently published a list of the movies with the widest spreads between their IMDb.com rankings by men and their rankings by women.

Among the movies that men love but women hate are For a Few Dollars More, Raging Bull, Unforgiven, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Once Upon a Time in the West, Platoon, Rocky, The Great Escape, and Lawrence of Arabia – that’s two boxing movies, three Westerns, and four war movies:

On the list of movies that women favor but men disdain include rom-coms (Pride and Prejudice, The Notebook) and Disney movies (Frozen, Tangled, Beauty and the Beast):

I suppose it comes as no surprise that men prefer war films to Disney princess movies– and vice versa for women.  But there is something in these rankings that I wouldn’t have anticipated.  And that’s how strongly women and men disagree when it comes to Harry Potter movies.  

Numbers one, two, four and five on the list of female-preferred films with the greatest disparity between male and female rankings – that’s the second chart – are Harry Potter movies.  For example, the average man ranks Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix no fewer than 690 spots lower than the average woman.

In other words, if you ask the typical man and woman to list how many movies they like better than Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the man’s list will have 690 more names on it.  That’s a lot of movies.

I’m not sure I could even name 690 movies.  But if I could, I guarantee you I would rate every one of them ahead of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix – or Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (which is number two on the list).

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The typical male might compare the movies on these two lists and be tempted to make a sexist, smart-ass crack like “Who knew that women had such terrible taste in movies?”

2 or 3 lines is not the typical male, of course.  I would never say something like that.

Though I might think it.

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I’m surprised that I haven’t previously featured the Amboy Dukes’ 1968 hit single, “Journey to the Center of the Mind,” on my wildly popular little blog.  Better late than never!

“Journey to the Center of the Mind” – which is a real stick of dynamite – was co-written by Ted “Motor City Madman” Nugent.  

Say what you will about Nugent’s outré political beliefs and obnoxious public pronouncements, he is a fan-f*cking-tastic guitarist.  

From Wikipedia:

During the recording [of “Journey to the Center of the Mind”] there was considerable tension amongst the band members . . . . Nugent would often create an uneasy environment for the other band members when he didn’t receive enough attention.

I sympathize with Ted – I rarely receive enough attention from others, and am sometimes forced to take rather extreme steps to remedy that.

Click here to watch a video of the Amboy Dukes (plus go-go dancers) performing the newest member of the 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” HIT SINGLES HALL OF FAME. 

 

Human Beinz – "Nobody But Me" (1968)

No no no no no no no no no

No no no no no no no 
No no no no no no no no no

No no no no no

Nobody can do the shing-a-ling like I do

[NOTE: There is no record I enjoy singing along to more than “Nobody But Me.”  That alone makes it worthy of being chosen for the 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” HIT SINGLES HALL OF FAME.  Here’s what I wrote about that record way back in 2011.]

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Very talented people are often envied by less talented people.  I myself have experienced such envy on more than one occasion.

For example, whenever this song comes on the radio, I am able to do something that very others can – namely, sing the very tricky "no-no" parts of this song EXACTLY correctly. 

I'm like a certain baseball player who was such a natural hitter that it was said that if you dragged him out of bed in the middle of the night and started pitching to him, he would immediately start hitting line drives to all fields.

If you dragged me out of bed in the middle of the night and put on "Nobody But Me," I would duplicate lead singer John "Dick" Belley's performance like we were Siamese twins, putting each and every "no" (there are 30 altogether) in its proper place.  I don't even need to hear the record – I can do it a cappella and on demand.  

Try it sometime.  What the hell – try it right now.  Click on this link, which will take you to the song.  Hit the "start" button and give it a shot.

I'll even give you the sheet music:

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How you'd do?  Pretty bad, huh?  I thought so.

Well, try it one more time – after all, I caught you by surprise, before you had a chance to warm up.  I'm sure you'll do much better the second time . . .

NOT!  You sucked just as badly the second time, didn't you?  (Tell the truth!)

That's the difference between you and me – I nail "Nobody But Me" a hundred times out a hundred, rain or shine.  (Of course, there are other differences between you and me.  For example, you've never created a wildly popular little blog.)

