Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels – "Sock It To Me – Baby!" (1967)

Sock it . . . to me baby
Sock it . . . to me, baby
Sock it!

After losing the 1960 presidential election and the 1962 California governor’s race, Richard Nixon spent the next few years licking his electoral wounds.

Nixon, who wasn’t exactly “Mr. Personality,” knew he’d have to do things differently if he hoped to make a political comeback.  As part of his efforts to become more personable and appealing to voters, Nixon hired a former NBC comedy writer named Paul Keyes.  

Paul Keyes and Richard Nixon

Keyes persuaded Nixon to appear on the series premiere of Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, which aired on September 16, 1968 – less than two months before the 1968 presidential election.  (That contest pitted Nixon against Democrat Hubert Humphrey and third-party candidate George Wallace.)

The Laugh-In crew asked Nixon to say “What’s a bippy?” when it was time to film his cameo for the show.  Nixon wasn’t sure what a bippy was, so he declined.  He also didn’t want to say “Good night, Dick.”  (Dan Rowan always closed the show by telling his co-host, Dick Martin, “Say good night, Dick,” which Martin answered by saying, “Good night, Dick.”)

Nixon eventually agreed to say “Sock it to me” – which he delivered more as a question than as a statement:

It’s incredible to me that Richard Nixon agreed to appear on Laugh-In, much less did so when the election was only a few weeks away.  Of course, both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump appeared on Saturday Night Live, but they appeared a full year before the election.  

“Sock it to me” wasn’t new with Richard Nixon appeared on Laugh-In.  To the contrary, it had been in use for over 100 years, as this excerpt from an 1866 book about the American Civil War shows:

Now then, tell General Emory if they attack him again to go after them, and to follow them up, and to sock it to them, and to give them the devil.

Some people believe that Nixon’s Laugh-In appearance contributed to his winning the very close 1968 election.  Lena Horne – who was no fan of Nixon – reportedly was so angry that she kicked Dick Martin in the shin when she saw him after the election.

Martin defended himself by pointing out that Humphrey was invited to appear on Laugh-In as well, but passed on the invitation.  (Laugh-In’s creator, George Schlatter, later said that he planned to have Humphrey say, “I’ll sock it to you, Dick!”)

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Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels’ “Sock It To Me – Baby!” was released over a year before Nixon’s Laugh-In cameo.    

A few months later, Aretha Franklin released “Respect.”  Aretha’s backup singers chant “Sock it to me” repeatedly during the chorus of “Respect.”

By the way, Mitch Ryder's real name was William S. Levise, Jr.

Click here to listen to “Sock It To Me – Baby!”  I can’t think of another record that used a slide whistle to such good advantage.

Click below to buy the song from Amazon:

Alice Cooper -- "Elected" (1972)

Top prime cut of meat, I'm your choice
I wanna be elected!

Today's the big day.  In less than 24 hours, we should know who the next President of the United Staes is.  

We'll also know the identities of thousands of other officeholders: Senators and U.S. Representatives, governors, lieutenant governors, state attorneys general, state legislators, county executives, mayors, county and city councilmen and councilwomen, board of education members, county sheriffs, clerks of court, registers of wills, and countless others.  

But everyone's focused on the ne plus ultra of American elective office . . . the most powerful man in the world (after Chuck Norris) . . .  the capo di tutti capi . . . the POTUS.

I wish he was running for President!

I'll be watching the election results tonight for the same reason I watch "SportsCenter" on ESPN -- because I'm interested in knowing who the winners and losers are.  But the outcome won't matter that much to me -- nor should it.  I'll wake up tomorrow morning and go to the same job, I'll come home tomorrow night to the same house and family and dog and cat, etc., etc., etc.

That's the great thing about the United States, boys and girls -- for 99% of us, it really doesn't matter that much who wins and who loses.  Sure, most of us have a preference for one candidate or the other.  But your life over the next four years is probably going to be pretty much the same regardless of who the President is.  

So don't get all bent out of shape if your guy falls short.   Look on the bright side and count your blessings: we won't have to watch any political ads on TV for the next year or so.

