One Song at a Time: Remembering a (failed) series on this blog

They can't all be winners, as this series proved.

When this blog started in 2009, it was a spinoff of a podcast called Mail Order Zombie to which I regularly contributed material. As such, for the first few years, Dead 2 Rights was mostly about zombie movies and zombies in general. In fact, I even wrote the blog in character, using my "living impaired" alias from the show. But MOZ went dark in 2013, and I'd already been experimenting with non-zombie material a little by then. Once the podcast was kaput, I decided to ditch the pseudonym altogether and write about whatever interested me.

And what was that exactly? Well, the Ed Wood Wednesdays series started in 2013 and is still going in 2026. For some people, that's all this blog is. Which is fair: there's a lot of Ed Wood stuff on here. Like it or not, there's been a lot of Happy Days stuff on this blog, too. So I'm not just the Ed Wood guy. I'm the Ed Wood and Happy Days guy. I'm fine with that. 

But there's other stuff on Dead 2 Rights, too. I've tried many different approaches over the years, hoping something will break through. Nothing really has. I regret that I dropped the Comedy Classics articles. It's just that they were a lot of work for very little response. I still owe you guys 22 more of them in addition to the 78 I already did. (Maybe someday.) Comics and cartoons have long been a part of this blog, too, but those are more for me than they are for you.

One of my biggest disappointments was a series called One Song at a Time. The premise was pretty simple. Rather than talk about whole albums or genres of music, I'd concentrate on individual songs that meant something to me. I'd relate a little about the history of the song and add a personal story from my own life related to that song. I really thought this series had a chance of connecting with readers, but it apparently didn't. The series lasted from June 2014 to October 2015, then disappeared without a trace. C'est la vie.

The thing is, I've occasionally thought of reviving One Song at a Time, namely because there are a couple of music-related articles that have done fairly well by the standards of this blog. One is about the 1950s duo Patience & Prudence. Another is about the song "Be My Baby." Those still get views every week. In retrospect, the "Be My Baby" article served as the pilot for One Song at a Time.

Anyway, if you're just here for Ed Wood stuff, none of this may interest you. But if you want to know your humble blogger a little better, check out One Song at a Time.

One Song at a Time: "Paralyzed"

The Ledge appears to have overdone it at the tanning salon in this illustration.

The song: "Paralyzed"

Artist: The Legendary Stardust Cowboy

Released: 1968

Norman Carl Odam. Sounds like the name of a presidential assassin, doesn't it? But Norman, he never assassinated anything other than a song.

Born September 5, 1947 in Lubbock, Texas, hometown of Buddy Holly. Known professionally as the Legendary Stardust Cowboy. The Ledge, they've called him. As in something you jump off of. Made—and still makes, I guess—some of the craziest damned music you ever heard. Savage. Unhinged. Primal scream stuff, Texas style. Some call it "psychobilly." Others call it "junk" -- or worse. Appeared on Laugh-In once, dressed like something out of a Wild West show and screaming his fool head off. Scared the shit out of 'em.

Bowie was a fan. Where do you think Ziggy Stardust got his last name? He and the Ledge covered each other's songs.

Norman's lone hit, "Paralyzed" from 1968, was released by Mercury Records and actually scraped the undercarriage of the Billboard charts. Some have called it the worst record ever made. In fact, I first heard it on a compilation called The Rhino Brothers Present the World's Worst Records. Maybe after listening to it—or as much of it as you can stand—you'll agree. What is this fascination of mine with things dubbed "the worst?"

The Ledge's story is one of those weird little corners of showbiz I love. His "fifteen minutes of fame" were interrupted by, of all things, a musicians' strike. Some would say Norman was more of a demolitions expert than a musician.

Anyway, here's "Paralyzed." You were warned. Dig the label. It took three people to produce this. Ah, the Sixties.

