Desperation Takes Hold

‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ is a song by English rock band Joy Division, released in June 1980 as a non-album single.  NME New Musical Express a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand placed this song at #19 in its list of the 50 Greatest Indie Anthems Ever, and it is also listed as #5 in the “All Time Indie Top 50” by 23 Indie Street an online station.  It reached #1 on the UK Indie Chart, went to #13 on the UK Singles (OCC The Official UK Charts Company Limited) and it got to #42 on the US Billboard Disco Top 100.  This song is full of desperation and resentment, sadness and loss and it became a tribute to a dying relationship, where a haunted singer and a legendary band, express the bewildered feeling that something as good as love just can’t function anymore.  Joy Division singer Ian Curtis took his own life on May 18, 1980, and the song was released as a single the month after.  Ian Curtis married his girlfriend Deborah Woodruff in the summer of 1975, and the couple had a baby named Natalie in April 1979.

In 1976, Bernard Sumner and Peter Hook formed the band Joy Division in Salford, United Kingdom and after recording their self-released 1978 debut EP, they were signed to Tony Wilson’s independent label Factory Records.  The group consisted of vocalist Ian Curtis, guitarist/keyboardist Bernard Sumner, bassist Peter Hook and drummer Stephen Morris.  Joy Division had a few promising years and they completed two albums.  In 1978, a year before the band released its first album, Ian Curtis began suffering epileptic seizures.  He was officially diagnosed with epilepsy in January 1979, when his seizures grew more severe.  A critical buzz developed around Joy Division, but they were still an underground band, so they had to pack in as many gigs as possible until the album was released and playing four gigs in three days wasn’t an uncommon week.  The overwhelming pressure and stress of holding down a day job, not getting enough sleep, overdosing on his own medication, trying to grow his career as a singer, along with his marital problems and struggles with epilepsy became too much for Ian Curtis.  It was not easy having to juggle a wife and a mistress while dealing with an illness and a band that was relying on him.  Curtis banned his wife from coming to any the band’s gigs and he hung himself using a clothesline in the kitchen.

In October 1979, Curtis met Annik Honoré a Belgian journalist and music promoter and the two began a relationship, which caused further distress between Curtis and Deborah Woodruff, even though Annik said that their relationship was platonic.  In his suicide note to Deborah, he told her that he loved her.  It was nearing dawn when he wrote that he could hear birds singing.  The words “Love Will Tear Us Apart” were engraved as an epitaph on his headstone.  The other three members of the group Peter Hook, Stephen Morris, and Bernard Sumner decided to carry on and they became known as New Order, and they became one of the most successful bands in Britain.  Songfacts® stated that this was written as a cynical response to ‘Love Will Keep Us Together’ by The Captain & Tennille.

When routine bites hard and ambitions are low
And resentment rides high but emotions won’t grow
And we’re changing our ways, taking different roads

Then love, love will tear us apart again
Love, love will tear us apart again

Why is the bedroom so cold? You’ve turned away on your side
Is my timing that flawed? Our respect runs so dry
Yet there’s still this appeal that we’ve kept through our lives

But love, love will tear us apart again
Love, love will tear us apart again

Do you cry out in your sleep, all my failings exposed?
There’s a taste in my mouth as desperation takes hold
Just that something so good, just can’t function no more

But love, love will tear us apart again
Love, love will tear us apart again

Then love, love will tear us apart again
Love, love will tear us apart again

Written for Song Lyric Sunday where the theme this week is Indie music.

Independent Music

‘Indie’ does not refer to a style of music as it was originally developed from the shortened form of ‘independent’ which was used to describe bands who were independent of any major commercial record label.  These bands were signed to small start-up labels or who for one reason or another they chose to publish their own music without using a label at all.  The process of making Indie music may include an autonomous, do-it-yourself approach to recording and publishing and it would be music released that is not directly financially dependent on any of the four major labels (WMG, Sony BMG, EMI and Universal).  Indie music is usually guitar driven underpinned by swirling, melodic, rhythmic electric guitar, and power-pop verse-chorus-verse structures.  Indie music is said to have begun with Buzzcocks, and this musical genre descriptor emerged from post-punk, new wave and alternative music released on late-1970s.  Indie is a confusing term, as it isn’t a genre of music although indie rock, indie folk and indie pop are all genres.  There are many artists that represent the indie scene, but they are all different.  It is thought that since indie artists don’t have ties to large, commercial labels, this allows them to create more interesting work.

