After all of these years, these specific performances still hit me right in the feels.
A collection of random artists and songs from my youth and first in a series of posts like this where I maybe touch on a few performances you may have forgotten about. Staying away from the iconic here; that is to say, these are not posts where you’ll see Freddie Mercury at Live Aid or Nirvana on MTV. 🙂
Cyndi Lauper – All Through The Night
I love this performance so much. Ever the showwoman, Cyndi Lauper starts off low and slow, lying down on the stage before showing us her rock and roll, complete with some sort of half windmill motion and a bit of an Irish jig during the instrumental break before bringing it home with the delicate finish. It all comes together in a way that is so weirdly her and you just know that she had the whole audience in the palm of her hand.
Peter Gabriel – In Your Eyes – Live In Athens
Out of all the live performances of this song, it’s this one I crown king. The vibrancy of the dancing, the genuine joy during the duet and a killer ending with the lights. This is one I wish I was in the audience for.
Accept no substitutes, there are a few versions of this on YouTube but this one brings you right to the end.
Foreigner – Hot Blooded
This is in the 1978 time capsule for sure. Every note killed, every riff slayed. So much energy poured into this performance.
Phil Collins – In The Air Tonight
You know it’s coming, which is why it’s so exciting to see him sitting down at the start of the song. The intimacy in front of such a large crowd and over four minutes of anticipation as he slowly gets up and works the stage and makes his way to his drums.
4:26 if you want to fast forward, but I recommend that you don’t. The anticipation is all the fun in the one.
Harry Belafonte – Day-O
And maybe it’s because I’ve had Harry Belafonte on the turntable for the last little while, but this performance is not only amazing from Belafonte, but the Fozzie just cracks me up in it, especially during the call and response.
Any performance pieces you’d recommend? Let me know in the comments!
The first track off of 100% Fun, “Sick Of Myself”, brings me back to summer in the mid-90’s.
A friend of mine played baseball, somewhere above rec league and below any actual minor league, and a few of us would often head out to local ball parks on warm summer nights and watch him play against a team we had never heard of with a bunch of other people we didn’t know.
It was a lot more fun than it sounds.
There would be gnats and mosquitos and uncomfortable bleachers, but there would also be snacks, flasks and, most importantly, music. We would sit up there on those bleachers passively interested in the game and appropriately congratulatory and otherwise depending on its outcome when it was done, but we would just sit up there and talk about life, love and everything that spins off of both those topics which is to say, everything.
I remember one park in particular that had a whole announcer setup with proper speakers and they played “Sick Of Myself” while the players were warming up on the field and tossing the ball around. There was an ice cream truck nearby and it was a perfect summer evening.
It’s a happy summer song with a sadness to the lyrics and I’ve always loved that juxtaposition. It’s perfect pop music.
“I’ll throw away a chance at greatness, just to make this, dream come into play.
Sitting there in those bleachers… it’s place in my memory that I like to crawl back up and into anytime I’m feeling a bit down.
Good friends and good times.
The name for the album is also a juxtaposition in and off itself. Sweet wanted to call the album 100% Fun after people said that Altered Beast was so dark, ready to run with the idea and make a pure pop album. It wasn’t until after that when Kurt Cobain died and used the term in his suicide note as well. (Further reading / Source)
In his pursuit of a perfect pop album, there are many who think he absolutely succeeded.
This album is so much more than the radio megahit, and listening to the cassette this morning I surprised myself that I remembered more words than I would have previously guessed.
And that was before I cracked open the liner notes. God I miss liner notes. Lyric videos on YouTube just aren’t the same.
“Not When I Need It” is the perfect number two song to follow the sadness disguised as happiness that is “Sick Of Myself”. We are immediately brought down in tempo, but not too slow. Sweet’s clear vocals give you everything you need to sing along and when the first chorus comes in with it’s call and response, you’re singing it just as loud as any part of “Sick Of Myself”.
This song verges on Treble Charger territory but with a sweeter voice, pun fully intended.
“We’re The Same” sounds like it should have been on a 90’s movie soundtrack and I’m honestly surprised it wasn’t. Maybe something starring Mike Myers. A gentle Rom-Com, heavier on the Com than the Rom. File this one away if you’re making a movie like that.
“Giving It Back” is a perfect breakup song. Simple, short with to the point lyrics.
“I’m tired of wasting my time away, so I’m giving it back to you.
“Everything Changes” slows us right down, which is something you need in a pop album to give it a bit of range and depth; however, it’s a tad too slow for my liking and I’m reminded now that I would normally fast forward this song about half way through, because right when you think it should end, there is a whole second half coming at you.
Which explains why I hardly remembered any words to “Lost My Mind” when I heard it again this morning; I’m pretty sure partway through “Everything Changes” I would fast forward all the way through to the end so that I could start Side B.