One song at a time: "Let the Water Run Down"

Ben E. King (1938-2015)

The song: "Let the Water Run Down

Artist: Ben E. King

Released: 1964

"Stand By Me" is dominating the obituaries of R&B singer Ben E. King, who left us on Thursday at the age of 76. And why shouldn't it? Not only did King co-write and sing the ballad, but it was a big hit twice -- twenty-five years apart, no less! -- and inspired cover versions by everyone from John Lennon to Muhammad Ali. It's one of those indestructible oldies that has burrowed so deeply into the collective subconscious that we take it for granted.

But Mr. King's career did not begin or end with those three minutes of evocative, violin-drenched music. Along with his solo career, of course, he was a key member of The Drifters during that group's early prime and thus provided lead vocals on even more indelible prom night classics: "Save the Last Dance for Me," "Spanish Harlem," "This Magic Moment," and more.

But none of those is the Ben E. King song I like best. "Stand by Me" and those Drifters hits I mentioned are definitely on the softer, more genteel side of soul music. Nothing wrong with that. But King could definitely throw down when the song called for it.

As a prime example, take a song he recorded as a B-side for Atco Records in 1964, three years after "Stand by Me." It's called "Let the Water Run Down," and I first heard it on a compilation of songs with the so-called "Bo Diddley beat." (It's that rhythm that goes BOMP BOMP BOMP uh BOMP BOMP!)

This record is about as un-"Stand by Me" as you can get. There's not a violin for miles. The song is edgy, insistent, and urgent. King sound genuinely perturbed as he retreats to the bathroom to sob over the woman who's just dumped him. While he's freaking out, there's a line forming of people who just have to use the can. That's a high pressure situation, and the song captures it perfectly. Enjoy.

One Song at a Time: "The Fast Food Song"

The Fast Food Rockers, moments before they were executed for treason by the state. 

The song: "Fast Food Song"

Artist: Fast Food Rockers

Released: 2003

There will always be a place in our society for completely mercenary "bubblegum" pop songs designed to grab the public's attention with the grim determination of a rabid terrier sinking its fangs into a mailman's leg. Seemingly idiotic and naive and therefore considered "harmless," this kind of music is actually quite cynical and calculated, driven largely by marketing and not by creativity.

The goal of these songs, which usually employ some kind of moronic gimmick and have a fiendishly catchy sing-song chorus, is simple: garner tons and tons of airplay within a short span of time, try to parlay that notoriety that into some quick sales, then cash in and get the hell out of Dodge before people get too sick of you.

(Such songs, however, inevitably overstay their welcome, which is why the artists behind them have such truncated careers.)

In years past, these kinds of tunes thrived on the radio.That's where we first found "Disco Duck," "Pac Man Fever," and "Barbie Girl," all of which I secretly love. Now, I guess, such ditties go directly to the internet, e.g. "The Duck Song" and its sequels. (Note: for all I know, "The Duck Song" may be completely sincere. Forgive me if it is.)

For a while, this field of entertainment was dominated by CGI animals, like Gummybear and Crazy Frog. By not being recognizably human, these animated creations made bubblegum pop even more obviously mechanical and impersonal. At least groups like Aqua and Rednex were made up of human beings ... sort of.

You might think America has a sweet tooth for this kind of pop music, and you'd be right, but this is one area in which we simply pale next to Europe. In England particularly, they just live and die for this crap. The British pop charts are like some weird lottery where athletes, flash-in-the-pan celebs, and cartoon characters have as good a shot at success as any pop singer. Hell, even the Smurfs topped the charts over there! No foolin'!

Anyway, I thought I'd draw your attention to a particularly egregious UK hit from 2003 that somehow failed to cross the pond and make it big in America. It's something called "Fast Food Song" by Fast Food Rockers. Seems legit. The melody apparently comes from a Moroccan folk song, because of course it does. The song went to #2 (how appropriate) on the UK charts and thereafter became a staple on the lists of "worst singles of all time." Listen and judge for yourself. I'd say that, if you were looking for a soundtrack to your type 2 diabetes, you've found it here.