Last week we had Hitsville where the theme was to find Motown songs.  This week the theme is to find Indie Rock or Indie Pop songs.  Take some time to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this music challenge, and even better, read as many of them as you can as you will probably find many enjoyable songs and it is quite possibly that you will learn a thing or two.  Share your music with others and post a video, try do some research and let everyone know something about the song that you post.  Tell everyone why you like the song, whether it was a hit, or what you think the song is about.  Show the lyrics, let’s all listen to our favorite songs and explore some new music.  Try to find a song that fits the theme, then write your post and create a pingback, or you can just place your link in the comments section.

Suggestions
• Try to use the prompt words or at least conform to a general theme, as you see it.  If the song you select does not meet the criteria, then please explain why you chose this song.
• It would be good if you could post the lyrics to the song of your choice, as this is helpful for the people that want to follow along with the music.
• Please try to include the songwriter(s) – it’s a good idea to give credit where credit is due. It would also be a good idea to give credit to the singer and the band associated with your song.
• Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be, but please try not to include too many videos as that just makes it take longer to look at all of the other posts.
• Link to the YouTube video, or you can pull it into your post, so others can listen to the song.
• Ping back to this post or place your link in the comments section below.
• Read at least one other person’s blog, so we can all share new and fantastic music and create amazing new blogging friends in the process.
• Feel free to suggest future prompts.
• Have fun and enjoy the music.

This week I will be writing about the Joy Division song ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’, and next week, I will be writing about the song ‘Girlfriend’ by Avril Lavigne.  The upcoming prompts will be:
December 11, 2022 – Power Pop songs
December 18, 2022 – Mersey Beat, or Mersey Sound or a band from Surrey or Liverpool will also work
December 25, 2022 – Punk songs
January 1, 2023 – Garage Rock

No Matter How Long It Takes

Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, and Eddie Holland who were collectively known as Holland-Dozier-Holland wrote ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’ which was a massive hit for The Supremes, reaching #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, and remaining on the chart for 13 weeks.  It was recorded on their ninth studio album The Supremes A’ Go-Go, which was released in 1966 and it became the first album by an all-female group to reach #1 on the Billboard 200 album chart.  Billboard named the song #19 on their list of 100 Greatest Girl Group Songs of All Time.  This single became the Supremes’ seventh number-one hit, and they reached the top of the charts 12 times.  The Supremes’ version of the song is honored by inclusion in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s permanent collection of 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.  The album version features Diana Ross on lead vocals and has background vocals by Mary Wilson and Florence Ballard.  Instrumentation was provided by the Funk Brothers with Earl Van Dyke on piano, Robert White on guitar, James Jamerson playing bass guitar, Benny Benjamin on drums and Jack Ashford on tambourine.  Rolling Stone magazine ranked James Jamerson as “the Greatest Bassist of all Time” in 2020.

It can be sad for a young girl when she doesn’t have a boyfriend, especially when all her friends are going on dates, but love is not about instant gratification, so there is no need to rush things, especially when you are young.  Young girls tend to over-complicate issues because they are filled with hopes, dreams, and aspirations.  All of this makes them wish for love, but since love is a complicated emotion there are many factors that need to line up for this to happen.  They would first have to experience those wild feelings of lust, and then the excitement of attraction, before they would be able to reach the stage of attachment where couples grow bonds and feel connected.  When you are young, you want things and temptation is lurking everywhere.

In this song, a girl listens to her mother’s words of abstinence, telling her that she needs to wait, and that if she has patience, she will find that special someone one day.  She needs love to make her feel better, so her desire to score a serious boyfriend is always on her mind.  She wonders how many heartaches she will have to suffer, before she gets a man in her life.  Her loneliness is becoming unbearable, and she is growing more impatient every day.  She gets hope from that advice that her mother gives her, so she decides to wait, anticipating that one day she will have that soft voice talking to her at night and some tender arms holding her tight.

The song was influenced a 1950s gospel song titled ‘(You Can’t Hurry God) He’s Right on Time’, which was written by Dorothy Love Coates, and she performed it with the Gospel Harmonettes, an influential gospel singing group that was based out of Birmingham, AL.  Marlene Barrow filled in for Florence Ballard at several of the Supremes live shows in early 1966 when Florence was sick.  The Supremes achieved mainstream success during the mid-1960s, and they began as a quartet called The Primettes, which was a sister act to The Primes who later became The Temptations.  Florence Ballard was a year older than Diana Ross and Mary Wilson and she died of cardiac arrest at the age of 32, and we lost Mary Wilson last year.  These girls were all young either 20 or 21, when they had their first #1 hit in 1964, achieving success at a young age.

