Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

Innocent people don’t delay justice.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Everybody saw this coming.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Open Thread: Get Him Out

Open Thread: Get Him Out

by | 132 Comments

This post is in: 

I was writing last night listening to BB King’s Blueville station when this song caught my attention. Robert Cray, not mincing words.

This showed up in a couple of places this week. Makes me smile.

Open Thread: Get Him Out

And just for fun, I follow these two – their joy is infectious. I think they are adorable, which I am SURE is not the vibe they are going for, but I don’t care.  And their Youtube channel $$ just allowed them to move into a new place and it is the best thing to watch if you need a mood lifter. But here they are hearing Eddie Money for the first time:

And I know I owe someone here a h/t for the twins, but I can’t remember who, but then again, I can barely remember what day it is. Feel free to wave from the comments if it was you.

Open thread

Reader Interactions

132Comments

  2. 2.

    Nicole

    I also thank that commenter (and I’m also blanking on who it was). These two young men are my favorite, but I have gotten so much joy from hearing classic songs through a variety of Youtuber’s ears. I’m really grateful. One of the twins did “Smells Like Teen Spirit” several months ago (they redid it as a duo more recently), and oh, was it a wonderful view.

  3. 3.

    patrick II

    I have watched some of their videos and my favorite reaction is to Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” — “Oh, don’t do that to her, Jolene!”

  4. 4.

    Catherine D.

    Oh, I’ve been dipping into twins’ channel too. I loved them watching Dolly Parton’s Jolene and George Carlin. I just want to pinch their cheeks ?

  5. 5.

    A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)

    I first saw the twins listening to Phil Collin’s In the Air Tonight, and their reaction to the drums coming in about halfway through was memorable. Love them

    Yes, their Jolene was great too!

  6. 6.

    kindness

    I think it was those two guys who I saw a video where they did the same thing with Janis Joplin/Big Brother & the Holding Co doing Piece Of My Heart.  It was fun.  They liked it.

  7. 7.

    Nicole

    @patrick II: There’s a woman singer-songwriter who also gave a first-time listen to “Jolene,” and I adored her sum-up of the song (which she liked), pointing out, astutely, that it’s a song to the side-piece, and then inquiring, also astutely, why Dolly Parton didn’t take her grievances directly to her man.

  8. 8.

    Sasha

    Ever see them react to “Ice, Ice Baby”? They didn’t realize until about a minute in that Vanilla Ice wasn’t a black guy. Like what part of *Vanilla* Ice didn’t they pick up on?

    There’s like a whole subgenre of reaction videos of African-Americans listening to “blue-eyed soul”. The Righteous Brothers and “Unchained Melody” unfailingly blows minds.

  9. 9.

    A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)

    @kindness: It’s astonishing to find out kids have never heard of Janis Joplin (!! yes, I’m old), but was wonderful to have them blown away, and making heart shapes with their hands when they heard her. True passion and genius never ages. God, she was a force of nature when she sang.

  10. 10.

    Timurid

    …and the Trump Tapes story is already fizzling. The most dire revelation ever about a US President (at least while he was still in office) couldn’t even stay at the top of the news for a full 24 hours. The media is too busy with hot BREAKING coverage of another disaster that, uh… happened 19 years ago.

  15. 15.

    patrick II

    @Nicole:

    Because she thought it was a lost battle with her man if Jolene chose to take him. “I cannot compete with you Jolene”.

    Jolene, Please don’t take him just because you can

    Your beauty is beyond compare
    With flaming locks of auburn hair
    With ivory skin and eyes of emerald green
    Your smile is like a breath of spring
    Your voice is soft like summer rain
    And I cannot compete with you, jolene

    Jolene might have just playing with him (just because you can) and end up breaking his heart.  Dolly loved him forever and was afraid for both herself and her man.

  16. 16.

    Nicole

    @Gin & Tonic:

    “Sounds like it was made in the olden days”?

