Who Moved My Cheese Metal?

Bridey: And we finally reach the end of our long, long magical journey with this hit for the Searchers in 1965. A bit late for this sort of novelty song, but they threw in the Beatle-ish production (and, as you can see, did it in Beatle suits), and this became the definitive version of a much-recorded Lieber and Stoller classic.

Pete: The Searchers were one of the many bands to have emerged from the Mersey Beat scene that was popular in Liverpool in the early 60′s. Though never rising to the popularity of fellow Liverpudlians the Beatles or Gerry and the Pacemakers, The Searchers did reach American audiences many times with their close harmonies and wholesome image.

Bridey: Indeed, they also had a hit in the U.S. with the snippily vindictive “Needles and Pins.” “Love Potion Number 9″ is not, of course, the heaviest song in the world, but the Searchers handle it with an especially nice light touch, getting in the urgency but keeping the humor.

Pete: The taker of the offending potion goes on a mad search for his true love, and that caused a major stir for some American radio stations. They were offended when, in his passion, the singer kisses a cop. That didn’t go over well at all; the song was banned by many stations for illicit content.

Bridey: Hard to see what they were so agitated about; after all, the cop doesn’t accept the singer’s advances. The cop even breaks the little bottle of love potion, presumably leaving our singer back in his original sad plight (he’s been that way since 1956!).

Pete: While originally recorded by The Clovers in 1959, it’s The Searchers’ version that remains the classic. Over the years more than a few artists have taken a stab at this song — The Beatles, The Coasters, Neil Diamond, and even Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass, for goodness’ sake. In ’64, “Love Potion Number 9″ had even been recorded by Ronnie James Dio, with one of his earliest bands, while he was still just Ronnie Dio and The Prophets. I can only say Dio traveled a few miles from 1964.

Bridey: And of course, it was also done by these guys, on Live in Japan 1965.

I love this version. The Ventures rocked. Indeed,  I believe this actually exceeds the legally allowable maximum for rocking out while performing “Love Potion Number 9.”

1958 was a much simpler time on American air waves. It was a time when you were just as likely to be listening to Frank Sinatra, Elvis or Buddy Holly as you were Johnny Cash or the new folk based upstarts such The Kingston Trio.

All in all a pretty exciting time for popular music and a time when nearly anything could at least be given a chance to become a hit by getting on the radio.

So, when a middle aged man who had been a bit part actor in Hollywood for years recorded a song about a man seeking advice on how to get the girl of his dreams to love him back, there was nothing too unusual about that…

Known to the public as David Seville, Ross Bagdasarian, Sr. had truly come up with something new and unusual.

There had been a few songs here and there with the vocals sped up or slowed down to change the pitch before but they always sounded quite affected and because of the limitations of recording machines at the time they could only be manipulated by either halving the speed or playing it twice as fast. Bagdasarian had invested his money and career on a tape machine with more flexability.

“Which Doctor” became a number 1 hit in the U.S. and led to the creation of Alvin and the Chipmonks shortly thereafter. Since the early 60′s Alvin and the Chipmonks have had several television shows and two major Hollywood film releases starring the furry trio.

Fifty-two years later Ross Bagdasarian Sr.’s strange idea is still going strong.

For today’s magically themed entry, we go back to 1958:

In ”Zombie Jamboree,” the singer finds himself being pursued as a potential husband, but the poor girl is just dead on her feet….

The Kingston Trio have a blast with this calypso parody, a cheerful response to the fad kicked off a couple of years before by the great Harry Belafonte and “The Banana Boat Song.”  That craze was in full swing in 1958, when the Trio recorded from the Hungry i (a hugely enjoyable album). Indeed, they picked their name for its calypso appeal — the reference is to Kingston in Jamaica.

The clip opens with a nice relaxed little intro, a goof  in which Dave Guard calls this “the song that killed calypso.” But, zombielike, it wasn’t dead yet, staying on its feet commercially into the early ’6os. Just a fun song for a Saturday night.