I need love, love to ease my mind
I need to find, find someone to call mine
But mama said you can’t hurry love
No you just have to wait
She said love don’t come easy
It’s a game of give and take
You can’t hurry love
No, you just have to wait
You gotta trust, give it time
No matter how long it takes
But how many heartaches must I stand
Before I find a love to let me live again
Right now the only thing that keeps me hanging on
When I feel my strength, yeah, it’s almost gone
I remember mama said

No, you just have to wait
She said love don’t come easy
It’s a game of give and take
How long must I wait? How much more can I take?
Before loneliness will ‘cause my heart, heart to break
No, I can’t bear to live my life alone
I grow impatient for a love to call my own
But when I feel that I, I can’t go on
These precious words keeps me hanging on
I remember mama said

No, you just have to wait
She said love don’t come easy
It’s a game of give and take

You can’t hurry love
No, you just have to wait
She said trust, give it time
No matter how long it takes (gotta wait)

No love, love don’t come easy
But I keep on waiting, anticipating for that
Soft voice to talk to me at night
For some tender arms to hold me tight
I keep waiting, I keep on waiting (give and take)
But it ain’t easy, it ain’t easy when mama said

You can’t hurry love
No, you just have to wait
She said trust, give it time
No matter how long it takes

You can’t hurry love
No, you just have to wait
She said love don’t come easy
It’s a game of give and take
You can’t hurry love
No, you just have to wait
Mama said just give it time

Written for Song Lyric Sunday where the theme is Motown music.

Hitsville

Berry Gordy Jr founded Motown Records on January 12, 1959, in downtown Detroit, aka Motor City and this was several months after he founded Tamla Records.  Motown became the largest Black-owned company in the United States in the 1960s and it ended up changing the culture in America by creating a voice for African American people so they could deliver their messages through music.  Motown saw the Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, the Temptations, Diana Ross and the Supremes, the Four Tops, the Jackson 5, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye who all ruled the music scene.  Motown produced 53 #1 songs when Berry Gordy owned and ran the business from 1959 to 1988 including ‘Endless Love’, ‘I Heard It Through the Grapevine’, ‘I’ll Be There’, ‘Baby Love’, ‘All Night Long (All Night)’, Upside Down, ‘I Just Called To Say I Love You’, ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough’. ‘War’, ‘Where Did Our Love Go’, ‘Stop! In the Name of Love’, ‘I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)’, ‘Reach Out I’ll Be There’, ‘The Tears of a Clown’, ‘Come See About Me’, ‘I Hear A Symphony’, ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’, ‘You Keep Me Hangin’ On’, ‘Love Child’, ‘I Can’t Get Next To You’, ‘Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me)’. ‘Let’s Get It On’, ‘Three Times a Lady’, ‘My Guy’, ‘My Girl’, ‘Please Mr. Postman’, ‘(Love Is Like a) Heat Wave’, and 25 other songs that dominated the charts for more than a decade.  Hall of Fame songwriters Holland-Dozier-Holland composed 25 of those #1 hit singles and the talented Funk Brothers created the label’s distinctive sound.

Last week we had Name That Tune where the theme was to find songs with recognizable intros suggested by Clive from Take It Easy.  This week the theme is to find Motown songs.  Take some time to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this music challenge, and even better, read as many of them as you can as you will probably find many enjoyable songs and it is quite possibly that you will learn a thing or two.  Share your music with others and post a video, try do some research and let everyone know something about the song that you post.  Tell everyone why you like the song, whether it was a hit, or what you think the song is about.  Show the lyrics, let’s all listen to our favorite songs and explore some new music.  Try to find a song that fits the theme, then write your post and create a pingback, or you can just place your link in the comments section.

Suggestions
• Try to use the prompt words or at least conform to a general theme, as you see it.  If the song you select does not meet the criteria, then please explain why you chose this song.
• It would be good if you could post the lyrics to the song of your choice, as this is helpful for the people that want to follow along with the music.
• Please try to include the songwriter(s) – it’s a good idea to give credit where credit is due. It would also be a good idea to give credit to the singer and the band associated with your song.
• Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be, but please try not to include too many videos as that just makes it take longer to look at all of the other posts.
• Link to the YouTube video, or you can pull it into your post, so others can listen to the song.
• Ping back to this post or place your link in the comments section below.
• Read at least one other person’s blog, so we can all share new and fantastic music and create amazing new blogging friends in the process.
• Feel free to suggest future prompts.
• Have fun and enjoy the music.