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Click here to listen to the original recorded version of "Nobody But Me" by the Isley Brothers.  It's not bad, but it's certainly not as good as the Human Beinz cover.

That cover is used as the soundtrack to a new Nike TV ad.  It's not the best Nike TV commercial ever (I'll be posting about the very best one sometime in the future) but it's a good one – thanks in large part to the use of "Nobody But Me."  Click here to view that Nike ad.

Martin Scorsese used "Nobody But Me" in The Departed.  Click here to see the scene from The Departed where Leonardo DiCaprio goes medieval on a couple of thugs to the accompaniment of "Nobody But Me."

The first episode of the 7th season of The Office featured a cold open with the cast doing a lip dub to "Nobody But Me."  Click here to watch it.

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The Human Beinz are from Youngstown, Ohio, and originally called themselves the Premiers.  In 1966, they changed their named to the Human Beingz, but their record company mispelled their name on "Nobody But Me."  The song became a top-10 hit, which meant they couldn't really change the spelling then.

Turns out it didn't really matter.  They never had another hit (at least not in the United States – the band was very popular in Japan for some reason), and broke up in 1969.

The Human Beinz in Japan

Click here to listen to Human Beinz recording of "Nobody But Me."

 

Click here to order the song from Amazon.

Rod Stewart – “(I Know) I’m Losing You” (1971)

Your love is fading

I can feel your love fading

[Putting not only the original Temptations recording of “(I Know) I’m Losing You” but also Rare Earth’s and Rod Stewart’s cover versions of that song in the 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” COVER RECORDS HALL OF FAME is an unprecedented decision that’s certain to be controversial.  I have only three words to say to those who don’t agree with it – can you guess what those three words are?  (Here’s a hint: the first of those three words is “go.”)] 

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From Cashbox magazine’s November 12, 1966, review of the Temptations new single, “(I Know) I’m Losing You”:

It’s a surefire success for the Temptations with this emotion packed follow-up to “Beauty’s Only Skin Deep,” titled “(I Know) I’m Losing You.” The ork is throbbing, the chorus is smooth and the group tells its sad tale in exquisite fashion.

“The ork is throbbing”?  (Say what?)

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Rod Stewart’s cover of “(I Know) I’m Losing You” – a #1 hit for the Temptations in 1966 – is yet another example of a great cover of a Motown song by a white recording artist.

That cover was the penultimate track on Stewart’s 1971 album, Every Picture Tells a Story – an album that everyone (and I do mean everyone) I knew in college owned.

Every Picture Tells a Story wasn’t perfect, but it was pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good – clearly Stewart’s best album ever.

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Click here to listen to the Temptations’ original recording of “(I Know) I’m Losing You.”

Click here to listen to Rod Stewart’s cover of that record, the newest member of the 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE’ COVER RECORDS HALL OF FAME.

Click here to buy that record from Amazon.

Rare Earth – "(I Know) I'm Losing You" (1970)

It’s all over your face

Someone’s taken my place

Ooh baby, I’m losing you

[Welcome to the big leagues, Rare Earth!  Your cover of “(I Know) I'm Losing You”is so good that I've decided to promote it from the 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” COVER RECORDS HALL OF FAME to the 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” HIT SINGLES HALL OF FAME.  I saw Rare Earth perform at the high-school football stadium in my hometown of Joplin, Missouri on July 2, 1973.  I'll have more to say about that in a future 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” HIT SINGLES HALL OF FAME post – until then, the original March 3, 2023 2 or 3 lines post about today’s featured record will have to suffice.]

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Rare Earth – which began life as the Sunliners in Detroit in 1960 – wasn’t the first all-white group signed to a record contract by Motown.

But they were the first all-white band signed to a record contract by Motown to have a hit.

Both of Rare Earth’s first two hit singles – “Get Ready” and “(I Know) I’m Losing You” – were covers of Temptations hit.  And both charted higher than the originals.

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We could argue until we’re blue in thew face whether the Rare Earth or Rod Stewart covers of “(I Know) I’m Losing You” is better.

