Tune Tuesday – Queen & ELO

I have to admit that I almost picked a Ringo Starr song today, because of his birthday this week.  I didn’t because I really couldn’t decided whether to pick a solo song or some of his Beatles stuff.  I am guessing that’s a future blog – I’ll add it to my “blog topics” list.  Instead, the picture below was posted on Facebook this week and prompted the songs I am writing about.

I’ll be the first to admit that I did my share of recording songs off the radio.  I cannot remember how old I was when I got my first “boom box.”  I do remember getting it for a birthday gift.  I remember buying tons of cassette tapes to record songs on, and I spent many hours listening for my favorite songs.

Not knowing that I would eventually become a radio DJ, I remember how difficult it was to record a song without the DJ talking over the intro.  You would hope to catch the song coming out of a jingle or sweeper – that was usually a good way to catch it with a “talk free” intro.  Guys like me got pretty good at timing and using the pause button.

I can distinctly remember being the listener that would eventually drive me crazy!  I spent many hours calling up the radio station asking for songs.  When I didn’t hear them, I would call back and ask again.  Of course I didn’t know how radio worked and that with each call, I was just pissing off the DJ!  The more you call, the more likely the DJ will NOT play your song!  I also did the “kid disguising my voice to sound like an adult” thing, which every DJ can hear immediately!  (You’re not fooling us, kids!)

At any rate, there are two songs that I can distinctly remember trying to record on tape.  (Let me interject here that I am sure I had my paper route at this time, and why I just didn’t go buy the record is beyond me).  I guess I remember these two in particular, because I have two specific memories to accompany the songs.  On to song #1:

Queen – Crazy Little Thing Called Love

I remember calling over and over to ask for this song.  I remember I was in elementary school and my friend Billy used to get his mom to give us a ride home.  This song always seemed to play on our ride home (I know this probably was not the case now, knowing how music is scheduled and such).  I remember us both asking his mom to turn up the radio when it played.

The story goes that Freddie Mercury wrote this while the band was touring in Germany.  He wrote it on an acoustic guitar and it didn’t take him long to do it.  He said it “took me five or ten minutes. I did that on the guitar, which I can’t play for nuts, and in one way it was quite a good thing because I was restricted, knowing only a few chords. It’s a good discipline because I simply had to write within a small framework. I couldn’t work through too many chords and because of that restriction I wrote a good song, I think.”

Some sources say he wrote it as a tribute to Elvis. Roger Taylor said he wrote it while lounging in a bath at a hotel during one of their extensive Munich recording sessions.  Some stories say that Freddie also played the original guitar solo, but it was lost and Brian May then played it for the single (Not sure how true this is).  Brian played the solo on a Telecaster guitar (Perhaps to make it sound like an older song.  Many artists played Telecasters).  Brian, however, didn’t really care for the Telecaster and when playing the song live, he’d play the solo on it, and go back to his favorite guitar (his Red Special).

One of my favorite parts of the song is when the bass guitar has its solo moment toward the end.

This thing called love
I just can’t handle it
This thing called love
I must get round to it
I ain’t ready
Crazy little thing called love

This thing (this thing) called love (called love)
It cries (like a baby) in a cradle all night
It swings (ooh, ooh), it jives (ooh, ooh)
It shakes all over like a jelly fish,
I kinda like it
Crazy little thing called love

There goes my baby
She knows how to rock-n-roll
She drives me crazy
She gives me hot and cold fever
She leaves me in a cool, cool sweat

I gotta be cool, relax, get hip
Get on my tracks
Take a back seat, hitch-hike
And take a long ride on my motorbike
Until I’m ready
Crazy little thing called love

I gotta be cool, relax, get hip
And get on my tracks
Take a back seat, hitch-hike
And take a long ride on my motorbike
Until I’m ready (Ready Freddie)
Crazy little thing called love

This thing called love
I just can’t handle it
This thing called love
I must get round to it
I ain’t ready
Crazy little thing called love [repeat to fade]

The second song I have a distinct memory of is from ELO.

ELO – Rock and Roll is King

The reason why I remember recording this song off the radio is simple – I screwed it up the first time I tried to record it! It has what we call in the radio biz a “fake cold.”  A cold ending is when a song doesn’t fade out, it just stops.  This song has a point before the last line, where the song stops….there is silence….and then the band comes back for the final line and the real cold ending.  I remember it because when the fake cold happens, I hit the pause button on my cassette player and messed up the recording because I missed the end of the song!

The song could be found on ELO’s 1983 album Secret Messages.  I read an article that said the song was originally called something else and had an entirely different set of lyrics before it was re-worked.  The song reminds me a bit of their 1981 hit “Hold on Tight,” as it has the same sort of feel to it.  The song only made it to #19 on the charts in the US.  This was one of the first songs I heard from ELO, and it made me start picking up more of their stuff.  I really thought it was cool how they used string instruments in their songs.

“Rock ‘N’ Roll Is King”