This week I will be writing about The Supremes song ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’, and next week, I will be writing about the song ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ by Joy Division.  The upcoming prompts will be:
December 4, 2022 – Indie Rock or Indie Pop songs
December 11, 2022 – Power Pop songs
December 18, 2022 – Mersey Beat, or Mersey Sound or a band from Surrey or Liverpool will also work
December 25, 2022 – Punk songs

It’s All Right

‘Here Comes The Sun’ starts with an mellifluous melody of euphoric opening chords that George Harrison plays on an acoustic guitar, a Moog synthesizer comes in, and everything is gently slowed to a pause before George begins to sing the chorus.  It is perhaps one of the most stunning starts to any song which immediately uplifts the listener into a brighter place.  The lyrics use the sun as a sign that implies that getting warmer and ice melting are both something good and it incorporates a metaphor that the sun gives relief and peace, with Harrison happy to see the sun again.  ‘Here Comes the Sun’ is thus a song about hope.  We all go through difficult times, difficult moments in our life, and some of these moments feel like they last a long time, especially when you have just suffered through a long, cold, lonely winter.  If you’re living in the northern hemisphere, when April arrives, the weather eventually changes, and the winter ends.  If you’re going through a hard time in life, the sun could come out and shine on you and allow you to forget your troubles, if you take some time to get outside and enjoy the spring sun.  Tom Petty commented on this song saying, “No piece of music can make you feel better than this.  It’s such an optimistic song, with that little bit of ache in it that makes the happiness mean even more.”

Lead guitarist George Harrison wrote 22 songs for The Beatles and ‘Here Comes The Sun’ reached #3 on the Billboard Hot Rock Songs chart in 1969, but it was never released as a single in the UK, although it entered the UK chart on download sales in 2010 reaching #58.  This song became the most streamed Beatles song, logging over 600 million streams at the close of March ’21, and no other Beatles track had topped 400 million to that point.  The 1969 Abbey Road album was the last album that The Beatles recorded.  John Lennon arrived late to the sessions after he and Yoko Ono had gotten into a car crash during their summer vacation while in Scotland.  Lennon was a notoriously bad driver who had rarely been behind the wheel since passing his test in 1965.  He was poor at navigating roads and often failed to notice other traffic.  John was hospitalized for 5 days, and he didn’t play (or even clap) on ‘Here Comes the Sun’.

George had 4 songs on The White Album, which was released in November 1968, and after some of his songs were all passed over, Harrison demanded an equal share of songwriting.  In December of 1968 George invited the Hells Angels to stay at the Beatles’ London offices and that didn’t turn out so well.  In January of 1969, George Harrison temporarily quit the Beatles while they were filming their Let It Be movie.  In February George had his tonsils removed.  In March his Esher home Kinfauns was raided and him and wife Pattie Boyd both pleaded guilty of possession of cannabis, even though rumors said that it may have been planted by police officers.

George was getting tired of the business side of the music business, so he took a day off from the meetings that were taking place at Apple Corps., and he decided to visit his good friend Eric Clapton at his Hurtwood Edge home in Ewhurst, Surrey for a walk around his estate.  Harrison was struggling to find a songwriting foothold within The Beatles, and he leaned on Clapton for friendly advice.  The stress and negativity got to be too much for George, and he needed to escape the pressure of the world to gain clarity.  The song expressed George Harrison’s relief at being away from the tensions within The Beatles, the troubles with Apple and the various business and legal issues which at the time were overshadowing the group’s creativity.

Here comes the sun, doo-doo-doo-doo
Here comes the sun, and I say
It’s alright

Little darlin’, it’s been a long, cold, lonely winter
Little darlin’, it feels like years since it’s been here

Here comes the sun, doo-doo-doo-doo
Here comes the sun, and I say
It’s alright

Little darlin’, the smile’s returning to their faces
Little darlin’, it seems like years since it’s been here

Here comes the sun
Here comes the sun, and I say
It’s alright

Sun, sun, sun, here it comes
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes

Little darlin’, I feel that ice is slowly melting
Little darlin’, it seems like years since it’s been clear

Here comes the sun, doo-doo-doo-doo
Here comes the sun, and I say
It’s alright

Here comes the sun, doo-doo-doo-doo
Here comes the sun
It’s alright

It’s alright

Written for Song Lyric Sunday where the theme is songs with recognizable intros suggested by Clive from Take It Easy.

