I heard this song while driving into work this week. When I am not listening to a book on tape or a sermon from a pastor friend, I am surfing through the channels on Sirius XM. Albert King’s tune, Born Under a Bad Sign was playing on BB King’s Bluesville. I had forgotten how much I liked it.
The song is considered a blues standard. Albert recorded it in 1967. In his book, Deep Blues, Robert Palmer said “the song also had strong crossover appeal to the rock audience with its synchronous bass and guitar lines and topical astrology reference.” It was recorded at Stax Records.
The song was written by Stax singer William Bell and Booker T. Jones. Bell said, “We needed a blues song for Albert King … I had this idea in the back of my mind that I was gonna do myself. Astrology and all that stuff was pretty big then. I got this idea that [it] might work.” Booker’s arrangement was unique in that it was dominated by an R&B-style bass/rhythm guitar line, which Bell claimed that he came up with “while fooling around on the guitar.”
The song was backed by Booker T and the MG’s and the Memphis Horns. Albert would jump in with vocals and guitar fills. Released in May of 1967, it would reach number 49 on the Billboard Top Selling R&B Singles chart.
Describing the song in an interview, Jones said, “At that time, my writing partner was William Bell. He came over to my house the night before the session. William wrote the words and I wrote the music in my den that night. That was one of my greatest moments in the studio as far as being thrilled with a piece of music. The feeling of it, it’s the real blues done by the real people. It was Albert King from East St. Louis, the left-handed guitar player who was just one of a kind and so electric and so intense and so serious about his music. He just lost himself in the music. He’s such a one of a kind character. I was there in the middle of it and it was exhilarating.”
The song is included on The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s list “500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll.” Rightfully so.
The first sequel to National Lampoon’s vacation was a disappointment. National Lampoon’s European Vacation lacked a lot of what the first movie had. Honestly, it is hard to believe that a second sequel was given the green light. Thankfully, it was.
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation opened in theaters on December 1, 1989. It opened at #2 at the box office (behind Back To the Future Part II). At the time of the film’s release, the film received mixed reviews. Over time, many have deemed it a Christmas classic.
The movie is based on John Hughes’ short story, “Christmas ’59”, published in National Lampoon. It tells the story of Clark Griswold’s efforts to have a good old-fashioned family Christmas. As with almost anything that happens to the Griswold’s, they take a hilarious turn for the worse. The movie was panned by critics when it was released, but over time it has reached Christmas “Classic” status.
Despite several popular songs being present in the film, no official soundtrack album was released. The musical Score for National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation was composed by Angelo Badalamenti. It is the only installment of the Vacation film series not to include Lindsey Buckingham’s “Holiday Road.” In its place is a song entitled “Christmas Vacation.”
The title song and opening credits are accompanied by an animated Santa Claus having various issues. This foreshadows the insanity that is part of the movie itself. The song’s music was written by Barry Mann (of Who Put the Bomp fame). The lyrics were written by Cynthia Weil. The song is performed by Mavis Staples, the last surviving member of the Staple Singers.
I asked some friends and asked them about Christmas Vacation. Each of them agreed that they would love to hear it on the radio. I couldn’t agree more. In the latest addition of Turntable Talk, there were a few songs picked that were never played on the radio. Each of those songs could easily be in a rotation. Maybe terrestrial radio would have issues, but it would work on many Sirius XM holiday channels.
Personally, I love it. It sounds festive and happy. I love Mavis’ vocal and the “Jing a ling” background singers. It is one of two songs from the movie I want to feature.
The other song that I love from the movie dates back to 1950. It is used in the scene where Clark is staring out the kitchen window daydreaming. He is envisioning all of the fun that will happen when he puts in a swimming pool.
The song, is Mele Kalikimaka by Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters. It was written in 1949 by R. Alex Anderson. Anderson recalled the inspiration for writing the song:
“Well, I’ll tell ya, a stenographer in our office, this was just before Christmas, and we are all leaving (5 o’clock), and she was next to me and she said, “Mr. Anderson, how come there’s no Hawaiian Christmas songs?” She said, “they take all the hymns and they put Hawaiian words to the hymns, but there’s no original melody.” Well, that spurred me right away – I thought, “what a good idea!” I thought this over, and over a period of a few days this came into my head, put it down on paper, and I’ve been singing it ever since.”
Bing Crosby was a frequent visitor and golf partner of Anderson. Anderson played the song for Crosby, who liked it so much that he surprised him with the 1950 recording.
