Monday, December 17, 2007

YEARLY BELOVED
I recently realized that I like songs that have a year in the title.
Seems like a risky proposition for an artist to handcuff their creation to an era and 'date' the song, but most of the time it is used to establish a frame of mind or reference point.
This practice apparently worked on me because all of these songs are still rattling around in my skull.
NEW YORK MINING DISASTER 1941
BEE GEES
Best disaster song ever considering the competition: There’s Got To Be A Morning After or My Heart Will Go On!
“In the event of something happening to me,
there is something I would like you all to see.
It's just a photograph of someone that I knew
Have you seen my wife Mr Jones?
Do you know what it's like on the outside?
Don't go talking too loud, you'll cause a landslide, Mr. Jones.”

DECEMBER 1963
FRANKIE VALLI
Obviously not a Democrat because JFK was assasinated on November 22nd.
“Oh, what a night
Late December back in sixty-three
What a very special time for me
As I remember what a night.”



SUMMER OF 69
BRYAN ADAMS
Bryan was 9 years old? Whatever.
“I got my first real six-string
Bought it at the five-and-dime
Played 'til my fingers bled
It was summer of '69.
Me and some guys from school
Had a Band and we tried real hard
Jimmy quit and Jody got married
I shoulda known we'd never get far.”

1984
DAVID BOWIE
Orwellian angst at it’s finest!
“They'll split your pretty cranium, and fill it full of air
And tell that you're eighty, but brother, you won't care
You'll be shooting up on anything, tomorrow's never there Beware the savage jaw
Of 1984.”




1985
PAUL McCARTNEY
One of the first songs that I learned to play on the Piano.
“Oh no one left alive in 1985,
will ever do
She may be right
She may be fine
She may get love but she won't get mine'cos i got you
Oh i oh i
Well i just can't enough of that sweet stuff
My little lady gets behind.”


1979
SMASHING PUMPKINS
One of my favorite songs of all time.
“Shakedown 1979, cool kids never have the time
On a live wire right up off the street
You and I should meetJunebug skipping like a stone
With the headlights pointed at the dawn
We were sure we'd never see an end to it all
And I don't even care to shake these zipper blues
And we don't know.”


1999
PRINCE
His Purpleness in his prime.
“I was dreamin' when I wrote this
Forgive me if it goes astray
But when I woke up this mornin'
Could have sworn it was judgment day
The sky was all purple
There were people runnin' everywhere
Tryin' to run from the destruction
You know I didn't even care

They say two thousand zero, zero, party over,Oops, out of time!
So tonight I'm gonna party like it's 1999!”

ANTHEM FOR THE YEAR 2000
SILVERCHAIR
Has a Bowiesque intro and in your face Flanders attitude!
“We are the youth
We’ll take your fascism away
We are the youth
Apologise for another day
We are the youth
And politicians are so sure
We are the youth
And we are knocking on death’s door.”


IN THE YEAR 2525
ZAGER & EVANS
Classic Doom & Gloom kitschified #1 hit in 1969!
“In the year 2525
If man is still alive
If woman can survive
They may find
In the year 3535
Ain't gonna need to tell the truth, tell no lie
Everything you think, do and say
Is in the pill you took today.”

Have I missed any?

20 comments:

  1. I'm not sure if this counts... Miami 2017 by Billy Joel? Futuristic ;)

    ReplyDelete
  2. In answer to your question: yes.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I don't think that you missed any, more is the pity.

    ReplyDelete
  4. stace,
    Good one, Billy's update of sink the Bismark...although he didn't start the Fire.

    rimster,
    HA

    HA

    HA

    OK smarty pants name a couple of 'year' favorite songs.

    scurrilous vicuna,
    Indeed Sir.
    My lord, the law of nature moves me to sorrow for my aforementioned list. In the future I shall endeavour to direct all my actions by your good advice and counsel.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Just off the top of my noggin': '39 (by Queen, from "A Night at the Opera") and 2000 Man (by the Rolling Stones) as well as a song called "(Another)1984" by Billy Squier

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  6. OMG! I love '39 how did I miss that one? The Stones..snything after Goats Head Soup meh...I don't think that I have ever heard Billy Squire's 84 but I have Standing In The Dark, Emotion in Motion and Everybody Wants you, Duhna da Duhna da Duhna...
    Dammit I might try to sneak in'39!
    Good One.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I love '39! And McCartney's 1985 and Bowie and ... As far as best disaster songs, there's always our national troubadour, Gordon Lightfoot's "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald"...

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  8. hello awndrayah,
    You are prolly right about Gordie's "fellas it's been good to know ya" being the best disaster song EVER.

    ReplyDelete
  9. nothing by the 1910 fruitgum co?

    ReplyDelete
  10. first nations,
    Everytime I try to prove they have one
    1, 2, 3 red light stops me!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Disco 2000 by Pulp. Not that it's anywhere near as good as Zager & Evans or The Four Seasons, mind.

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  12. Great music!

    Okie dokie, gotchya some,(also my favorites):

    Tom Waits: "Ol '55

    Woody! "1913 Massacre"

    The Who: "1921"

    Bruce Rowland: has 2, "1931 Melbourne Cup" a very famous horse race over here, our national treasure (albeit stuffed and a little mounted) Pharlap the horse.

    "California 1932"

    Loudon Wainright 111: "1994"

    Herb Albert: "Acapulco 1922" is on my Lonely Bull collectors album

    Harry Nilsson: "1941"

    Ole Ringo: "Early 1970"

    Jimi Hendrix: "1983"

    ReplyDelete
  13. The 1812 Overture? Can't believe you missed that one.

    A little obscure but a good foil to the Frankie Valli one is 1963 by New Order which, if memory serves me right, was the B-side to True Faith. Also has a Kennedy theme.

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  14. You did.

    Hotel California by Eagles.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Machine Head ......DEEP PURPLE

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  16. Gord gets my vote for best disaster song as well.

    Thought of another year song -but it's not one that you could be expected to know: Summer of '81 by Mondo Rock.

    A couple that you mentioned there are among my all-time favourite songs -1979 and nineteen hundred and eighty five.

    ReplyDelete
  17. 30,000 pounds of bananas!

    Are you writing all your posts 17 minutes apart now?

    ReplyDelete
  18. Well, Vicus could be right about much of it being tripe!
    Point: the Frankie Valli 1963 was not about JFK.
    And , for a similar sentimental wander through the romantic glades of my youth: American Flyer's "Back in '57."

    (I think I'd better get myself back to Fogie Towers!)

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  19. "In the event of something happening to me....."

    FINALLY!

    Somebody admitting to remembering the BeeGee's actually could write music before DIS.....DIS.....you know, that aweful period in music history we dare not talk about.......

    ReplyDelete
  20. oh what a cool list h.e.!!!
    some of my bestest favouritist songs in that list...

    ReplyDelete

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