P.S. Still reeling from this song? Here's the antidote:

One Song at a Time: 'Sweet Sixteen' by Big Joe Turner

He lived up to his name: Big Joe Turner, the Boss of the Blues.

A good purchase.

The wonderful thing about greatest hits records is that you generally purchase 'em for the two or three songs you know really well, but they can point you in the direction of some other just-as-essential tracks you never would have known about otherwise. 

Case in point: Big Joe Turner's Greatest Hits. I purchased a copy of this compilation CD at a very decent (and probably long, long gone) used record store in Joliet, IL about twelve years ago. I'd just rewatched Clue and had "Shake, Rattle, and Roll" rattling and rolling around in my head that day, and the disc was only a couple of bucks. What the hey? That, my friends, was a good purchase. 

Big Joe Turner stands out from the other early pioneers of rock & roll. For one thing, he was about twenty years older than most of them. Born in 1911, he would have been in his forties by the time he became a national star, crooning for the kiddies. "The Boss of the Blues," they called him. He kept on performing until the 1980s, when he finally died at age 74 in 1985. (So weird to think he could have seen Back to the Future.) A thick-necked, broad-shouldered mountain of a man with a voice to match, Turner had been a bouncer in his younger days and looked like he could still whoop your ass between songs. 

He's the exact opposite of most of the male pop stars of the 2010s, who tend to be skinny, androgynous, "sensitive" white boys with high, thin, squeaky voices. I'm referring to the Biebers, Sheerans, Timberlakes, Smiths, Levines, and Styleses of the world. All those banty roosters put together wouldn't equal one Big Joe Turner.

 Anyway, one of Big Joe's less-remembered yet completely captivating hits is a slow blues lament from 1952 called "Sweet Sixteen." It was written by, of all people, recording industry super-mogul Ahmet Ertegun, who would go on to be (according to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame) "one of the most significant figures in the modern recording industry." Ahmet had co-founded Atlantic Records just five years previously. Frank Zappa named one of his kids after this dude, if that's any indication.

As I see it, there are three stars on "Sweet Sixteen": singer Big Joe Turner, songwriter Ahmet Ertegun (who is slyly credited as "Nugetre" on the label), and pianist and orchestra leader Vann "Piano Man" Walls (1918-1999). It is Walls we first hear on the record: a few pretty, sad, isolated chords which, to me, sound like the musical equivalent of gentle falling snowflakes. Then, he hits us with the powerful triplets we expect to hear from piano-based blues of this vintage, accompanied by mournful, sympathetic saxophones. 

After a few bars, Big Joe himself steps up to the microphone to tell us, as slowly as possible, about his failed relationship with an impressionable, restless younger woman: "When I first met you, baby/You were just sweet sixteen/You just left your home, baby/Sweetest thing I've ever seen." Later in the song, Joe lets us know his ex-paramour was a runaway. "Now," he says, "you're gonna run away from me, too." 

When I think about the couple in this song, I always think about the relationship between gangster Odell Robbie (Samuel L. Jackson) and naive young "country girl" Sheronda (LisaGay Hamilton) in Jackie Brown, except that the girl in this song seems to be a lot more impetuous and headstrong than the meek, misguided lass in the Tarantino film. The part of the song which really sticks with me, though, is when Big Joe Turner -- out of nowhere -- starts telling us about his family. "Well, my brother, he's in Korea/And my sister, down in New Orleans/Well, my mother's up in Heaven/Lord, what's gonna happen to me?"

One song at a time: '26 Miles (Santa Catalina)'

A vintage postcard for California's "island of romance."

I'm bad at winter. I'll admit it.

Today is the winter solstice, and that fact depresses the ever-loving hell out of me. I've lived in the Midwest all my life: the first two-thirds in Michigan, the last third here in Illinois. The total time I've spent outside the Midwest adds up to maybe a month, a month and a half at the most.

And yet I've never gotten used to the climate here. I feel like the misfit polar bear in that joke Reese Witherspoon told on Saturday Night Live once. Winter and I are simply incompatible.

