Tilting at Windmills: M10 Show Week 11

Friday, February 11, 2022

M10 Show Week 11

Elvis: So what's up for the show today, Boss?

Well, with the way the bottom of the chart keeps getting leapfrogged and kinda going nowhere recently, it got me pondering songs that shot up like the proverbial bat, and then flamed out. One such we've had recently was the Elton John/Dua Lipa acoustic version of Cold Heart- which came in at our #4, spent a couple weeks climbing to 2, and fell off like a rock. (Even though Billboard has it slipping but one notch to #11 this week.) And that got me thinking about the chart history of the biggest flame-up, flame-out in history- which I'll get to after I tell you we have one new debut on this week's M10, and one new #1- but it's reign is already threatened!

Before we dig in, let me tell you about this song I am referencing. It might never have gotten this far elsewhere in the Martin Era- and certainly would get no traction in today's cancel culture- but this was 1966. The singer- a man whose real name was Jerry Samuels, but whose Pseudonym was where the trouble started. On Cashbox, this song hit the hot 100 the week of July 23 at number 20, and leapt to #1 the next week. On Billboard, it came in at #50, and the next week leapt to #11.

Cashbox dropped it to #2 the next two weeks, then 4, then 11, then 30- and it was gone, a #1 song with a 7 week run. Billboard was a little more normal (if such could be said about this song)- climbing from 11 to 5, then 3... then back to 5, to #37, and gone. What the heck happened?

Well, stations across the country started getting complaints- and the two biggest audiences, WMCA and WABC in New York, pulled it off their playlists the same week it hit #1 on CB and #11 on Billboard. And it still hit #1 on their charts, despite not being played! And who was complaining? Not the fans of the song- one even rented an airplane to fly a protest banner! The complainers were doctors and nurses, the ones who served in the mental health field. If you're old enough, you've figured out the song I'm talking about... if not, or you are and your memory is going out like mine, here it is...

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So if they tell you,"The problem is, no one has a sensahumah, like they did when we wuz kids...", not everyone did. Should we have over this song? Maybe not. When I get to a time where I don't feel like singing the chorus about three times a week, I'll let you know.

I don't know, Boss... seems like a touchy subject...

Oh, yes, it is. But, in my defense I give two pieces of evidence. One, how is it that no one complained when Helen Reddy hit #1 three times singing about women who weren't exactly in Copious Mentus? The other is, I will listen to the woke crowd, music chapter, when somebody tells me how one of the most popular songs to this day saluted one of the biggest segregationists of all time- and I've watched black people sing along.

Uh, yeah. You look out the window an' check for torches an' pitchforks, an' I'll play our debut this week. It's hit #2 for the 'Acid Jazz' man, Matt Berry...an' it comes in at #7.

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