Time Machine co-ordinates VILXXIV517121470

So today we go back to December 14th, 1970- a day on which I draw a fairly complete blank, unless I really stretch it to say that the Dustin Hoffman flick Little Big Man came out (unless you believe Wikipedia over about a half dozen other sites, as wiki says it came out on the 23rd).  And that really has nothing I can go on from there, other than the amusing (to me) fact that Richard Mulligan- who would make a name being a bumbling idiot on Soap- was cast as Custer....

" Great. Why don't you tell the whole world, Mary. Or better yet put it in the Yellow Pages under Burt."

Welcome to Time Machine this week, where I hope to have Peter Paul and Mary, or some combination thereof; the rest of the Charles Bradley story from last time; some way of stretching out an "I got nothing" 6D; and two new songs on the M10.  Confused? You won't be after this episode of Time Machine!

(BTW, for the record, Soap was one of the most abysmally stupid shows of all time.  Forgive the references, but apparently I was attracted back then to abysmally stupid shows.)


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So let me open with our first debut.  Not content to stop with the successful lp I'll Be Your Girl, which brought us the big hits Severed and Sucker's Prayer, and a successful tour in support of said lp, the Decemberists are topping off their year with a 5-song EP called Travelling On, whose title track comes in at #10 this week...





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So let's welcome in Peter Yarrow, Paul Stoocky, and Mary Travers!

Glad you could make it!

M: Glad to help out!

So, I wanted to ask you:  I Dig Rock And Roll Music.  Wasn't that a bit of biting the hand that feeds you?

PY: Well, not in the sense that, we believed the music should have a message.  And record companies were busily churning out fairly mindless pap and syrupy love songs...

M:  Like I was quoted once, they moved from folk to rock and didn't take any of the good writers...

I hate to say it, but you guys haven't even seen how bad it got...

PS:  I have to say, I heard it a little bit in those Decemberists lyrics...

Well, a lot of writing has become make the lyrics purposefully vague so you can put in your own meanings.  Me, I tend to look at the vocals as just another instrument, and most songs as instrumentals- unless the words have a deep meaning, like last week's #1, The Big Unknown.

M:  It's a bit different when you are selling your own image, like we were...

Or John Denver's or Bob Dylan's, right?

PY:  Uh, maybe we should get to the Panel list...

Probably so.  So we have 16 songs from 78 stations- but a winner that lapped the field, carrying 50% of the vote!  Here you go with the one-vote wonders...

PY:  All right, we kick off with Mike Curb Generation and Burning Bridges, which wasn't terrible... but it just debuted at #99.

Led Zeppelin had Immigrant Song at #33...

And the Tee Set had a tune called She Likes Weeds- a song that never charted, apparently anywhere...

Actually, that was on the "at sea" station in the Netherlands.  Supposedly it was banned everywhere else, because it was "about drugs".

PS:  Ah, like Puff The Magic Dragon "was about drugs."

Well, I can see where you can possibly make the stretch on Weeds; never did get what was about drugs on Puff.  Other than the word, "puff".

PS:  I know, right?  So, then we have Brian Hyland's Gypsy Woman at #4...

Another "possible drug reference", the Supremes' Stoned Love at #12...

...and the, er, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band with Mr Bojangles at #65.  Mare?

M:  Thank you!  I have Van Morrison's Domino at #29...

 and Neil Diamond's lovely He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother at #20.  Is that it?

That's the one-vote wonders, here's the "also receiving votes" list...

M: And this list is four songs with 2 votes each!  I have, Dawn with Knock Three Times at #15...

PY: Lynn Anderson's Rose Garden at #59...

PS: Neil Diamond with the #3 song- in England- Cracklin' Rosie, which peaked in October...

M: And we finish out with Andy Kim and Be My Baby at #17!

Very good!  And that brings us to the top four contenders- or, perhaps one contender and three pretenders?  Choose from...

PY: George Harrison's My Sweet Lord at #3...

PS: The Fifth Dimension with One Less Bell To Answer at #5...

M: The Partridge Family- and you talk about OUR parodies?- and I Think I Love You at #2...

And the week's #1 on Cashbox, Smokey and the Miracles with Tears Of A Clown!  Who ran away with it all?


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So how did Charles Bradley become a star so late in life?  Apparently through someone who knew the owner of Daptone records.  The legend says that Bradley- who had a stage act as a James Brown impersonator named "Black Velvet" (hence the name of the new lp)- showed up at the door of his basement apartment/studio out of the blue one day, and said, "Somebody told me you were looking for a singer."  The owner never found out who directed Charles that way, or gave him his address, but he and his partners went to his show that night and were blown away by a man who put every ounce of energy he had into every performance- right up until the point that the stomach cancer killing him wouldn't let him go no more.