Speaking of political ads, the Obama campaign has raised $632 million ($423 million from large contributions) for this election, while the Romney campaign has raised $389 million ($316 million from large contributions).  If my math is correct, that's over a billion dollars -- most of it spent in just a few states.  You and I may be glad that the campaign is almost over, but the TV and radio stations, local newspapers, direct-mail companies, and robocallers are fat and happy tonight.

The Billion Dollar Babies album cover

"Elected" was the third track on Alice Cooper's sixth studio album, Billion Dollar Babies, which was released in 1973.  But it was released as a single in 1972 -- October 7 to be precise, exactly one month before the 1972 election.

The 1972 election was a doozy.  President Richard Nixon's renomination was never in doubt.  But the Democratic nomination was up for grabs.

A total of 15 men and women sought that nomination.  Ted Kennedy would likely have won the nomination if he had run, but he declined to do so.  (Mary Jo Kopechne had died in his car in July 1969, but many people were apparently prepared to overlook his behavior that night and the lies he told about what happened.)

That left Senator Ed Muskie of Maine, the 1968 vice-presidential nominee, as the favorite.  The 1968 presidential nominee, Hubert Humphrey, also ran.  But neither man did very well.

The eventual winner was South Dakota Senator George McGovern, a "dove" who looked like a longshot at first.  (The darling of the doves in 1968, Eugene McCarthy, also sought the nomination but didn't get very far.)

Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson of Washington, a more conservative Democrat, and Alabama Governor George Wallace, who said he no longer favored racial segregation but did oppose school bussing, were McGovern's most serious opponents.

(New York Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, the first African-American woman to run for President, won three primaries but never had a real chance to prevail.  Hawaii Congresswoman Patsy Mink, the first Asian-American of either sex to contend for the nomination, ended up with only a single delegate.)

Seven different Democrats won primaries in 1972

Wallace not only won primaries in four Southern states, but also finished first in the Michigan and Maryland contests.  But his chances of winning the nomination ended when was shot four times and left paralyzed on May 15. 

McGovern went into the convention with plenty of delegates to win a first-ballot victory, but the convention was chaotic.  McGovern chose Missouri's Senator Thomas Eagleton to be his running mate, but a number of the delegates who were unhappy with McGovern made their displeasure known by not voting for Eagleton.

In fact, the delegates voted for some 70 different men and women for the vice-presidential nomination.  Even Chairman Mao Tse-Tung (or Mao Zedong, if you prefer) of China got a vote.

Eagleton and McGovern

Within days, it was discovered that Eagleton had undergone shock treatment for depression.  After first saying he backed Eagleton "1000 per cent," McGovern changed course and asked Eagleton to step down.  His first six choices to replace Eagleton declined, so McGovern turned to Kennedy brother-in-law Sargent Shriver to fill the void.

President Nixon was pretty popular in 1972, largely because he was credited with having achieved détente with China and the Soviet Union.  McGovern was viewed as an extreme liberal by many voters -- he was accused of being the candidate of "amnesty, abortion, and acid" by fellow Democrat Hubert Humphrey in the Nebraska primary campaign, and that label stuck.

The result was a landslide of historic proportions.  Nixon won 60.7% of the popular vote, while McGovern won only 37.5%.  The Electoral College tally was even more one-sided: 520 for Nixon, 17 for McGovern.  (Only Massachusetts and the District of Columbia favored McGovern, who died last month at age 90.)

We all know what happened to President Nixon, of course.  Within two years of the 1972 election, he was forced to resign from office due to the Watergate scandal.    

"Elected" made it to #26 on the U.S. charts.  Oddly, it did better abroad, reaching the top 10 in the UK, Ireland, Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands.  (Not France, of course.  France always has to be different.)

Alice Cooper strikes a patriotic pose

I bought Billion Dollar Babies and several other Alice Cooper albums back in the day, and I think he's very underrated.  Most people remember him for his female name, his excessive makeup and weird outfits, and his over-the-top, horror-movie-inspired live shows.

