One More (?) Go Around: A Hundred Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50

#343) "I Feel for You" by Chaka Khan - I've talked frequently here about my first experience(s) with rap music growing up in what could be called the "great white north" for reasons other than long winters. My embrace of rap and hip hop was centered primarily around Run-DMC at the time, and the fact that my brother went away to college in New York City and took to sending me recorded tapes of New York radio, notably Kiss FM (I'm pretty sure a box of those cassettes are still floating around somewhere...I'll have to dig them out someday...then find a way to play them); there was also, as I've mentioned, LL Cool J, and various soundtracks like Beat Street, and Breakin', which I got heavily into, mostly by thrashing about like a short-circuiting robot on a buddy's front lawn and thinking that I, too, was "breakin'".

But my first exposure to rapping that totally blew me away, for its precision, its flawlessly excitable flow, for being something completely new and out of the box, enough so to prompt me to take on the very tall order of emulation, was the first thirty seconds of Chaka Khan's "I Feel for You", a rap performed by Melle Mel, that prologues this Prince cover. It was released in 1984, and turned my FM / MTV world, which at the time was a lot of "Sister Christian", "Like a Virgin" and "I Can't Fight this Feeling", on its ear, and I was hooked.

I can still do the rap, my flow's still pretty tight (er….right? 😎 ), although now I'm not just conspicuously white, but also almost 50, so I don't trot this out of mothballs much anymore (and haven't since Reagan was president). I love the song, though. It's Prince, after all, and that fact coupled with Chaka Khan's smooth vocals and Stevie Wonder's matching ultra-slick harmonica, makes "I Feel for You" impossible not to feel.

"I feel for you / I think I love you..."

#344) "Nasty" by Janet Jackson - Janet Jackson's "Nasty" was much more pop-oriented, more mainstream and less "street" (such as that phrase was, or could ever be, in my 13-year-old eyes) than Chaka Khan, but it was nevertheless something new that I was being introduced to, something important. On account of "Nasty", and each successive single from the Control album for that matter, Janet Jackson was my first inter-racial crush, my inaugural departure from the brick house blondes - the Farrah Fawcetts, Heather Locklears and Victoria Principals (okay, blondes and redheads...) that populated my pre-pubescent fantasies. This might seem silly, but it really wasn't at the time - it was actually a pivotal moment in my youth when a racial and cultural bridge was crossed.

And almost forty years later (is...that...possible...??), "Nasty" is still a nasty jam.

"No my first name ain't baby, it's Janet / Miss Jackson is you're nasty..."

One More (?) Go Around: A Hundred Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50

#341) "One Night in Bangkok" by Murray Head - I can't say this song holds up for me, exactly, any more than the stage musical it's from holds up. Although, I can't say I know much about Chess, other than the fact that the guys from Abba, Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus, were among the creative force behind it, along with Tim Rice, and "One Night in Bangkok" is the only song on the soundtrack that doesn't have that overly mushy, "theater" sound.

"One Night..." was released as a pop single, doubtless to drum up interest in the musical itself, and I must say, there was a time when it was all pretty electrifying to me, when its sound, its chorus, the lines, "I can feel the devil walking next to me", and "not much between despair and ecstasy", all struck an evocative chord. There was a time, just before I discovered Run DMC, and the Breakin' and Beat Street soundtracks, and took to "break dancing" (well, gesticulating spastically) across the grass in a buddy's front yard, when to my ears, "One Night in Bangkok" was "rapping" in its coolest form, and performing it for the playground set, getting through it without missing a word or beat, was a pretty big deal. This, for about 21.5 seconds sometime in late summer of '85.

Nowadays, for whatever reason - maturity, burgeoning immaturity as I age, who knows... - I just don't buy into whatever Chess or "One Night in Bangkok" presents.  It's not Benny, Bjorn, or Tim's fault really, I've simply lost my taste for theater in general. Whether Oklahoma, South Pacific, West Side Story, Jesus Christ Superstar, or Hamilton....ugh, it's just not my cup of tea anymore, and that's significant only in that it wasn't always the case. I grew up more or less a "drama kid", appreciating and taking part in local musical theater on a regular basis, actually used to jam out to the L'il Abner soundtrack in my bedroom when I was eleven (always thought it'd be fun to play the part of Marryin' Sam!), but time can be a mysteriously corrosive agent, and when it comes to musical theater, I just can't get there like I used to.

But "One Night in Bangkok" is still listenable, and unique in its way, it might be said, for being a (sort of) "white guy rap", if nothing else.  And I still think the lines "I can feel the devil walking next to me" and "not much between despair and ecstasy" are evocative, which perhaps means I haven't become completely jaded, I guess.

"Can't be too careful with your company..."


#342) "Bette Davis Eyes" by Kim Carnes - This is definitely from the "shit your parents listened to" vault, a song I never noticed or appreciated as a kid, but have come to love as an adult. The elements I might once have thought were cheesy, the heavily synthesized drum beat and electronic chords, are a big part of its charm now.  The lyrics are fairly poetic, and although nothing can really ever replace Eddie Murphy's performance of it on Saturday Night Live back in the 1980s (Buckwheat sings all your favorites!), there could not have been a better choice of vocals than Kim Carnes' raspy pipes, which blend with the music so seamlessly, her voice seems almost electronically generated itself. (But isn't, of course, as this was long before Auto-Tune.)

And no question, Bette Davis' eyes deserve their own song, so it's win-win-win, all around!

"Her hair is Harlow gold / Her lips sweet surprise..."