Followers of this blog know that my wife can listen to Christmas music all year round. She will put her Pandora stations on shuffle when she is in the shower and Christmas music will play often. Well, this week Sirius XM launched quite a few Christmas music channels. I thought I would jot them all down for her so that she program them in her car.
Last night when I got home, I sat in the driveway and just punched from channel to channel writing down the Holiday channels. As I did this I stumbled on stations I didn’t know existed. To be fair, I have all my stations preset and have been listening to more books in the car so I haven’t really channel surfed in a while.
One of the stations I found has the potential to make car rides more pleasant. It is called Moonbug radio. It is basically nothing but toddler songs. The Wheels on the Bus, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and Rain Rain Go Away are all songs that Ella and Andrew love to sing along with. It isn’t something that I would listen to, but if the kids are in the car – I will be putting it on!
As I continued to surf, I came across another channel that was cool. It is Disney Hits.
It plays songs from Disney movies and Disney shows. As a matter of fact, I heard a song that my older boys and I used to love from the Phineas and Ferb TV show – Gitchee Gitchee Goo. They sang that all the time when they were younger. I actually sat and listened to the whole thing and smiled as it took me back to days on the couch watching the show with them.
I may have to go back and watch those shows again. It was SO good.
Anyway, the holiday channels are programmed now and I will tune in when I am ready to get in the spirit. It’s never too early, right?
This phrase is so true for me. It is true is a couple ways actually.
You can find many blogs I have written about the similarities between my father and I. He is my biggest influence in music, books, movies, and TV shows. When someone tells me that I am just like my dad, I take that as a compliment.
I remember my dad introducing me to Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin’s music. The Sinatra channel on Sirius XM is my go to music channel. My children were familiar with it because I always had it on in the car.
When my oldest son, Dante’ got his first job, he was working at an Italian restaurant. When I dropped in to see him one night, he pointed out a picture on the wall. I am almost 100% sure it was this one:
He liked talking about Frank. When he started hanging out with this girl he liked, he told me his was singing Sinatra songs to her. I wish I would remember which ones. Anyway, the other night he texted me something and we chatted back and forth. He asked me what I was doing and I told him I was reading a good book….
I just thought he would think it was cool. His response made me smile:
“I have that same book!”
I couldn’t believe it. He’d actually bought it at the store!
“You make me proud, son. I love that you dig Frank,” I told him.
Like father like son!
I told him that he needed to compile his top 10 Frank songs and I would do the same. Then we need to compare our lists! He loved the idea. Hopefully, we’ll go over those lists soon, when our work schedules allow us to get together.
I was driving home from work this morning and I was listening to some old time radio shows. Suspense has always been a favorite of mine. Around Halloween, Radio Classics on Sirius XM starts playing some classic “spooky” radio shows. One of the shows that almost always gets played is from Arch Obler’s “Lights Out” – Chicken Heart.
I became familiar with the Chicken Heart as a kid, but it wasn’t because of the show. I knew it as a classic comedy bit from Bill Cosby’s 1966 Wonderfulness Album.
This, along with many other Cosby albums, was something that my dad and I used to listen to all the time. In Cosby’s bit, he talks about being left home while his parents went out. He was supposed to stay in his room, but he would leave the room and listen to scary shows on the radio. He used the Chicken Heart as his example.
The original bit from Lights Out is only about 8 minutes long. Honestly, it’s not that scary. It’s actually kind of silly. Cosby, however, takes the bit and makes it hilarious. As someone who was more familiar with the Cosby version, when I heard the original on Sirius XM, I remember thinking, “Wow! That was really the premise for a show!!”
There is some uncertainty as to the date of the original broadcast, some say 1937 and some say 1938. Here for your listening pleasure is Chicken Heart from Lights Out ….
Now, compare it with the much funnier version as presented by Bill Cosby…
As I listened back to this bit before writing this post, it made me think of all the great comedy albums we used to listen to growing up. So many laughs ….
This blog is part of Turntable Talk, a feature created by Dave at A Sound Day.
Since I started this blog four years ago, I have wanted to write a blog about The Beatles. Outside of a few “mentions” and a couple guest blogs from my buddy Max, I have just never tackled a Beatle Blog. So let me tell you how I was finally “forced” to write about the boys from Liverpool.