But good old Alice (who was born Vincent Damon Furnier in Detroit in 1948) knew how to write memorable songs.

By the way, David Byrne said that Billion Dollar Babies inspired him to write "Psycho Killer," the first song he ever wrote and arguably the greatest Talking Heads song ever.  

"Elected" has lines that seem like they were written for both candidates.

Don't these lines fit the typical Democrat's view of Mitt Romney's image?

A Yankee doodle dandy in a gold Rolls-Royce
I want to be elected!

And these lines could have been written about Barack Obama:

I never lied to you, I've always been cool
I want to be elected!

Here's the music video for "Elected."  Alice makes a pretty compelling campaigner.  (Don't miss the chimp's entrance with the wheelbarrow of cash at about 1:40.)

And here's a link you can use to buy it from Amazon:

Blue Öyster Cult -- "I'm On The Lamb, But I Ain't No Sheep" (1972)

Canadian Mounted, baby, police force that works
Red and black, it's their color scheme
Get their man in the end,
It's all right . . .

Frontenac Chateau, baby,
I cross the frontier at ten
Got a whip in my hand, baby,
And a girl or a husky at leather's end,
It's all right . . .

I discovered Blue Öyster Cult 37 or 38 years ago when I picked up a Columbia Records 3-record sampler album titled "Music People" at a record store in Houston, Texas.

Record companies issued sampler albums like this one to publicize new bands or give a bit of a goose to more well-known musicians whose forthcoming albums weren't expected to do very well. The most famous of these sampler albums were the "Loss Leaders" series of mostly double albums produced by Warner Brothers/Reprise records and sold by mail order for $2. The musicians represented on "The Big Ball," "Schlagers," and others of that ilk included some very mainstream artists (like Petula Clark and Peter, Paul and Mary), but were dominated by crazies like the Fugs, Captain Beefheart, and Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention.

Columbia Records also issued several samplers, and "Music People" included cuts by superstars (Bob Dylan, the Byrds), cult favorites (Spirit, It's a Beautiful Day, Mahavishnu Orchestra), and some utterly forgotten never-wases (Sweathog, Compost, Grootna, and Mylon with Holy Smoke).

The fourth cut on side one of "Music People" was "I'm On The Lamb But I Ain't No Sheep" by Blue Öyster Cult (or "BOC," as I will hereinafter abbreviate it) -- and it impressed me sufficiently that I immediately ran out and bought BOC's eponymous first album, which led off with this song. (That's right, Columbia Records sucked me right in – I did EXACTLY what they hoped I would do.)

BOC's first album cover – the artist was a guy named Bill Gawlik – got your attention. It looked like it definitely meant something serious and important, but who the hell knew what?

The cover featured the band's logo – that funny thingie right in the middle – like a cross with an upside-down question mark. Here's the flag featuring the logo that was displayed at some BOC concerts:

Blue Öyster Cult is generally credited with being the first band to use the so-called heavy metal umlaut – that's the two dots over the "O" in "Oyster" – which was later copied by Mötley Crüe, Motörhead, Queensrÿche, and others.  Since umlauts are used in Germanic languages but not in English, its usage by such bands is presumably intended to add an element of menace and general nastiness. 

Of course, umlauts should be distinguished from diaereses, a diacritical mark graphically similar to the umlaut. If you want to know more about this topic, be my guest – just don't expect me to accompany you on your little side trip to Minutiaeville.

The titles of the songs on the first BOC album were attention-getting, to put it mildly: "Transmaniacon MC," "Before the Kiss, A Redcap," "She's as Beautiful as a Foot," etc.

Click here to listen to our featured song.

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I'm featuring "I'm On The Lamb" because it was the first BOC song I ever heard, but I also have to talk about the last song on side one of that LP – "Before the Kiss, A Redcap." Here are a few lines from that song, the lyrics are which are obscure even by BOC standards:

And underneath the black light

Underneath it all

4 and 40 redheads meet

Come to doom, doom the dawn

With threats of gas and rose motifs

Their lips apart like swollen rose

Their tongues extend and then retract

A Red Cap, a Red Cap

Before the kiss

Before the kiss

I guess you're asking yourself "What's a 'Red Cap'?" (If you're letting that stuff about tongues extending and retracting distract you, SNAP OUT OF IT AND PAY ATTENTION!)

