3MRM 2b: Funky White Madeleine

“Julia” While this reggae-pop schlock cover was unfamiliar, the original is, of course, old hat. Early in high school I taped The White Album off a continuous radio broadcast with my second clock/radio, which had all of one speaker, which crackled if you held a lighter near it (hey, 14 years old living in a town of 400 people, sumthin to do). The tape was a C-60, so it ran out somewhere during “Revolution No. 9”. This cassette and one of the Beatles’ “greatest 40 hits” taped from the same station, albeit with commercial interruption, were #1 and #2 in my 9th-grade rotation; in my head “Eight Days a Week” still runs out about 30 seconds early.

“The Breaks” With the exception of Blondie’s “Rapture” (mastering the cars/mars/etc. rhyme gained neighborhood esteem), rap didn’t come over the radio station I heard (only one pop station in town) in junior high, but I heard kids at school singing Blow’s “Basketball” and mimicking the Fat Boys’ Human Beat Box. But the second* pre-recorded cassette I ever owned, at the pitifully late age of 16, was Run-DMC’s Raising Hell, purchased for me in absentia by my Grandma for xmas, a choice that would’ve no doubt offended her, since she once hissed “Get Away!” at my sister for wearing a bikini. (Do you need to know all the words to “Hit It Run”? “You Be Illin’”?)

“The Stroke” My other sister really hated this, only she thought the chorus was “stroke man, stroke man”; wait, maybe that wasn’t her criticism, since she was about nine when it came out. Perhaps it was my friend who recycled his very cool (and cruel) older brother’s musical opinions, a guy who listened to the Clash, the Crass, and Fearless Iranians, and somehow knew in the early 80s that tattoos were the hipster future.

“Kiss” A shameful memory, as I heard the Tom Jones/Art Of Noise cover first. But I saw the real video soon thereafter, and it’s never fallen out of favor since. Fellow Minneapolitans, have you noticed how the interstate on-ramp caution lights blink exactly in time with this song? Coincidence?

“Rockit” Another video introduction in the mid-80s: a video with robots, robots playing music. Shoulda been named “Scratchit,” though.

“China Girl” Found this a few months ago, online, intrigued by all the critical fuss about shantytown mash-ups. Hope her vocal style matures beyond all them, “yaaaaahs”. Excellent choice of butting the “Sweet Dreams” sample against “Don’t You Want Me”; synth texture so similar.

“Don’t You Want Me” Shouldn’t this have been on Music of the Robot 1970-85? In my head this song will always be tied to Steve Miller’s “Abracadabra”; they were ruling the airwaves when I first heard my favorite uncle say “shit” for the first time, splashing himself with something nasty out of a can he had picked up, I don’t know why, since we had no conception of recycling then. A year later he explained: “Now there are ‘songs’ and there are ‘tunes,’ the songs you really like. ‘Beat It’: Now there’s a tune.” This was the last time I saw him as he was killed in an accident not long after passing on this wisdom.

“20th Century Boy” First exposure: a commercial—Levi’s?—in 1990, I think, wherein the lead wore sideburns. Only lower class dudes had that sort of facial hair then, but still he looked cool, no doubt enhanced by that growmbling guitar, the sneery voices and saxes. And then that whole 90210 thing blew up, and everybody and their brother grew sideburns.

“Seven Nation Army” I have two other covers of this; a club version and the Flaming Lips’, which has amusing alternate lyrics (“goin ta florida/gonna bowl me a perfect game”). The original inspired a listening sensation just like when one of my roommates acquired the first Led Zeppelin box set (three (!) whole new songs; ultimately disappointing). Elephant was a lifesaver in Tanzania, when I needed rawk to cleanse the palate of a little too much bongo flava (in the city) or simp pop (wiener Dutch housemates: “I don’t know how you can lissen to dis; it iss so noisy.”).

“You Ought To Be With Me” This song was part of an early draft for my 3mrm volume. His falsetto, like the Reverend is polishing your ears with chamois made from angel hide. Bought the album (Call Me) in college in an effort to collect the pop canon, but shelved it after a few listens. A couple years later the cassette found its way into my car rotation during pizza delivery (thanks, humanities B.A.!) as a soothing break from funk and punk and non-tipping college students, and soon thereafter a song from it onto each and every comp tape I made for girls.

“Summer in the City” Inextricably intertwined with “Hot Child in the City” in my head. Must’ve come over the single speaker of my first clock/radio, an all-brown affair with a covering like tweed and a clock with hands. This machine had an amazing weakness: if a single thread inside was snipped, every function ceased working (hey, 13 years old living in a town of 12,000 people, sumthin to do).

“I’d Rather Be With You” After all the fun with him as a bassist with James Brown (“Soul Power”), Parliament (“Night of the Thumpasarus People”), and Dee-Lite (“Groove Is In the Heart”), I sprung for a Bootsy hits CD at the end of the pizza-driving era. But after I recorded the songs I liked, and sold it back, I’m not sure if I’ve ever listened to that tape again. He needs someone else to sing.

“She Drives Me Crazy” Is it fair that that Roland Gift got those cheekbones and that voice? The guy across the hall in my freshman dorm (nickname: “Scrotum”) played this, complained about his roommate shedding leg hair, re-used his snot tissues after they dried, and watched Night Court re-runs every day. Every day.

“Woman to Woman” Dre you cagey bastard!

“I Get Lifted” Another soft soul from the pizza-delivery years.

“I Won’t Back Down” Listened to the original on the floor of a high school friend’s room, a room with a hole (two?) punched in the wall by its inhabitant. Ah, adolescent rage.

*I only liked a single song on my first cassette, a blues mockery that makes me embarrassed to hear it now. That tape was James Taylor’s Greatest Hits. Really, it mostly made me queasy. Defense: You see, I liked a song of Taylor’s on the radio in ’86, though at first I had no idea who sang it. When I asked around trying to figure out the artist, one girl suggested maybe the Beastie Boys, ‘cause she knew they had an awesome song on the radio. I thought to myself that perhaps a band who decided to name themselves the Beastie Boys, whoever they were, probably didn’t carry such a sweet melody. When I finally solved the mystery my mom bought me the tape, which of course did not contain the song I wanted. That’s my excuse.