Of the many blogs I follow, many of them are musically oriented. One of those is A Sound Day. Dave is the author, and you can follow Dave’s blog here: https://soundday.wordpress.com/
Dave reached out to a few of us and had an idea for a monthly blog topic. The topic would be music oriented and geared toward something that we’d all be familiar with. Each of us will write on that and it will be featured on his blog. The first topic suggested was “The Beatles – why are we talking about them 50 (+) years on?”
With that being a “base” to start with, we were given the option to write about (1) why they are still relevant (2) why they remain popular (3) is their popularity justified, etc… The Beatles themselves was the “prompt” and we can veer off how we want to. That being said, the questions that Dave presented are among many “sub” topics that I have in my notebook (Beatles Cover Songs, Songs covered by the Beatles, Favorite album, Top 10 favorites, etc…)
I have to admit, I had a difficult time trying to decide what angle I was going to go with. Then I began to think, “What if someone was unfamiliar with The Beatles? How would I introduce that person to their music? If I could only pick 10 of their songs to give an overall picture of the group, what would they be?” I made a list. This blog will reflect that list.
Before I go on, let me say that I hate my list! I cannot even begin to tell you how much I struggled to narrow it down to 10 songs that encompassed what I felt expressed why the Beatles were so fantastic. Oh, the songs that I cut from my list! There are SO many fantastic songs, and no doubt, you will question why certain ones did not make this list. I found myself questioning that, too.
After editing, re-editing, adding and removing songs, and editing again, I finally said “This is the list. No going back.” Like it or not, here are the 10 songs that I chose to introduce someone to the Fab Four:
I Saw Her Standing There
This has always been one of my favorite tracks. Paul’s “1-2-3-4” count off into the driving guitar grabs me every time. It was the first track of their first album – what a way to start an album! After all the years, I was still playing this at weddings and parties when I was DJing and it always filled the dance floor.
The story goes that Paul saw a teenage gal dancing the Twist at a dance and that event was the basis for this song. It is hard not to tap your foot as you listen to this one. (Side note: I feel the guitar solo in this song is kind of lame. The boys were still quite young at this time. Compare this solo with solos from songs just 3 years later and you can get a feel for just how far they came musically.)
If I Fell
When I think of the Beatles, I think of their harmonies. As I tried to pick songs, I tried to find one that showcased some of those harmonies. In a Playboy interview in 1984, Paul said If I Fell was recorded during “our close-harmony period.”
John called this his “first attempt at a ballad proper.” As a music guy, I love the chord changes in this song. Simple chords, diminished chords, and some ninth chords are all featured in the song. It is simple, yet complex.
On a personal note, after my divorce, I heard this song on the Beatles channel on Sirius XM just as my current wife and I were starting to date. I related to these lyrics. Who isn’t scared about starting a new relationship after being hurt by someone?
Got To Get You Into My Life
Brian Epstein wrote in his 1964 autobiography that the Beatles were turned down by Decca Records. He was told “guitar groups are on their way out.” I chose this song because it shows that they were more than just a guitar group. This was the first time the group ever used a horn section in one of their songs.
Paul admits that the song is an ode to marijuana. That is certainly not why it made my list. I’ll be honest, I never would have guessed that. I always heard it as a guy wanting a girl. I guess I’m just dumb. I chose it because, as a horn player, I loved the brass in it.
I’ll Follow The Sun
As you can see by the photo above, the song is credited to both Lennon and McCartney as writers, but the truth is that Paul wrote it. He remembered, “I wrote that in my front parlour in Forthlin Road. I was about 16. ‘I’ll Follow the Sun’ was one of those very early ones. I seem to remember writing it just after I’d had the flu and I had that cigarette. I remember standing in the parlour, with my guitar, looking out through the lace curtains of the window, and writing that one.”
He said that the group was always ready to sound different. They didn’t want to get into a place where all their songs sounded the same. This one certainly was a very different sound. I love the guitar work in this one. It is beautiful. This is another song that features some good Paul/John harmonies.
Eight Days A Week
This is a song that never left my list. It has always been one of my top Beatles songs. It’s a feel good song. I love the message of this song – There aren’t enough days in a week to show how much he cares about his love.
This was the group’s second #1 song in the US. It is just a solid Beatles pop song. It’s hard NOT to like it. There are varying stories as to how they came up with the title. Some sources say it was a “Ringoism,” something Ringo said that struck a chord with John and Paul. Another source says that Paul was in a car and he asked the chauffeur how he was. The driver supposedly replied, “working hard – working eight days a week.”