According to Wikipedia, a "Red Cap" is "a type of malevolent murderous dwarf, goblin, elf, or fairy. . . said to inhabit ruined castles found along the border between England and Scotland [who] are said to murder travelers who stray into their homes and dye their hats with their victims' blood (from which they get their name). Redcaps must kill regularly, for if the blood staining their hats dries out, they die. Redcaps are very fast in spite of the heavy iron pikes they wield and the iron-shod boots they wear. Outrunning a redcap is supposedly impossible." (As Count Floyd would have said, that's some scary stuff, boys and girls.)

But that was not the meaning BOC intended here. So put those nasty little goblins out of your mind and think beer instead. That's right, beer -- or at least ale.

Given that this song is takes place in a bar, I think it's safe to assume that "Red Cap" ale what BOC is talking about here. "Red Cap" ale was a product of Carling Breweries, a Canadian brewer that expanded to the United States after the end of Prohibition, and which was best-known for its "Black Label" lager. With snappy ads like the one below, it's hard to believe that Carling's U.S. sales went down the toilet in the 1970's.  [NOTE: see the comments at the end of this post for other explanations of the meaning of "redcap."]

Moving on . . .

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The second BOC album, which was released a year or so later, featured an equally portentous (I didn't say pretentious) Bill Gawlik cover.

It was titled "Tyranny and Mutation" (the cover actually said "Tyranny and Mvtation" by "Blve Öyster Cvlt" – not sure it was supposed to make you think of ancient Rome or something else entirely) – and the song titles were equally odd: "7 Screaming Diz-Busters," "Mistress of the Salmon Salt (Quicklime Girl)," etc. (For an explanation of what a "diz-buster" is, read this unintentionally hilarious interview with lead vocalist Eric Bloom from about 10 years ago, as BOC was slouching into Pensacola, Florida.)

The first cut on this album is titled "The Red & the Black." It's a live version of "I'm On The Lamb But I Ain't No Sheep." (No, little boy, I don't know why they changed the title.)

The inner sleeve of the second album said you could write in and get a copy of the lyrics, which I promptly did. I received printouts of the lyrics for the songs in both albums on old-fashioned 11" x 14 7/8" continuous-feed computer paper.

I already knew that BOC lyrics were generally enigmatic and just plain odd, and these printouts certainly confirmed that. Adding to the general bewilderment concerning what the songs meant is the fact that whoever transcribed the lyrics was careless, or high, or dyslexic, or had a very curious sense of humor – the lines were often out of order, and there were a number of other discrepancies.

For example, the lyrics for "Before the Kiss, A Redcap" took "4 and 40 redheads meet/Come to doom, doom the dawn" and rendered it as "4 and 40 redheads meet/Bold with soup and then the corn/Meet to doom, to doom the dawn." (Bold with soup and then the corn?)

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The third BOC album was released a year after the second one – I was a senior in college by then – and it was a worthy successor to the first two. Instead of the brooding, geometric Gawlik covers, "Secret Treaties" featured a drawing of the band's members posed around a German World War II-vintage fighter plane – except it had the BOC insignia instead of a swastika on its tail.

The album's song titles included "Cagey Cretins," "Harvester of Eyes," "Flaming Telepaths," and "ME 262" – a reference to the Nazi jet fighter (the first jet fighter to fly in combat) depicted on the cover. Here are a few representative examples of this album's lyrics:

From "Career of Evil" (co-written by Patti Smith):

I'd like your blue eyed horseshoe,

I'd like your emerald horny toad,
I'd like to do it to your daughter on a dirt road
And then I'd spend your ransom money,

But still I'd keep your sheep
I'd peel the mask your wearing,

And then rob you of your sleep
Rob you of your sleep

I choose to steal what you chose to show
And you know I will not apologize
Your mine for the taking
I'm making a career of evil . . .

