For the past few months, I’ve been watching and reviewing episodes of the original Fantasy Island. One of the keys to that show’s success was the enigmatic partnership between Mr. Roarke and Tattoo. Even though it’s usually pretty easy to see that Ricardo Montalban and Herve Villechaize did not like each other, their exchanges are usually the highlight of any episode. Of course, after years of high ratings and television fame, Villechaize was fired from Fantasy Island when he demanded more money. Without Tattoo, the series was canceled after one season so …. well, they probably should have just given him the money.
Anyway, one thing that I recently discovered about Herve Villechaize is that he had a musical career! In 1981, at the height of the show’s popularity, he released a song called “Why?” It’s all about trying to understand why people have to fight and why people cannot just accept the wisdom of peace-loving children. The video at the top of this post was recorded for a TV show on which Villechaize appeared. Unfortunately, I don’t know which show it was for and the video upload itself is not the best quality. Apparently, the split-screen visual effect that gives us two Herves singing at once was a part of the show.
That said, this is as close as we have to an actual music video for Herve Villechaize’s Why? so I’m sharing with it. What better way to start a new year than with a plea for peace?
That is the message of TSL’s latest guilty pleasure, a little song from 1971 called Once You Understand. In case you missed that message the first time, don’t worry. It will be repeated. In fact, it’s the only lyric in the entire song. The song starts with one voice singing, “Things get a little easier/once you understand” but soon, several other voice join in until there’s a heavenly choir of sorts. It’s really enthusiastic choir, too. In fact, it’s so enthusiastic that it’s a little bit creepy. No one’s that happy about understanding.
While the voices are singing to us that things get a little easier once you understand, we also get to listen to a few scenes from the late 60s/early 70s generation gap. The scenes are acted out by a bunch of uncredited actors who give it the old community theater try. We listen to teenagers argue with their parents and parents talk down to their children and what we immediately notice is that no one is trying to understand and therefore, things will never get a little easier.
One mother accuses her daughter of doing more than babysitting and demands that she stay out of a certain neighborhood. A father demands that his son get a haircut and reminds him that he had to work hard when he was young. Another kid is super excited to have gotten a guitar and he’s planning on starting a band. His father replies that there’s more to life than music.
Things get a little easier
Once you understand
Things get a little easier
Once you understand
Things get a little
Suddenly, the music stops. We listen as one of the fathers gets a tragic phone call about his son, the one that he didn’t understand. The father sobs uncontrollably as the song ends and I guess it could, in theory, have been a powerful moment if not for the fact that father is so obviously reading a script. The other problem is that 99% of the song consists of parents acting like jerks but then, in the final few moments, it turns out that at least one of the parents was right about his son throwing his life away. So maybe, it was the son who needed to understand. Who knows?
Anyway, Once You Understand is one of those songs that’s often included in lists of the worst songs of all time. However, much like The Dawn of Correction, I like Once You Understand because it is so totally a product of its time. It’s a cultural artifact and listening to it is a bit like stepping into a time machine. That said, I kind of doubt this song inspired anyone to understand. If anything, everyone comes across as being kind of whiny.
The year was 1964 and folk singer Barry McGuire had just released a new song called Eve of Destruction. In Eve of Destruction, McGuire painted an apocalyptic view of the world and put a lot of the blame on the Cold War. McGuire wrote about 18 year-olds being sent to war when they weren’t even allowed to vote. (At that time, the voting age was 21.) McGuire wrote about the nuclear arsenals of the U.S. and Russia, saying that nuclear annihilation was just one push of a button away. McGuire sang about the Civil Rights struggle and the feeling that all of the well-meaning protests hadn’t led to any real change.
Not surprisingly, this early protest song was as controversial as it was popular. While many claimed that McGuire was one of the few singers willing to sing the truth, others said that he wasn’t being unpatriotic and excessively negative.
That’s where The Spokesmen came in. The Spokesmen were a trio, made up of John Madera, David White, and Ray Gilmore. Feeling that McGuire wasn’t being fair in his critique of the good old U.S., the Spokesmen released an “answer song,” one that addressed all of McGuire’s charges and which dismissed them all. McGuire sang about the “Eve of Destruction.” The Spokesmen decided that they would sing about the …. DAWN OF CORRECTION!