Driving in snow and/or ice is highly stressful for me. I swear, each car trip in such weather takes a year off my life. As a pedestrian, I've slipped and fallen -- badly -- at least once each winter for as far back as I can remember.

My body absolutely turns traitor during the cold weather months. I get windburned so easily, and my body is always covered with various painful rashes and blisters during the winter, oftentimes in embarrassing and hard-to-reach areas. Before I even leave home in the morning, I have to slather sticky, oily Vaseline on my legs and torso. Yuck. Sinuses? Forget about it. You've heard of Can't Stop the Music? Well, this is Can't Stop the Mucous.

Furthermore, that old reliable seasonal affective disorder kicks in hard sometime during January, and I spend several consecutive months cooped up indoors, gorging on snack food and getting next to zero exercise. No doubt about it, winter takes a serious toll on your humble blogger. Each year, I fantasize about living somewhere more habitable, but I cannot imagine the circumstances under which that might happen.

The Four Preps in their element.

As you might expect, I take refuge from winter in fantasy. Music helps me do that sometimes. I'm always a sucker for songs about warm-sounding, far-away places.

One of my favorite examples of such a song is the delightful but somewhat forgotten 1957 smash, "26 Miles (Santa Catalina)" by the Four Preps. I found this song in a really roundabout way. Albert Brooks briefly parodied "26 Miles" as part of his "Rewriting the National Anthem" bit from the 1970s. That routine is included on Albert's 1973 LP, Comedy Minus One, and I found the title of the original song credited in the liner notes.

The Four Preps were one of those well-scrubbed pop vocal groups that flourished in the mid-to-late 1950s, alongside the Ames Brothers, the Lettermen, the Four Aces, the Four Freshmen, the Four Lads, and the Crew Cuts. Acts like these were a gentler, more polite alternative to the raucous rock, R&B, and doo wop sounds of the era. The British Invasion finally made these non-rock acts obsolete in the 1960s, and now it's a chapter of music history we mostly try to pretend never happened.

I actually like this stuff, even though it's possibly the squarest, corniest, whitest, and least cool music to hit the charts in the last sixty years. (The Crew Cuts in particular were infamous for taking R&B songs originally by black artists and doing sanitized white cover versions.) Perhaps the definitive spoof of this type of music was found on SCTV with its 5 Neat Guys commercials, which showed a quintet of sad, middle-aged men squeezing into their old sweaters from the 1950s and crooning about egg salad sandwiches and other hopelessly Caucasian topics.

The Four Preps were one of the more innovative of these groups, and "26 Miles (Santa Catalina)" is actually a little gem of a pop tune whose influence on Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys is immediately apparent at first listen. The Los Angeles Times not long ago ran a great, informative article about how the song came to be. Among other tidbits, you'll learn that one of the Four Preps was TV producer Glen A. Larson (of Battlestar Galactica and Knight Rider fame), who just passed away in November 2014.

What's key about the song is that it was written by someone who had never actually been to Santa Catalina Island off the coast of California. The song, then, is the guy's dream of what the island must be like. He imagines it as a lush tropical paradise just crawling with beautiful, available women.

And he never actually gets to the island during the song either. It's so close -- just twenty-six miles away -- and yet he can't get there. "So near, yet far," as the lyrics go. That's exactly how I feel during the winter sometimes. I think "26 Miles" will be in heavy rotation for me until next May or so.

One Song at a Time: "Love Me, Please Love Me"

French pop star Michel Polnareff sings his Frenchie heart out.

The song: "Love Me, Please Love Me"

Artist: Michel Polnareff

Released: 1966

Elvis Presley had at least two major hit singles in 1956 that were direct, unambiguous requests for love. 

