I'm just a guy who likes the classics. I love Old Time Radio Shows. I love Classic TV. I love Classic Movies. I love songs from the "Great American Songbook". I dig songs from the first decade of Rock and Roll. Don't get me wrong, I am not opposed to newer things. My musical taste ranges from Classical to Classic Rock and Country to Rap. I love a good book and am always looking for something to read. I tend to lean toward historical fiction, biographies, mysteries, and more.
I have always believed that our past (and the things we've experienced in it) make us who we are today. That being said, after reading through some old My Space blogs (yeah, that's about how long it's been since I blogged regularly), I decided that I should once again write. Welcome to my blog. I hope you find it interesting, thought provoking, and entertaining in some way.
CONTACT ME AT - nostalgicitalian@yahoo.com
When I was on Weight Watchers many years ago, one of the coaches suggested that chewing gum throughout the day might help with cravings. A new study, however, suggests that you may be ingesting tens of thousands of microplastics each year by doing so.
Microplastics are tiny pieces of plastic that are less than five millimeters long. That’s smaller than a pencil eraser. They can apparently be found in almost everything, including our air, water, food and apparently, chewing gum.
Recent studies suggest that when these plastic particles work their way into our bodies, they can damage cells and DNA, cause changes in gene activity. By doing that, it increases the risk of developing cancer.
Researchers have now found that chewing gum releases microplastics into saliva which can then be then swallowed, allowing the particles to infiltrate the digestive system. This means that the average gum-chewer may be ingesting the equivalent of 15 credit cards per year.
The recent study found that an average of 100 microplastics were released per gram of gum, although some pieces released as many as 600 microplastics per gram. These results came after they tested six different brands of gum.
Researchers say that the average person chews 160 to 180 small sticks of gum per year. That means people ingest around 30,000 microplastics each year from gum alone(on top of the tens of thousands they consume from other foods and beverages). The researchers found that a piece of gum releases the most microplastics within the first two minutes of chewing, as the coating of the gum is broken down. By eight minutes in, 94 percent of the plastic particles collected during testing had been released.
They suggest that to cut down on the amount of plastics you ingest from gum, chew a piece longer instead of chewing one piece after another. (What will people who chew Fruit Stripes do?!)
On the bright side, a spokesperson for the National Confectioners Association says, “The authors of this small pilot study readily admit in their press release that there is no cause for alarm. Gum is safe to enjoy as it has been for more than 100 years. Food safety is the number one priority for US confectionery companies, and our member companies use only FDA-permitted ingredients.”
Welcome back to The Music of My Life, where I feature ten songs from each year of my life. In most cases, the ten songs I choose will be ones I like personally (unless I explain otherwise). The songs will be selected from Billboard’s Year-end Hot 100 Chart, Acclaimed Music, and will all be released in the featured year. Much of the information presented with the help of Songfacts.com.
I would turn 45 in 2015. I was still DJing school dances and proms, which helped me become familiar with some of the new music. I was still getting music sent to me monthly via a service. I would just download everything and play songs that were requested (if it was clean) or songs I was playing on the Adult Contemporary Station.
Maroon 5’s Sugar was one I played on the radio. When I first heard it, I thought of Michael Jackson’s “Beat It.” I thought I was weird, but apparantly I wasn’t the only one. Songfacts even said “both songs have a similar chorus structure with an almost-identical syllable count.”
The song always got folks on the dance floor. The kids loved it, probably because of the amount of sexual innuendo in the lyrics.
The music video was directed by filmmaker David Dobkin and shot in Los Angeles during December 2014. The clip follows the plot story of Dobkin’s 2005 romantic comedy film Wedding Crashers as we witness the band drive across Los Angeles, surprising a handful of newlyweds on their big day. “Adam and I are old friends and have been talking about doing something together for over a decade,” said Dobkin. “Plus, it’s very meaningful because the band was in New York ten years ago and attended the original Wedding Crashers première.”
Sugar
I first heard Ellie Goulding’s Love Me Like You Do when it played on my radio show. Whether it was the instrumentation of the song, or her unique voice, something stuck out to me. I really liked this song. Honestly, I had no idea she recorded it for that 50 Shades of Grey movie.