As the song’s chorus says:
So over and over again, you keep sayin’ it’s the end But I say you’re wrong, we’re just on the dawn of correction
What exactly is “the dawn of correction?” I honestly have no idea. But it probably sounded profound while the song was being written. Plus …. destruction …. correction …. it rhymes!
Anyway, the Dawn of Correction was a minor hit when it was released, though it was soon forgotten about as the protest movement grew and teenagers in the 60s saw far more evidence to support McGuire’s vision of the world than the vision of the Spokesman. Among music aficionados, Dawn of Correction has developed a reputation for being one of the worst songs ever written.
I have to admit though that, when I recently listened to the song, I kind of liked it, in much the same way that I like zero-budget polemical films and kitschy dance scenes. It’s one of those songs that is so definitely rooted to one cultural moment that, from a historical point of view, it becomes rather fascinating. It’s lyrics are just so strangely literal. (It takes a certain …. something …. to try to put a positive spin on the policy of mutually assured destruction in a folk song.) Even more than that, lead singer John Madera attempts to duplicate the raspy growl the McGuire used while singing Eve of Destruction and, even though he doesn’t succeed, there’s something oddly touching about how hard he tries. With a Dylanesque harmonica playing in the background, the song is so determined to be “with it,” that you just know some government teacher in 1967 probably tried to reach her apathetic students by forcing them to listen to this song in class.
Finally, to be honest, that chorus is kind of catchy. Watch the band perform below and be sure to pay attention to the dancers.
Lyrics
The western world has a common dedication To keep free people from Red domination And maybe you can’t vote, boy, but man your battle stations Or there’ll be no need for votin’ in future generations
So over and over again, you keep sayin’ it’s the end But I say you’re wrong, we’re just on the dawn of correction
There are buttons to push in two mighty nations But who’s crazy enough to risk annihilation? The buttons are there to ensure negotiation So don’t be afraid, boy, it’s our only salvation
So over and over again, you keep sayin’ it’s the end But I say you’re wrong, we’re just on the dawn of correction
You tell me that marches won’t bring integration But look what it’s done for the voter registration Be thankful our country allows demonstrations Instead of condemnin’, make some recommendations I don’t understand the cause of your aggravation You mean to tell me, boy, it’s not a better situation?
So over and over again, you keep sayin’ it’s the end But I say you’re wrong, we’re just on the dawn of correction
You missed all the good in your evaluation What about the things that deserve commendation? Where there once was no cure, there’s vaccination Where there once was a desert, there’s vegetation Self-government’s replacing colonization What about the Peace Corp. organization? Don’t forget the work of the United Nations
So over and over again, you keep sayin’ it’s the end But I say you’re wrong, we’re just on the dawn of correction
But I say you’re wrong, we’re just on the dawn of correction
So over and over again, you keep sayin’ it’s the end But I say you’re wrong, we’re just on the dawn of correction
It must have been cold there in my shadow To never have sunlight on your face You were content to let me shine You always walked a step behind
I was the one with all the glory You were the one with all the strain A beautiful face without a name A beautiful smile to ease my pain
Did you ever know that you’re my hero And everything I would like to be? I can fly higher than an eagle You are the wind beneath my wings You are the wind beneath my wings
I ke iʻa po ke iʻa au me oʻe Ke ia po ua hoʻi ma I au He loa ka helena ma ke a la hele E huli wahi ma ke iʻa au
Mau popo au ua i ke hoʻi Ka home iloko kuʻu puʻu wai Uʻa hoʻi mai iʻau ke i ke nei au Ma oli au au ana hou Ke mau popo He Hawai’i au Ke mau popo He Hawai’i au You are the wind beneath my wings Ooo ooo oo oo oo You are the wind beneath my wings Ke mau popo He Hawaiʻi au
This is the video for Party in the U.S.A., which Miley later said was meant to be a celebration of 1) Grease, 2) her parents, and 3) “high gloss, glamorous white trash.” I don’t know if I would ever openly admit to celebrating both my parents and white trash in the same video but whatever. The important thing is that everyone appears to be enjoying themselves and that’s what matters the most. If you’re not having fun, why even appear in a music video, right?
