Rolling Stones – "Let's Spend the Night Together" (1967)

I'll satisfy your every need

And I now know you will satisfy me

“Let’s Spend the Night Together” is one of the Rolling Stones’ most iconic songs, but it peaked at #55 on the Billboard “Hot 100.”

That’s because most American radio stations chose not to play “Let’s Spend the Night Together” . . . for obvious reasons.  

Ed Sullivan personally told Mick Jagger not to even think about playing the song on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1967.  Jagger agreed to sing “Let’s spend some time together” instead of “Let’s spend the night together,” rolling his eyes at the camera as he did so.

The Rolling Stones on the Sullivan show

(Times have changed in the United States since then, but not in China.  When the Stones toured China in 2006, authorities told them not to play “Let’s Spend the Night Together,” “Brown Sugar,” “Honky Tonk Woman,” and “Beast of Burden.”)

The Rolling Stones appeared on Sullivan’s show six times.  Click here if you’d like to order a DVD with those six Sullivan shows in their entirety.  

I vividly remember the group’s first appearance on October 25, 1964, when they closed the show with “Time Is On My Side.”  (As I recall, they didn’t appear live that night, but on tape.)

The group’s last Sullivan appearance was on November 23, 1969, when they opened the show with “Gimme Shelter” – imagine that – and closed it with “Love In Vain” and “Honky Tonk Woman.”  The other guests that night included Ella Fitzgerald, Rodney Dangerfield, and Topo Gigio.

Ed Sullivan has a heart-to-heart
with Mick Jagger

There’s no doubt that the Stones’ music was much more sexual than the Beatles.  I can’t think of a single Beatles song that is nearly as explicit “Let’s Spend the Night Together” – much less “Stray Cat Blues.”

There’s very little guitar in this song.  It relies on Jack Nietzsche’s piano and Brian Jones’s organ.  (For some reason, Bill Wyman didn’t play bass on “Let’s Spend the Night Together” – Keith Richards did.) 

This song is one hot mess, boys and girls.  Don't sleep on just how good the Stones were in their prime.

Here’s “Let’s Spend the Night Together”:

Click below to buy the song from Amazon:

Brass Ring – "Dis-Advantages of You" (1967)

La la la la la la la la 

La la la la la la la la 

La la la la la la la

We’re going to do things a little differently today – we’re going to listen to our featured song first, and then read about it.

Here’s “The Dis-Advantages of You”:

If you’re as old as I am, that song is very familiar to you.  But do you know why?

“The Dis-Advantages of You” was the theme music for a famous ad campaign for Benson & Hedges cigarettes, whose manufacturer attempted to distinguish it from the competition by emphasizing its length, which was 100 millimeters.  (Cigarettes were originally 70 mm long.  Then king-size cigarettes were introduced – they were 85 mm long, but most of the difference was attributable to the addition of a filter, not additional tobacco.)

Benson & Hedges commercials were all over network television in the late sixties.  But Congress passed a law banning cigarette advertising on TV that went into effect on January 2, 1971.  (Virginia Slims ran one final TV ad on The Tonight Show at 11:59 pm on January 1 of that year.)

Here’s an example of a Benson & Hedges “disadvantages” TV spot:

“The Dis-Advantages of You” was written by Mitch Leigh a famous radio/TV jingle composer who also wrote the score for Man of La Mancha (which included “The Impossible Dream”).  

The record sounds a little bit like it might have been done by the Tijuana Brass, but it was recorded by the Brass Ring, a group of New York City studio musicians led by saxophonist Phil Bodner.  The group recorded eight studio albums between 1966 and 1970.

“The Dis-Advantages of You” first appeared on the Billboard “Hot 100” chart on February 4.  It eventually peaked at #36.

Once again, here’s “The Dis-Advantages of You”:

Click below to buy the song from Amazon:

Lady Gaga (ft. Beyoncé) – "Telephone" (2009)

Stop callin', stop callin'

I don't wanna talk anymore

It’s SuperBowl Sunday, so 2 or 3 lines is featuring a song by Lady Gaga – who will headline the SuperBowl halftime show later today.