But life is very short, and there’s no time for fussing and fighting, my friend.  So let’s just agree they’re both great, and leave it at that. 

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Click here to listen to the album version of Rare Earth’s cover of “(I Know) I’m Losing You.”

Click here to listen to the single version, which peaked at #7 on the Billboard “Hot 100.”

Click here to view a rather bizarre video of the group performing the song on The Ed Sullivan Show.

Click here to buy the album version of “(I Know) I’m Losing You” from Amazon. 

Temptations – "(I Know) I'm Losing You" (1966)

I can feel it in my bones

Any day you’ll be gone

Oooh, baby, I'm losing you

[I featured covers of “(I Know) I’m Losing You” by Rare Earth and Rod Stewart on my wildly successful little blog before featuring the original Temptations recording of that song.  I can’t think of another truly great record from that era that has two equally great covers, so I’ve decided to induct all three of those recordings into the 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” HIT SINGLES HALL OF FAME.  Here's my January 2024 post about the original Temptations recording of “(I Know) I’m Losing You."]

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My 24th season of basketball refereeing did not get off to a great start.

I had been assigned to do a girls’ junior-varsity game at 530p at a high school just a few miles from my apartment.  (So far, so good.)

But the visiting team – which was being bussed from a high school in the most distant part of the county – ran into rush-hour traffic, and arrived half an hour later than they should have.

Don’t ever send me this greeting card!

Then the very loud buzzer that the scoreboard operator uses to alert the referees when there’s a substitute who wants to enter the game got stuck in the first quarter, necessitating a long delay while someone went into the electrical closet at the school to disconnect and then reset the buzzer.  (My hearing is almost back to normal, thank you very much!)

But then the same thing then happened in the second quarter.  That time, the effort to reset the buzzer resulted in both scoreboards going blank.  So we had to wait until the athletic director located the small portable scoreboard that is used for kids’ rec league games in that gym on weekends.  (That scoreboard wasn’t satisfactory for several reasons, but we really had no choice.)

The game started out looking like it was going to be a blowout, but it ended up coming down to the home team’s last shot.  That last shot was blocked, but the home team players, coaches, and fans were certain that the shooter was fouled.

They were kind enough to point out our error to us as we left the court.

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My partner and I had changed into our uniforms in the PE department office.  I had left my phone and keys in a zippered coat pocket before heading to the gym to do  the game, but my smart watch wasn’t with them when we returned to change back into our street clothes.  

I didn’t think much about that – I figured I had stuck it somewhere in the small suitcase I use to transport my uniform, shoes, and whistle to games, and that I would find it once I got back home and unpacked.

But the watch not only wasn’t in my coat pocket, it wasn’t in my suitcase either.  Nor was it in my car when I made the long trip from my apartment to my parking garage to check.  

The watch

I texted one of the referees who was working the varsity game that followed mine and asked him to look around the dressing area after his game was over, but he told me that he didn’t see my watch anywhere.

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There’s an app on my phone that controls various aspects of my smart watch’s operation.  I opened that app, thinking that there might be a “Find My Watch” function I could use to track it down – and sure enough, there was such a function.  

I didn’t know if “Find My Watch” worked only if I was in the immediate vicinity of my watch.  But I had nothing to lose, so I hit the button.

A jazzy little ringtone immediately started to sound, so I knew the watch must be nearby.  But where could it be?

After listening intently for a few seconds, I realized that the ringtone seemed to be coming from inside my left shoe – which I was still wearing.

The shoe

Sure enough, the watch was in my left shoe – where I had hidden it after changing into my referee shoes before the game.

Somehow I had managed to change back into my street shoes, walk to my car, drive home, walk to my apartment, walk back to my parking garage, and then walk back to my apartment once again without noticing that there was a watch in my left shoe.

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2 or 3 lines has previously featured the Rare Earth and Rod Stewart covers of “(I Know) I’m Losing You,” so I figured it was about time to feature the original 1966 recording of that song by the Temptations.

Click here to listen to today’s featured record.

Click here to buy that record from Amazon.