Songfacts says:
This song was the first time that Ellie Goulding worked with producer Max Martin. She subsequently teamed up with the Swedish hitmaker for several Delirium tracks. Goulding explained to Billboard magazine how he unlocked her voice. “He directed me on a couple of songs and he’d be like, ‘Can you do this? And I’d be like, ‘Do you mean this?'” she said. “and he’d be like, “Where did that come from? Never heard that before. Never heard you sing low on any of your records before.” And yeah, it was great. It just came out of nowhere. He was good at bringing that confidence out of me.”
That confidence is evident in the song and its powerful chorus.
Love Me Like You Do
In 2015, there were many things happening in my life which I couldn’t control. I became a “yes man” and began to let people walk over me. I seemed to cave every time there was conflict. I just tried to make everyone, but me, happy.
I can still remember hearing the line, “I’ve still got a lot of fight left in me” In Rachel Platten’s Fight Song. It slapped me in the face. It was instrumental in me trying to take back things in my life. Unfortunately, it was that change that only led to more conflict.
Rachel had been playing music for a long time, but nothing ever really came from it. This song changed everything. She said,
“I grinded and worked so hard for so long and got to the point of… I didn’t think it was going to happen. I thought I might need to figure something else out. That moment bred ‘Fight Song.’ So that song came because I had to make a decision, ‘Am I going to keep going or am I going to give up on myself?'”
“I came up with the answer to the decision, I guess through writing the song,” she added. “I didn’t even realize it was happening, but through writing the song I made the decision to not give up on myself. Even if it’s only getting to play to a handful of people a night, that’s enough. At least I get to spread this message. Then funnily enough, by releasing the song, I got this amazing opportunity.”
Fight Song
What drew me to Dear Future Husband by Meghan Trainor was the sound. It sounded like a 50’s song and I liked it. This baffled me because I hated her debut song, “All About That Bass.”
Meghan revealed to The Miami Herald that the song’s subject matter was inspired by an ongoing joke between her and her father that Meghan’s future husband is out there somewhere, “chilling.”
The lyrics list the various things she expects from her future “groom-to-be.” They include “flowers every anniversary.” “open doors for me” and, “don’t have a dirty mind.” She says, “Girls need to be treated better. I never got that growing up.”
Hopefully, there are still men who do those things for their woman. Society tends to make those things old fashioned, but I disagree.
Dear Future Husband
Long before Sam and I were married, we were friends. We both work in sleep medicine. We would chat on the phone and talk about work. She knew I worked in music and told me that her new favorite song was Stressed Out by Twenty One Pilots. I hadn’t heard that one yet.
What has the guys stressed out these days? Tyler Joseph explains:
“I think one of the toughest things is that balances act of trying to maintain relationships while being on the road. It’s been a crazy few years. Josh and I are both very close with our families. It’s one of our favorite moments in our careers is being able to have our families in that video at the end. With that being said, it has been tough trying to maintain those relationships. The other stress is trying to outdo ourselves we either write a song or we play a show. Josh and I, we come from a local scene where every time you played your hometown you had to do something new. You can’t just play the same set. So we kind of apply it to the way that we approach every show, always trying to outdo ourselves.”
Fun Fact: Much of the video was filmed at Josh Dun’s childhood home. Because the home number is listed, Dun’s parents had to cancel the landline to put an end to the calls that were coming in all day and all night!
The song always reminds me of the early days of our friendship.
Stressed Out
Remember earlier in this series when I said “Gangnam Style” was the worst dance song ever? Well, I forgot about the annoying craze started by Silento. I didn’t know what the “Whip” or the “Nae Nae” were! Oh, the requests that I got for their piece of garbage! I would often have to play this two or three times at school dances. URGH!!!
According to songfacts:
“Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae)” was the soundtrack to the biggest dance craze of 2015. It’s actually two dances. For The Whip, just keep your arm straight and swing it in front of your face like you’re driving a car. The Nae Nae is similar, but with an open hand. They combine very well.
The Nae Nae is based on the character Sheneneh, played by Martin Lawrence in his ’90s TV series Martin. Sheneneh is a very brash woman who is extremely confrontational but gets offended easily. When she gets excited or upset, she makes an exaggerated “talk to the hand” gesture, which is the dance move here.
This song launched his career, but his success didn’t last long. A few years later, in 2021, he was indicted for murder after killing his cousin.
Watch Me
Another song that stuck out to me on the radio was 7 Years by Lukas Graham. The song has some really powerful lyrics.
