The Music of My Life – 2010

We are in the home stretch, as they say. We’re closing in on 2025 and admittedly, the newer music is not as well known to me. Once I was forced into retirement from radio and mobile DJing in 2020, I lost touch with almost all new stuff. I am guessing as we get closer to the end, I may need to double up on years and maybe feature 5 from some of them instead of 10.

I was introduced to Colby Caillat when I worked at the Adult Contemporary station. There was something about her voice that really stood out to me. I Never Told You is a song that I like not because of the lyrical content, but because of her voice.

As I heard this the first time, there was just something that sounded “real.” It was like there was real hurt and real struggle to it. It was only later that I found out why. She told songfacts.com in an interview that it was “the most difficult song she ever wrote. “‘I Never Told You’ was a long work in progress, said the Malibu-based singer-songwriter. “I started it by myself when I was on tour in Germany. Then two years later I played it for Jason Reeves and Kara DioGuardi when we were writing together in Hawaii for my album ‘Breakthrough’, and they helped me finish writing it that week. It’s now one of my favorite songs!”

I Never Told You

They say you are your own worst critic. When I listen back to my old radio shows, I think of how things could have been edited or worked with a better punch line. I’m fine when it is me telling myself what to do. Sometimes, however, there are people who think they know it all. They offer you this “sage” advice that isn’t worth squat.

That kind of situation led to my next song. I love the angst that you hear in the lyrics and voice of Sara Bareilles on King of Anything. She told Billboard magazine:

“It was the last song I wrote before we went into the studio, and I was at the point where I started sharing the music with my inner circle and started getting feedback. I remember having a very vivid realization of, ‘Oh, I forgot that this was a part of it. Everybody gets to tell you what they think about what you do.’ I could tell I was getting defensive. That song was a little bit of a pep-talk song-and that’s exactly what ‘Love Song’ was.”

She went on to tell PopEater:

“I’ve had more unsolicited advice on my life than I care to mention, and this was how I dealt with it. It felt empowering to turn that frustration into music, especially a song that doesn’t even sound angry. Apparently, I don’t get over things very quickly.”

She says that it is sort of an “F You” song. What do you think?

King of Anything

Adam Levine said that “‘Misery’ is about the desperation of wanting someone really badly in your life but having it be very difficult. Kind of what all the songs I write are about. I’m not treading on new ground, but I think a lot of people – including myself – deal with that all the time. Relationships are difficult, and it’s good therapy to write about them.”

I had never seen the video before choosing this one for my list. It’s loaded with some steamy scenes. Levine told MTV News about the Joseph Kahn-directed video.

“The cool thing is, when Joseph wrote the treatment after reading a few sentences, I thought it was really amazing,” he said. “Because it kind of turns the whole idea of the sexual energy between two people – a guy and a girl, a music video, you’ve seen that a million times – that exists in this video, but it’s turning it on its ass and having the girl be the more domineering one who’s trying to kill me.”

The song was one that really just stood out when it played on the radio.

Misery

I was still working at the Adult Contemporary station when I was going through my divorce. After it was finalized and Sam and I started to feel like there was something between us, I heard this song. The lyrics really struck a chord. I really did feel like a teenager again.

Katy Perry says that, “‘Teenage Dream’ is a euphoric feeling. It gives off this feeling that a lot of people have been through. I remember my teenage years, and I remember falling in love for the first time and how impressionable that was. How sensitive I was to every feeling. Heartbreak was really hard. Of course heartbreak is really hard now, and love is still intense, but it’s a different type of feeling, that teenage love. I want people to have that feeling again of falling in love unabashedly – those teenage dreams.”

This new love was unexpected, but made me feel giddy inside. It still feels that way.

Teenage Dream

In this world, we tend to beat ourselves up. We pick on ourselves. When we feel like doing that, we ought to remember what Mr. Rogers taught us. He would say, “I like you just the way you are. You’ve made this day a special day by just your being you.” That’s great advice for children and adults. That’s also why I picked the next song.

Bruno Mars conveys that Mr. Rogers message to his lady – “You’re amazing just the way you are!”

Bruno said, “I’m a big fan of simple songs. When we wrote Just The Way You Are, I wasn’t thinking of anything deep or poetic. I was telling a story. Get ready to fall in love!”

Sometimes the simple messages hit just right. The song went to #1 for Bruno.

Just The Way You Are

The Bruno Mars song was written with Cee Lo Green in mind. Cee Lo didn’t feel it was right for him, but he did feel like Forget You was.

