The Beat Goes On, Part XIX.

020. Lesley Gore “You Don’t Own Me”
(John Madara/Dave White Tricker)
1963
Available on Start the Party Again: The Ultimate Collection

Listening to girl groups with feminist ideology in mind is usually an exercise in getting pissed off, or at least in completely missing the point of the songs, which are high-drama camp, not One to Grow On. Except I bet a lot of feminists love this song, and while maybe that doesn’t really sound like a recommendation, it’s good to hear a song where the girl tells the guy to fuck off once in a while. Which wouldn’t matter if it weren’t such a perfect pop confection, of course. It’s all chilly, echoing chords and boiling crescendos — a noir version of Phil Spector — while Gore (of “It’s My Party” brat-pop fame) sings the verses like she’s pointing a gun at her asshole boyfriend and the choruses like she just pulled the trigger.



019. The Beach Boys “California Girls”
(Mike Love/Brian Wilson)
1965
Available on Sounds of Summer: The Very Best of the Beach Boys

Mike Love has a lot to answer for. Deservedly or not, he’s blamed by Smile obsessives the world over for that album’s 1967 burial (he certainly hated it at the time, and probably still does); he continues to tour with a bunch of anonymous backing doofuses in Hawaiian shirts as the Beach Boys, further destroying the legacy of what was once the greatest band in America; and as far as I can tell, anyone who’s ever met him thinks he’s a giant asshole. On the plus side, he wrote the lyrics to some of the Beach Boys’ most memorable songs. But then, are the lyrics what makes them memorable? The pocket symphony that opens “California Girls” is more impressive than the cheerfully misogynistic (but patriotically so!) lyrics that follow. Okay, “I dig a French bikini on Hawaiian island girls” has a certain charm. But that’s it. The man is still responsible for (shudder) “Kokomo.”



018. The Ronettes “You, Baby”
(Barry Mann/Phil Spector/Cynthia Weil)
1964
Available on The Best of the Ronettes

And then there’s this. If it’s possible to have a crush on a forty-year-old voice, I do. It’s an acquired taste, I suppose; I can barely remember being put off by Ronnie’s little-girl croak with a New York accent (least lovely of all accents), but I do remember that it happened. I also don’t remember when I changed my mind on the subject, but this song had something to do with it. Specifically, the “uh” at 2:25, also known as the most erotic moment in Sixties Pop, and yes, of course I’ve heard “Je T’Aime . . . Mais Non Plus.” Also: once I realized that Ronnie’s woah-ohs were imitated by Bruce Springsteen in “Born to Run” and Elvis Costello in “Oliver’s Army,” I had to fall in love with her.



017. Creedence Clearwater Revival “Proud Mary”
(John Fogerty)
1969
Available on Bayou Country

“John, we all remember when you came down to The River. You were in pretty rough shape, always talking about a job in The City you had just left where you worked seemingly around the clock for someone you cryptically referred to as ‘The Man,’ and you called that a good job. You also mentioned a dishwashing job and a position in what you called a ‘pain-pumping station.’ We weren’t sure if you were mentally ill, high on drugs, or having a nervous breakdown, but we got you cleaned up, gave you some food, and sent you on your way. It was just the right thing to do. But the hobos and hippies have been pouring in ever since, wanting handouts, and we think it’s due to your indiscretion. We must insist that you stop telling everyone in the world that we’re happy to give. We’re not, John.”

— John Moe, Pop-Song Correspondences

016. The Nashville Teens “Tobacco Road”
(John D. Loudermilk)
1964
Available on Tobacco Road

It would probably be too much of a stretch to say that this song is based on Erskine Caldwell’s bestselling 1932 novel of the same name (for the curious: it’s not unlike Steinbeck). But it’s an intriguing possibility, given the racial tension at the heart of the novel and the big ol’ blues chords written by pasty white dude Loudermilk (previously a teen idol who sang as Johnny Dee) and played by skinny limeys. The Nashville Teens split the difference between the Rolling Stones and Herman’s Hermits, and somehow ended up making the best balls-to-the-wall rawk song of the early British Invasion. The piano thumpin’ on the chorus is what sells it for me, but the huge blistering guitar line and massive whomp of the rhythm section would do just as well. It’s been covered a million times, but these guys did the first cover, and the best.



