Who Moved My Cheese Metal?

And a break in our parade of falsettos for some more insanely boring rock classics!

OK, some people still love these songs. And they must do well in music testing (music research is more common than you probably imagine) or classic rock radio would not still be so devoted to them.

But in testing, people are often allowed to choose only between variations of “like it” or “don’t like it.” So you can’t really draw a distinction between “I hate this with the white-hot heat of a thousand suns” and “I used to like it a lot but you’ve played it all the damn time on your station for 15 or 20 years, so now I routinely risk driving into a tree as I leap to change the station when it comes on.” (In one of those proofs the gods are listening, Peter Frampton’s “Show Me the Way” just came on my radio. Briefly.)

So, since you can’t explain why you don’t care for a song, people in tests will tend to say they like songs they once were fond of but are now burned out on. Who wants to say they hate “Ramblin’ Man”? But admiring it as a work of rock art doesn’t mean you have any pressing desire to hear it ever again. Ever. Again.

And these songs — these are so burned you could crush them and get diamonds.

Joe Walsh: “Life’s Been Good.” OK, it’s cute, with its rather mild sendup of the rock star lifestyle. “I have a mansion, forget the price/Ain’t never been there, they tell me it’s nice.” But why, why, why is this more than 8 1/2 minutes long? “Life’s Been Good” sets off in three distinct stylistic directions in the first 90 seconds — and then it turns out to be just this silly little goof with endless instrumental breaks and a wretched vocal. Turn it on, take a nap.

Eric Clapton: “I Shot the Sheriff.” I admit that reggae doesn’t really speak to me. But I will also say I disliked this washed-out tune from my earliest rock ‘n’ roll days, and certainly long before I was aware that it even was a reggae cover. Why this is one of Clapton’s most-played songs, I can’t fathom — he was never a great singer, and he sounds overwhelmed and clueless trying to get around this.

Santana: “Evil Ways.” I don’t know if anyone would say this was great Santana to begin with, even when it was fresh and new. I think it has survived largely because it’s easy to play and sing and bar bands dig it. But it has run its course, and now it just needs to be gently retired (followed out the door by “Black Magic Woman.” Which at least has a better guitar solo).

War: “Spill the Wine.” All due points to Mr. Burdon for referring to himself as an “overfed long-haired leaping gnome,” but geeze, this is a boring record. Endless, pointless, a failed attempt at being amusing (aside from the gnome thing), and very, very dated. There’s classic rock, and then there’s just stuff that’s been around a long time.

Metal falsetto is just one of those things that when used well by a singer adds to the tension, energy and power of a lyric.

The high and loud masters can sell brilliance or bull– with equal ease and style.

When you have a singer that can hit the high ones, stay on key and sound like he wants to rip your heart out while he is ripping his lungs out, well, then you have got some great music.

Iron Maiden was one of my favorites all through the eighties. The first video I ever saw on MTV when my neighborhood was blessed with the joys of cable television was Iron Maiden’s “Run Through The Hills.” Silly black and white western movie clips and all.

Now the video may have been a bit silly but the song was all power. With the album The Number Of The Beast, Iron Maiden established themselves as a force in metal music for many years to come.

Iron Maiden led by Steve Harris’ mind warping speed bass, Dave Murray and Adrian Smith’s guitars, Clive Burr’s drums melding with the remarkable vocals of Bruce Dickenson created their own small corner of hell with “Hallowed Be Thy Name.” The thoughts of a man getting ready to go to the gallows, interestingly, has come up a few times in rock music. So, they weren’t the first, but they were the ones with the most bang for the buck.

Dickenson starts out with his smooth but tormented mid-range vocal as his thoughts are focused on his impending doom. When he knows his time is up he sings, “The sands of time for me are running low…………….”

He holds “low” for what seems about five minutes all the while climbing from his full mid-range to a bracing “yeah!” at the top. Now that’s impressive!

While Dickenson doesn’t have the same clarity of some of the earlier high and loud guys, he still impresses with his consistency and overall power. And it’s always nice to have metal’s most amazing bass player behind you.

And moving right along in our series on Great Moments in Falsetto, particularly the grand metal falsetto of the ’70s and ’80s, we have Boston’s first hit:

Without being a massive hit — it peaked at number five at Billboard — this record sounded so fresh in 1976 that it  just blew everyone away, including radio programmers. It is one of the records that marked the dawn of arena rock, when Boston, Styx, Journey, Kansas, and Foreigner ate up AOR radio, and the days of freeform FM were over.

But, of course, nobody knew that at the time, and this is a great record, though it’s not my usual taste. That’s Brad Delp, of course, on the vocals, blowing the roof off behind and around and underneath all that super-slick production. (One thing about the frontmen in arena rock — or corporate rock or metal pop or whatever you want to call it: They could really sing.)