Lukas Graham explained the song’s message to radio.com:
“The song’s basically just about becoming a good father, and being such a good father that your children would want to come and visit you when you’re an old, boring man,” he said. “I had a really, really cool father, so that’s what I wanna be too.”
“A lot of older people are actually very, very young,” he continued. “And they look at their age as some stamp that now they can point fingers at all the people that are younger than them; in reality I am probably a lot smarter than some of them anyway, at least. I’ve read more books; I’ve tried more stuff; I’ve seen more things.”
“And I think that’s why I can write a song like ‘Seven Years,’ because I might only be 27, but I know what my dreams are,” Graham concluded. “I knew when I was a young man that I wanted to be a father, and I knew I was gonna be a good father at that.”
I can totally relate to that. I have really tried to be a good father to all of my children.
If you listen closely, the sound of a film projector comes in during the quite parts of this song, including the intro. This gives it a nostalgic feel as if watching home movies.
7 Years
I also think of my wife when I hear the next song. I was unaware of her love of country music early in our relationship. Then she started to talk about Thomas Rhett. Die A Happy Man happened to be the first Rhett song I played when I was working at the country station.
He wrote the song for his wife, who’d been asking him to write her a love song. When he played it for her, he said watching her listen to it for the first time was very rewarding. He said:
“I’ve written love songs but never to the extent of that personal,” he said. “We strictly wrote that song about me and my wife’s relationship. I just think this song shows how me and Lauren love each other, and I hope this song is an encouragement to other married couples or people that are dating.”
It certainly was an encouragement to me!
Die A Happy Man
There was a student at one of the schools that would always ask for the group Panic! At The Disco. I’d see him walk up the me and I knew exactly what he wanted to hear. He’d come up multiple times with different songs. It is because of him that I became familiar with Death of a Bachelor.
In 2015, Frank Sinatra would have turned 100. The band used this song as a tribute to him. Brendon Urie posted on his Instagram in reference to the song’s release.
“I attach his music to so many memories: opening presents on Christmas day, my grandparents teaching the rest of the family to swing dance, watching Who Framed Roger Rabbit with my siblings (Sinatra makes a cameo in the form of a cartoon sword singing ‘Witchcraft’).”
“His music has been a major player in the soundtrack of my life. So it’s only right that I return the favor and/or pay it forward. I wrote a new album this year and even in the few songs that don’t sound remotely similar to any of his music I still felt his influence in the writing and the need to relate so personally to each song.”
He said of the song, “It’s like if Sinatra and Beyoncé made a song together. It’s like some Beyoncé beats with some Sinatra vocals. It’s really crazy.”
You even get a Sinatra vibe from the video
Death of a Bachelor
The next song is one that didn’t mean much to me until my divorce – Love Yourself by Justin Bieber. After a break up, the singer is still dealing with an ex. He tells her he’s not crying about things and she should really just go lover herself. It’s a great “blow off” song.
It was written by Ed Sheeran. Out of the many songs he has co-written for other artists, he considers this his favorite.
“I feel like the one that is the slam dunk, whenever I’m at a gig, to play someone else’s song that I had written is “Love Yourself” by Justin Bieber because it was so massive for him. I think it’s his biggest song… anywhere in the world, if I picked up a guitar and played that, they’d be like ‘oh my god, you wrote that!'”
“People always say, ‘Why didn’t you keep it?’ And to be honest, he was on such a roll at that point that I think it wouldn’t have been as big if I’d sung it,” he continued. “He had his whole period of his life that was a bit… you know what I mean. And America loves a comeback story.”
Love Yourself
As a bonus song, here is one that I really like because of its soulful sound. It is the debut single for Charlie Puth – Marvin Gaye. He wrote the chorus the first day he came to Los Angeles. Puth says he was at a coffee shop when the melody struck – he found himself tapping his foot and clapping out the beat.
The song is a duet with Meghan Trainor. Charlie explains how it all came about:
“Meghan and I were at a party one night, and we were exchanging the new music, and she heard ‘Marvin Gaye; and asked, ‘Who else is singing on this? It should be a duet. Let me sing on it!’ So I’m like… OK, Meghan Trainor just asked me to sing on my song, absolutely! In one day, she knew the whole thing. We did it all in one take.”