“Come To Love” starts off Side B strongly, a bit more up tempo and some sweet harmonies and call and response that you can easily sing along to.
How good is the second song on Side B, “Walk Out?”
If you’re not familiar with this song, have a listen. I hear a little 54-40, a little Hip, I like the term “haunting rock” for this song.
It’s just a damn good song.
And following that we are right into “I Almost Forgot”. Now HERE is the slow song this album needed.
Sweet pours his heart into the lyrics and this recording and I love the rhythm of the verses. It’s harder to sing along to than you might suspect but when you nail it, it feels so good. This song makes me FEEL FEELINGS.
And then it ends almost suddenly and, the opposite to “Everything Changes”, you want it to keep going.
“Super Baby” is not in my memory. I have no recollection of this song. Listening to it today, it is an average song and I think maybe I used to listen to it on my walkman while still humming “I Almost Forgot” for a second time in my head.
But that humming clearly didn’t last for two songs because I love “Get Older”. I read the lyrics again today and this song has moved into fourth favourite on this album. I love the idea of singing a pop song to a younger version of yourself, painting a vision that you’ll both understand everything you need to, but enjoy the time you have now.
“Who cares if they don’t think your cool?
They make everything about rules
And your older than that now
Get older
The world will fall into its place
You may be sad
When you get older
You might be happy just to stay
Who cares if you don’t know what you want
‘Cause they don’t know what they’ve got
And you cannot resist
Get older
Your memories won’t slip away
And you’ll be glad
When you get older
That you were happy for today
Who cares?
Get older
The world will fall into its place
You may be sad
When you get older
You might be happy just to stay
Resist
Get older
Your memories won’t slip away
And you’ll be glad
When you get older
That you were happy for today
Who cares?
If you don’t know what you want
If you don’t know what you want
If you don’t know what you want
If you don’t know what you want”
Last we have “Smog Moon” and it’s the perfect last song for the album.
I never saw Sweet live but I can imagine this being an encore song. It’s intimate and big at the same time and I can feel the theatrical possibilities through the imagery.
Watch this.
There’s a reason this cassette is featured in the main stack photographed for the site logo.
If you need me, I’ll be here with my eyes closed, sitting in those bleachers.
And to close, just because it bangs, here is “Sick Of Myself” again, Live on Letterman.
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Further Reading
In writing this I came across this entry on Certain Songs… I love reading about other people’s experiences with music that means so much to me, and especially enjoyed the memories around “Smog Moon” shared here.
Age 14, I had heard of Meat Loaf but didn’t really know the words to a lot of his songs and could maybe only name four or five. This was still two years before he would burst back onto the pop culture main stage with Bat Out Of Hell II and the epic song that was everywhere.
I knew Bat Out Of Hell was a huge album and I remembered liking what I had heard, especially “Pair Of Dice By The Dashboard Light”.
I had never heard a song with a baseball play by play in it before and the sexual metaphor was absolutely not lost on me, but I still thought it was completely plausible for the song to be called “Pair Of Dice By The Dashboard Light” because if you’re making out in the front seat of a car, this could ostensibly be your view.
This was way before google and the ability to easily find any song, including the lyrics, so all I had to go on was the radio announcer and any casual conversations where the song was mentioned, which were very few. It wasn’t until the cassette came in the mail that I realized what the song was called. I’ve never mentioned this to anyone, ever, I simply just changed my pronunciation moving forward and it was as if I had always known the proper title of the song.
I still have the cassette and holding it this morning brings me right back to those summer nights, lying down on my waterbed, listening to my walkman, marveling at how absolutely epic this album was. I remember feeling that this was the first album I’d heard that told a complete story, the songs connected, though separate. It was because Meat Loaf was 100% in character in every single song and it felt like you were following them all on the same journey of love and rock and roll.
And I do not remember the last time I saw this video, but it has been a loooong time.
Thoroughly enjoyable, and hilarious. Especially when he is trying to buy time before confessing anything remotely like forever love.
That same sense of humour kills me in another favourite, “Two Out Of Three Ain’t Bad”.
Imagine telling a girl, actually saying these words out loud, that you want her and you need her, but you’re never going to love her.
Oh, and that’s okay because two out of three ain’t bad.
If Bat Out Of Hell was catching lightning in a bottle, can we agree that Meat Loaf caught lightning twice?
“I Would Do Anything For Love” came out on Bat Out Of Hell II in 1993. Grunge was everything, Alternative music was blowing up, Rap and Hip-Hop are mainstream, and here you have a seven minute plus rock opera that you could just. not escape.
And with it, another misheard lyric and I’m going to use that whole “I was today years old” bit because it is actually true.
Watching the music video again today, at the 3:50 mark and thanks to the transcription, I was today years old when I realized the lyric is “Maybe I’m lonely, that’s all I’m qualified to be.”