This is a great example of a capable singer using all of his considerable range not just as fireworks (well, some fireworks), but to add a lot of emotional weight. Nice and smooth and calm in the first couple of lines, then moving way, way up into the high end, with that bump into a falsetto trill on “I closed my eyes, and I slipped away.”

The song is so familiar now, but if you’d never heard it before, think how unexpected that jump into the high range would be. It is still incredibly cool. This song has a lot of great things about it — the bounding bass and rolling guitars, the slamming, semi-martial-sounding drums — but it is all about that vocal.

Pay attention at right about 3:30, where he repeats “she slipped away” — except that description hardly covers it, since “away” is extended up and up and up, well into a grand, feathery but strong falsetto. Yes, it’s amped up in production, but everything Boston did was amped up in production, and Delp still had to hit the notes. Lovely. A genuinely great moment in falsetto.

• Part 1
• Part 2

Still slammed, workwise, so just tossing up a note on the situation from these sharp-dressed Clevelanders:

(This is 1966, so the hair is still big rather than long.)

Odd performance clip — the lead vocal seems clearly lip-synched, but on the first refrain the low harmony is miles off key, so that at least must’ve been live.

That big, relaxed guitarist in the back is band founder Tom King, with a teenage Sonny Geraci on the vocals, and Mert Madsen playing that nifty-looking bass.

But what is with the shirts thrown through the windows?

And we finish up the week of songs about weekdays with this one from 1967, “Sunday Will Never Be the Same,” one of the most cheerful-sounding songs of disappointed love you’re ever likely to come across.

Spanky and Our Gang’s hits (this was the only time they reached the top 10) were part of a run of female-fronted records at around that time, and they’re obviously under the influence of both the Mamas and the Papas and the 5th Dimension, but Our Gang tend to be called a folk rock group, rather than pop.

Really, I’m not hearing it — a female vocal doesn’t make you folkies, and they are far too much of a studio creation for that. Elaine “Spanky” McFarlane’s good voice is reverbed to a fare-thee-well on this record, and the harmonies are obviously much enhanced and, per the video, nothing that could be reproduced live.

Still, it really is all about the lead vocals — I believe the obligatory term is “soaring” — and, aside from a bit of pitch wobbliness on the low end and that silly reverb, this is quite nicely done. And I’d rather hear a good singer miss here and there than a mediocre (or worse) singer slicked up and pitch-corrected anyway.

And what’s she singing? “Sunny afternoons that make me/Feel so warm inside/Have turned as cold and grey as ashes/As I feel the embers die.”

Apparently this was originally intended to be played as a ballad — no kidding — but whatever optimistic soul produced “Sunday” made a good choice, swirling strings aside (and is that a harpsichord?). The sound is close to  joyous, and the contrast makes the dumped-and-depressed lyrics seem a lot deeper and more interesting than they are on the page.

This is a fine, Sunday-sounding record to end the Week of the Week. (And how can anyone not be made happy by the drummer’s hat?)

And it looks like I’ll be first up today (actually, no — simulpost!)  as we continue our full week of weekday tunes, with a song from Elton John in his prime (if not a prime Elton John song), “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting.”

I quite like this silly song, which is — or so I have always assumed — intended as a joke. Bernie Taupin always had a sense of humor, and he must’ve been amused by positioning pasty, earnest Elton as a hard-partying working class lout. (“I’ll sink a little drink and shout out, ‘She’s with me!’” Sure, Elton, sure.) It’s such an entertaining notion that I can’t really dislike this song, unpersuasive though it is.

The biggest problem is that, though he gives it a good try, Elton’s voice is just not suited to heavier music. Though he can be an expressive singer at times, his voice is very light, and he is utterly incapable of singing loudly. And “Saturday” sits mostly on the mid- to high side of his narrow range; if he’d gone after it in a lower key, it might’ve had more energy to it. As it is, he’s reduced to a sort of grainy shout on the chorus, so the producer seems to have just shoved him back in the mix and hoped for the best.

Though Elton by this time was working with a crew of first-rate session players, they don’t seem at home in this territory either. There’s no lead guitar line at all — it’s all rhythm, and it sounds as light as Elton’s voice. The bass meanders pleasantly but meaninglessly, failing to anchor a song that desperately needs it, and, while you can’t have an Elton John song without a piano, it adds nothing to this one. The only persuasive performance here is from Nigel Olsson, playing machine gun drums and trying vainly to pull it all back to earth.

Still, taken for what it is, “Saturday” is a lot of fun. There’s just something so cheerful in the notion of Elton John as a don’t-give-a-damn street tough. It’s so entertaining that this has been a favorite in his live shows for the last 30-some years.

(Many other bands have been tempted to take a stab at “Saturday” over the decades, with varying degrees of success. And here’s how it should’ve been sung. Whatever you think of Nickelback — and what I think is not much — Chad Kroeger is a very good rock singer, if occasionally overwrought, and he takes this dopey little tune and almost makes you believe it. And yes, I am aware that the Who covered it, too. Nickelback does it better.)