Asked if Marvin Gaye inspires his music, Puth replied:
“I listened to a lot of Marvin Gaye and Motown records. When I was making my record, I just wanted to make this soulful sound. When Marvin Gaye made his music, he evoked this feeling that would reach everybody.”
The video takes place at a school dance. There is plenty of sexual innuendo, but the music is so smooth and soulful that the people can’t help but dance.
Bonus: Marvin Gaye
So that wraps up 2015. Did I miss one of your favorites? Tell me in the comments. Next week, will be a little different. You may recall me mentioning that the further I got into the 2000’s, the less I connected with the music. I may have been familiar with a song or two, but if I couldn’t connect with it personally or call it a favorite – I didn’t add it.
Because of that, next week will feature the years 2016 & 2017. My list will feature a song with a life lesson, a suggestion for “our” song from my wife, movie music, a song that has a bit of a 60’s sound, and a song that pushes blame. I hope you’ll come back next week.
The Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin was born on this day in 1942. She was a musical force! Rolling Stone magazine named her “the greatest singer of all time” twice.
Her songs are soul staples. The list of hits is a long one that includes “Chain of Fools,” “The House That Jack Built,” “Until You Come Back to Me,” and “Think.” I could have chosen any one of those songs, but someone would call me out for not picking her best known hit – Respect. So that’s our tune for today.
Otis Redding wrote Respect and originally recorded it in 1965, with his version hitting #35 in the US. It was Aretha’s idea to cover this song. She came up with the arrangement, added the “sock it to me” lines, and played piano on the track. After Redding heard Aretha’s rendition for the first time, he said: “This girl has taken that song from me. Ain’t no longer my song. From now on, it belongs to her.”
“Sock it to me,” became a catch phrase on the TV show Laugh In. This line is often heard as a sexual reference, but Aretha denies this. “There was nothing sexual about that,” she told Rolling Stone in 2014.
The “ree, ree, ree, ree…” refrain is a nod to Franklin’s nickname, Ree (as in A-Ree-tha). In the second verse, Franklin proclaims to her man that she is about to give him all her money, and that all she’s asking is for him to give her “her propers,” when he gets home. This term would evolve into “props,” commonly used in hip-hop in the context of proper respect.
Songfacts.com says: Sax player Charlie Chalmers played in the horn section alongside King Curtis and Willie Bridges. Chalmers intended to take on the famous solo until Curtis started wailing away. He explained to Cleveland’s The Plain Dealer in 2011: “When the horn solo came up, which I was ready to play because I’d been playing it on the other takes, Curtis jumped in there and took that solo, man. He was so good. Even though he pushed me out of the way… it was the right thing to do.”
In 2017, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra rearranged the track just a tad and gave it a new, yet familiar sound that does not take away from the original.
The thing I love about Aretha is she can perform a song 40 times and each time it will have a unique sound. An example is how she performed the song in the movie Blues Brothers 2000. It still holds the basic framework of the original, but it is just different enough to make it sound phenomenal.
This week’s Movie Music Monday features a classic theme from a classic movie – The Great Escape. The film was released on July 4, 1963. It starred an amazing line up of stars. They include James Garner, Richard Attenborough, Charles Bronson, Donald Pleasence, James Coburn, and the legendary Steve McQueen.
The film is based on the 1950 book of the same name, which is based on an historical even that began on this day in 1944. On March 24, 1944, 76 Allied Prisoners of War began to break out of the German camp Stalag Luft III. The film accurately represented many details of the escape, including the layout of the camp, the different escape plans employed, and the fact that only three escapees successfully made it to freedom. The characters are fictitious, but are based on real men.
It was the amazing Elmer Bernstein who composed the music for the film. In composing the score, he gave each major character his own musical motif based on the Great Escape‘s main theme. The theme was so popular that Elmer lived off the royalties for the rest of his life!
Critics have said the film score succeeds because it uses rousing militaristic motifs with interludes of warmer softer themes that humanizes the prisoners and endears them to audiences; the music also captures the bravery and defiance of the POWs.
The movie is also known for Steve McQueen’s motorcycle chase scenes.
Yesterday was busy. The day started with us taking the kids to get Spring pictures. Our photographer has known us for some time now. The kids always looked forward to going because they loved her dog Roxie.
Upon arrival, the kids began to look for her. The photographer whispered to us that Roxie had passed away that Monday. They were heartbroken.