Before I go on, I should state that Forget You is like the “Edited for Television” movies. If you replace “forget” with another F word, you’ll see what I mean. When I first hear this, I had no idea that is what the song was really called. The music service I used when DJing sent over the “radio edit” which had edited out the “s*#t” from “ain’t that some s*#t.” In the unedited version, Cee-Lo drops 16 f-bombs in just 3 1/2 minutes.

The song features Cee Lo’s Elektra labelmate Bruno Mars. It originated during a session in L.A. with Mars and Phil Lawrence.. The pair played to Cee-Lo a rough demo of a song they weren’t sure was worth completing. “When Bruno first sung ‘F—- You’ to me, they were still a bit indecisive on whether or not it could work at all,” Green told Entertainment Weekly. “I was like, ‘I like it. Let’s record it.'” The trio then completed the song with Cee Lo contributing many of the verse lyrics.

I loved the feel of this song and I was hooked from the line, “I guess he’s an X-Box and I’m more Atari!”

Forget You

A lot of folks dissed Michael Buble’ when he first came out. He was doing covers of old standards from crooners from the 40’s and 50’s. I guess they figured, anyone could do that, but Buble’ wrote some great original stuff. When his original stuff gained popularity, those folks shut up.

He has proven his talent and his fans love him. I love the arrangements he has come up with for his covers and his original stuff stands out, too. The guy is more than just covers and Christmas music.

Hollywood is not only a great song, but a great video. Michael likes to have fun and it shows here. His personality really shows through here I think. The video parodies several celebrities, including Canadian teen idol Justin Bieber. Speaking of the clip, Bublé told The Sun: “The video is about celebrity culture, people’s dreams about fame and what can go with it. You can see what fun I had playing the characters.”

Again, the song was different, fun and stuck out when it played on the radio, which is why I love it.

Hollywood

Christina Perri’s voice is very unique. It is almost as though it changes with each of her songs. For Jar of Hearts, I almost felt that it was deeper and darker than her other songs, if that even makes sense. I truly am mesmerized by her voice.

I have been accused by certain people from my past as being a “heart collector,” but that is really just nonsense. I was never a stud in school or afterward, and to say I was a Cassanova or Rudolph Valentino is simply hilarious. Anyway, in the song, Christina Perri looks to distance herself from a guy who is worse than a heartbreaker – he’s a heart collector, keeping them in a (metaphorical) jar and tearing love apart.

She wrote the lyric about a serial heart collector she once dated. On her blog, she told the story behind the tune: “I wrote the song after I went home to Philadelphia for the holiday last December [2009]. I sat in my childhood bedroom and hid from the boy (with the jar of hearts) who wanted to see me. My heart wanted to see him, my head knew better.”

I am aware that men are the more common keepers of “jars of hearts,” but I know at least two females from my past who were the same way.

Jar of Hearts

Train was really one of those groups I liked. I played a lot of their stuff on the radio and at parties and dances. This one, I found out, didn’t start out as Marry Me. From songfacts:

Pat Monahan got together with the producers David Katz and Sam Hollander to write the title track of the album, but their sessions also sparked “Marry Me,” which started off as a song called “Stay On Me.”

“It was absolutely beautiful and had the same longing melodies,” Hollander said in a songfacts interview, “but it just didn’t raise its hand. Then Pat went back in and flipped it to ‘Marry Me,’ and the emotion went a step further.

When Jonathan Daniel, Pat’s manager, played it for me, I had chills. I could not believe what Pat did with it. Sometimes you get those surprises. Sometimes a song never lives up to the demo in the room, but that one far surpassed it. He deserves the credit. That’s his heart – he’s a big-hearted guy with a really deft lyrical touch.”

I love hearing the origin stories for songs. I love the idea for the video, too. The video, directed by Lex Halaby, opens with a montage of real married couples telling the stories of how they met. When the song starts, it turns into a storyline where Monahan falls for a waitress, played by Anna Camp of True Blood and The Good Wife.

Marry Me

My final song is one that just “sounds happy.” What makes this unique is that instead of Tom Higgenson singing lead, guitar played Tim Lopez does the honors. Tim actually wrote the song. He told songfacts:

“It was written for this girl that I was dating while we were making our last album out in Malibu. We have a lot of history; I’ve known her since I was 11 or 12. I wasn’t really emotionally available to her at the time. I hadn’t completely gotten over my divorce, so when the band left on tour, I decided it wasn’t right to try to keep the relationship going so we called it quits. It was only over the last year or so that I’ve realized what I walked away from. The song was an attempt to rekindle things and win her back. She’s currently dating someone else, and I’m happy for her. But in case it doesn’t work out… who knows?”

The song barely cracked the top 40 (peaking at #38), but it is a song that sounds so good to me.