One More (?) Go Around: A Hundred Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50

#339) "Off to the Races" by Lana Del Rey - On the surface, "Off to the Races" is kind of ridiculous, because Lana Del Rey is kind of ridiculous, just not necessarily in a bad way. Throughout its five minutes, the song, about a Lolita-style love affair in which there does not appear to be any winners, teeters on the edge of self-indulgence, always seeming about to collapse under the weight of its own overkill, but it also seems aware of this fact...almost self-aware. There is a cinematic luster at play, as the song phases between a fiercely guarded (and potentially dangerous) emotional mystery and a kind of hedonistic, deliberately "fuck you" exhibitionism, during the chorus especially, which I find immensely stirring, without knowing exactly why.

"You are my one true love / you are my one true love..."


#340) "Only Women Bleed" by Alice Cooper - According to Wikipedia (and as always, take it for what you will), there are people in this world who hear this song and assume it's about menstruation.

No joke. This "fact" (and let's hope the dismissive quotations really are warranted) is not only hilarious, but also kind of depressing. To think that anyone out there reads this uniquely lovely, Beatles-esque ballad, among the first of its kind from a hard rock artist, as nothing more than a 9th grade Health class lecture, rather than a surprisingly sensitive portrayal of a put-upon woman in an abusive relationship/marriage, is something I don't want to dwell on.  Only women bleed, indeed.

"Next, kids, we learn about a young man's changing body..."

This is one instance where I pray Wikipedia is as unreliable as people say it is.

"Man makes your hair gray, he's your life's mistake / All you're really looking for is an even break..."

One More (?) Go Around: A Hundred Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50

#337) "Key Largo" Bertie Higgins - Man, when I was a kid, about ten or eleven, and this song came on the radio, I had a hell of a raucous time singing out loud what I thought were the actual lyrics. Having no knowledge whatsoever of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall or the movie being referenced, I thought the line was, "We had it all, just like boogie in the corn", and thought that was the funniest thing I'd ever heard.

For the most part, the song didn't do much for me, even though it could be said I was plugged into sappy ditties - the "shit your parents listened to" - more than other kids. All I ever felt moved to do was make fun of this one, and I totally did (while not knowing what the hell I was talking about). But "Key Largo" is one of those songs that gets better with age, the passage of time, and perhaps requires a next level of maturity to appreciate. If you park your snark for five minutes (and maybe don't watch the video), you'll likely come to realize that there is an oddly dim beauty to the musicality of this song. Although it still doesn't move me to want to fall in love or fuck, its soft edges are hard not to get caught on, and swept away by...just a little.

"Starring in our own late, late show / Sailing away to Key Largo..."

#338) "Sailing" by Christopher Cross - Now this is a song I could get on board with when I was ten, and it remains so to this day.  So subtly rendered, without ever becoming overwrought or too sappy, it's the music of a soft, bright day dream, any pleasant afternoon-turned-evening, of, indeed, the very azure sky and calm blue-green seas it speaks of. It's the progenitor of that subgenre known as yacht rock, but I think it works if you're just sailing through the rich blue waters of your mind, and I would say it qualifies for "they just don't right 'em like this anymore" designation. Surely, it would not wind up on pop radio these days, as it did, reaching No. 1 in August 1980.

"Oh, the canvas can do miracles, just you wait and see..."

One More (?) Go Around: A Hundred Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50

#335) "Sad Eyes" by Robert John - For the longest time, I thought (assumed) this song was a Bee Gees song; it would seem to fit perfectly in their wheelhouse, right down to the high vocals. But it was released in 1979, around the height of the Bee Gees' fame, and by then the brothers Gibb had long forsaken the likes of "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart" and "I Started a Joke" for trendier, and radio friendlier, hits like "Tragedy" and "Stayin' Alive".

I also thought for a long time that Robert John was British, doubtless a Bee Gees-related assumption, but he's American, Brooklyn born, and also, with "Sad Eyes", as much a one-hit wonder as there has ever been.

"Sad Eyes" was his only song to hit #1, and this comes as no surprise to me because it's pretty lovely, as ballads go. It drapes over everything, in a good way. I like that it's not an anguished break-up song, at least not for the guy. He's been having an affair with someone, and now his girlfriend or wife is coming back and he's looking for as clean an "out" as is possible. I'm not saying he's not a cad, but I enjoy the emotional timbre of the song, its note of hope for the future, the suggestion that every exit is also an entrance to someplace else, and you can never really go wrong with that slow, horse-trot beat. I like the guitar solo as well; it's simple, but sometimes simple sings the best.

"I never used you, you knew I really cared..."

#336) "'65 Love Affair" by Paul Davis - I was 11 when this song was released. I remember vividly it spilling out of tiny radios and mini-boom boxes all over the neighborhood for a few months, along with Eddie Rabbit and Alabama and Juice Newton, and I remember feeling its melancholy, its longing for days past, even though I didn't have a lot of my own "days past" at the time. I felt it not because I was a super sensitive sage at 11 (I wasn't), but because the song so vividly captures what it's looking to capture in its lyrics and melody: being young and being in love for the first time, in a world that will one day be looked back on as much smaller than it felt at the time, in the days when "rock and roll was simple and free."

Moreover, "'65 Love Affair" always struck me as historically accurate. 1965, maybe '66, might very well have been the last time rock and roll could be considered simple and free, right before the Sixties, as we remember them, exploded.  To that end, no joke: I think, "Doo wop, diddy wop, diddy wop, doo", as it's presented in "'65 Love Affair", is one of the greatest lines in any pop song ever.

"Well I acted like a dumb-dumb / you were bad with your pom-poms..."