"Love Me Tender," which takes its melody from an old folk tune called "Aura Lee," is a swaggering seduction routine set to music. It's audio foreplay, a sexual aperitif etched into wax. The guy in the song is a Lothario type, sweet-talking some innocent girl right out of her poodle skirt. The lyrics are G-rated ("You have made my life complete, and I love you so") and ostensibly wholesome, but you can tell why this guy made parents nervous back then. What did he mean by "all my dreams fulfill?" What kind of dreams did he have in mind? 

The King had another one that same year just called "Love Me," which I like even better. It's supposed to be about a desperate guy groveling at the feet of a cold-hearted woman. ("Treat me like a fool, treat me mean and cruel, but love me!") But Elvis wasn't really the desperate, groveling type, so the song comes off as kinky and masochistic instead. You get the impression that the guy in the song gets off on the rough treatment he receives from this dame. Topping from the bottom, you might say.

A decade later, over in France, a moody, floppy-haired singer named Michel Polnareff had a #1 hit with his own plea for love, "Love Me, Please Love Me." It's just about the most pathetic I've ever heard someone sound on record, and I love it. Most of the lyrics are in French, but you don't really need a translation to get the gist of it. Not when poor Michel is howling in falsetto like a mournful hound dog.

This song demonstrates a level of vulnerability that Elvis Presley never would have been comfortable with. From what I can glean of his delightfully bizarre and eventful Wikipedia entry, Michel was just as troubled in real life as he sounds on this record. You can hear his genuine sorrow in every throbbing triplet he pounds out on the piano. 

I can just imagine some heartsick Frenchman playing this record over and over again, using his last bit of strength to life the tone arm on his vintage record player. Whenever I want to wallow in misery (which is basically all the time), "Love Me, Please Love Me" is my go-to song.

One Song at a Time: "Mind"

Talking Heads around the time they recorded the Fear of Music LP.

Song: "Mind"
Artist: Talking Heads
Released: 1979

Cheery cover, no?

I lived at home until I was in my mid-20s. I didn't plan it like that. Just sorta worked out that way. And I wasn't a layabout slacker, a la Ben Katz (H. Jon Benjamin) from Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist, either. I went to college, and I worked as a customer service rep and a substitute teacher. But all that time, I was living in my bedroom from high school.

Hell, still to this day, I have the same exact bed that I've had since I was 13. I'm writing this article from it now. Same dresser, too. And on top of that dresser, the same goddamned boombox. But, anyway, let's go back to the early 1990s. Specifically 1992-1993. My senior year of high school. That's the time when you're supposed to be getting your shit together -- applying to colleges, trying to get scholarships, picking out a career, all of that garbage. I knew I was supposed to do that stuff, but I just never got around to any of it. My mom's cancer-related death took a lot of the fight out of me back then, and I turned into the reclusive, bitter weirdo that I still basically am today.

My dad took my mom's death even worse than I did and became a a rather sad and depressive person. I don't know if he's totally recovered, twenty years later. My sister, wisely, moved away and started a family of her own. Me, I stayed with my dad in my hometown. It was just the two of us in a house that was much too large. I'm not gonna lie to you, folks. Those were shitty, shitty years. (Did you see Crumb? Remember Charles Crumb and his mom? It was kinda like that. Not quite as bad, but definitely getting there. It was like the prequel to that.)

My low point was when I took that customer service job, during which I worked in the world's most depressing phone bank in the basement of an auto parts plant. You descended this dimly-lit stairway to get there, like descending into Hell. All day, you had to absorb the negativity of the callers. Between calls sometimes, I would rest my head on my desk and sob. About eight or nine months into doing that, I went through the medicine cabinet at home and took everything in it. Wound up in the intensive care ward for three days. Not fun. Then went back to the parts plant to be a customer service rep again. Even less fun.

Cut to a few months later. Out of the blue, and I mean the fucking Papa Smurf's ass blue, I got a job offer to teach at a middle school near Joliet, IL. Even better, I was at my desk at the parts plant when it happened. I immediately took it, no questions. Quitting that customer service gig was one of the Top 5 happiest moments of my life. (I can't even think of the other four.) My father was not thrilled. He made me feel very guilty about the whole thing, and I don't think he's ever gotten over it. I felt then -- and I feel now -- like an ax murderer for moving out of his house and into my own apartment in another state, even though I'd definitely be dead today if I hadn't.