If you are truly in the mood for magic a good place to start is with J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord Of The Rings. What, with Gandalf and Frodo traveling about Middle-earth with all their friends trying to prevent the evil Sauron from acquiring the One Ring that Frodo has been tasked to carry until the bitter end?

Lots of fun and three truly great movies if you are into all that. I have all three extended version DVDs that came out after the theatrical releases and they are even better. Especially if you have a full day with nothing to do, or several days with nothing to do.

The best I have been able to manage is one on a single day as after a movie of that length I just can no longer remain seated. I must get back to reality, there is work to be done, cheese to be posted…

About a year ago I actually went and saw a musical comedy based on Tolkien’s story’s. It was very funny and quite enjoyable but there wasn’t a guitar to be seen or heard. An electric piano and an electric drum set yes, but no rock and roll for Frodo. The big guy doing a Don Deluise impression while singing about how tough life is as a Balrog was quite funny and charming but it was not even remotely rock-ish…

So, if you enjoy this delightful and detailed fantasy world but still want to rock while being there, there is only one song for that…

“Ramble On” from 1969′s Led Zeppelin II album never charted in the U.S. but did actually make a wave in Canada. A small wave, but a wave none the less. In the States “Ramble On” has been in the rock radio rotation since, as these things go, the beginning of rock radio. After all these years it still holds up rather well.

A bit of acoustic guitar and a rhythmic assault on a plastic trashcan start the show. (A similar technique was used to great effect on Fleetwood Mac’s “Second Hand News” when Mick used the top of a chair back for the basic rhythm.) Then it’s off to the races with a truly delightful bass track by John Paul Jones that gives “Ramble On” a bouncy feel that continues when Bonham’s drums come in.

Jones’ bass is just so much fun! He’s all over the place, jumping in and out of the melody adding some cool runs and precision finger acrobatics in the chorus.

Robert Plant’s vocals are a mixture of benign neglect and screaming passion as only he could do in those early Zep days. And, as always, Bonham’s drums are strong and complex as the song moves through it’s odd time changes and breaks.

All in all, Tolkien in under five minutes?

There is a reason it’s still on the radio all the time. It’s a great song!

Coming near the end of our long Magical Mystery Tour, this time out we have a very famous song about a witch — perhaps second only to that one that starts with “Ding dong.”

“Rhiannon” is one of those records that, with its elegant, attention-demanding intro, sounds like it’s going to be a lot more interesting than it actually turns out to be.

The mythological Rhiannon did have some powers of enchantment, apparently, and Stevie Nicks’ lyrics are working hard to convey a magical nature. But what that ends up amounting to is “rings like a bell,” “takes to the sky like a bird in flight,” and “like a cat in the dark.”  The images are so bland that they can’t really evoke much sense of the strange.

The only really strong image is the one (wisely) most repeated: “Have you ever seen a woman/Taken by the wind?” That does actually leave room for a bit of imagination.

It all sounds good, though, and wears well in that sense for a ’70s hit; the bass is complex but subtle, and the restrained energy in the guitars as they build toward the refrain (“Rhiannon, Rhiannon, Rhiannon, Rhiannon”) adds power without breaking the mood.

But what magic there really is in this silly record is in Stevie Nicks’ vocal. Even with a limited range, she was a fine pop singer, with a knack for making nonsense sound important — which was, given her ambitious but often disappointing songwriting, exactly the knack she needed.

When one finds the words of a charming stranger comforting it is usually best to keep your wits about you.

A kind word, a smile, an offer of love…

Some of the things we desire in this life as we travel our way from childhood to becoming an adult and into old age. Some of us make our way with careful, well thought out steps and some of us crash through the gates chasing what we are after. A few seem to go from one disaster to the next, never quite getting control of their lives…

The truly unfortunate go even further, believing the things that are said in a moment of passion.

The magic of words you want to hear is a powerful concoction.