We then went to Menard’s to pick up a few things. I have needed to change out our kitchen lights for a bit. We picked up one for the main kitchen area. We also picked up one to go above the sink.
We couldn’t remember if the light above the sink mounted to the wall or the ceiling. We talked ourselves into the wall. When we got home, it was mounted on the ceiling. Luckily, when I took it back, I found one on clearance for less money.
The one in the main area went up without a problem. It’s LED, so it shines much brighter than the one we had before. The front room’s light is going to be fun, as I will have to make sure the breaker is off. There is no switch for that one.
After swapping lights I came back home and worked on the light. No issues at all with it! I truly hope that the others go in as easy as the one from today.
Sam and I will be doing some shopping/browsing at a new second hand book store. After that, our plan is to grab lunch or dinner together. The kids will be at Nana’s.
This book has been on my “To read” list for a bit. A co-worker read it before me and said how much she loved it. So as soon as I had finished the book I was reading, I got ahold of this one – The Demon of Unrest.
As someone who loves history, I truly found this book fascinating. It takes place during the time leading up to the Civil War. Here is the Goodreads synopsis:
On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln became the fluky victor in a tight race for president. The country was bitterly at odds; Southern extremists were moving ever closer to destroying the Union, with one state after another seceding and Lincoln powerless to stop them. Slavery fueled the conflict, but somehow the passions of North and South came to focus on a lonely federal fortress in Charleston: Fort Sumter.
Master storyteller Erik Larson offers a gripping account of the chaotic months between Lincoln’s election and the Confederacy’s shelling of Sumter—a period marked by tragic errors and miscommunications, enflamed egos and craven ambitions, personal tragedies and betrayals. Lincoln himself wrote that the trials of these five months were “so great that, could I have anticipated them, I would not have believed it possible to survive them.”
At the heart of this suspense-filled narrative are Major Robert Anderson, Sumter’s commander and a former slave owner sympathetic to the South but loyal to the Union; Edmund Ruffin, a vain and bloodthirsty radical who stirs secessionist ardor at every opportunity; and Mary Boykin Chesnut, wife of a prominent planter, conflicted over both marriage and slavery and seeing parallels between both. In the middle of it all is the overwhelmed Lincoln, battling with his duplicitous Secretary of State, William Seward, as he tries desperately to avert a war that he fears is inevitable—one that will eventually kill 750,000 Americans.
Drawing on diaries, secret communiques, slave ledgers, and plantation records, Larson gives us a political horror story that captures the forces that led America to the brink—a dark reminder that we often don’t see a cataclysm coming until it’s too late.
I had learned about Fort Sumter in school history classes, but this book went so much deeper. There were things I had never heard before. The events that led up to the Civil War were much more complicated that I was aware of.
Mary Chesnut compiled a diary full of information and insight. That diary would be published in a few forms. “Mary Chesnut’s Civil War,” “Mary Chesnut’s Diary,” and “A Diary From Dixie,” just to name a few. Many entries from the diary are quoted in this book giving you a first hand account of some key events.
Throughout the book, you are treated to things Lincoln wrote, military communications, and diaries from other key people. These things go deep into the personal conflicts each of these people were dealing with.
The book is a long one, but I rarely felt that it was dragging. If you are a history buff, I cannot recommend this book more highly.
Back in the early 2000’s I was the Afternoon Drive guy on B-95. My shift was from 2pm to 7pm. I got to “kickoff” the weekend every Friday at 5pm. They were calling the 5pm hour “The Drive at Five.” It was far from an original name.
When the clock hit 5PM, I had a factory whistle that I would play followed by the voice guy saying, “Welcome to the weekend!” This was immediately followed by 4 or 5 weekend oriented country songs. Since it is now officially the weekend here in Michigan, I thought I’d showcase some of those songs.
I’d usually start with one of these two classics –
Finally Friday – George Jones
Take This Job and Shove It
Then I would rotate from the following:
Working for the Weekend – Ken Mellons
Redneck Rhythm and Blues – Brooks and Dunn
It’s Five O’clock Somewhere – Alan Jackson and Jimmy Buffett
Come Friday – Aaron Tippin
Wrong Five O’clock – Eric Heatherly
Yee Haw – Jake Owen
That got me thinking about other formats. What might I play if I was working at an oldies station? Maybe:
Rip It Up – Little Richard
Friday on my Mind – The Easybeats
Five O’clock World – The Vogues
If I was at a classic rock station? Maybe:
Saturday Night – Bay City Rollers
Working For The Weekend – Loverboy
Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting – Elton John
What song is YOUR weekend song? Drop it in the comments!
