Bonjour, Sneakers! It’s still really hot and dry here in Vancouver so it’s only natural that Ian and Dave open the show with discussion of saunas; Ian admits to a certain amount of prudery; Dave admits that he does not enjoy strippery so that ups his prudery quotient; Ian shockingly admits that he finds burlesque boring; he does, however, have a surefire idea to help sitcoms, which can only make Fuller House even better than it already will be; Dave has not seen Pixels – not has Ian, but that doesn’t stop him having opinions (the answer is Salma Hayek, if you’re wondering); Dave saw Boyhood and now he’s mad that Birdman won the Oscar – Ian is secretly pleased that a superhero movie won the Oscar; Dave calls The Who “second tier” (please address all outrage directly to Dave, thank you); and, finally, Ian asks Dave some questions about music.
Thanks for listening.
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Here are the two songs David recommends you listen to. Let us know what you think of them and please let us know a song you recommend to David!
One Ring Jane by Mother Tucker’s Yellow Duck
She’s A Solider Boy by A New Generation
And here is the Avi Buffalo song I mentioned:
Also, this is the BEST Led Zep song!
This week…
My song recommendation for you guys is “I’ve Never Been To Me” by Charlene (1977/1982), the disco-era cautionary ballad sung by the narrator, a world-weary party girl/mistress to her listener, a “discontented mother and a regimented wife.”
As you may recall, it was a huge hit worldwide, but its title lyric was scorned by many. It has a delightfully cheesy spoken monologue in the middle. As the songwriters Ron Miller and Kenneth Hirsch are both guys, you have to wonder about the social politics behind the song. My take is that they are offering up sincere advice rather than some sort of anti-feminist backlash against female hedonism and promiscuity. As men working in musical industry in the 1960s and 70s, they probably saw a lot of women whose lives were messed up by the fantasy of fame and fortune. Compare the line “I took the sweet life but never knew I’d be bitter from the sweet” to Annie Lennox’s observations on fantasy and reality in “Sweet Dreams” (1983) released less than a year after Charlene’s one-hit wonder charted for the second time in 1982.
“I’ve Never Been To Me” ties into this Sneaky Dragon episode in a few ways:
-It was a song I listened to in my formative years — no doubt on the local Vancouver top-40 radio stations LG73 and 14CFUN you mentioned.
-It was hilariously lip-synched in drag by Hugo Weaving (Elrond in Dave-boring Lord of the Rings trilogy) during the opening credits of the Aussie movie Priscilla Queen of the Desert (1994)
-Its dialectic is embodied in the Sneaky Dragon ‘casters: Ian the jet-setting non-procreator and Dave the dedicated family man. Check out the awesome male lyrics version in the R&B cover by The Temptations!!!
-It could serve as a warning to Patricia Arquette’s unfulfilled mom character in Boyhood on the perils of “the road not taken.”
-The narrator of the song probably did some stripping, or at least was exposed to some uncomfortable nudity (“I’ve been undressed by kings/and I’ve seen some things/that a woman ain’t s’pposed to see…” “I spent my life exploring/the subtle whoring…”) Hey, it’s not every song that can rhyme exploring and whoring in a non-gratuitous way.
I saw a Scottish comedian do a hilarious bit on that song years ago on Australian TV – wish I could remember who it was…
‘”I’ve seen some things that a woman’s not supposed to see…” What? What are women not supposed to see? Well, from the song, a king’s p***s.’
I can’t quite believe, Dave, that you have the Zeppelin album that has ‘When the Levee Breaks’ on it, and you chose ‘Four Sticks’ as the best Zep song? That’s just brimming over with wrongability.
I don’t know if I can suggest a song for you after that… anything that I like is likely to be something you won’t.
With that in mind, if you like loud bluesy guitar and don’t really care about lyrics, try Ball and Biscuit by the White Stripes…
I’m with you on the stripping thing, though. I was a best man a few years ago, and the time I spent in the local strip club for the bucks night was the dullest hour of my life. Some of the guys stayed until dawn – I went home.
Hi Dylan,
I embedded your videos into your first comment and deleted your second with the clips. I hope that’s okay.
You obviously like the blues more than I do and that’s not to say I hate them, but I lean to the poppier side of music as a rule. Also, Zep’s uncredited rip offs of a lot of poor, obscure bluesmen (and women) has always rubbed me the wrong way. Everybody, list your sources!
I’m by no means a blues purist, but that kind of swampy, heavy blues really gets to me – think Levee Breaks, In My Time of Dying (probably my favourite Zep song, and yes, another uncredited rip), SRV’s Tin Pan Alley. I think of it as ‘apocalyptic blues’ because it has that ‘end of times’ feel to it. Ball and Biscuit is the same, as is Hendrix Voodoo Child (Slight Return). Poppy stuff is good too – I love The Cars!
As for “Four Sticks” – I love when the strings come in, mixed with the 12-string guitar strums – very effective! And I have a fondness for grinding, repetitive guitar, I guess.
Please let me add that every song on Led Zep IV had been my favourite at one time or another.
Haha! Hi guys, a bit late here but I wanted to contribute. Long time listener, first time caller. I really enjoyed the songs Dave picked and the little talk you guys had at the end of the episode about music. I certainly didn’t grow up in a profoundly musical household but what little exposure I had through old TV shows like Solid Gold and weird evocative 80’s record covers I’d see at the department store just stuck to me. My mom told me a few years ago that I learned to talk early as a child because of music. I don’t have memories of this exactly but she told me that I would sneak over to the records when we’d go shopping on payday and she would buy me a 7″ if I could read all the copy on the front and back. After a while I had a box full of broken record pieces because children don’t know how to take care of records! I wish I still had them just to see what I had picked out.
Anyway, here’s what I wanted to bounce off you. A gem from the 80’s:
And another more modern tune, I couldn’t decide which would be better:
Also, to tie in with the episode again, did you notice that there’s an upload of “One Ring Jane” with these weird and sleazy pin-up photos sprinkled throughout? Made me think of the stripper discussion because it has that sort of aesthetic:
It was the first version I happened upon on youtube anyway…
Thanks guys.
Hi Leo,
I hope you’re okay with me embedding the videos in your original comment and trashing the second with the links ’cause that’s what I did!
Love the songs! That Ambassador 227 sent me down an hour-long rabbit hole as I tried to figure out when it was released. An amazing and obvious inspiration for the sound of Belle and Sebastian with the strummed guitars, strings and horns! Kind of weak singing though, which probably limited their success – also majorly out of step with the times! Giorgio Tuma was also right down my alley with its mix of Sixties sunshine pop vocal harmonies, bossa nova rhythm and slightly spacy Stereolab synth sounds – reminiscent vocally of The Free Design who also inspired Stereolab.
The “One-Ring Jane” version you sent the link to was curious. It was either a different mix or an entirely different version from the one I posted – being about a minute shorter. I don’t know if I can approve since it cuts off the final guitar interplay. Long guitar workouts – particularly two guitars intertwining – is one of my favourite things in music!
By the way, our website doesn’t allow guests to embed videos and I also have to approve comments that contain a lot of links. It’s just a way to protect us from spammers filling our comment sections with junk videos and advertising.
Hi Guys, Thanks for the One Ring Jane suggestions. Love it.
I’m another listener who came in through your “Compleately Beatles” sidecast. I’m going through your back catalogue and, here’s the thing, they are great. Thanks