Name That Tune

Name That Tune is an American television game show that put two contestants against each other to test their knowledge of songs.  It premiered in the United States on NBC Radio in 1952, the show was created and produced by Harry Salter and his wife Roberta.  The two contestants were given a clue about the song, and they had to bid on how few notes they needed to identify it.  In music, a song intro is a passage or section that is found at the beginning of a tune, and it is used to set up the song, establishing the key, tempo, rhythmic feel and even its energy and attitude.  The intro is often the same music without singing over it as the verse or even the chorus.  The intro can be thought of as a prelude to the actual song, but it might be just an instrumental bar or two of the coming verse, or it could be a longer.  Intros are very important to the perception a song can have, especially today where a quarter of all songs, if not more, on Spotify get skipped in their first five seconds, because they don’t think that the attention span of their listeners will stand for long intros.  In this modern age, it’s essential for a songwriter to gives critical thoughts into the composition of a song intro, or else it may end up getting skipped.

Last week we had Cultural Significance where the theme was a song by an artist or a group that was featured on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine.  This week the theme is to find songs with recognizable intros suggested by Clive from Take It Easy.  Take some time to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this music challenge, and even better, read as many of them as you can as you will probably find many enjoyable songs and it is quite possibly that you will learn a thing or two.  Share your music with others and post a video, try do some research and let everyone know something about the song that you post.  Tell everyone why you like the song, whether it was a hit, or what you think the song is about.  Show the lyrics, let’s all listen to our favorite songs and explore some new music.  Try to find a song that fits the theme, then write your post and create a pingback, or you can just place your link in the comments section.

Suggestions
• Try to use the prompt words or at least conform to a general theme, as you see it.  If the song you select does not meet the criteria, then please explain why you chose this song.
• It would be good if you could post the lyrics to the song of your choice, as this is helpful for the people that want to follow along with the music.
• Please try to include the songwriter(s) – it’s a good idea to give credit where credit is due. It would also be a good idea to give credit to the singer and the band associated with your song.
• Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be, but please try not to include too many videos as that just makes it take longer to look at all of the other posts.
• Link to the YouTube video, or you can pull it into your post, so others can listen to the song.
• Ping back to this post or place your link in the comments section below.
• Read at least one other person’s blog, so we can all share new and fantastic music and create amazing new blogging friends in the process.
• Feel free to suggest future prompts.
• Have fun and enjoy the music.

This week I will be writing about The Beatles song ‘Here Comes The Sun’, and next week, I will be writing about the song ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’ by The Supremes.  The upcoming prompts will be:
November 27, 2022 – Motown songs
December 4, 2022 – Indie Rock or Indie Pop songs
December 11, 2022 – Power Pop songs
December 18, 2022 – Mersey Beat, or Mersey Sound or a band from Surrey or Liverpool will also work

When We Opened Up the Door

Graham Nash said that he wrote ‘Just a Song Before I Go’ when he was in Hawaii with Leslie Morris, who at the time was the assistant to Elliot Roberts the manager of Crosby Stills and Nash.  This song charted #7 in the US, and it was released on the 1977 CSN album, which was the group’s second studio release.  Graham and Leslie were staying at a friend’s house in Maui, because Nash took a few days off from being with David Crosby and Stephen Stills, before they were about to go off on a tour.  His friend Spider owned the house, and he was a low-level drug dealer that sold some great grass.  Graham had about maybe an hour and a half before he had to leave and to catch his flight to be back with the group for a show.  Spider looked at Graham and said, “We’ve known each other a few years now.  I didn’t really realize you’re supposed to be some big shot songwriter. Right?”  Nash responded, “Yeah, I do my best.”  Spider replied, “I’ll bet you can’t write a song just before you go.”  Graham retorted, “What?”  Spider repeated, “I bet you can’t write a song just before you go.”  Nash took on the challenge by saying, “How much?”  Spider said, “$500.”  Graham was a bit riled up over the bet and he said, “$500.  If I can write a song just before I go.  Well, how about this?”  Nash sat down at the piano and composed the song with ease, writing it in about 20 minutes.

Spider’s words were the opening line and everything else fell into place.  The fact that Nash was due to head for the airport was clearly on his mind, and this is seen in the lyrics “driving to the airport and the friendly skies”.  It is not a good idea to smart off to Nash, as he is a talented songwriter.  In 1976, the Concorde scheduled supersonic passenger service and the lyrics, “Traveling twice the speed of sound”, may be a result of that.  The second verse of this song seems to be about Nash wanting to get some peace after the tour with him going back home and wanting to be alone.  The next two verses seem to be about a lover who helps him with his suitcase and drives him to the airport.  She is not going with him on his trip, so after he clears security, she is gone.