That was 2001. That middle school was where I was when the Twin Towers fell. It was the day before my 26th birthday. I don't think I taught those kids in Joliet a damned thing. Someday, I'll write about my horrendous experiences as a teacher. (Short version: if you hate and fear people, especially teenagers, don't go into teaching.) But I certainly learned a valuable lesson that first year "on my own."

I thought that the move would somehow magically fix everything and that my personality would just naturally smooth itself out once I was in Illinois. Didn't happen that way. I was the same asshole there that I was in Michigan. All my hang-ups, hatreds, insecurities, and inadequacies were still there in Illinois. That's what I think about whenever I hear "Mind" from the Fear of Music album by Talking Heads. Most of the lyrics are about the things that "won't change you": time, drugs, science, money, religion.

I don't know if David Byrne was directing this song at himself, at the listener, or at somebody he knew. But I'll be good and goddamned if it isn't all true. I can add a few items to his list, too. Xanax won't change you. Therapy won't change you. Welbutrin won't change you. In the chorus, Byrne sings, "I need something to change your mind." Amen, brother. I'm still looking for that something.

One Song at a Time: "I Only Have Eyes for You"

The unique, sophisticated sound of the Flamingos captured my imagination as a teen.

The song: "I Only Have Eyes for You"

Artist: The Flamingos

Released: 1959

This will be a brief one, I promise. I just wanted to write about this song while the mood was still with me. And, yeah, it's another doo-wopper, a tune released only a year before The Passions' "I Only Want You," the song I wrote about yesterday. The titles are almost identical, I admit. If my goal with this feature was to bring you a diverse selection of songs from different genres, so far I'm not doing so hot. But you know what? This is my blog, and I'll write about what I damned well please.

The song "I Only Have Eyes for You" goes back to 1934, and it's been recorded by everyone from hell to breakfast (fuzzy-haired Artie Garfunkel had something of a hit with it in the 1970s), but the only waxing that really counts was the one done by The Flamingos in 1959. You've probably heard their version in a movie or playing on an oldies radio station or something like that, and it's tempting to lump this record in with all the other kitschy '50s detritus, like poodle skirts and hula hoops.

But "I Only Have Eyes for You" stands out from the pack. It's unlike most doo-wop and R&B from the era. It's different from just about everything. The Flamingos took a tune that was already a golden oldie by the time they got their hands on it, and they tore it down to the ground and rebuilt something beautiful and weird from the rubble. To me, the record still sounds like it was recorded tomorrow.

The lead singer really does seem to be in a dreamlike trance, so in love he's unsure of whether or not he's in a garden, and the other singers and musicians sound like they're recording in a different dimension altogether. I get chills every time.

If I can pin the greatness of the record on any one factor, I'd have to say it's one of the simplest things: those repeated piano triplets, what Stan Freberg disparagingly called "that clink clink clink jazz." Never has "clink clink clink" been so mysterious or so lovely.

My official blackmail photo.

"I Only Have Eyes for You" had probably been in the background of my life for years without my really noticing, but I can distinctly remember the very night that this recording became one of my all-time favorites.

It was the early 1990s, let's say '91 or '92, and I was a teenager in high school. In those days, one of the main driving forces in my life was marching band. Yeah, I was one of those kids. I was in it all four years -- halftime shows, pep rallies, those funny faux-military hats with the plumes on top, the Sgt. Pepper-esque tunics. That was my life. Hey, I'm not ashamed of it. Semper fi. 

Anyway, we were a competitive band, which meant that on the weekends during the fall, they'd load us onto school buses and take us to other towns in mid-Michigan for these big outdoor contests (usually called "invitationals"). On these busy Saturdays, we'd go to football stadiums at other schools and do our choreographed eight-minute halftime show. Other bands would do their eight-minute halftime shows, too, usually based around a particular theme or a composer. Along the way, a panel of very serious-looking judges would watch all these groups, rate them in a dizzying variety of nit-picky categories, and hand out trophies at the end of the night. It was all very scientific, I assure you.