From "Astronomy" (later covered by Metallica):

The clock strikes twelve and moondrops burst
Out at you from their hiding place
Miss Carrie Nurse and Susie dear
Would find themselves at Four Winds Bar
It’s the nexus of the crisis
And the origin of storms
Just the place to hopelessly
Encounter time and then came me
Call me Desdenova, eternal light
These gravely digs of mine, will surely prove a sight
And don’t forget my dog, fixed and consequent
Astronomy . . . a star

From "ME 262":

Get me through these radars, no I cannot fail
When my great silver slugs are eager to feed
I can't fail -- no, not now
When twenty-five bombers wait ripe
ME 262, prince of turbojet

Junkers Jumo 004
Blasts from clustered R4M quartets in my snout
And see these English planes go burn
Now you be my witness how red were the skies
When the Fortresses flew for the very last time
It was dark over Westphalia

In April of '45

As a special treat for all of you who experience a strange yet exciting tingling when you see Nazi stuff, click here to watch a YouTube video that features "ME 262" as the soundtrack to a lot of German WWII film footage.

But first you should know the following:

1. The "Junkers Jumo 004" was the turbojet engine used in the ME 262.

2. The "R4M" was an unguided air-to-air missile that was added to the ME 262 late in the war.

3. "Fortresses" refers to the B-17 "Flying Fortress," which was the primary Allied heavy bomber in the European theatre.

4. "Westphalia" is a region in west-central Germany.

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I think I took BOC's lyrics pretty seriously at the time – it appeared that they were intended to be taken seriously, and God knows I was being assigned readings in some of my classes in those days that I know my professors took seriously, although they often made less sense to me than BOC lyrics. Later I heard that the band members were a bunch of nerdy Jewish guys from Long Island who did the whole thing as a big joke, but I don't think that's really true. (I've skipped over the band's origins, personnel, etc., but you can get into all that by visiting the BOC official website, which has a fairly detailed historical section, as well as Wikipedia, etc.

I saw BOC on August 7, 1974 in Little Rock, Arkansas (along with the Guess Who). That was the summer before I went to law school, and after quitting my summer job (which was driving a water truck for a company that was widening US Highway 71 south of my hometown of Joplin, Missouri), I decided to go visit a high-school friend who had moved to Alexandria, Louisiana, and then say good-bye to my college girlfriend, who was spending the summer in Houston before heading off to Stanford Business School.

On the way, I stopped to visit a cousin of mine who lived in Little Rock, where her boyfriend (now husband) played baseball for the Arkansas Travelers, who were the Double-A minor-league affiliate of the St. Louis Cardinals.

The reason I know I saw that concert took place on August 7 is that Richard Nixon went on television to resign from office at 9:01 pm on August 8, and I was at the Travelers game with my cousin that night. I had no idea he had resigned until the next morning, when I was driving through the wilds of southern Arkansas on my way to Alexandria.

Today, BOC is best remembered for several relatively formulaic radio hits – like "Don't Fear the Reaper" and "Burnin' for You" – which came later. ("Don't Fear the Reaper" was the song featured in the famous Christopher Walken-Will Ferrell "More Cowbell" bit on Saturday Night Live.

"Godzilla" wasn't too bad – or maybe it's just because I loved singing it whenever Hideki Matsui had a big hit for the Yankees. I have a couple of their later records, but the first three stand head and shoulders above anything else they did.

I must admit that BOC did not always bring out my nobler side.  I left my copy of the first album on the back deck of my 1970 Olds Cutlass Supreme (the smallest engine this two-door coupe came with was a 350 V-8) and the hot Houston sun warped it a bit. I went to the local record and bought a new copy of the album. 

I then returned a few hours later with my warped album and my receipt, claiming that the store had sold me a defective record and demanding a refund. The store manager wouldn't give me a refund, but did allow me to exchange it for a fresh copy of the record. Curses – foiled again. I still have both copies.