‘Just a Song Before I Go’ was the first single that Crosby, Stills & Nash released after they re-formed in the late 1970s.  Amazingly, it is also the band’s highest charting song, even considering the relatively short two minutes, 14-second runtime.  It was written just before a violent hurricane tore through the island.  The track features not one but two excellent guitar solos by the inimitable Stephen Stills and contains the instantly recognizable harmonies that we have come to expect from Crosby, Stills & Nash.  Crosby, Stills & Nash made it onto the cover of Rolling Stone Magazine issue # 240 for June 2, 1977.  Other songs that Crosby, Stills & Nash are known for are ‘Love the One You’re With’, ‘Suite: Judy Blue Eyes’, ‘Our House’, ‘Helplessly Hoping’, ‘Déjà Vu’, ‘Carry On’, ‘Wooden Ships’, and ‘Teach Your Children’.

Just a song before I go,
To whom it may concern
Traveling twice the speed of sound
It’s easy to get burned

When the shows were over
We had to get back home,
And when we opened up the door
I had to be alone

She helped me with my suitcase,
She stands before my eyes
Driving me to the airport,
And to the friendly skies

Going through security
I held her for so long
She finally looked at me in love,
And she was gone

Just a song before I go,
A lesson to be learned
Traveling twice the speed of sound
It’s easy to get burned

Written for Song Lyric Sunday where the theme is to find a song by an artist or a group that was featured on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine.

Cultural Significance

In 1967, Jann Wenner and a small group of rock & roll believers came together in a San Francisco loft with big ideas and little funding to create ‘Rolling Stone’.  San Francisco had become the hot center of the counterculture after the Human Be-In and people enjoyed listening and dancing to the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and Big Brother and the Holding Company.  John Lennon was on the first cover, which appeared on Nov. 9, 1967.  Over the years Mick Jagger, John Lennon and Paul McCartney have each graced the cover 17 times, either by themselves or with their band mates or spouses, and Bob Dylan racked up 13 cover appearances with Bruce Springsteen getting 11.  The 1972 Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show song ‘The Cover of ‘Rolling Stone’’ features these lyrics “the thrill that’ll gitcha/When you get your picture/On the cover of the Rolling Stone.”  This rendition of Shel Silverstein’s song won the group the honor of gracing the cover in 1973.  Tiger Beat magazine was founded in 1965, but that was marketed primarily to adolescent girls.  Teen Beat magazine was founded in 1967, about 5 months before Rolling Stone came out, and that was also geared toward teenaged readers.  Rolling Stone’s goal was not just to listen to music but to look at the world through the lens of that music and at one time, its cover had become the most sought-after real estate in rock and roll.  Sadly, once the magazine became a hit, it was changed by the very culture it had helped create, because as newsstand sales rose, Wenner became hungry for still more newsstand sales.

Last week we had Apple Doesn’t Fall Far from the Tree where the theme was a song from artists who have famous musician parents suggested by Paula of Light Motifs II.  This week the theme is to find songs by an artist or a group that was featured on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine.  Take some time to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this music challenge, and even better, read as many of them as you can as you will probably find many enjoyable songs and it is quite possibly that you will learn a thing or two.  Share your music with others and post a video, try do some research and let everyone know something about the song that you post.  Tell everyone why you like the song, whether it was a hit, or what you think the song is about.  Show the lyrics, let’s all listen to our favorite songs and explore some new music.  Try to find a song that fits the theme, then write your post and create a pingback, or you can just place your link in the comments section.

Suggestions
• Try to use the prompt words or at least conform to a general theme, as you see it.  If the song you select does not meet the criteria, then please explain why you chose this song.
• It would be good if you could post the lyrics to the song of your choice, as this is helpful for the people that want to follow along with the music.
• Please try to include the songwriter(s) – it’s a good idea to give credit where credit is due. It would also be a good idea to give credit to the singer and the band associated with your song.
• Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be, but please try not to include too many videos as that just makes it take longer to look at all of the other posts.
• Link to the YouTube video, or you can pull it into your post, so others can listen to the song.
• Ping back to this post or place your link in the comments section below.
• Read at least one other person’s blog, so we can all share new and fantastic music and create amazing new blogging friends in the process.
• Feel free to suggest future prompts.
• Have fun and enjoy the music.

