100 Proof (Aged in Soul) – "Somebody's Been Sleeping" (1970)

Fee-fi-fo-fum

I can feel the presence of someone

I was very surprised to learn recently that “Somebody’s Been Sleeping” made it all the way to #8 on the Billboard “Hot 100” in 1970.

I listened to top-40 radio constantly back then, and I would swear on a stack of Bibles that I never heard “Somebody’s Been Sleeping” on the local stations. 

I remember all the other songs in the top ten the week that “Somebody’s Been Sleeping” hit #8:

  1.  “I’ll Be There” (Jackson 5)

  2.  “We’ve Only Just Begun” (Carpenters)

  3.  “Fire and Rain” (James Taylor)

  4.  “I Think I Love You” (Partridge Family)

  5.  “Indiana Wants Me” (R. Dean Taylor)

  6.  “Green-Eyed Lady” (Sugarloaf)

  7.  “The Tears of a Clown” (Smokey Robinson & the Miracles)

  9.  “Gypsy Woman” (Brian Hyland)

10.  “It Don’t Matter to Me” (Bread)

Is it possible that my local top-40 radio station never played “Somebody’s Been Sleeping”?  (If so, why?  I don’t think that the song’s lyrics – which explain why the singer thinks his wife is having an affair – would have been considered objectionable for radio airplay in 1970.)

Or is my memory playing tricks on me again?

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Click here to listen to “Somebody’s Been Sleeping,” which was clearly inspired by “Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” but which throws in “Fee-fi-fo-fum” from “Jack and the Beanstalk.”

Click here to buy “Somebody’s Been Sleeping” from Amazon.

Animotion – "Obsession" (1984)

I will have you, yes, I will have you

I will find a way and I will have you

“Obsession” was co-written by Michael Des Barres, who I know from his show on the Sirius/XM “Underground Garage” channel.

Des Barres, who has described himself as “the son of a junkie aristocrat and a schizophrenic showgirl,” was once married to the notorious rock groupie, Pamela Des Barres, who claims to have liaised with Mick Jagger, Keith, Jim Morrison, and Jimmy Page (among others).  It is widely believed that the movie Almost Famous was inspired in part by her memoir, I’m With the Band: Confessions of a Groupie.

Pamela and Michael Des Barres

“Obsession” was originally recorded by Michael Des Barres and his co-writer, Holly Knight, in 1983.  Animotion had a top ten hit with their 1984 cover of the song.

Click here to listen to the Animotion cover of “Obsession.”

Click here to buy that recording from Amazon.

John Lennon – "Nobody Told Me" (1984)

Well, everybody’s talking

And no one says a word

Nobody told me there’d be days like these

I have to disagree with John.  I feel like a lot of people told us there’d be days like these – we just didn’t listen to them.

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Click here to listen to “Nobody Told Me,” which was released in 1984 on the Milk and Honey album:  

It was Lennon’s third and last posthumous top 10 single, peaking at #5 on the Billboard “Hot 100.”

Click here to buy “Nobody Told Me” from Amazon.

Big Joe Williams – "Baby, Please Don't Go" (1935)

Baby, please don’t go

Back to New Orleans

And get your cold ice cream

“Baby, Please Don’t Go” has been described as “one of the most played, arranged, and rearranged pieces in blues history.”

Click here to listen to the original 1935 recording of the song by Big Joe Williams.  Williams released other versions of the song in 1941 and 1947.

Blues legends Lightnin’ Hopkins, John Lee Hooker, and Muddy Waters recorded “Baby, Please Don’t Go” in 1947, 1949, and 1953, respectively.  (The Hooker version is titled “Don’t Go Baby.”)

The Them (who were fronted by Van Morrison) released their cover of the song in 1964.  Click here to listen to that version, which was a hit in the UK but not in the U.S.  (The single’s B-side – “Gloria” – is much better known on this side of the pond.)

The song was later covered by many others, including the Amboy Dukes, AC/DC (who often performed it in their live shows), and Aerosmith.  Click here to listen to the Amboy Dukes version, which featured Ted Nugent (a/k/a/ “The Motor City Mad Man”) on lead guitar.

Click here to buy the original Big Joe Williams recording of “Baby, Please Don’t Go.”  As far as I can tell, it is the only recording of the song that uses the “Get your cold ice cream” line.

Rage Against the Machine – "Down Rodeo" (1996)

The structure is set

You’ll never change it with a ballot pull

(Time will tell if the results of the recent election tend to prove or disprove that statement.)

The “Rodeo” in the title of today’s featured song refers to the famous Rodeo Drive, a luxury shopping street located in Beverly Hills, California.

Rage Against the Machine frontman Zack de la Rocha, who wrote the song’s lyrics, is well-known for holding far-left political beliefs.  He kicks this song off with these very uncomplimentary lines about Rodeo Drive shoppers – all of whom are affluent, and almost all of whom are white:

I’m rollin’ down Rodeo with a shotgun

These people ain’t seen a brown-skinned man

Since their grandparents bought one

Zack must really mean it because he repeats those lines a half-dozen times over the course of the song.

Click here to listen to “Down Rodeo.”

Click here to buy it from Amazon.  (I’m guessing Zach de la Rocha doesn’t shop at Amazon.)

Pretty Things – "She's a Lover" (1970)

She sheds her summer dress

Fearing it displeases you

(I like the way this woman thinks.)

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Dick Taylor – one of the two founding members of the Pretty Things – was an original member of the Rolling Stones, but he left the Stones five months after that group formed when he was admitted to London’s Central School of Art and Design.  (Taylor had met Keith Richards while both were students at a different art school.)

Big mistake, Dick!

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Click here to listen to “She’s a Lover,” which was released in 1970 on Parachute, the Pretty Things’ fifth album – and the first one they recorded after Dick Taylor left the group:

Click here to buy that recording from Amazon.

Love and Rockets – "No New Tale to Tell" (1987)

When you’re down, it’s a long way up

When you’re up, it’s a long way down

Once David J of Love and Rockets thought of that first line, I’m guessing it was no great feat for him to come up with the second line.

David J (né David John Hawkins)
of Love and Rockets

Click here to listen to “No New Tale to Tell” from the group’s 1987 studio album titled Earth, Sun, Moon.

Click here to buy that recording from Amazon.