And wrapping up the working week (for most people), it’s the Easybeats, with “Friday on My Mind.”

These dudes were Australian way back in 1967, long before rockin’ Australians became commonplace, and this song is a sort of oddball mix of British Invasion pop and early psychedelia. (It’s also pretty obvious the songwriters had a couple of Who records in their collection.)

The lyrics are nothing extraordinary (does anybody ever rhyme “city”with a word other than “pretty”?), just a frustrated guy who’s tired of “working for the rich man” and is waiting impatiently for the weekend and the chance to get out and spend some bread with his outtasight girl. But it’s a pretty good record just the same, with a lot of energy and a bit of an angry edge to it. (And if it’s less sophisticated, its a little easier on the brain than Pete’s Friday choice.)

This was the one and only U.S. hit for these good-looking Aussies, but they had quite a few hits in their homeland. And “Friday on My Mind” co-writer George Young’s little brothers had a hit or two of their own.

And as we move toward the end of the working part of the week, a pause for this sweet, sad, bluesy tune from Harry Nilsson: “Thursday (Here’s Why I Did Not Go to Work Today).”

I actually wasn’t familiar with this song from 1976′s Sandman album until I embarked on a search for a Thursday song — they are not quite as thin on the ground as Wednesday songs, but it’s not a day that works up a lot of enthusiasm. As illustrated here: “It’s just that Thursday’s twice as long as it should be.” (He’s quite right about that.)

Though it’s a downbeat song, it still has a bit of the humor Nilsson was known for:

Monday is a blues day
That goes for Tuesday
Wednesday’s just the middle of the week
Friday’s just another payday
The weekend’s just another heyday
But Thursday’s surreptitiously unique

“Surreptitiously unique” — how can you not love that? It’s just voice and piano, a restrained bass and brushes, and it sets a lights-are-low, jazz club mood that’s a disarming mismatch with the discouraged working-stiff lyrics.

Many will hear this and think of Randy Newman, and indeed they were rough contemporaries, though Nilsson was recording a few years earlier. And he was a much better singer — warm, smooth, expressive, and able to handle bouncy pop (“Me and My Arrow,” “Gotta Get Up”) , ballads like “Thursday,” or novelty tunes (“Lime in the Coconut”).

Nilsson, an American artist who died in 1994, doesn’t seem to be much remembered by American audiences, and that’s kind of a shame. He had some very big hits (“Everybody’s Talkin’ at Me” and the glorious “Without You” are probably the best known) without ever seeming to really catch on as a pop star here — but other musicians adored him, and he was one of the most admired and emulated artists of his day.

And for the middle of our week of songs about the week, a little ’80s New Wave: Elvis Costello’s “Wednesday Week.”

Wednesday is not the most thrilling day of the week, and, as Pete notes, songs about it are a little sparse (though he seems to have found a few). And no one seems to have loved this one enough to put it on YouTube, so I have to rely on a Lala link. (Scroll down.)

This is a high-energy tune of the type the critics used to call a “rave-up” back in the day, with the Attractions rocking out behind a silly Hammond organ, if that’s not redundant. But Bruce Thomas’ bass walks and rolls and bounces and just pulls this thing along, and even if you don’t care for the song, that bass line has got to make you smile.

But indeed, this is something of a tough song to love. It’s typically misogynistic (this dude had some serious issues with women), and its slippery, clever-clever lyrics don’t really add up to very much — just some rather pedestrian observations about the impermanent nature of attraction.

“You start acting like a zombie/Someone wants your piece of cake/You think you want to jump upon me/But you won’t give a damn by Wednesday week.” Well, one would be astonished if she did, after all that.

There’s also a huge shift of tone and tune in the last 40 seconds or so as the lyrics take our singer from hostile and suspicious to victimized and suspicious, in a melody Elvis has revisited a number of times. Not a bad-sounding record, but not one of Costello’s best. But what do you want on a Wednesday?

After Pete started the day with the Moody Blues, I picked this very pretty and rather sweet Rolling Stones tune for Tuesday.  And yes, the Stones could be sweet, even though the consensus is that this song is about a groupie.

Anyway, unlike many real or reputed groupie songs, there’s nothing crude about “Ruby Tuesday.” The song just describes a rather mysterious free spirit who advises a seize-the-day attitude — nothing wrong with that, and very much in the air in 1967.

The song is built around Brian Jones’ recorder, weaving and echoing breathily through the verses and wobbling interestingly in the refrain, and a nice simple piano that sits gently in the background for most of the song.

No drums on the verses, but Charlie piles in on the refrain, to good effect. It’s the powering drums, along with the careful but relatively unpolished vocal — in a bit lower key than was usual for Jagger in those days — that add some much needed muscle to a song that could easily have slid into twee territory.

“Ruby Tuesday” is one of those painfully overplayed songs that has become classic rock wallpaper, but it deserves a fresh listen.

Vote! Which song sounds more like Tuesday to you?