It is one of many Beatles songs that features “hand clapping.”
Something
While the bulk of the Beatles songs were penned by Lennon and McCartney, George Harrison was responsible for writing some fantastic songs. A perfect example is Something. It is what some call “the perfect love song.” Frank Sinatra (who never really had a lot of nice things to say about the Beatles) even called it “the greatest love song of the past 50 years.”
George says he wrote it “on the piano while we were making The White Album. I had a break while Paul was doing some overdubbing so I went into an empty studio and began to write. That’s really all there is to it, except the middle took some time to sort out.” George actually gave the song to Joe Cocker a year before they cut it.
The song was George’s first single and first number 1. It has been covered by many artists, and George has said that his favorite cover was done by James Brown!
A Hard Day’s Night
This song had to be on my list. Musicologist Alan Pollack says that this song “arguably holds a place within the upper echelon of the Beatles catalog.”
According to A Hard Day’s Write, Ringo is quoted as saying, “I came up with the phrase ‘a hard day’s night.’ It just came out. We went to do a job and we worked all day and we happened to work all night. I came out, still thinking it was day and said, ‘It’s been a hard day…’ looked around, saw that it was dark and added…’ ‘s night.”
There is a lesson in this song – If you work hard, romantic and domestic bliss will follow.
This song gets me from that opening chord! It’s also one of the great cowbell songs of our time!
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
This one is another George Harrison composition. Some have called this his greatest song. To me, this is a great example of just how mature the group had become in 4 years. The guitar work in this song is fantastic (Eric Clapton appears on the song). I love the interplay between the piano and high hat cymbal in the intro.
When I worked in Classic Rock, someone played me a clip of a comedian (can’t remember who) who goes off on classic rock radio. He says that there are more classic rock songs that “Stairway to Heaven,” “Layla,” and “While My Guitar gently Weeps.” This is funny, but it is a good example of just how popular this song is with music fans.
Yesterday
This song has the distinction of being covered by more artists than any other song in history. Paul calls it his “most successful song” and says that it is “amazing that it came to me in a dream.” Paul stated that he had the melody from the dream but didn’t have the words – so he “blocked it out with ‘Scrambled Eggs’.”
The sheer beauty of this song is in the arrangement. It is Paul, a guitar and a string quartet – and it works. It is hard to imagine it any other way (despite the countless covers). When Paul played it for the group, Ringo said it didn’t need any drums and John and George said it didn’t need any more guitar, and from there, it became the first “solo” song.
Fun Fact: The four members of the string quartet had never played together as a group before they played on the session.
Hey Jude
Right up until the time I was ready to start writing, the final question I had was – “Let it Be” or “Hey Jude”? Which one do I include? In the end, Hey Jude won out because it is sort of an anthem. It is a stand alone Beatles song. It’s like none other.
At 7 minutes long, it is what radio people called a “bathroom song.” Before the days of automation, DJ’s had to start a new record when one ended. Today, computers do that for them and they can walk away from the computer or studio for 10 minutes at a time as long as they didn’t have to talk. Back in the day, though, that wasn’t the case.
If you really stop and think about it, the song itself is only 3 minutes long. The last 4 minutes is just a refrain and fade out. The end of the record is longer than the song itself!
The song was written by Paul for John Lennon’s son Julian, who was then 5 years old. He was upset about his father and mother getting a divorce. It was written to help console him. Julian said, “It’s hard to imagine that this man was thinking about me and my life so much that he wrote a song about me…If I’m in a bar and the song comes on the radio, I still get goose pimples.”
I was dead set on Let it Be being the final song, until I listened back to both. Hey Jude is more “Beatles” to me, in that we have great lyrics, great instrumentation, and great harmonies. Let It Be, almost falls into that “solo” status, as it is pretty much Paul.
In Conclusion
After writing on these 10 songs, I looked back over my initial list of like 50 songs. It makes me sad that I didn’t include some of them. Others, I had on the list just because I liked them. Should I have added a Ringo vocal song? There were some good ones, but … no.
So back to Dave’s question: “The Beatles – why are we talking about them 50 (+) years on?”
Their stuff from 1964 still sounds fresh and stands out. People still request their songs, sing along with their songs, and dance to their songs! Movies are being made about them (Yesterday, Get Back). Their albums still sell. They have their own Sirius XM channel. The only answer I can come up with is “Because they are THAT good.”