Seriously, it’s time to party in the U.S.A. May this video serve as your guide.
Since Ringo Starr provided yesterday’s video, it seems appropriate to give today’s video to Paul McCartney.
As a group, The Beatles never released an “official” Christmas song, though the members of their fan club received a recording of Christmas Time Is Here Again in 1967. After the band broke up, all four of the members recorded Christmas songs on their own. Paul McCartney’s Wonderful Christmastime is probably the most remembered. I don’t know if I would say it was the most popular but anyone who has ever had to rush out to do some last minute Christmas shopping has heard it playing in countless stores on December 24th. Whenever I’ve been in a store while Wonderful Christmastime was playing, I’ve always felt as if the song was taunting me but it is definitely a part of the season.
McCartney recorded this song at his farm. He was just getting into what was then known as “electropop,” which is why he used a Sequential Circuits Prophet-5 synthesizer in the song. More than anything, that weird bouncing noise probably explains why this song is so well-known. Whenever I hear this song, I imagine that this is what Christmas sounds like on Mars.
The video was shot at at the Fountain Inn in Ashurst, West Sussex. Though the members of Wings had nothing to do with recording the song, they all appeared in the video because they were all hanging out with McCartney on the night that it was filmed.
Reportedly, Paul McCartney receives $400,000 a year in royalties from Wonderful Christmastime.
If you watched Raiders of the Living Dead earlier today, you heard this theme song:
The dead are after me….
We are the Raiders of the Living Dead….
Seriously, how can you not love that!? Yes, the song is totally mid-80s and it’s kind of silly but it’s also kind of perfect. Certainly, it’s the best thing about the film and the song has even gone on to achieve a life outside of the movie that it was written for. There are bands that regularly cover this song. It’s a permanent part of my Halloween playlist.
Seriously, you can ask my friends and they’ll tell you that, every October, they’re forced to listen to me sing this song in my off-key way. The deeeeeeeead are afterrrrrr meeeeee….
Many sites incorrectly refer to this song as being called, like the movie in which it appeared, “Raiders of the Living Dead.” The actual title is The Dead Are After Me. It was written and performed by a musician named George Edward Ott. I did some research and I came across some comments that Ott left on another site, in which he discussed how this song came into existence. From Morgan on Media:
In 1986, after viewing early outtakes of the film with Sam Sherman and Tim Ferrante, I went home and wrote the song in about 15 minutes. Cheesy song for a cheesy movie!
Yes, it is a cheesy song but it’s also rather brilliant in a cheerful, no apologies sort of way. Just try to get out of your head.
Now that I’ve got horror movies out of my system (at least for a minute!), let’s switch gears to the saccharine sweet DeFranco Family, Canada’s answer to the Osmond Brothers, The Partridge Family, and The Jackson 5, who scored a #1 hit in 1973 with the bubblegum-pop “Heartbeat – It’s A Lovebeat”:
Siblings Benny, Marisa, Nino, Merlina, and Tony DeFranco had been making music together all their lives before a demo tape earned them a contract with 20th Century Records. 13-year-old lead singer Tony was groomed to be the Next Big Teen Idol, and his face was plastered all over the covers of teen magazines of the era: Tiger Beat, 16, Fave!, ad nauseam. The DeFranco’s popularity was brief however, as disco began taking over the airwaves, not to mention Tony hitting puberty and his liltingly light voice changing! The family became a Vegas lounge act for a couple of…
Bobby “Boris” Pickett’s 1962 hit “The Monster Mash” was not only a graveyard smash, but has become an annual Halloween tradition here on Cracked Rear Viewer. This season, I’ve picked out a Monster Mash-Up of clips starring Universal Horror icons Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi set to Pickett’s groovy ghoulie tune. Break out your dancing shoes and get ready to Do The Mash with Boris and Bela:
Through the Shattered Lens 