These competitions took a long time to complete, as you might guess, and we were often very late getting back to the parking lot of our own high school. It would be cold and dark by then, and the kids who didn't have cars of their own would have their parents waiting to pick them up. (Poor parents! It was past midnight!) While the bus rides to the contests were pretty raucous, the bus rides home were quiet and contemplative. Everyone was pretty much zonked out by then. I can remember just staring out the window at all the traffic lights.

My only entertainment in those primitive days was an AM/FM cassette Walkman. One night, I realized I didn't have enough battery power left to play a tape, so I switched it to the "radio" function. At first, all I could get was static, but suddenly a song coalesced out of the chaos! It was "I Only Have Eyes for You" by The Flamingos, and I was hypnotized by it. It's one of those transcendent experiences you hope to have while listening to music, and I don't know that any record could affect the 38-year-old me the way that song affected the 15- or 16-year old me. Maybe I'm still hoping to replicate that feeling, twenty-plus years later.

One Song at a Time: "I Only Want You"

The Passions, a lesser-known but worthwhile doo-wop group.

The song: "I Only Want You"

Artist: The Passions

Released: 1960

Soundtrack to a college crush.

During all my years of schooling, an era of my life I tried to prolong indefinitely so as to avoid entry into the dreaded "real world," I only ever had one crush on a teacher. 

It was one of my college professors, a woman who taught courses on Spanish literature and culture. If you follow any particular major or minor long enough, you'll eventually have the same profs over and over again, and she was repeatedly one of mine. To maintain propriety, I'll avoid naming her or the institute of higher learning for which she still works. 

Let me cut you off at the pass by pointing out that she wasn't the busty, provocatively-dressed "Hot for Teacher"-type seductress you're likely picturing. No short skirts, plunging necklines, stilettos, or fishnet stockings here. Instead, this professor was a modest, sensibly-dressed brunette with a soft voice and a mildly nerdy vibe. I can never be sure why exactly I developed such a crush on her, but looking at her picture in the college's staff directory still makes my heart flutter to this day. 

Every crush needs a musical soundtrack, I feel, and for this one I chose classic doo-wop, in particular a track from 1960 called "I Only Want You" by The Passions. I discovered it on a Rhino Records compilation and loved it immediately, playing it over and over. AllMusic describes The Passions as "an above-average white doo-wop ensemble from Brooklyn." Apparently, they recorded for a few years, starting in the late 1950s, but never quite made it. 

This particular tune wasn't even one of their bigger hits, but it got my attention anyway. What was it that first caught my fancy? Was it the lopsided drum part, which emphasizes the second and fourth beats of each measure rather than the first and third, sounding like a pirate with a peg-leg running through a steel corridor? Maybe it was the descending pizzicato strings that "answer" the lead singer after every line of the verses? 

Probably it's just the unabashed erotic yearning of the lyrics, i.e. the fact that the guy in the song is just so consumed with lust for some young lady "every waking hour, every minute of the day." This poor dope can't even get a break when he falls asleep: "Even in my dreams, you are there it seems/I can always see your face." It reminds me of a line from Just Jaeckin's Emmanuelle (1974): "Real love is erection, not orgasm." That's the essence of "I Only Want You." It's the perfect combination of harmony and hard-on.

This is the second episode of this proposed series. I've changed the title from "Best Song Ever" to "One Song at a Time" to emphasize that this is basically an autobiography in the form of record reviews.

One Song at a Time: "Oliver's Army"

Elvis Costello and the Attractions, circa 1979

The song: "Oliver's Army"

Artist: Elvis Costello and the Attractions

Released: 1979

Typical "Zomby" panel.