Ah, the joys of self delusion; and Jethro Tull’s “The Witches Promise” is a grand exercise in self delusion. From the earlier days of Tull before they turned into an exotic combination of progressive rock and Elizabethan English folk musicians, “The Witches Promise” is a tale of a women who fails to see through the words of her new love”s deception. Believing his words, (it is unusual that the witch is male in these sort of things, but it was 1970,) she hopes to gain by her own deception.

The witch, as usual, has his own ideas.

“But he was willing to give to you, but you didn’t care, you’re waiting for more but you’ve already had your share.”

One thing seems to be a constant in the world of magical rock songs, the witch always wins.

“The witches promise is turning, so don’t wait up for him, he’s going to be late…”

After a brief interruption, we begin again on our magical journey with a bit of late-period progressive rock from Genesis, from 1978′s Then There Were Three.

No non-live YouTube clip, so an iLike link instead.

This is a reworking of sorts of Keats’  “La Belle Dame Sans Merci,” a short narrative poem in which a knight has spent a long and wonderful day with a stranger, a beautiful woman who soon declares she loves him. They retire to her “elfin grot,” but he has a terrible dream of “pale kings and princes too/Pale warriors, death-pale were they all,” who tell him he has fallen prey to “La Belle Dame Sans Merci.” The knight, now doomed to lurk on a hillside forever, may be a ghost, dead like the Dame’s other victims, but if so he hasn’t caught on to it yet.

Genesis’ tale of a victimized knight has a less hapless hero, who starts off by rescuing the woman from a monster. But, as Phil tells us, “We know she’s a demon/Come to lure him to a demon’s lair.” This knight catches the warning signs, and “thanks her kindly, preparing to go on his way.” But she tempts him with  “the fruits and the spices of love,” and he goes with her, knowing full well he’s walking into a trap. From which, like Keats’ knight, he never escapes. Of course, as Phil sings portentously, “Who can escape what he desires?” (That line may be one of rock’s better rhetorical questions.)

The lyrics of “The Lady Lies” are pretty much art-school prog, but the tune is strikingly poppy (and peppy) for the subject matter. Cut out a 90-second chunk in the middle (about 2:25 to 3:55, to be more precise), and melodically this could as easily be the Genesis of the ’80s. Though of course, the lyrics would need to be changed, probably to some kind of irritable love song.

There are some nice things going on musically, of course, though the band had lost Steve Hackett and there’s no guitar to be found. Collins does his usual masterful job on the drums, but it’s Tony Banks with keyboards and more keyboards driving this one, with some snazzy, attention-demanding swoopage opening the song, transforming into a gorgeous pipe organ sound that follows Collins up the scale on the first crescendo, at the 35-second mark. And whenever the demon lady begins to beg, “Come with me, I need you,” there’s a great clinkety-clink piano that underlines her hypocrisy.

The keyboard solo is nifty in itself, though it’s not actually a very good fit with the rest of the melody and goes too bluesy for these medieval goings-on. But the last time we hear from the lady, that clattery piano is once again accompanying her words, but faster and more aggressive, moving to the forefront for the last minute of the song.  Her theme now dominates because, of course, she’s won.

The Alan Parsons Project released their first album in 1976, Tales of Mystery and Imagination, featuring musical reworkings of poems and stories by Edgar Allan Poe.

And that was the problem. There are very few writers of prose or poetry less suited to reworking of any kind, much less in pop musical form, than Poe. He was the most distinctive and deliberate of writers, and is strikingly unsuited to paraphrase.

As shown in the Project’s shot at “The Raven”:

In Poe’s “Raven,” the bird in question reflects the self-torturing bent of an already troubled narrator who, having heard it speak only the single word “Nevermore,” asks the raven very specific questions to which he is terrified, or perhaps certain, he already knows the answers. His misery is self-inflicted but horribly inevitable.

In the Project’s minimal take, a dude is followed around by a bird that keeps repeating “Nevermore” because — well, apparently just because.

The musical setting is fine in itself, though, with a good spooky tension to it, and a ghost of Steeleye Span in the opening. And the vocal (where you can hear it) is nicely done. But it all should’ve gone in service of some other lyrics. Tales of Mystery and Imagination was, I think, one of those Project projects that only sounded like a good idea.