Rhythm of Love

With that, we wrap up 2010. Did I miss one of your favorites? Tell me in the comments.

Next week, we venture into 2011. Looking at the list, there is at least two ear worms; there are plenty of songs that I always played for one particular high school at their dances; and a song that I thought should have been a hit for a group who was big in the 80’s. I hope to see you next week.

Thanks for reading and for listening.

The Music of My Life – 1977

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. May 15, 1977, I turned a whopping 7 years old. I have some really great memories of 1977 and I think you’ll get to read about them and how they tie into some of these songs.

I love stories where a radio DJ plays a significant role in the creation of a song. Released in January of ’77, I’m Your Boogie Man is one of those songs.

Written by KC & The Sunshine Band bassist-producer Richard Finch and frontman Harry Wayne Casey, The “boogie” of the title is in the sense of dancing, shaking your booty, and getting down, not with the scary kind of “boogie man.” Harry Wayne Casey tells the story:

“‘I’m Your Boogie Man,’ in the initial writing of it I called it ‘I’ll Be A Son Of A Gun’:

I’ll be a son of a gun
Look what you’ve done

Then I went back and ‘I’m Your Boogie Man’ came into my head because I was thinking about how disc jockeys were always there on the radio. Like it says:

Early morning
Late afternoon
Or at midnight
It’s never too soon
I’m your Boogie Man

It’s taking the theme of the disc jockey being the one that’s there for you all the time, no matter when. So it was as if I was a disc jockey, I’m the Boogie Man. Like if you call in and want to hear a certain song, or talk about what was going on in your life, I’m your Boogie Man. And of course I put in ‘turn me on,’ but that could also mean turned on the radio.”

A specific DJ who influenced this song was Robert W. Walker at Y-100 in Miami, Florida, who was the first to give the group’s hit single “Get Down Tonight” airplay. So Walker “was the Boogie Man that brought all the funk and the good feeling and the vibes to the people every morning,” according to Richard Finch.

I’m Your Boogie Man

Bob Seger had a couple big songs in 1977. Mainstreet was released in April of that year, while an anthem was released in June – Rock and Roll Never Forgets.

According to Seger, he wrote this song after attending a high school reunion. “I wanted to just write an honest appraisal of where I was at that moment in time,” he said. “I was 31 years old and I was damn glad to be here.” He goes on, “A song like “Rock ‘n’ Roll Never Forgets” is just slammin’. When we play that song live people go nuts. At that point in my life I was 31 years old. And the first 10 or 11 years in my career I was making six, eight grand a year and just doin’ it because I loved the music. So I’m writing for Night Moves and I just felt grateful; here I am and I’m starting to make it. You know, rock ’n’ roll never forgets. You build up goodwill over 10 years and you set the stage. “Rock ‘n’ Roll Never Forgets” is a grateful song. I’m grateful to all the people I played for in those small clubs, on the top of cafeteria tables, in gymnasiums and in hockey rinks. Suddenly all those people came out and bought my records and said: “I remember him. I saw him at the high school or hockey rink.”

The song is about aging and the ongoing power of rock music. The song advises the 31 year old listener to return to the rock ‘n’ roll she loved when he/she was 16. The line, “All Chuck’s children are out there playing his licks” is a reference (and tribute) to Chuck Berry, the rock pioneer whose sound is in the DNA of many musicians how followed.

Rock and Roll Never Forgets

The very last single that Elvis ever released before his death was Way Down in June of 1977. It was recorded in the famous Jungle Room at Graceland. It was also a song that had a very interesting chart performance. The song peaked at number 31 on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart at the beginning of August, fell to number 52 by the end of August, and after his death, it climbed back up to number 18 before falling again.

Way Down

In July of 1977, Foreigner released Cold As Ice. It was one of the many songs I remember buying on 45 and spinning on my little record player. It was written by Lou Gramm and Mick Jones.

According to Wiki, “Cold as Ice” was a replacement for a song that was intended for Foreigner but which producer Gary Lyons didn’t feel fit the album. According to Mick Jones “I went home after Gary said this, sat down at my piano and out came the riff for Cold As Ice. And the rest of the song flowed from there.” Lyons said that “When I got back, they played me Cold As Ice and it worked for me. So we went into Atlantic Studios one night to cut it.” According to Ian McDonald, “Gary and I were in there all night working on the vocals. And when we got out of the studio we discovered that a blizzard had been raging. Everywhere was covered in snow, and we heard on the radio that it had been coldest night in New York on record! Somehow that seemed to be a good omen for the song.”

Cold As Ice

One of the biggest movies of 1977 was Star Wars. It comes as no surprise to me that the main title theme was a Top 10 hit!

