Tag: music (Page 10 of 90)

Chart Week: April 30, 1983
Song: “Back On The Chain Gang” – The Pretenders
Chart Position: #37, 21st week on the chart. Peaked at #5 for three weeks in March and April.

The Pretenders were on the verge of big things in 1982. They already had a #1 hit in the UK – 1979’s “Brass In Pocket,” which maxed out at #14 in the US – and were generally beloved by critics. They somehow managed to dip a toe in almost every genre of rock without being relegated to a single camp. They had roots in the London punk scene of the late Seventies, but weren’t punk. They were contemporaries of the first generation of post-punkers, New Wavers, and New Romantics, but didn’t fit squarely into any of those schools. They stood next early College Rock bands like R.E.M. but weren’t really college rock. They had a healthy dose of 1960s jangle pop to their sound, and could have fit into the Paisley Underground scene had they come up in LA. But they weren’t from LA. Nor were they true mainstream rockers.

That difficulty in pigeonholing them resulted in broad appeal that was ripe for capitalizing upon when they started making their third LP.

In mid–1982 the band, specifically lead singer and lyricist Chrissie Hynde and guitarist James Honeyman-Scott, began to hash out ideas for new songs. Hynde had one centered on finding a photo of her boyfriend, Kinks lead singer Ray Davies, and the feelings that came with it. The couple had a tumultuous romance, but Hynde was newly pregnant and hoped that would salvage their relationship. Yet she still thought back to how things were better when they had first met.

Hynde and Honeyman-Scott tinkered with the words and arrangement and knew they were onto something. They were excited about recording it with the rest of the band.

One problem. Pretenders bass player Pete Farndon had fallen deep into heroin addiction. He had turned irritable and quarrelsome towards his bandmates. Sensing that the upcoming recording sessions would be brutal and unproductive because of Farndon’s behavior, Honeyman-Scott laid down an ultimatum: either sack Farndon or he would leave.

On July 14, 1982 the band fired Farndon.

As upsetting as that was, something worse came hours later.

On July 16, Honeyman-Scott died of an accidental overdose.

In two days, half of the original Pretenders lineup was gone.

Most people would have retreated from the world to deal with the immense pain they were experiencing. Not Hynde. She leaned on her music.

On July 20, 1982, she and drummer Martin Chambers entered the AIR Studios in London and recorded “Back On The Chain Gang” with help from several friends, including Big Country’s Tony Butler on bass. What began as an ode to the early days of her romance with Davies turned into an elegy for Honeyman-Scott.

There is an immediate sense of melancholy in Hynde’s opening riff. I think it comes from the languid, contemplative tempo she plays at. You can feel the sadness that must have been overwhelming her at the time. Once I knew the full story behind the song, I always imagined her taking a long, deep breath before she hit the first chord, steeling herself against the emotions that were sure to swell up.

She adds to that mournful vibe with the “Oh oh oh ohs” that are sprinkled through the tune. Hynde is one of the great, badass, female rockers of all time. I wouldn’t say she was ever as vocally aggressive as her contemporary Joan Jett, but she was certainly as assertive. The restraint she used in “Back On The Chain Gang” was wonderful, conveying all the emotions she was going through without over doing it. The real genius of her performance is that it doesn’t sound as though it recorded less than a week after her band seemed to fall apart. It sounds like she is a year or two out, looking back on what happened, and trying to make sense of it all.

The song peaks with an emotional section where the bridge transitions into the final verse.

First, Hynde sings this:

But I’ll die as I stand here today knowing that deep in my heart
They’ll fall to ruin one day for making us part

Her restraint falls momentarily, with her voice breaking as she stretches out the final word.

Then there is that magical line in the next verse. After repeating “I found a picture of you,” she adds:

Those were the happiest days of my life

A truly heart-wrenching, soul-destroying choice of words. You don’t have to know about the state of her partnership with Davies, the health of her band, or the loss of one of her best friends to get all the feels from that line. The “Oh oh oh ohs” hit harder in the final verse, too.

When asked a few years later about how she could record music so soon after experiencing so much pain, Hynde responded, “What else were we going to do? Stay at home and be miserable, or go into the studio and do what we dig and be miserable?” That idea, jumping back into the grind when faced with calamity, was as much the theme of the song as celebrating Honeyman-Scott

Despite everything falling apart around her, Hynde got back on the chain gang. The result was the best song of her career. 9/10

As if all that weren’t enough, as the song was falling from its US chart peak, there was more terrible news. On April 13, Farndon was found dead after overdosing and drowning in a bathtub.

“Back On The Chain Gang” was released as a single in late 1982. Somewhat strangely, the album it was featured on, Learning to Crawl, was not released until early 1984. Included on that LP was another ode to Honeyman-Scott, “2000 Miles.” I wouldn’t say it is a holiday classic; it is far too depressing to get much radio airplay. Coldplay did a version in the early 2000s that revived it a bit. KT Tunstall’s slightly less sad version is in all my Spotify holiday playlists.

How about this amazing rendition of the song from the Covid days. Hynde was nearly 70 and still had it.

Chart Week: April 3, 1982
Song: “I’ve Never Been To Me” – Charlene
Chart Position: #32, 8th week on the chart. Peaked at #3 for three weeks in May/June.

Worst Song Ever. That’s a heavy crown to wear. Were I to sit down and figure out my least favorite songs of the Eighties, Charlene’s sole Top 40 hit would for sure be at the top of that list. Expanding that to all time, I think it would comfortably squeeze into the top five. I’m not alone. I came across two different Worst Songs of All Time lists, one ranked it at #3, the other at #4.