My entire life before today I sang: “Maybe I’m lonely, that’s all a pile of fat can be.”
Watch the video and close your eyes and tell me you don’t hear it too.
A legend lost for sure and a unique impact on rock and roll like no-one else I can think of.
What is your favourite Meat Loaf song and why?
Also, I can’t be the only one to have misheard Meat Loaf – are there any other lyrics out there that have confused anyone over the years?
I still cannot hear the opening lines of “King of Pain” without thinking of a little boy with a bowl cut and a jean jacket, I want to say his name was Dennis, running around the schoolyard when I was in the first grade singing, at the top of his lungs, “There’s a little brown spot in my underwear…!!!!”
And I sincerely hope that sharing that memory does not do that to the song for you moving forward. The song deserves much better than that.
That was my first, unofficial, introduction to The Police.
The official introduction would come the next weekend when I repeated the lyric at home and my dad made me sit down and listen to the actual song.
I loved The Police and I loved Sting’s voice, a trait shared by most 30-something mothers in the 80’s, I’m sure, because Sting was on constant rotation in our house. While my mother ultimately preferred the rasp of Rod Stewart, the punk and reggae styles made The Police the much cooler option.
And when “All For One” came out in 1993, well, let me just say, heads exploded in my house.
But I’m getting ahead of myself and feeling slightly ashamed that “All For One“ is the first video link in a post about Sting.
(Of course I can absolutely edit and change this, but what does it say about me that I haven’t?)
First, at age six, I thought there was no cooler band name than The Police, because even at that age I could tell there was a bit of irony to the name, even though I didn’t yet know what irony was. These were not the uniformed good guys. These guys were rebellious.
I was eight when Band-Aid released “Do They Know It’s Christmas” and this was a big deal in our house. My dad was from the Isle of Wight and a proud Briton and I remember him telling me about each of the artists in the song. We watched Live Aid on our little 13 inch TV set in the living room of our small apartment and I get goose bumps on my arms now just thinking about how incredible that was. The most amazing thing I had ever seen on television.
When Sting’s first lyric comes up in the song, I still emphasize the fact that he sings his own name when I sing along to the song today.
Okay, just for kicks and saves you a search, 1:25 into the video below:
Fast forward to age 14 and I had my own money from my own job and there was a flyer in the TV Guide for a music-buying club called Columbia House. After reading through all of the fine print with my parents, I took the plunge and put in my first order.
Eight cassettes for a penny each, then of course you had to buy X many more at $X in X amount of time, but those first eight cassettes… to date one of the most difficult decisions I’ve ever had to make in my life.
The first pick was easy though: The Police – Every Breath You Take: The Singles.
I filled in the little circle next to that title so fast that I actually had to catch myself, because I now only had seven choices left.
The prevailing argument was to go for collections. If you were going to get eight cassettes for a penny, the bang for the buck was to make sure each one was full of gold.
I still have them all (I took this picture this morning) and, for general interest, here were the first eight tapes I chose:
But back to The Police.
I had them now, literally in my pocket. “Message In A Bottle”, “Roxanne” and “Every Breath You Take” were easy adds to the mix tapes I would make for Mother’s Day every year. I’m shocked the tape still works, given how many times I played it.
Whenever I would hear Sting speak in an interview, or read something about him, I would always come to the same conclusion: he is effortlessly the coolest man alive.
Not a very deep conclusion, I admit, but that’s what I come away with.
In person, Sting seems to take himself much less seriously than the public image of him would have us believe. Given all the flak he has attracted over the years in the press, does he care what people think of him?
“In some ways I consider it an advantage to know how other people view you. You’re under no illusions about how you’re thought of. You have to strike a balance: there’s people who can’t stand the sight of you, there’s people who really love you and obviously the truth is somewhere in the middle. That’s the passage I’m navigating… I don’t get unduly hurt. I might get a bit crazy…”
What – you might punch someone (the Police were well known for their impromptu back-stage fist-fights)? He gives a lazy smile. “No, I wouldn’t do that. I might rehearse it in my mind, but I wouldn’t do it.”
I haven’t listened to Sting or The Police in years. I mean, sure, every Christmas his rendition of “I Saw Three Ships” from A Very Special Christmas 3 ranks right up there in our house as one of the best, but I haven’t really sought out what he’s been up to.
Until a couple of months ago.
One of the best YouTube rabbit holes I’ve discovered during the pandemic is the Tiny Desk concert series from NPR. So many great artists, so many new music finds, and such a small desk… I can spend hours watching these.
And one of the best by far is Sting and… wait for it…
Shaggy.
Seriously, do yourself a small favour and take the time to watch this entire 14 minute set.
This whole set had me smiling the entire time and reaffirmed that I STILL want to be Sting when I grow up.