Being a big fan of progressive rock and its multitudinous incarnations, stretching from early Genesis, Procol Harum, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, and Yes all the way to XTC and early Styx, I do love a big keyboard. I am not sure how big keyboards became such a prog-rock requirement, but they were and are, and I am all good with that.

If you find yourself loving the church organ sounds of “Whiter Shade Of Pale” or the keyboard explosion at the end of Yes’ “Starship Trooper,” (the live version from the original Yessongs, the 1972 triple album), then you must really, truly be a prog-rock fan.

By the middle of the 70′s, the whole thing was kind of winding down. Most of the prog bands were finding it harder and harder to find or keep their audience. ELP had faded away, Yes was still pretty big but not selling many albums. Genesis at this point had never sold albums but were minor deities to their fans until Peter Gabriel left and Phil Collins picked up the microphone, but then they headed off into a much more pop style. Who was left?

Kansas was…

Or rather, they started later and had a bit of a different approach to prog than their predecessors. While fiddle was by no means unknown to rock or pop music, it was truly a lead instrument with Kansas, and that made it different. You still had the keyboards, drums, bass, and guitars happening, but you also had this fiddle right up front with the same swagger of any big rock star guitar player. That was pretty cool!

Kansas had made it big with their Leftoverture album the year before and were on a roll. Fully backed by Don Kirschner, who was a true rock n’ roll impresario at the time, having formed the Monkees in the 60′s to having his own late-night television show to promote his own acts and others, Kansas had the door opened, and they crashed right on through. While nearly every other prog act was fading away or changing style, Kansas became a radio and sales monster.

“Portrait (He Knew)” is an almost perfect counterpoint to “Stargazer.” Kerry Livgren and Steve Walsh were writing about a guy who did know what was going to happen. Rather than just walking off of the tower to fly, this guy would tell you what was going to happen if you did.

Nostradamus was the guy. The guy who knew.

Kansas also knew something, they knew how to write a killer hook and how to make some magic with a song about a guy who always professed he was not a magician. That he just knew.

As we continue wandering the magical wilds, we present a tale of a wizard’s mad ambition, from Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow:

The singer is one of a troop of workers, enchanted and enslaved, who are building a huge stone tower for a wizard who believes that the tower will let him leap up into the stars.

After nine long years and the deaths of many laborers, the tower is at last completed, and:

All eyes see the figure of the wizard,
As he climbs to the top of the world.
No sound, as he falls instead of rising
Time standing still,
Then there’s blood on the sand
Oh, I see his face….

The bewildered workers are freed, the wizard’s hold over them broken by his death:

Time is standing still,
He gave me back my will,
Going home,
I’m going home

All good old-fashioned heavy metal lunacy. But it is sung by Ronnie James Dio.

Dio makes this all-day wonder (8 1/2 minutes!) into a glorious metal aria, singing with passion and conviction and making the most of his exceptional technical skills. He may sound wild, but every howl and snarl, every quake of vibrato and leap through his considerable range, is a genuine, no-compromise-required artistic choice. Dio plays here and there on the Zeppish, Middle Eastern feel of the song (check right at 1:14) without a ghost of parody or pastiche. And among all the fireworks, every word is perfectly clear. From 1976, “Stargazer” shows off a great singer in his prime, and completely in command.

And Dio is paired up here, of course, with Ritchie Blackmore, arguably the most influential guitarist of the ’70s (no, it’s not that guy who stood behind David Lee Roth). Blackmore’s long solo starts at 3:30, and by 3:55, he’s at top speed. But the solo is musical, melodic, elegant, and absolutely clean, expanding and translating the Oriental mood into shred-free lightning.

“Stargazer” represents the best of ’70s gods-and-monsters metal, without the proggy pretensions that sometimes weighed down both Rainbow and Deep Purple, or the too-dark subject matter that sometimes marred Dio’s lyrics. Dio and Blackmore really were an extraordinarily good match in style, skills, and taste — it’s too bad they didn’t work together more.