There is a song that had been playing in heavy rotation on the local college rock station, so that in itself means it’s going to be kind of obscure. But it’s fucking driving me crazy trying to remember the song, because I really liked it and I want to get it now. I can remember a lot of detail about the song. Let me describe it: It was very upbeat, with a real driving beat, but a light one; the drums were in the background, not overpowering the song. There was a xylophone or a vibraphone playing along with the rhythm for the entire song; sort of playing a light, simple lead riff consistently. This xylophone (kind of like the one in Gone Daddy Gone by the Violent Femmes) made the song very distinctive. Here are the lyrics, or what I remember of them. They’re really distinctive lyrics - yet I can’t find ANYTHING when I do google searches for different combinations of the lyrics:
“MLK and LBJ…(some other three-syllable word) and (some other three syllable word)…” (This lyric is towards the beginning of the song.)
Then here is the chorus, which I remember word for word: “How many times must a/man ask for/sights and sounds and broken grounds, bleeding hands and well-made plans” - this line is repeated twice, the rhythm is very distinct and the cadence and inflection of the words very memorable - then right after the lyrics of the chorus, not more than a single beat after, there’s this really sweet guitar riff (sounds like multiple guitars playing, actually.) It sounds kind of “Chinese”, although the rest of the song does not remotely.
I know this sounds like an insane song and I doubt anyone will recognize it but PLEASE try. It’s driving me nuts.