Charlene initially recorded “I’ve Never Been To Me” in 1976 for her debut, self-titled album. The LP didn’t sell, but was re-released in 1977 as Songs of Love. Included on that re-issue was a new version of “I’ve Never Been To Me” that scrapped the spoken word verse. It was pressed as a single, but barely dented the Hot 100, peaking at #97. Frustrated by her lack of success, Charlene quit the music business, moved to England, got married, and took a job in a candy store. As one does.

I do not get it, but something about the song resonated in the music community. Between 1976 and 1979 at least six other artists took a crack at it. There was even a version told from a man’s perspective. Not one of them reached the Top 40.

The Music Gods knew “I’ve Never Been To Me” sucked, and were doing all they could to prevent it from becoming a hit. However, one asshole in Florida torpedoed all their efforts.

Scott Shannon, a DJ at WRBQ in Tampa, began playing Charlene’s original version of the song in the spring of 1982. I’m guessing that Tampa was a pretty sleepy community at the time, because WRBQ’s listeners loved the song, requesting that it be played again-and-again. Shannon had previously worked for Motown. He reached out to Motown president Jay Lasker, letting him know of the record’s success and suggesting the label re-release it. Lasker had to track down Charlene in England to get her approval. She agreed, re-signed with Motown, the single was issued to radio stations, and by May it was sitting at #3 behind Rick Springfield’s “Don’t Talk To Strangers” and the monster #1 “Ebony and Ivory.”

I’m pretty sure I was as confused about why this song was a hit when I was 11 as I am at 52. It is preachy, self-loathing, judgmental, middle-of-the-road garbage. Charlene’s vocals are straight out of the Mary MacGregor/Debbie Boone school. I guarantee my grandmothers loved her.

The song is basically a rebuke of the sexual revolution and any assertion that women should be allowed the same freedoms in life that men enjoyed. The narrator relates a series of adventures and experiences but claims they were pointless because she ended up alone. And maybe she had some abortions? So the unfulfilled housewife listening at home while she complains about her life should realize it is in fact richer than our narrator’s. I’m not sure how that is supposed to inspire anyone other than the bitter, Phyllis Schlaflys of the world, who viewed any drift from traditional gender roles as a sign that godless communism had won.

The worst part of the song is the spoken-word verse. It genuinely might be the worst set of lyrics ever constructed.

Hey, you know what paradise is?
It’s a lie

Damn, coming in hot.

A fantasy we’ve created about people and places as we’d like them to be

I thought pop music was supposed to be about escape and fantasy. Songwriters Ron Miller and Kenneth Hirsch tried to blow all of that up with a healthy dose of Fuck You and Your Dreams.

But you know what the truth is?
It’s that little baby you’re holding.

Yeah, yeah, who doesn’t love babies. Low blow.

And it’s that man you fought with this morning.
The same one you’re going to make love with tonight.

Jesus, I can’t even…

I get that Miller and Hirsch were probably using this as a romantic device, saying that you can fight with your spouse in the morning, realize your relationship is stronger and more important than whatever caused the argument, and then bone in the evening. Within the context of the rest of the song, though, I hear it more as a statement of obligation, that part of a married woman’s duties are to sleep with her husband on his terms.

That’s truth. That’s love

And maybe you could talk me into this song being more about how life is messy, rarely the romantic fairy tale that little girls are told to expect. What matters are the little details, good and bad, of our daily lives. Not fancy vacations or expensive dinners. The rest of the song is so scathingly judgmental, though, that I can’t come around to that point of view.

That section has been bothering me for 42 years. Until this week, though, I did not realize there was a far worse line just a bit later in the song. I guess I never deciphered what Charlene sang just before the final chorus:

I spent my life exploring the subtle whoring that costs too much to be free

What in the actual fuck?!?!

I guess it shouldn’t be a surprise that two men wrote this song.

Miller and Hirsch argue that because the narrator took the worldly path instead of the domestic one, any hopes for marriage and family have been dashed. Despite what sounds like some kick-ass travels and encounters, in their binary, either/or world, she is damaged goods that no man will be interested in and will live the rest of her life as a lonely, regretful spinster.

What does surprise me is that female vocalists would choose to sing these words. They straight-up call themselves whores, suggest every path they took was wrong, and that the only way to find true happiness is by becoming subservient homemakers like their mothers.

You know what else baffles me about this song? It was released by Motown. MOTOWN! The home of Diana Ross and Gladys Knight and Tammi Terrell and Mary Wells and Teena Marie and countless other badass lady singers. Women who were strong and independent. Women who sang about equality between races and genders. Women who didn’t shit on other women and the choices they made.

Maybe I’m a little cranky because of how truly atrocious this song is and thus judging it too harshly. For sure I’m considering it through a 2024 prism rather than a 1976 one. In the bicentennial year it was still a serious societal argument about if it was good for families if mom worked outside the home. I bet the majority of Americans at the time were against the idea of the liberated woman bringing home the bacon. They viewed ladies who chose not to have families as selfish, morally deficient fools destined to end up alone since they were shirking their biological responsibilities.

In 2024 it all seems so very primitive. But I was mostly raised by a single mom, married a super independent woman, and am raising three independent daughters. So what do I know about “truth”?

Not only did “I’ve Never Been To Me” go to #3 in the US, but it hit #1 in England and Ireland. In Australia it topped the chart for six fucking weeks!!! I might have to take back everything I love about the Australian music scene.

This is a terrible song. Lyrically. Musically. Vocally. Thematically. I get physically ill those one or two times a year I accidentally hear it during a 1982 countdown. If there was a tribunal at The Hague for Musical Crimes Against Humanity, this is the song against which all others would be judged. 1/10