Thanks, Dave for allowing me to take part in this! I look forward to reading the other posts from you and my music blogger friends.
I’m out! I got “Whammed” on Tuesday by a co-worker.
Another co-worker and I were just talking about this on December 1st. Do you play Whamageddon? Do you even know what it is? If not, I’ll tell you.
It’s probably one of the stupidest and silliest games of the holiday season. The objective? Avoid hearing Last Christmas by Wham from December 1st to December 25th (although there are some people who try to avoid it the entire month of December).
Here are the rules:
When I was working part time at Cars 108, it was especially difficult to avoid hearing it, because the station played all Christmas music during the holidays. However, now that Covid has pretty much forced my retirement from radio, I have a bit more control over things.
Yes, I still do flip through the channels on the radio, but it is mostly Sirius XM stations that probably wouldn’t play the Wham version. However, there were times that my wife and I were driving where we were scanning through local stations and the risk factor was higher. I thought for sure if I was gonna be “Whammed” it would be driving in the car, but that is not what happened.
One of our co-workers was listening to a variety of music on YouTube Tuesday night. I know for a fact that she was here the night me and my other co-workers were talking about Whamageddon. Whether she heard the discussion or not, I don’t know.
She was playing Christmas songs of her choice – meaning, she was searching and then selecting the songs to play. She literally turned to us and said, “Here’s one for you” and started Wham! My buddy and I looked at each other and were like, “Really!? Why would you play that?!” She said she had no idea about the game. That was NOT the way I thought I’d lose the game! I am sure that there was a look of disgust and defeat on our faces!
I suppose I’ll give it a go again next year … Maybe I can go longer than 15 days!
I feel like I haven’t really blogged about “life” lately. I kinda feel like I haven’t really even had a minute to sit down and write. Between wacky schedules at work and an even wackier sleep schedule, writing has been a challenge. So here are some highlights from the past couple weeks….
Right after Halloween, Sirius XM radio launched a bunch of their holiday channels and the Christmas music was readily available.
I took advantage of a rare 60 degree November day and put up the outside Christmas lights. I know, I know, people think I am rushing the season. The truth is, I don’t like putting them up in the cold. They have been up for a couple weeks now, and the only time I have turned them on is to make sure they looked ok.
The side porch takes the most lights. I always check the strands before stringing them up to make sure they work. For some reason, one of the strands had a cluster of lights in the middle that didn’t light up. Both ends lit up, but not the ones in the middle. I went through and tested bulbs, but couldn’t find the problem. So I put them up anyway! I just made sure the unlit portion of the lights was covered by lights I knew worked!
We don’t do much to the front porch, though I’d like to. I got razzed about how I didn’t get up and string lights on the roof by some friends. I’ve never been a fan of heights, so, these are the highest my lights will go. Besides, I only have a three step ladder!
Baby Milestone
AJ celebrated being one month old a week or so ago. It is amazing to come home from work and see just how different he looks to me after only one day! He is much more alert and his sister just loves him! He is starting to take notice of a lot of things around him. Recently he discovered the mobile on his swing.
Holiday Tradition
Every year, we take a trip up the Bronner’s Christmas Wonderland in Frankenmuth (“The World’s Largest Christmas Store”) and get an ornament for the Christmas tree that represents a big event from the past year. Sam and I have one for our engagement, our first Christmas as husband and wife, when Sam was pregnant with Ella, Ella’s first Christmas, and now we needed to go and get one for AJ’s first Christmas.
Obviously, life at our house is pretty crazy with two little ones. We had planned to all go to Bronner’s as a family day trip. AJ was napping and Sam suggested that Ella and I go, since we knew exactly what we wanted. There is an ornament that is exactly like Ella’s except it is blue for a baby boy.
Finding the ornament took all of 5 minutes. The line to get it personalized was long and we stood in line for almost 30 minutes (Thank goodness I had the PBS app on my phone, so Ella didn’t lose her mind waiting!). I had pictures of Ella’s ornament and how they did hers, and we wanted AJ’s to be done the same way. Ella and I walked around a little bit while they worked on the ornament. There are plenty of photo ops throughout the store and outside.
It was close to lunch time, so we snapped a couple pictures, picked up the ornament, and drove home. I hope to be able to take a drive up there one night when the lights are all lit up and grab a couple pictures.