015. Sly & the Family Stone “Dance to the Music”
(Sylvester “Sly Stone” Stewart)
1968
Available on Dance to the Music

“Cynthia!” “What?” “Jerry!” “What?” “You might like to hear the horns blow, Cynthia on the thro-one!” “Yeeeaaaaaaaaah!” Funk was born here. Oh, sure, the stop ’n’ pop rhythm came into existence under James Brown’s watch, and it wouldn’t get good and greasy until George Clinton slicked up Funkadelic properly, but the propulsive, manic energy here, fluid and communal rather than strict and authoritarian like the J.B.’s, combined with the brilliant nonsense of the lyrics, gives real sho’ nuff Fonk its first-ever hit. And it was a massive hit, even cataclysmic. Soul music would never be the same after the sometime disc jockey from San Francisco got his hands on it. “Cynthia ’n’ Jerry got a message they’re sayin’ . . . ” “All the squares, go hide!”



014. The Beatles “Day Tripper”
(John Lennon/Paul McCartney)
1965
Available on Past Masters, Volume Two

A day tripper is what people who live in picturesque places in England call a weekend visitor from London or other less-picturesque places; a tourist, but one who’s too cheap to spend the night and takes the train back home instead. Got it? Not a prostitute. Seriously. Americans. Anyway, the reason for this song is the huge, ringing riff, which is both a reference to earlier rhythm & blues, and the template for metric tons of hard rock to come. It’s hardly an original observation, but cut the Beatles between 1964 and 1968 and they bleed melody; this song catches them on a day when they didn’t have a problem with making something of a racket either.



013. The Flying Burrito Brothers “Sin City”
(Chris Hillman/Gram Parsons)
1969
Available on The Gilded Palace of Sin

Who cares if it’s one of the foundational exercises for alt-country? (And who cares about alt-country, anyway?) What matters isn’t Gram Parsons’ relevance to the future, but his deep connection with the past. Specifically, the record this song evokes is the Louvin Brothers’ Satan Is Real, but updated by a decade and given just the faintest hint of what would later be celebrated/excoriated in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Parsons is thought of as the father of country-rock, but all he did was get rock bands to play country; the rock part was grandfathered in later. Unless intelligence, beauty, and wide-ranging subject matter are all attributable to “rock.”



012. The Rolling Stones “Honky Tonk Women”
(Mick Jagger/Keith Richards)
1968
Available on Hot Rocks, 1964-1971

Callback to #103! Merle Haggard sang, “I couldn’t drink enough to keep you off my mind,” and Mick and Keith sing “I just can’t seem to drink you off my mind,” but it’s still theft. Well, love and theft, as Dylan reminds us. And I love this song so much that I can’t listen to “Country Honk” — it just sounds wrong. But anyway. This is where the Stones that produced Exile on Main St. (in certain moods, the greatest rock & roll album ever made) first found their footing. Despite the return-to-their-roots fawning, “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” was still just playing the bad-boy card that got them noticed in the first place (and which gave Their Satanic Majesties its title); it’s here that the elegantly-wasted myth of the Glitter Twins, awash in equally heavy doses of country, soul, and rockabilly, was born. It’s a country song. With a horn section, gospel backup singers, and everything.



011. Cream “White Room”
(Pete Brown/Jack Bruce)
1968
Available on Wheels of Fire

Hey, look, it’s that Eric whathisname guy on the guitar. And yes; this is his finest moment, according to me. There are no hard-rock riffs or pop pfoolery; this is pure psychedelia as spun by the second-best power trio ever. Baker’s instrument takes the lead here, almost (it’s as heavily percussive as any Who song), and Bruce moans falsettily about God knows what (but the imagery is quite lovely), and Clapton is texture, squinking and squonking up and down the scales, taking the lessons of Hendrix and applying them to an all-white context (which is good, because dude he’s not black). It took them three albums to get here, but they wouldn’t be able to do any more; they’ve gone about as fur as they kin go.


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