This is a pilot of sorts for a potential series. I guess whether it continues depends on what readers think of it and how much I enjoy writing it. Honestly, I feel guilty when too much time builds up between posts. To counteract this, I wanted to come up with something I could write quickly, without a great deal of research or preparation, so that I could have new content here every day or two.

In the past, that function was filled by Zomby, since originally all I had to do to turn Ziggy into a zombie was cut and paste him into Microsoft Paint, select the default shade of light grey from the color palette, and then click on the title character. Bingo! Instant hilarity! Then, the site that provided the black-and-white Ziggy panels I needed started posting grainier, lower-quality scans of the cartoons. Suddenly, I had to manually, painstakingly "paint" Ziggy the proper shade of grey to make him undead. Bogus! Besides, I'd already cycled through most of the potential punchlines with Zomby and wound up doing variations on variations by the end.

So what else could I do on the fly? Well, my iTunes library currently has 17,372 songs in it, so maybe there's some potential material there. Here's the plan for Best Songs Ever: I'll pick one particular track from those 17,372 songs and write a few paragraphs about why I like this song so much. This will be half music criticism and half autobiography, since I'll inevitably wind up writing about how these songs have affected my life. Does that sound good? If so, let's continue.

The Armed Forces LP.

"Oliver's Army" by Elvis Costello and the Attractions is a song that must have come to my attention about twenty-five years ago, when I was a terminally-confused teenage weirdo who didn't know anything about anything but thought he knew a great deal about a great deal. Costello's then-recent Spike album, featuring the hit single "Veronica" (a collaboration with Paul McCartney) was a big crossover hit in 1989, the very year I entered high school, and that was probably my gateway into his discography.

I'd seen Costello before that, but I hadn't really paid that much attention. Seeking more, I consulted the encyclopedic Rolling Stone Album Guide for some much-needed album guidance, and that led me to Armed Forces, a 1979 LP Costello recorded with his sometimes-backing band, the Attractions. Rolling Stone didn't steer me wrong, either: Armed Forces is an excellent concept album with a consistent warfare motif, often using militaristic imagery to describe romantic relationships. The songs on the album are propulsive and punchy, with sharp, sardonic lyrics and catchy, indelible melodies.

One track that stuck out from my very first listen was "Oliver's Army," which was actually a big hit over in England, hitting #2 on the singles chart and going gold. Considering the prickly, political lyrics, that's kind of a mind-bender.

The song, not remotely romantic in nature, addresses the issue of England sending its poor, disadvantaged young men (Costello has described them as "mere boys") to fight and die in a variety of foreign hot spots. The "Oliver" of the title is likely Oliver Cromwell, the one-time "Lord Protector" of England, who seized control of the country from reigning monarch King Charles I in a bloody takeover in the mid-1600s. Cromwell's so-called New Model Army, with which he waged civil war in his homeland, is considered the historical forerunner of the modern British military.

The central thesis of Costello's song is that the British government is coldly sending citizens it considers expendable to do its dirty work abroad, a theme encapsulated by this shocking, unsparing couplet: "Only takes one itchy trigger/One more widow, one less white nigger."

How did a song this bleak become a big radio hit? Easy. It's a work of supreme, danceable pop craftsmanship, including a florid piano part Costello admits was swiped directly from ABBA's "Dancing Queen." Listening to "Oliver's Army" on repeat today, I realized how heavily Costello's song shows the influence of Phil Spector's operatic "Wall of Sound" pop and R&B hits of the 1960s. Towards the end of "Oliver's Army," Costello even starts doing the woah oh oh ohs from seemingly every Ronnettes record.

To be honest, when I was 14, I had no idea who Oliver Cromwell was, and I probably couldn't have located most of the places Costello names in the song (Johannesburg, Checkpoint Charlie, etc.) on a map. But any kid sitting through a dull day of high school can relate to this repeated line from the chorus: "And I would rather be anywhere else but here today!"

Okay, folks, that was the pilot. Let me know if you have any interest in seeing this kind of thing on a semi-regular basis.