Huh. Your memory of L7 jogged a memory of a band I hadn’t thought of in about twenty years, Babes in Toyland:
A comment in the licence plate thread reminded me of this song
Men with shoulder pads
Mullets in all different lengths
Probably a warehouse’s worth of hairspray and gel in that auditorium
Yep, another band from way back when that I don’t think of often enough. Thankya!
And mentioning Babes in Toyland reminds me of another set of bands/songs from that era that I haven’t thought about in decades.
Beat Happening - Hot Chocolate Boy
Witchypoo - The Reaper Song
Hehehe, and those made me think of this slice of low-fi pop tastiness.
Cub - Chinchilla
And yeah, half the songs I like could be in the "Silly songs that are (probably) not joke songs” thread,
I actually was not a huge fan back in the day, they were too “pop”y for me. But I’ve had a change of heart, and now really love their music. In fact I’ve been tempted to start a thread about how my appreciation for older music has changed. Didn’t they have one of the first anti-drug songs?
“Kicks.”
Yes, that’s it.
One of their lesser known songs that I appreciate is Him or Me.
Paul Revere and the Raiders, like the Turtles, produced some great Pop/Rock songs tailored for AM radio, but didn’t write their own music for the most part and were never considered “serious” performers by musical snobs. Being the house band on Dick Clark’s “Where the Action Is” and wearing those ridiculous outfits didn’t help.
To a lesser degree, the Lovin’ Spoonful (one of my all-time favorite groups) and Creedence Clearwater Revival were similarly regarded, though John Sebastian and John Fogarty were good songwriters and solid musicians and performers. They both wrote songs that had good lyrics and memorable hooks, but at the time, producing 2 1/2 minute AM friendly tunes was not considered hip.
The hits by all these people hold up quite well today, unlike some of the long self-indulgent stuff by more “serious” bands. When was the last time you wanted to hear “Toad” by Cream or “The End” by the Doors or (shudder) “In A Gadda Da Vida” by Iron Butterfly, for example.
The golden oldie coughed up by the 70s station today:
If she has a natural gas fireplace, the song could be “Mercaptan of Her Hearth.”
This song was everywhere in the summer of 1975:
No worries! I have been having this experience all my life.
The internet makes it much easier to identify those random mental song drops!
I frequently hear random snippets of old, forgotten songs.
Two that come to mind:
The group America’s Sandman and Woman Tonight songs pop in often.
I heard this Beach Boys parody song a few weeks ago and paid attention to the lyrics, most likely for the first time. Old L.A.? Everyone drove a Chevrolet? Soda pop? I figured they were European, perhaps German. It turns out they’re British, so maybe homage, maybe sneering.
Anyway, it’s good, catchy pop.
The most recent occurrence of the phenomenon: yesterday, on SiriusXM 60’s…up popped “Polk Salad Annie” by Tony Joe White – the first time I’ve heard it since it was on the charts in 1969.
The weird thing, is that when this happens: I remember the lyrics. All I can think of is that things imprinted on the teenage brain stay there, forever.
I love “In A Gadda Da Vida” and listen to it often. And their great psychedelic era “Soul Experience.”
But I came here because I heard today a sing I haven’t thought of for years. Poco, of all bands, created a bombastic nine-minute mini-opera with thunderous chords! strings! solo banjo! that became the title track to the album Crazy Eyes. Talk about songs that don’t make the radio. I dig every note of the weirdness, though.
I wanted to hear “The End” the moment I read that. I would be listening to it now if I wasn’t catching up on Glastonbury.
j
Doug Ingle, who sang “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida”, died quite recently. May 24, 2024 to be exact.
My favorite memory about this song: One day, when I worked at the grocery store pharmacy, not only did I open the store at 7:55am to the tune of King Crimson’s “In The Court of the Crimson King”, they didn’t change it from the overnight channel, and when “In-A…” came on later in the day, my co-worker who was 20 years older than me started to tell me the story about the song. I replied that I knew it, and then we got some prescriptions and worked on them. 15 minutes later, we heard the closing organ bit and had a good laugh.
I’d never heard of it, but I just looked it up on YouTube and I’ve heard it. I assumed the singer was black, too. (He’s not.)
Wow, since Ingle’s dad was a church organist I’ll bet he really got a kick out of the Simpsons episode where Bart snuck In A Gadda Da Vida into the church bulletin.