This week my wife and I celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary. If you are unfamiliar with the story of how it happened, I have blogged about it before. You can read about it here:
As a matter of fact, this week’s photo for the Flashback appears in that blog.
This photo is one of my favorites from our trip. We both are very happy. Because the ceremony was done at the county courthouse, there was no official photographer. If I had to pick one selfie that I love, it would be this one. (Ok, I’m sure there are other selfies of the two of us that are just as good or better. But for this blog, it’s this one.)
Sam asked me yesterday, “Did you ever think we’d make it seven years?” Without hesitation, I said, “Well, yes!” I went on to say that I had never felt more sure about anything. As the years have gone by, my love continues to grow for her. Through ups and downs, we’ve done it together. I am so very grateful to have the relationship that we do.
I love my wife beyond anything I could write. Seven years down, and forever to go!
I had to take Andrew for an EMG last week. Knowing what to expect because of the EMG I recently had, I wondered how he’d do.
I was surprised at just how well he did. When the shock happened, he said it tickled. He wasn’t scared or anything. He was thrilled when they told him he could pick a toy at the end of the visit.
He decided on a homemade wooded truck.
I mentioned last week that Ella got to read in front of her class. They posted a picture of it on the class page.
We’ve been fluctuating between chilly and mild temperatures here. The other day it was like 60 degrees. The kids loved being outside. Andrew was just running around and being silly.
Ella was excited to be out riding her bike.
Both kids have been all about the Xbox since I put it in our room. We do have a couple games for younger kids, but they always want to play my race game or golf game.
Sam was relaxing in bed one night. She caught a great cameo of Andrew and me golfing.
They had a spirit week at Ella’s school. Monday was “wear green” day. Ella found a cool St. Patrick’s Day dress. Little did she know, two other classmates had the same dress! She loved every minute of that
Today, at dance class, she lost her first tooth. So tonight I get to play Tooth Fairy. I asked AI to make me the Tooth Fairy and the results were … Scary.
Welcome back to The Music of My Life, where I feature ten songs from each year of my life. In most cases, the ten songs I choose will be ones I like personally (unless I explain otherwise). The songs will be selected from Billboard’s Year-end Hot 100 Chart, Acclaimed Music, and will all be released in the featured year.
As you might remember, I started this last May on my birthday. I have tried to work a week or two ahead on this feature. One thing I have noticed as we move into the late 2010’s and 2020’s is that there are not that many songs that mean anything to me. No life event connects with them. There are only a few I may like. That being said, it is very possible that I will combine two or three years into one week. I also have a feeling that there may be upcoming years where I don’t pick any songs. If that happens, the feature will wrap sooner than expected, which may be a good thing.
2014 was actually a good year of music for me. I turned 44 that year. I had a new career in sleep and was still able to do a few hours on the radio. Many of the songs from this year were ones I played on the air …
It didn’t mean much to me in 2014, but Let It Go by Idina Menzel sure does today. It is the first song I danced to with my daughter at our first Daddy/Daughter Dance. That may have been the only song we danced to that first year, but I will never forget it. It is from her favorite movie, Frozen.
“Kids don’t want to stand out all the time, they want to fit in,” Menzel said regarding this song. “It’s about finding that thing that makes you different that’s going to make you special and extraordinary.”
Let It Go won for Best Song at the Oscars in the 2014 ceremony. It also earned an entry in the 2016 Guinness World Records book for “Most Languages Featured on a Single.” It was recorded in 42 different languages for Frozen‘s foreign releases.
Let It Go
Paramore was primarily known for their rock music. Ain’t It Fun is a very different sound for them. It was more pop/dance than rock. (From songfacts) Bassist Jeremy Davis told The Guardian that the band had their largely teenage fan base in mind. “After we started writing weird stuff like ‘Ain’t It Fun,’ we got nervous,” he said. “But that was a comfort. We’ve grown and we don’t like the same music we liked, so why would [our fans] not? That idea kept us pushing ourselves.”