The summer after my first year of law school, I worked at a large Houston law firm. I got chummy with one of the secretaries in the department I was assigned to and socialized with her a bit outside of the office. ("Dating," unfortunately, would not be an accurate description of our relationship – much to my chagrin.) Sherry told me that M&Ms went very well with beer – I was skeptical at first, but she turned out to be right – and I responded to that kind gesture with a lie, hoping to impress this fair lady. To be exact, I showed her the computer printouts of the Blue Öyster Cult lyrics, and claimed I had written them.

She probably saw through this pathetic falsehood, but even if she had believed me, did I really think that lines like "Lecherous, invisible/Beware the limping cat" or "Didn't believe it when he bit into her face/It tasted just like a fallen arch" would win her heart? I guess I must have. And that, kind reader, goes a long way to explaining my limited success those days with the fairer sex – even though I was super cute (and have pictures to prove it).

Actually, Sherry did take a liking to "oyster boys," a term used in "Subhuman" – "Oyster boys are swimming now/Hear 'em chatter on the tide/We understand, we understand/But fear is real and so do I." (Say what?)

For some reason, I never bought CD versions of the BOC albums, so I hadn't listened to these songs for years until I got on YouTube in preparation for writing this entry. Whether the band was being serious or just having some fun with the teenaged heavy-metal fans who were too dumb or drug-addled to know it, I think that most of these songs hold up very well.

One final BOC story and then adieu. (I know you wish this post would never end, but my well of BOC material is about to run dry, I fear.)

My favorite author, George Pelecanos, often mentions the names of song titles in his books. "Then Came the Last Days of May," a song from the first BOC album (it's about three friends who are murdered by the confederate who is driving them to the Mexican border to consummate a drug transaction) is mentioned a couple of times in his 2008 novel, The Turnaround.

The key event in The Turnaround (which takes place in 1972) is an ugly confrontation that takes place when three white teenagers insult three black teenagers who are standing on a street corner in a working-class black neighborhood in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC. The driver of the car (a Ford Gran Torino) is the one who precipitates the fight, and he is shot and killed. One of his friends – who tries to prevent the trouble – is badly beaten.

Prior to the incident, there's a scene where the character who is later beaten was listening to the first BOC album in his bedroom, waiting for his girlfriend to call:

He was looking at the Blue Öyster Cult art now, while "Then Came the Last Days of May" played in the room. The song was about the end of something, its tone both ominous and mysterious, and it troubled Alex and excited him. The cover of the record was a black-and-white drawing of a building that stretched out to infinity, stars and a sliver of moon in a black sky above it, and, hovering over the building, a symbol that looked like a hooked cross. The images were unsettling, in keeping with the music, which was heavy, dark, dangerous, and beautiful. This was Alex's favorite new group.

After the incident, Alex goes home to recuperate after a long hospitalization and several reconstructive surgeries.

[H]e listened to his Blue Oyster Cult album incessantly, returning to the song "Then Came the Last Days of May" over and over again. "Three good buddies were laughin' and smokin'/In the back of a rented Ford./They couldn't know they weren't going far." It seemed to have been written for him and his friends.

A couple of years ago, Pelecanos edited an anthology of noir stories set in Washington titled DC Noir 2, and he a couple of the other authors featured in that anthology did a reading at a local bookstore/restaurant.

I bought a copy of the anthology for my older son, who is also a Pelecanos fan, and got all three authors to autograph it after the reading was over. But I also got Pelecanos to autograph the jacket of one of my two copies of the first BOC album, which includes "Then Came the Last Days of May." I'm not sure if it was the one I paid for or the one I exchanged the old warped record for.

To wrap this up, let's go back to the "I'm On The Lamb, But I Ain't No Sheep" lyrics quoted at the very beginning of this hot mess. What is the "Frontenac Chateau" mentioned in that song?

I assume that it's a reference to the Chateau Frontenac, a famous old hotel that dominates the skyline of Quebec City, Canada, and is listed in The Guinness Book of Records as being the most photographed hotel in the world. What this hotel has to do with the song – other than the fact that it is located in Canada – is anybody's guess.

The Chateau Frontenac hotel

Click on the link below to buy "I'm On The Lamb But I Ain't No Sheep":