We got “Saint Louis!..Champagne, Illinois!”
Here it was, “…in Cleveland!” because of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Because it’s really self-congratulatory, and because for years I thought Grace Slick was the vocalist on it and it wasn’t, it was some dude.
Grace Slick was (one of) the vocalist(s) on it.
The version I remember included the “in Cleveland…Detroit!” line. Then they added the St. Louis, Champagne Illinois" part in the next verse.
I’m stunned to have read up-thread that Bernie Taupin had anything to do with this song. I never knew that and didn’t believe it. And in verifying it, I also learned he co-wrote Heart’s “These Dreams,” which I consider dreck as well. The man, like most rock lyric writers, has produced his share of questionable songs, but Taupin must have been doing as many drugs as Elton John at this point.
Somewhere there is a person who decided that We Built This City on Rock and Roll had some relevance to the Republican National Convention and added it to the playlist. Republicans are not known for their sense of irony, so I’d really like to know who and why. Seriously, why?
Same guy who OK’d Clint Eastwood to do improv?
Because their theme this year (building on a completely out-of-context Obama quote) was “We Built This”.
Perhaps their theme should have been “I talked to the trees”:
Since the trees have been cut down and made into chairs, Eastwood knew what he had to talk to.
double zombie or no
what can be done to make a song suck worse than it originally did?
I really enjoy the song although I know people who feel the exact opposite. As for why they feel that way, I venture guess that they DON’T REMEMBER: We built this city…we built this city on ROCK AND ROLL!
In 1985, that was the reality many of us faced. It got a LOT of airplay on album rock stations, because it was Jefferson [fill in the blank], a long-established mainstay of the format. However, the song sounded so out of place compared to the guitar-driven rock and prog that otherwise made up most of the playlist of AOL stations.
Imagine listening to 94 Rock or Q-103 or 93-X or whatever, getting into a Tuesday two-fer of Led Zeppelin, when all of a sudden, it hits you.
♫♫ … and she’s climbing the stairrrrway to heaven! ♫♫ We built this city ♫♫♫ we built this city on rock and roooooooohoool! ♫♫♫♫
Back in the day in the Rust Belt, Michael Stanley’s My Town was the king of localization.
♫♫ This town is my town! BUFFALO! All right! Love or hate her, it’s don’t matter, ‘cause I’m gonna’ stand and fight! ♫♫
Didn’t matter that the song was really about Cleveland.
My boyfriend heard me laughing at this thread and I told him it was about how people hate We Built This City… and he said “I like that song!!!”
So I played it for him. He immediately began to realize how terrible it is, and after a few minutes asked me to just turn it off. So he went from remembering emphatically that he liked it, to not even being able to hear it all the way through just once.
What is it about this song???
Someone has to add: they didn’t build it.
Yeah just exactly HOW DOES Marconi play the MAMBA!? A mamba is a deadly snake. Maybe they meant the MAMBO but you never can tell with those psychedelic pop artists.
So… It’s not “Marconi plays La Bamba”?
Looks like it’s creepy coincidence time again.
Why the hell did you revive this thread? Now I see the fucking title and the song gets stuck in my head.
CURSES!