As you probably already know, 2 or 3 lines has an uncanny gift for picking one of the songs that will be performed in the halftime show.

Last year, we featured “Viva la Vida,” which we had a feeling Coldplay would perform at the SuperBowl L halftime show.  (That’s SuperBowl 50 for those of you who never learned your Roman numerals.)

The year before, we said Katy Perry’s SuperBowl XLIX playlist would include “E.T.”

And the year before that, it was our prediction that Bruno Mars would perform “Just the Way You Are” at the SuperBowl XLVIII halftime show.

Nailed it, nailed it, NAILED IT!

(Yes, I did.)

This year, I could play it safe and predict that Lady Gaga will include “Bad Romance” or “Poker Face” in her halftime medley.

But 2 or 3 lines has never been about playing it safe.  So I’m going with “Telephone” – which happens to be my favorite Lady Gaga song.

Why is “Telephone” a risky choice?  Because it prominently features Beyoncé, and I wouldn't think Gaga would perform it unless Beyoncé joined in.

But Mrs. Carter was the halftime headliner for SuperBowl XLVII, and had a prominent role as a guest performer in the SuperBowl L show.  You wouldn’t expect her to appear again at SuperBowl LI – especially given that her SuperBowl L was widely criticized as being anti-police.

Nice chapeau!

Call me crazy, but I have a feeling that Beyoncé will join Lady Gaga at today for a show-stopping performance of “Telephone.”

Of course, no matter how over the top the staging of the Super Bowl LI halftime show may be, it won’t come close to the nine-and-a-half-minute-long “Telephone” music video, product-placement-crammed work that looks like something Quentin Tarantino might have produced if he took LSD after having a sex-change operation:

You can click here to read an article from the Atlantic that deconstructs the “Telephone” video.

I'm not including the usual link for you to use to buy “Telephone” from Amazon because Lady Gaga already has too much money.

Senator Bobby – "Wild Thing" (1967)

All right, Teddy on the ocarina, let's go
Tempo, Teddy, tempo

Songwriter Chip Taylor (who is the brother of Jon Voight and the uncle of Angelina Jolie) was commissioned to write “Wild Thing” for a group called the Wild Ones, who were once the house band at the famed Peppermint Lounge in New York City.  

The Wild Ones’ recording of the song, which was released in November 1965, failed to chart.  But a cover of “Wild Thing” recorded by the Troggs, a British band, made it all the way to #1 on the Billboard “Hot 100” in July 1966.  

“Wild Thing” has been covered a zillion times, but the oddest cover of the song was the one done by “Senator Bobby” – comedian William “Bill” Minkin pretending to be Robert Kennedy – the following year. 

The "Wild Thing" 45

Fifty years ago today, Minkin’s recording of “Wild Thing” reached the #20 spot on the Billboard “Hot 100.”

The flip side of that record was a version of “Wild Thing” performed by Minkin in the style of tousled, gravel-voiced Republican Senator Everett Dirksen.  (Minkin recorded it under the alias “Senator Everett McKinley.”  Dirksen’s middle name was McKinley.)

Senator Everett Dirksen

Minion followed up “Wild Thing” with a cover of the Donovan song, “Mellow Yellow,” which featured his impersonations of both Kennedy and Dirksen.  It made it only to #99 of the “Hot 100.”  

Minion released one more “Senator Bobby” record in 1968.  His cover of “Sock it To Me, Baby” appeared on the “Bubbling Under” chart (which was reserved for songs that came close but failed to crack the “Hot 100”) in the June 15, 1968 issue of Billboard. 

Senator Robert Kennedy

Kennedy, who was seeking the Democratic nomination for President that summer, had been shot and killed a few days earlier.  (I assume that Billboard had a deadline well in advance of its publication date.)