Songfacts also says, “This upbeat track mixes gospel, soul and some Prince-style R&B. Hayley Williams told The Sun: “Taylor (York) and I came up with the melody and I thought about Prince, too. Then it got layered with more groove and funk and all the cool elements. The next thing I know there’s a gospel choir in the studio and we have that track. It’s been so liberating to write this record.”
The xylophone in the song really helped the song to stand out on the air. That’s what I remember most about the first time I played it. “Well, that’s certainly different,” I thought.
The song is catchy. I don’t know that I’d call it an earworm, but you get hooked right from the beginning.
Ain’t It Fun
The next song is one that I have written about before. I chose it in the 2021 Song Draft that Hanspostcard hosted. It is one of those songs that I love to listen to. Here is the blog I wrote for the Song Draft:
Who would have imagined that in 2014 a Cole Porter song would be popular? Thanks to Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga, Porter’s Anything Goes was very popular … again.
The recording of the song took place over a year in New York City. Bennett’s quartet was present, as well as other musicians. It received mostly positive reviews. The Chicago Tribune said that it found Gaga to be in “good voice” and Bennett in “classic form”. V Magazine called the song a “fresh take” on the original. MTV News said “Gaga is clearly having a blast, doing her best Broadway belting with tons of energy and enthusiasm”
On the Billboard Jazz Digital Songs chart, the track debuted at the top, becoming Gaga’s second entry on that chart, following “The Lady is a Tramp”. The song was Bennett’s 15th entry on the Jazz Digital Songs chart, and his third number-one single. “Anything Goes” sold 16,000 digital downloads in the US during the week of its release.
Lady Gaga’s voice is one that could easily sing the American Song Book. The true sound of her voice is lost on current music. And how could you not like Tony Bennett?
Anything Goes
One song that really stands out to me from 2014 is Thinking Out Loud by Ed Sheeran. It was one that many brides I DJ’d for picked as their first dance. It’s a great choice.
The first time I heard it, it reminded me a bit of Into the Mystic by Van Morrison. Little did I know that Ed says Van Morrison heavily influenced this song. He told songfacts:
“No one’s really channeled Van Morrison for a long time. Everyone always channels, Michael Jackson and the Beatles and Bob Dylan, and I feel like Van Morrison is a key figure in the music that I make.”
The video features Sheeran and his partner Brittany Cherry ballroom dancing and was shot all at once in 16 mm film. “I wanted the video to be a little different, so I opted for ballroom dancing,” he explained when the video was released in October 2014. “I had lessons for five hours a day when I was on my US tour last month.”
Songfacts says: With electronic music ruling the airwaves, this was one of the few hit songs of its time with a guitar solo (played by Chris Leonard), which is near the end of the song in place of a bridge. Running 4:41, it was also very long by 2014 hit song standards, although this extra time makes the song more appealing as a first dance wedding number.
Thinking Out Loud
When Shake It Off hit the radio, it drove me crazy. At that time, Taylor Swift was everywhere. There was a ton of publicity leading up to her 1989 album. This was the lead single.
This song IS an earworm. Even if I switched stations or turned down the monitors in the studio, I still found that it would run through my head. Gee, I don’t know why? The phrase “shake it off” shows up 36 times in this song, mostly in the chorus. “Shake” appears 70 times. URGH!
Songfacts says: The song originated from Swift learning to overcome her fear of not being accepted. “I think it kind of takes not caring what people think about you a step further to kind of locking the fact that people don’t get you,” she explained to BBC Radio 1’s Breakfast Show. “Kind of taking pride in the fact that you know you are and it honestly doesn’t matter if someone else doesn’t want to understand you. We go through these scenarios in so many different phrases of our lives, no matter what it is.”
“I’ve had to learn a pretty tough lesson in the past couple years that people can say whatever they want about at any time, and we cannot control that,” said Swift. “The only thing we can control is our reaction to that… You can either let it get to you… [or] you just shake it off.”
Shake It Off
Another big song that worked well as school dances was Shut Up and Dance by Walk The Moon. I used to love watching folks jumping around and dancing to it. It was always great to hear them shout the chorus as it played.
Vocalist Nicholas Petricca told American Songwriter magazine the story of the song:
“Well, (Guitarist) Eli Maiman and I were working on something that’s now the verse. And it had this great feeling that we couldn’t stop playing over and over. We didn’t have a chorus and we didn’t have a subject or a lyric.”