This week I will be writing about the Crosby, Stills & Nash song ‘Just a Song Before I Go’, and next week, I will be writing about the song ‘Here Comes The Sun’ by The Beatles.  The upcoming prompts will be:
November 20, 2022 – Songs with recognizable intros suggested by Clive from Take It Easy
November 27, 2022 – Motown songs
December 4, 2022 – Indie Rock or Indie Pop songs
December 11, 2022 – Power Pop songs

Crimson & Clover

Elijah Blue Allman was born July 10, 1976 to Pop icon singer Cher and her second husband, 70s rocker Gregg Allman.  Elijah was the couples’ only child and he is known professionally as P. Exeter Blue (Phillips Exeter Blue I).  He is the lead vocalist, guitarist and lyricist of the Los Angeles industrial metal band Deadsy.  Cher had Chastity Bono (now known as Chaz Bono), with Sonny Bono in 1969 and seven years later Cher had Elijah Blue with Gregg Allman.  After her 12-year relationship with Sonny Bono fell apart in 1974, Cher remarried Gregg Allman just four days after their divorce was final in 1975.  This marriage was in trouble from the start and nine days after the wedding, Cher filed for a divorce over Allman’s addiction to drugs and alcohol.  Allman and Cher eventually reconciled and, in July 1975, 13 months after their wedding, they welcomed son Elijah Blue while they were living together in Hollywood as tabloid favorites, but they divorced in 1978.  Sonny Bono died in 1998 after sustaining fatal injuries from a skiing accident.

Gregg Allman had five children, three with various wives and two with other women that he was in relationships with.  Gregg had a relationship with go-go dancer Mary Lynn Sutton that produced his son Michael Allman in 1966.  Gregg married Shelley Kay Jefts in 1971, they had a son named Devon and they divorced the following year.  He married Janice Blair in 1973 and they divorced in 1974.  Gregg wed Julie Bindas in 1979 and they had a daughter named Delilah Island, and they divorced in 1981.  Gregg had a relationship with radio journalist Shelby Blackburn which produced his daughter Layla Brooklyn Allman in 1993.  He married Danielle Galliano in 1989 and they divorced in 1994.  His longest marriage was to Stacey Fountain, from 2001 to 2008.   In 2012, he announced his engagement to Shannon Williams, who was 40 years his junior and they were married in 2017.  Gregg died in 2017 due to complications from liver cancer at the age of 69,

Elijah, he got his first guitar as a gift from Gene Simmons, the bassist of the band Kiss.  Elijah toured with Cher as a backup guitarist when he was 13 years old.  He played on his mother’s music video for the song ‘If I Could Turn Back Time’ in 1989.  In 1994, Blue was unsuccessful in his attempt to join the rock band Nine Inch Nails as a guitarist, losing to Robin Finck.  The following year, he gave himself the stage name Phillips Exeter Blue I and formed the heavy metal band Deadsy.  He was the lead vocalist and guitarist, but the band separated in 2007.  Other members of the band were drummer Alec Püre, synthesizer Dr. Nner, Z-Tar player Carlton Megalodon, and bass player Jens Funke.  Blue Allman launched a solo career titling his solo project Elijah Blue and the Trapezoids and released three demos on his MySpace page in 2008.  He has collaborated with other rock bands like Coal Chamber, Thirty Seconds to Mars, Sugar Ray, and Korn.  In 2020, Deadsy announced that they’re gonna release their first new album in fourteen years, but as of this post there is no update when it will be released.

Elijah thinks that he contracted Lyme disease after swimming in the Ganges River in India in 2005 and that bothered him for years.  In 2008, he started smoking heroin, and taking a lot of pills which led to several stints in and out of rehab.  He met Marieangela shortened to Angie on a blind date and fell in love with the singer who was in the pop music group King Family, which was formed in 1997 with 4 of her siblings.  She is the sister of Jazzy and Ruby King from the British pop duo Blonde Electra.  The couple got engaged and was married in one week in 2013, which reportedly upset Cher.  Six years and 5 months later he filed for a divorce, citing irreconcilable differences.