Dirksen, who died of cancer in 1969, recorded four spoken word albums.  In January 1967, he became the oldest man to have a single in the Billboard top forty.  His patriotic recording, “Gallant Men,” peaked at #29 the same week that the “Senator Bobby” parody of “Wild Thing” was at #30. 

Here’s “Wild Thing” a la Dirksen:

And here’s the “Senator Bobby” version of the song:

Buckinghams – "Kind of a Drag" (1967)

Kind of a drag

When your baby says goodbye

There was something for everyone on the Billboard “Hot 100” fifty years ago.

You had well-produced, mass-market pop singles like the Monkees’ “I’m a Believer,”  Sonny & Cher’s “The Beat Goes On,” the Turtles’ “Happy Together,” and today’s featured song, “Kind of a Drag” by the Buckinghams.

You had songs by the greatest classic-rock groups, including the Beatles (“Penny Lane” and “Strawberry Fields Forever”), the Rolling Stones (“Ruby Tuesday” and “Let’s Spend the Night Together”), and the Byrds (“So You Want to Be a Rock ’n’ Roll Star”).

You had romantic ballads (like Johnny Rivers’ “Baby, I Need Your Lovin’” and Aaron Neville’s “Tell It Like It Is”), Motown and Memphis classics (like “Standing in the Shadows of Love” by the Four Tops, and Otis Redding’s “Try a Little Tenderness”), and music by the middle-aged crooners that your parents liked (like “Lady” by Jack Jones and “My Cup Runneth Over” by Ed Ames).

Last and certainly least, you had oddball hits like the Royal Guardsmen’s “Snoopy vs. the Red Baron,” the New Vaudeville Band’s “Winchester Cathedral,” and Senator Bobby’s “Wild Thing.”

This month’s “28 Songs in 28 Days” will serve up music from each of these categories.  But we’re really just scratching the surface.

*     *     *     *     *

You may have forgotten about the Buckinghams, but they owned the Billboard “Hot 100” in 1967.  

“Kind of a Drag,” their first hit single pushed “I’m a Believer” out of the #1 spot in February of that year.

They followed up with four other hit singles before 1967 was over – “Don’t You Care” (#6), “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy” (#5), “Hey Baby (They’re Playing Our Song)” (#12), and “Susan” (#11).  

But the Buckinghams never cracked the top forty after ’67 – perhaps because they parted company with their producer, James William Guercio, in ’68.  (Guercio went on to produce eleven albums for Chicago, as well as the hugely popular Blood, Sweat & Tears album.)

The Buckinghams were supposed to appear in my hometown (Joplin, Missouri) when I was in high school.  But they cancelled – supposedly because their guitarist broke his arm or some such thing.  That excuse sounded like a load of bushwa to me back then, and it still does.

Here’s “Kind of a Drag,” which is as good an example of a perfect little three-minute AM-radio song as there is:

Click below to buy the song from Amazon:

Royal Guardsmen – "Snoopy vs. the Red Baron" (1966)

Eighty men died trying to end the spree

Of the bloody Red Baron of Germany

Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen – better know as the “Red Baron” – was the greatest fighter ace of World War I.

Richthofen was officially credited with 80 air combat victories, but he may have shot down 100 or more Allied airplanes.

The "Red Baron"

After his first confirmed kill, Richthofen wrote a Berlin jeweler and ordered a silver cup with the date and the type of aircraft flown by his victim to be engraved on a silver cup.  He ordered similar cups after each of his subsequent 59 victories, then stopped.  (By that time, the Germans were too short of silver to allow civilian use of it, and Richthofen refused to have cups made from a base metal.)

The Red Baron – he had the fighter planes he piloted painted red, and his German title was “Freiherr,” which is usually translated as “Baron” – suffered a severe head wound in July 1917, but was able to pull his aircraft out of a spin and successfully land it in a field.  His doctors said he should be grounded, but Richthofen insisted on returning to the cockpit.