“So over the next weekend, I went to this awesome party they have at The Echo in Echo Park, Los Angeles, called Funky Soul Saturday. The story of ‘Shut Up and Dance’ is based on a true story of hanging out there with my friends… this girl actually told me to shut up and dance with her. We took it back to the studio and it spun out very quickly after that.”
It was only later that Petricca realized he could use the girl’s comment as a song lyric. “At the time, I was in my head and not with it,” he said. “She’s one of my best friends and pulled me out into the moment, and that really became the subject of the song. Encouraging people to let go of whatever it is that’s bothering you and get into your body and out of your head. Coming home and working on the song I thought, this is it. This is totally it.”
Shut Up and Dance
OneRepublic makes a second appearance on the list with an amazing song – I Lived.
Songfacts says:
While opening for U2 in the summer of 2012, OneRepublic frontman Ryan Tedder observed the effect of Bono’s lyrics on the Irish band’s fans, as they sung along to their songs. “These lyrics are so from his gut and so like honest, but poetic,” Tedder told Radio.com. “They’re not trying to be ambiguous or trying to be cool.”
Inspired, Tedder decided that with the Native he was going to write lyrics people could relate to, which meant he would have to share a little bit of himself. Accordingly, nothing on the album is a work of fiction. This song, for instance is a love letter to the singer’s son, Copeland Cruz, who was born in 2010.
How often are we told to live life to its fullest? The chorus is an example of doing just that:
I, I did it all I, I did it all I owned every second that this world could give I saw so many places The things that I did Yeah, with every broken bone I swear I lived
The song’s music video pays tribute to teenage fan, Bryan Warnecke, and his struggles living with cystic fibrosis. The clip ends with Tedder driving Warnecke to a concert at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado to see OneReublic perform.
I Lived
Another song that jumped out of the radio at listeners was Honey, I’m Good by Andy Grammer. The song almost sounded out of place on Adult Contemporary stations because of its “country” sound. Grammer even went as far as to call the song, “a fun hoedown!”
The song’s music video features a montage of around one hundred real-life couples that have been together from several months to over 70 years. Grammer said, “My manager and I were on the phone talking about an idea for the video. We wanted to press home the concept that this isn’t a song about a guy who’s cheating. This is about a guy who is being true. So we started calling all of our friends and family that we knew had been married for a long time and asked them to lip sync the song.”
“They all started sending videos in and we started asking by word of mouth if people knew a couple who’d been married a long time. It was so fun getting all our friends and family involved that we decided to just put it up on social media and ask the fans to be part of the video too. We asked them to get their parents and grandparents to be in it also.”
Honey I’m Good
Finally, another song that just clicked with the school dance crowds, as well as adult crowds. Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars struck gold with Uptown Funk.
The intro reminds me of the intro to Smoke on the Water. As it progresses, you get another instrument, then another, etc… Songfacts explains:
This intro sets the stage for the rest of the song, introducing the hooky “doh doh doh” vocal and the clapping drum sound (made with a Linn drum machine) that show up throughout the song. Before the intro ends, various other key instruments in the song appear: bass, snare drums, cheery guitar, horns and a swishy synth effect.
Mark Ronson, Bruno Mars and the producer Jeff Bhasker (Kanye West, Drake, Alicia Keys) share writing and production credits on the song. It originated from a lick that Mars and his band were playing on tour.
“When we hit on that opening line – ‘This s–t, that ice cold. Michelle Pfeiffer, that white gold’ – we knew that we had the seed of this really exciting idea,” Ronson told Billboard magazine. “I pushed myself much more than I have on anything else in the past.”
Mars and Ronson create a monster party vibe in this song, starting with the title: “Uptown” implies high class, while “Funk” is the rhythm and release. The lyrics are way over-the-top, with Mars explaining that he’s so hot he’s forcing dragons into retirement. It’s clever, fun and outrageous, but also meticulously constructed with a mix of rhyming patterns.
The song went on to be the biggest of 2015.
Uptown Funk
So there you have it, 2014 in song. Did I miss one of your favorites from that year? Tell me about it in the comments.
Next week, we’ll look at 2015. My list includes the first song my wife and I ever talked about (before we were married) and one by her favorite country singer. It also includes a “tribute” to Frank Sinatra and the worst dance song since Gangnam Style! All that and more next week.
Various Ramblings of a Nostalgic Italian 