Elijah Blue Allman and Cher covered the song ‘Crimson & Clover’ in 1999.  This song was originally recorded by Tommy James and The Shondells in 1969 and other famous covers were done by Joan Jett and The Blackhearts in 1981 which reached # 7 and Prince covered it in 2009.  Tommy James wrote this along with The Shondells drummer Peter Lucia who died from a heart attack in 1987.  The song reached #1 on the charts and sold five million copies, making it Tommy James and The Shondells’ best-selling song.  It is a fairly straightforward song that explores a love that could develop into some beautiful after meeting this mysterious and lovely woman.  They just met but he already feels something for her and thinks that he can fall in love with her, if they can keep moving with the emotions.  The lyrics convey the feelings that comes when a person discovers a new love and all the excitement that goes along with a love that is blossoming.  Tommy James has said in interviews over the years that the title for ‘Crimson & Clover’ came before the song, and he explained that the phrase came to him one night in a dream.  The phrase is made up of his favorite color and his favorite flower, and it stuck.  Peter Lucia claims that it was he who came up with the title for the song, citing that he thought of it while watching a football game between his alma mater, the Morristown Crimson, and the Hopatcong High School team, which had green jerseys.  Crimson is a rich, deep red color, that is almost purple.  Red is commonly associated with passion and eroticism, like the Red Light District, red roses, red lipstick, red wine, or the Lady in Red.  Clover often refers to grass and it is frequently fed to Cows.  Bees love the flowers, and clover honey is very mild.

Ah, now I don’t hardly know her
But I think I could love her
Crimson and clover

Ah, when she comes walking over
Now I’ve been waitin’ to show her
Crimson and clover
Over and over

Yeah, my, my such a sweet thing
I wanna do everything
What a beautiful feeling
Crimson and clover
Over and over

Crimson and clover
Over and over
Crimson and clover
Over and over
Crimson and clover
Over and over
Crimson and clover
Over and over

Crimson and clover
Over and over
Crimson and clover
Over and over

Written for Song Lyric Sunday where the theme today is to find songs from artists who have famous musician parents, and this was suggested by Paula of Light Motifs II.

Apple Doesn’t Fall Far from the Tree

Back on August 24, 2022, Paula contacted me about hosting a theme where people would contribute songs from artists who have famous musician parents.  I was not so sure about this, so I did some investigating to see if I could find enough viable artists that fit this category.  Wow was I surprised when I discovered that there were more than enough to make this work.  I found Carlos Santana & his daughter Stella Santana, Elvis Presley & his daughter Lisa Marie Presley, Ozzy Osbourne & his daughter Kelly Osbourne, Paul McCartney & his son James McCartney, Marvin Gaye & his daughter Nona Gaye, Will Smith & his daughter Willow Smith, Lenny Kravitz & his daughter Zoe Kravitz, John Bonham & his son Jason Bonham, Steve Earle & his son Justin Townes Earle, Eddie Van Halen & his son Wolfgang Van Halen, Ricky Nelson & his two sons Matthew Nelson & Gunnar Nelson, Tim Buckley & his son Jeff Buckley, Serge Gainsbourg & his daughter Charlotte Gainsbourg, Hank Williams, Hank Williams Jr. & Hank Williams III and there are many others.  When it comes to possessing talent in music, it seems that family characteristics are often inherited.

Last week we had Kiss My Grits where the theme was a song that contains lyrics of Embrace, Hug, or Kiss.  This week the theme is to find songs from artists who have famous musician parents, suggested by Paula of Light Motifs II.  Take some time to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this music challenge, and even better, read as many of them as you are able to as you will probably find many enjoyable songs and it is quite possibly that you will learn a thing or two.  Share your music with others and post a video, try do some research and let everyone know something about the song that you post.  Tell everyone why you like the song, whether it was a hit, or what you think the song is about.  Show the lyrics, let’s all listen to our favorite songs and explore some new music.  Try to find a song that fits the theme, then write your post and create a pingback, or you can just place your link in the comments section.

Suggestions
• Try to use the prompt words or at least conform to a general theme, as you see it.  If the song you select does not meet the criteria, then please explain why you chose this song.
• It would be good if you could post the lyrics to the song of your choice, as this is helpful for the people that want to follow along with the music.
• Please try to include the songwriter(s) – it’s a good idea to give credit where credit is due. It would also be a good idea to give credit to the singer and the band associated with your song.
• Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be, but please try not to include too many videos as that just makes it take longer to look at all of the other posts.
• Link to the YouTube video, or you can pull it into your post, so others can listen to the song.
• Ping back to this post or place your link in the comments section below.
• Read at least one other person’s blog, so we can all share new and fantastic music and create amazing new blogging friends in the process.
• Feel free to suggest future prompts.
• Have fun and enjoy the music.

This week I will be writing about the Elijah Blue Allman song ‘Crimson & Clover’, and next week, I will be writing about the song ‘Just a Song Before I Go’ by Crosby, Stills & Nash.  The upcoming prompts will be:
November 13, 2022 – Songs by an artist or a group that was featured on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine
November 20, 2022 – Songs with recognizable intros suggested by Clive from Take It Easy
November 27, 2022 – Motown songs
December 4, 2022 – Indie Rock or Indie Pop songs