What can you say about composer John Williams? He conducted this score with the London Symphony Orchestra, but his main orchestra was the Boston Pops Orchestra, with which he conducted other famous film themes. This theme won him a simultaneous Oscar, Golden Globe, BAFTA, Saturn, and Grammy award. THAT is amazing!!

Star Wars Main Title

The next song was released in August of 1977 and people STILL dance to it today! Brick House epitomizes the funky side of the Commodores, who could switch between uptempo R&B and easy listening by swapping singers. “Brick House” was sung by their drummer Walter Orange, with Lionel Richie on saxophone.

In a way, the Commodores recorded it as a “radio edit.” This disco classic is about a woman with a great body. She is “Built like a Brick House.” Lionel Richie says that this is a play on the original phrase, “She’s built like a brick s–thouse.” That’s the reason for the pause with the horn fill between the words “brick” and “house.”

Brick House

A few songs ago, I mentioned the last single Elvis released before his death. For those who have been following this blog a while, you know where I was the night Elvis died. My family was at a drive-in movie theater waiting for the sun to go down when the radio broke the news that he had passed away. The movie we were there to see? Smokey and the Bandit.

The song’s lyrics tell the basic plot of the movie (leaving out the runaway bride element) of making a 28-hour round-trip run from Atlanta, Georgia, to Texarkana, Texas and back to illegally transport 400 cases of Coors beer for an after-race celebration put on by Big and Little Enos.

Back when Max from the PowerPop Blog was hosting a song draft, East Bound and Down was my pick. Here is that blog if you would like to read it:

Song Draft – Pick #2 – East Bound and Down – Jerry Reed

East Bound and Down

In October of 1977, Johnny Paycheck released a David Allen Coe song that expressed what many a worker felt about their employer/employment. Take This Job and Shove It was a number one country hit for Paycheck and the phrase took on a life of its own in pop culture.

This was one of the songs that was on Paycheck’s Greatest Hits Volume 2 that my grandfather and dad always played up north.

Take This Job and Shove It

The next song makes the list because I became familiar with it not by Billy Joel, but by the wedding band my dad played in. I can’t tell you how many times my brother and I sat and watched TV while the band practiced new songs. Just The Way You Are was one of them.

According to Joel, some listeners missed the point and thought the song was misogynistic because he was telling a woman she wasn’t “allowed” to change. “No, no, no. Don’t go changing to try and please me,” he told SiriusXM in 2016. “People forget these things. If they don’t like what I do, they’ll go, ‘Oh yeah, he hates women. Look at this. Don’t change, stay the way you are, the same old someone that he knew. Wow, he really doesn’t like her. ‘Don’t change for me. You wanna change for yourself, fine. But you don’t have to change for me because I’m happy exactly the way you are. That’s why I love you in the first place.”

Billy wrote this song about his first wife, Elizabeth. A pure expression of unconditional love, he gave it to her as a birthday present. Sadly, after nine years of marriage, Joel and Elizabeth divorced in 1982. Joel’s next two marriages didn’t work out either: he was married to Christie Brinkley from 1985-1994, and to Katie Lee from 2004-2010. “Every time I wrote a song for a person I was in a relationship with, it didn’t last,” Joel said. “It was kind of like the curse. Here’s your song – we might as well say goodbye now.”

Just The Way You Are

The last song was bigger in 1978 because it was released in December of 1977. It is simply an amazing song. Lovely Day was written for Bill Withers’ Menagerie album.

Skip Scarborough was a songwriter and producer who worked with Earth, Wind & Fire, Patti Labelle, LTD, and many other R&B stars before his death in 2003. He wrote the music for this song, and was also the inspiration for the lyrics Withers came up with. In a Songfacts interview, Bill explained: “Skip was a very nice, gentle man. The way Skip was, every day was just a lovely day. He was an optimist. We’re all sponges in a sense. You put us around very nice people, and the nice things come out in us. You put us around some jerks, and we practice being jerks. We all adjust. Did you ever notice the difference in the way you speak to your grandmother or your best contemporary friend? If I had sat down with the same music and my collaborator had been somebody else with a different personality, it probably would have caused something else to cross my mind lyrically. It was a combination of the music and the person and the ambiance in the room.”

One of the highlights of the song is Bill holding a note for about 18 seconds at the end of the song! It may be one of the longest notes held by a singer on a pop song.

Lovely Day

So there you have it – 10 great songs from 1977. I’m sure there are plenty others I’ve missed. Can you name any? Next week, I will age another year and we’ll visit 1978. The sound of music will start to sound a bit different as we get closer and closer to the 1980’s.

See you then!