Later that day, I took advantage of nap time and brought the tree up from downstairs. We’ve been trying to decide where to put it this year. We’ve moved everything around in our living room two or three times due to the addition of Ella toys or furniture, so it was unclear where it would go. There is a little nook in our living room where we had moved a lot of her toys, easel, toybox, etc…. We decided to find somewhere else for those things and that the tree should go there.
So, the tree is up and the lights are on it. However, we will decorate it this weekend or next weekend. I did have some help with the lights as I put it up …
…and, of course, little brother had to get into the act …
I’m excited for the holidays this year. Ella is at the perfect age for unwrapping presents! It is going to be a fun holiday season ….
April is National Humor Month and I only recently discovered that Sirius XM had added a comedy channel that I really have enjoyed. The Comedy Classics channel can be found for a limited time on Channel 104. Here is what Radio Insight quoted from the press release:
This is not a prank: SiriusXM announced today a new channel, Comedy Classics, that will honor timeless stand-up from the 1950s-1970s. The line-up includes iconic moments from legends who shaped the landscape and defined comedy for generations. The limited run channel is available now on SiriusXM channel 104.
Building on SiriusXM’s enormous classic stand-up library, the channel will add material from legendary comedians like Bob Hope, Jonathan Winters, and the infamous Friars Club Roasts that paved the way for the comedy that we love today. SiriusXM’s Comedy Classics now pays tribute to these icons showcasing their immense talent and funniest moments. In addition to the aforementioned legends, each week the channel will spotlight both never-before-heard and rare stand-up highlights that haven’t been heard in decades, featuring comedy from Jackie Gleason, Buddy Hackett, The Smothers Brothers, Flip Wilson, and more.
Also not to be missed are Bob Hope’s Thanks for The Memories special, stand-up from The Garry Moore Show, and the Colgate Comedy Special featuring Nipsey Russel, Rowan & Martin, Carl Reiner, Mel Brooks, and more.
“Whether you’re feeling nostalgic, looking to discover the roots of modern-day comedy, or just hankering for a great laugh, Comedy Classics will appeal to a wide range of listeners,” said Jack Vaughn, SiriusXM’s Senior Vice President of Comedy Programming. “The era provided such a wealth of amazing talent, material, and inspiration that we had to properly honor it with its very own channel.”
Comedy Classics is available now on channel 104, and will subsequently be available exclusively on the SiriusXM app and desktop player.
What I have really enjoyed is hearing some of the early stand up stuff from guys like Jon Byner, Buddy Hackett, Johnny Carson, Richard Pryor and more. Some of these cuts are taken from the Ed Sullivan Show and other TV appearances. Others are cuts from classic comedy albums. What I enjoyed listening to the most are the cuts from the Friar’s Roasts and the Dean Martin Roasts.
Some of the material is dated and some of it might be considered “politically incorrect” today, but I found myself enjoying much of it!
I ran out this afternoon before work to grab dinner for Sam and me. I turned on Sirius XM’s 50’s on 5 channel for the short trip and got a pleasant surprise – back to back songs from Ray Charles. Not only are both songs fantastic, they also were used in two very memorable TV and movie scenes.
Night Time Is The Right Time
This is a song that was recorded way back in 1937 by a guy named Roosevelt Sykes. It was redone in 1957 by Nappy Brown and in 1958 by Ray Charles. Nappy said that the difference between his version and Ray’s was that his was slower and had a gospel group backing him, while Ray’s version was more uptempo and had Margie Hendrix and his Raelettes backing him.
In 1985, “Night Time Is the Right Time” made cultural history when it became the centerpiece of one of the most beloved episodes of The Cosby Show. In this episode, It was lip-synched by the Huxtable family to celebrate their grandparents’ 49th wedding anniversary. In 1997, TV Guide ranked this episode number 54 on its ‘100 Greatest Episodes of All Time’ list.
Mess Around
Mess Around is a song that was written by the president and founder of Atlantic Records. It was actually one of Ray Charles’ first hits, released in 1953. It is a classic boogie woogie blues song that is just fun to listen to. The song was covered by the Animals and the 80’s group, Squeeze. Jools Holland, an original member of Squeeze, said Ray Charles was so impressed that they were doing a version, Ray sent the band his suit.
The song is featured in the 1987 John Hughes classic, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. It plays on the radio as John Candy’s character (Del Griffith) is driving a car at night while Steve Martin’s character (Neal Page) sleeps. John Candy is “dancing” along and playing piano on the dashboard in the scene.
What a joy to hear these two songs back to back today.
Various Ramblings of a Nostalgic Italian 