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So this week the 6D victim is the song Share The Land by the Guess Who- a song that had best be played at whatever passes for my funeral.  That I decided long ago when it came on the radio on the way to take a baby niece of mine to her final resting place.  But perhaps one of its brethren might have been a better victim- NObody from #s 6-11 got a Panel vote!  Similarly boned (in order) were the Presidents with 5-10-15-20 (25-30 Years Of Love), Badfinger's No Matter What, Stevie Wonder with Heaven Help Us All, the J5 with I'll Be There, and Chicago's Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is.  But I went ahead and worked on STL, and I really couldn't come up with anything to make a 6D on, but I did find a mistake on the part of the wiki writer.  He (whomever it was) insisted that the song Hang On To Your Life (yet another drug ref song), from the Share The Land lp, was put on the following Best Of The Guess Who volume one as the shortened single version.  He said they cut out the Biblical reading at the end of the song from Psalms 22:13-15:

They gaped upon Me with their mouths,
Like a ravenous and roaring lion.
I am poured out like water,
And all My bones are out of joint;
My heart is like wax;
It has melted within into my bowels.
My strength is dried up like a potsherd,
And My tongue clings to My jaws;
And You have brought Me into the dust of death.

Now, I had possession of that original vinyl at one point, and I KNOW that they had the original lp version and NOT the shortened single version on it.  Maybe had a cassette, lol!  And on research- in the very same articles wherein the claim is made, the song is listed as 4:09 on the STL lp and 4:08 on the Best Of.  So unless you think you can read those two verses in 1 second or less, I'd have to call BS.


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When first Radiation City entered the M10, it was off a new (at the time) lp called Synthestetica, with the big hit Come And Go.  Right afterwards, however, I went back in time to the 2013 lp Animals In The Median for their second M10 hit, Zombies.  This year, they hit with Ghost Organ from the new EP Coda- and this week, I repeat the pattern!  Once again from Animals In The Median, here's Rad City debuting at #9:





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The Label Game was another "less-is-more" experience.  The label with the most hits on this year's top 100 was Columbia with 9, but their average position on the list was 66.2- ahead of only Capitol's 76.2 among the 7 labels that scored 4 or more hits.  But the best average- with just 4 songs- goes to:

...Apple!  They scored with Let It Be (9) and The Long And Winding Road (36) from the Fab Four, Instant Karma (20) from the identity-challenged John Ono Lennon (as he was labelling himself this time around), and Badfinger's Come And Get It (45).  Overall, Columbia has a 72-69 lead on Capitol, with the remaining top ten MGM with 48, RCA-Victor and Atlantic at 37, Mercury at 34, Atco and Epic at 33, Liberty at 32, and Decca and Motown at 30.

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Stat Pack this week gives us:

Led Zep's Immigrant Song got the big move, 20 spots from 53 to 33.

The #70 in '70 was bluesman OV Wright with Ace Of Spades, which would peak at #54...

The New Seekers had an odd experience with our #101 this week.  It was called When There's No Love Left- and there was none left for the song, as 101 is where it stopped.  So, they flipped it, and the reverse, called Beautiful People, would at least break the hot 100, stopping at 73 in January.

I knew 28 here in the US hot 100, and 19 in the Brit top 50, including the #1...

...that's right, my boy Dave Edmunds with I Hear You Knocking!


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The rest of the M10:

Roseanne Cash pulls into a tie for 7th all time- and 2nd this year- in her 9th week with Not Many Miles To Go, falling from 4 to 8.

Juanita Stein's Get Back To The City and Lucius' Ghosting both get stuck in place, holding at 7 and 6 respectively.

The aforementioned Mr Bradley moves up 4 to the #5 spot with Slip Away.

Nudging up a spot to 4, those clowns Foster The People with Worst Nights.

Anna Burch also gets clogged up at 3 for a second week with 2 Cool 2 Care.

It wasn't my intention to have the top two play out this way- but ONE song decided to become an earworm lobbyist on a Wayne Newton scale, so... at #2, Sade's The Big Unknown...

And the new #1....

...the Beths and Future Me Hates Me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


And the Panel picks?

Well, if you took this week's #1, Smokey only got you 5%...

Marilyn and the 5D only got you 9%...

The Partridges got you 15.4%...


But the winner with an even 50% of the vote...

....George Harrison and My Sweet Lord!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Hopefully he'll come back after the disaster the last time he and his mates were here!  And hopefully I'll have come up with a schedule for the holidays, with the TM posts, the M10 year-end countdown- and the Beauty Contest!  See you then!