On April 21, 1918, he was shot in the chest during a dogfight with British pilots.  The shot probably was fired by an anti-aircraft machine gunner firing from the ground rather than by one of the British fliers.  He managed to land his Fokker triplane behind enemy lines before bleeding out.

Richthofen and his Fokker triplane

Richthofen was a very experienced pilot who never took unnecessary risks.  But some experts have speculated that the brain damage caused by his head wound caused him to make fatal tactical errors on his last flight.

It’s very odd that Peanuts cartoonist Charles Schulz had a storyline in which his Snoopy character imagined he was a World War I pilot engaged in aerial combat with the Red Baron.

It’s even odder that Phil Gernhard (who wrote the #1 single “Stay”) and Dick Holler (who wrote “Abraham, Martin & John”) decided to write a song about Snoopy and the Red Baron for the Royal Guardsmen, an Ocala, Florida-based band.

Schulz sued the Royal Guardsmen for using his character in the song without his permission, and won.  The band has obviously foreseen this possibility by recording a version of the song titled “Squeaky and the Black Knight.”  (That doesn’t really have quite the same ring, does it?)

The Royal Guardsmen subsequently released several other Snoopy-themed songs with Schulz’s permission before breaking up in 1969.  The group got back together in 2006, releasing a new single titled “Snoopy vs. Osama.”  

No I’m not kidding:

Here’s “Snoopy vs. the Red Baron,” which sat at the #2 spot on the Billboard “Hot 100” chart on this date in 1967:

Click below to buy the song from Amazon:

Monkees – "I'm a Believer" (1966)

Love was out to get me

That's the way it seemed

Disappointment haunted all my dreams

Fifty years ago today, I was a ninth-grader at South Junior High in Joplin, Missouri.

Every Monday afternoon, WHB in Kansas City – 710 on your AM dial – played their new top 40 singles in reverse order.  I turned the radio on as soon as I got home from school and followed the countdown closely, calling a friend of mine during the five-minute news break at the top of each hour to discuss the records played in the previous hour.   

Fifty years ago today, “I’m a Believer” sat atop the Billboard “Hot 100.”  I’m guessing it sat atop the WHB top 40 list as well.

“I’m a Believer” ascended to the #1 spot in the last “Hot 100” chart of 1966, and remained at #1 for seven consecutive weeks.  It was also a #1 hit in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, and the UK.

The B-side of “I’m a Believer” was “(I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone,” which made it to #20 at the same time that “I’m a Believer” was the #1 song in the U.S.

The Monkees

“I’m a Believer” was written and originally recorded by Neil Diamond.  It was released on his second studio album, Just for You, along with several other hit songs, including “Cherry Cherry,” “Girl, You’ll Be a Woman Soon,” “Solitary Man,” and “Thank the Lord for the Night Time.”

The arrangement of Diamond’s original recording is quite similar to arrangement used for the Monkees’ version.  (Both records were produced by Jeff Barry, who was married to Ellie Greenwich.  Together, they were one of the greatest husband-wife songwriting teams ever.)

Diamond wrote some additional lyrics and re-recorded the song in 1979.  That version of the song is HORRIBLE:

If not for “I’m a Believer,” the Royal Guardsmen’s “Snoopy vs. the Red Baron” would have been a #1 record.  Instead, that record made it only to the #2 spot on the “Hot 100” chart.  It remained there for four weeks.

This year's “28 Songs in 28 Days” will feature songs that were listed in the Billboard “Hot 100” chart in February 1967.  Most of those featured songs are pop classics by groups like the Monkees, Mamas and Papas, Paul Revere and the Raiders, Sonny and Cher, and other pop superstars.  But we'll also showcase some one-hit wonders and novelty songs you've probably forgotten about.

Here’s the most popular record from February 1967 and the biggest-selling single of that entire year . . . “I’m a Believer”:


Click below to buy the song from Amazon: