# Song "recoveries" **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 14, 2016, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/song-recoveries/757325 "2016-06-14T04:04:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2016, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/song-recoveries/757325/21 "2016-06-14T19:32:11Z")
> [@GargoyleWB](#): > > Fleetwood Mac “Oh Well”. > > I had heard it somewhere in my teens and it stuck lingering me. Over the years I tried to describe it and find it unsuccessfully, only 20 years later to have a guitar teacher randomly suggest it as a cool riff song. I jumped up and shouted “That’s it! That’s the song!” > > Being part of the ‘forgotten’ (by radio at least) Peter Green era of Mac, the title not matching the lyrics, and no internet of the day, I thought it was lost forever. For the record, “Oh Well” is said at the end of each verse. Also, did you hear [the complete nine minute version song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKjfjO2Y1H4)which includes a long instrumental section that wouldn’t be out of place in a spaghetti Western scored by Ennio Morricone? ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2016, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/song-recoveries/757325/22 "2016-06-14T19:38:12Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > I had a big one of these in early 2015. “My Angel Baby” by Tony Beau: > > http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/newreply.php?do=newreply&noquote=1&p=19403680 > > This was a #13 hit in 1978, when I was 7 years old. It was never the kind of song you’d hear on the radio after that. In fact, I believe I had not heard it in about 37 years! But they happened to play it on the Sirius XM 70s radio station. I was quite surprised, as it came right back to me. I had never thought about the song once in the interim. Good song but your finger slipped over one key: [Toby Beau](https://www.google.com/?ion=1&espv=2#q=toby%20beau). ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2016, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/song-recoveries/757325/23 "2016-06-14T19:47:34Z")
I heard “New Slang” by the Shins one time on the radio. Normally if you get a few of the lyrics you can google that shit. I’ve recovered several songs this way. But the mumbling lyrics were completely indecipherable and I didn’t have anything. A couple years later I got watched “Garden State”. Problem solved. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2016, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/song-recoveries/757325/24 "2016-06-14T20:11:28Z")
Oh, I forgot another one that was a bit of a bear to find: [Neil Sedaka’s “The Immigrant”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VGd7pDHtIA). What I knew of the damn song was that it was a politically-loaded folksie ballad kind of thing, about how America had once been the place you could go, tempest-tossed, to have a chance and to have freedom, but that those days of America-as-refuge were kind of gone: [QUOTE=The Lyrics I Remembered] There was a time when strangers were welcome here, Music would play, they tell me, the days were clean and clear, {something…}, …and there was so much room the people would come from everywhere. [/quote] … and folks kept telling me, over and over, "It’s called ‘The Immigrant’s Song’ ". And I’d go search that and end up listening to [Led Zeppelin’s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEGuHdKn0Lc) song by that name. So I’d go back on the boards and say “No, not even close, yeesh what’s the matter with you people, it’s like folk-rock not ass-kicking hard rock!” … and eventually a couple folks said “I think maybe it’s Neil Sedaka”. And by then, having been pointed to Led Zeppelin so often, I was thinking not so highly of people’s acumen, and I was thinking “Neil Sedaka?? Mister ["come a down doobie doo down down breaking up is hard to do???](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUtkpIINDyw) The guy who sings ‘[oooh I hear laughter in the rain](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsYIiY2wnyU)’, THAT Neil Sedaka??? C’mon, can someone make a serious suggestion please? C’mon it’s not heavy metal and it’s not easy listening saccharine pop, it’s the kind of music that would be played alongside of Joan Baez or Bob Dylan or something…” But yeah, it’s really Neil Sedaka. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2016, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/song-recoveries/757325/25 "2016-06-14T21:53:13Z")
Wait, didn’t you have that famous OOOOOO EEEEEEE song? Solved by Nzinga, I believe. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2016, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/song-recoveries/757325/26 "2016-06-14T22:32:25Z")
My father liked a certain song, and then he passed away when I was ten. About 20 years later, I figured out what it was: “Dirty Water,” by the Standells. Makes sense – he was in grad school in Boston in 1966. ---
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2016, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/song-recoveries/757325/27 "2016-06-14T23:25:14Z")
> [@Eddie The Horrible](#): > > No need for this thread then, really… 😛 > [@AHunter3](#): > > But yeah, it’s really Neil Sedaka. indeed: (gets a little heated, here, at points) (start it at 0:42) [![](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/GhM-hrTyzJo/hqdefault.jpg "This is not the real Neil Sedaka - please read the message in 'More Info' ═════►") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhM-hrTyzJo) My city’s record stores weren’t quite burgeoning with new punk bands’ records as early as they should have been, so it could have been as late as '79 when I had a good blast of one of the first punk numbers I heard, by a band called The Skids: I’ll never forget buddy running the record store where I heard the song - totally laying passive-aggressive power strips on his staff - looking egg-fucking-ZACTLY like Rupert Holmes, with the whole hair, tinted glasses and beard bit, and saying shit like “hey!” and “ok let’s make it happen”. I’m sure he would have felt right at home as part of the cast of WKRP. Hilariously iconic memory of seeing him strut self-indulgently down a record aisle, and going “ok - this is going to fucking ROCK” as that song got under way, and much louder than they normally played stuff there. Some of the customers were somewhat taken aback, and I remember thinking how much the tune _did_ seriously kick ass, and very intrigued whenever it veered suddenly into the much, MUCH different-sounding, mellower, quirky “other part” (I call it “other part” because I’m not sure whether to call it a bridge or a refrain or verse…at least definitely not the chorus) An eye-opener for this kid. And then not hearing it again till about 18 years later on a college radio station, immediately bringing Rupert back to mind, and how much I thought it still legitimately “rocked”. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2016, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/song-recoveries/757325/28 "2016-06-15T01:23:40Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Wait, didn’t you have that famous OOOOOO EEEEEEE song? Solved by Nzinga, I believe. Dear God, I can’t believe I forgot [Gal, You a Lead](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=241999), TOP. As long as I’m attaching SDMB URLs, here’s the one for the [Jon Secada](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=405364)… [Tramontane](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=221133)… …[and Learning to Fly](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=487464) ---
**Author:** ![Cabbage](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f07891/32.png) [@Cabbage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cabbage)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2016, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/song-recoveries/757325/29 "2016-06-15T12:18:37Z")
> [@Eddie The Horrible](#): > > 😛 > indeed: > (gets a little heated, here, at points) > (start it at 0:42) > [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhM-hrTyzJo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhM-hrTyzJo) > > My city’s record stores weren’t quite burgeoning with new punk bands’ records as early as they should have been, so it could have been as late as '79 when I had a good blast of one of the first punk numbers I heard, by a band called The Skids: > > > I’ll never forget buddy running the record store where I heard the song - totally laying passive-aggressive power strips on his staff - looking egg-fucking-ZACTLY like Rupert Holmes, with the whole hair, tinted glasses and beard bit, and saying shit like “hey!” and “ok let’s make it happen”. I’m sure he would have felt right at home as part of the cast of WKRP. > > Hilariously iconic memory of seeing him strut self-indulgently down a record aisle, and going “ok - this is going to fucking ROCK” as that song got under way, and much louder than they normally played stuff there. Some of the customers were somewhat taken aback, and I remember thinking how much the tune _did_ seriously kick ass, and very intrigued whenever it veered suddenly into the much, MUCH different-sounding, mellower, quirky “other part” (I call it “other part” because I’m not sure whether to call it a bridge or a refrain or verse…at least definitely not the chorus) > An eye-opener for this kid. > > And then not hearing it again till about 18 years later on a college radio station, immediately bringing Rupert back to mind, and how much I thought it still legitimately “rocked”. Your Skids song just led me to another recovery: Lene Lovich - Lucky Number Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![Dogzilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@Dogzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogzilla)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2016, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/song-recoveries/757325/30 "2016-06-17T19:39:23Z")
This thread actually inspired me to go looking for one of my lost loved songs. I’m so embarrassed now about my taste in music when I was 13/14. So there was this obscure song that was never a hit at all, by the Steve Miller Band. And I recall loving it because it was such a departure from the whole “Fly Like An Eagle” thing, which I was already sick of back then. I just found it on [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9KtHwsgIbI), listened through once and wondered just what in the everlovin’ fuck was I thinking? Maybe because it was a little funky and somewhat slightly danceable? Seriously, it sounds like he borrowed a drum machine from Prince and just left it on whatever settings Prince had last used. Nearest I can figure is my little teenaged mind was blown because it was such a departure from SMB’s previous sound. So I think I’m just going to dump this one back in the wayback machine and hope it stays there where it belongs as a forgotten moment in music. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2016, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/song-recoveries/757325/31 "2016-06-17T21:05:45Z")
Back when I was a young tyke there was this song I liked by the Stampeders-[“Sweet City Woman”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5xzaQHRnDY). I didn’t hear it again for a decade and a half, then a local oldies station stuck it into their mix. ---
**Author:** ![Cub\_Mistress](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea666f/32.png) [@Cub\_Mistress](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cub_Mistress)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2016, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/song-recoveries/757325/32 "2016-06-18T02:09:18Z")
One of my song recoveries was one I heard once or twice on the radio but never when the DJ was in the mood to tell the audience what they were playing. Sometimes DJ were too hip for that. :rolleyes: Anyway, years later I found out it was Fleetwood Mac’s [Secondhand News](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6Fdm3-dnr0) Great song, and still rarely played on radio. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/song-recoveries/757325.md?page=1)