His newest album, My Songs, has been downloaded and while on it’s front it could appear as though he is cashing in on re-recording some of his best work, as the people in that first article linked to might have you believe, I have an incredible respect for the nostalgic take and thoughtfulness that went into his choosing which songs told his own story.
Maybe it’s pretentious; more likely, Sting is doing his own thing in his own way knowing that his work will find its audience.
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Further Reading: My Songs
For a track by track walk-through of all the songs selected and re-recorded on My Songs, click here.
After writing only one post in the last three years, the jury was out on if I’d ever return to this format as a creative outlet.
I hadn’t even scratched the surface of the songs, soundtracks and setlists that had shaped me before the stress of life took over and I didn’t have the bandwidth to keep at this. I also made the mistake of going public with it, sharing posts and links across my other social media channels, and when people didn’t respond the way I had hoped, I started to question if I was doing anything of value here.
I had a breakdown, not because of the blog, but because work took over and completely consumed my life and I had the most stressful year of my career. Then I recovered, and then we had the pandemic, which quickly became the most stressful year of my career.
I took time off during those early days of the pandemic, when I was still fragile from the previous stresses, to remember what made me feel balanced in my life and what made me happy. The answer was simple: writing. I picked up the novel I had been working on since 2007 and I finished writing it. I started writing short stories again. I’ve just recently started a comic strip.
And all the while, Tape The Night just sat here, collecting internet dust. I’d renew the hosting every year thinking, “I should really pick that up again,” and on March 10th of this year, I almost did.
As we face this third wave of the pandemic and I am once again feeling knocked back a step or two, it’s time to get back to writing more regularly and, in the case of this blog, I write about what I want to learn about. The music that has been the soundtrack to my life has another level to it that I’m not conscious of when I’m singing with the windows rolled down or dancing in the kitchen. The stories behind the songs and the music makers, the meanings of the lyrics I have sung for decades without really stopping to think about them, this is why this site exists.
And I don’t care if I’m the only one who ever ends up reading this.
Tape The Night exists because I want to write it more than I want people to read it.
Having finally returned to that rationale and feeling that balance and synchronicity again inside me, all I can say to the nobody who will read this is: it’s good to be back.
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Weezer – Red Album
For me it goes Blue, Red, Pinkerton, in order, for top three Weezer albums, and one of the reasons for that is the album features the song, “Heart Songs”.
“Heart Songs” is one of Rivers’ most personal songs and everything about the song fills me up with the same emotions and sense of purpose that this blog does.
Nostalgia, inspiration, remembering who you were and how you came to be the person you are now… these are the themes I find extremely fulfilling to explore.
When the song hits the Nirvana verse and Rivers’ channels his best Cobain when he sings “had a baby on it”, I get that sense of elation… that’s the only word for it… because we already feel we know the end of the story he has been telling in the early verses and that moment is the validation that we’ve been right all along.
Rivers on Nirvana being such a huge inspiration and when he first heard Nirvana (from Rolling Stone):
“I was working at Tower Records on Sunset Boulevard in the spring of ’91, and another cashier, HarÂold, said, “Hey, Rivers, I know something you might like. It’s called Nirvana.” As soon as I heard “Mom and Dad went to a show” [from “Sliver”], I immediately started dancing around. It was exactly how I felt, and they were putting it to music. It inspired me to do the same thing.”
And then, after the Nirvana lyrics, the song brings the listener, you and I, right into it and we become a part of the story.
Make a record of our own
A song comes on the radio and now people go “This is the song”
It’s what I like to call, “The Bastian Moment”.
Weezer at the Warehouse was my first major concert. It was 1994, the Blue Album was exploding, the Happy Days infused video for “Buddy Holly” was on constant play on MuchMusic and Weezer was coming to Toronto that August. I had just turned 17 and had seen a number of bands and shows during the day (my first actual concert was The Pursuit of Happiness playing for free on a Saturday afternoon at the corner of Yonge and Shuter the year previous), but Weezer would be my first time going out with friends, at night, to a rock show.
I had never seen anything like it. The lights, the crowd, the wristbands for beers I couldn’t get, this was my first show.
And they killed it. I don’t think I stopped smiling for three days, which was right about when my ears stopped ringing.
To bring it all back, the Blue Album is FILLED with my own personal Heart Songs that I’m sure will populate future posts on this blog.
And I didn’t even know this prior to writing, but Weezer doesn’t play “Heart Songs“ live, so you won’t hear it at one of their shows.
I did come across this interview below with Rivers where there are a number of performances; fast-forward to the 24 minute mark to hear him speak about “Heart Songs” and then hear a mashup of “Heart Songs” and “In The Garage” that just rocks.
And that is why I write here: not only to remember what has shaped me and revel in the glow of nostalgia, but to peel back the layers a little and hopefully discover something new along the way.