    Fuck that.

    Ha! Except they did call the decade correctly- it was, indeed, the 1980s.  One said early 80s, the other said late, as an Old who has this song on my karaoke machine, I’m aware it came out mid-1980s, but I still give them credit.  Hard to escape that gated reverb on the drum.

    Back in 1986, when I was young and spry and this song was on the charts, I would have called music from 1952, “old.”  So I get it.

  17. 17.

    laura

    I am crushing on the twins and just watching them express their joy and surprise and delight at hearing music that soundtracks my life. I envy their youth and wealth of first times that await them. Kids these days – I wish there were more of them on my lawn.

  19. 19.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Timurid:

    Trump is a nonstop shit fire hose.  No story is going to linger, because there’s always something new and horrible.  We physically can’t dwell on his putting children in cages, ignoring Russian bounties, covering up for a dictator murdering a journalist, canceling the environmentalism treaty, canceling the TPP, abandoning the Kurds to die, blowing up the Post Office, abandoning Puerto Rico to die, and confessing on tape to deliberately ignoring the threat of coronavirus simultaneously.  And I say that knowing the actual list of critically important awful things Trump has done is several times that length, and the list of not critically important but still bad and worth attention things is several times the length of that.

    BUT, repetition has its own power, and Trump has created his own ‘but her emails’ effect.  Outrage over any individual horror has become a nonstop screaming “MAKE IT STOP” that is exactly why Trump’s polling is an utter disaster not just nationally, but state by state.

  21. 21.

    jonas

    @Timurid: I’m not surprised. The electorate is so polarized, with Trump’s base so hardened against any revelations by the MSM that even a colossal scandal, like the war dead or the Woodward tapes that would have triggered the complete implosion of any previous administration only causes the true believers to retrench more and emboldens Trump’s enablers. 40% of the country lives in a bubble of delusion and magical thinking that has so far proven impervious to any attempts to breach it.

  22. 22.

    prostratedragon

    Saw the Dolly Parton one via a front-pager here, I think, maybe Anne Laurie. Yeah, considering that I’m old enough to be their grandma, I think they’re precious as buttons. Open-hearted enjoyment makes even the cool seem adorably vulnerable.

  23. 23.

    piratedan

    i surf their channel as well and their reactions from artists like The Carpenters, and Boston and Stevie Wonder always give me pause about what I have been privileged to experience for the first time and the feeling they get from some of the same music.

  24. 24.

    Nicole

    @patrick II:  Because she thought it was a lost battle with her man if Jolene chose to take him.

    In that case, I would say the singer either has serious self-esteem issues and could use some talk therapy, or, if Jolene’s appealing physical attributes and pleasant speaking voice is enough to make the man stray, then the relationship the singer is so desperate to preserve is not built on a particularly secure foundation to begin with.

  25. 25.

    A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)

    @kindness: Yeah, Boomer here too.  As far as I can tell, rap and hip hop are about the words, lots of words (and their rhymes) and rhythm. Not much guitar, and no sax, sadly.

  26. 26.

    TaMara (HFG)

    @Timurid: Considering it’s all Trump can seem to talk about, don’t worry, he’ll make it news again. (And if you think any news organization was going to risk looking “anti-patriotic” by not doing wall-to-wall on 9/11 your expectations were skewed).

  28. 28.

    laura

    @kindness: I know in my era (Boomer) my black friends had guitar driven stuff too but I don’t know that that is the case so much any more. I don’t hear it on hip hop/rap so much.

    What happened here in California was prop 13 and an avalanche of fuckery in the public school system. Gone went band, orchestra, counsellors, nurses, hot kitchens and lunch ladies, bus drivers, and was replaced with testing and teaching to the test and class sizes that limit that are unreasonable by any/every metric. As such, much of today’s music is made using the tools and skills at hand. And the demise of am radio for music and disc jockeys is a large part of the siloing of music genres. In the San Francisco bay area there were lots of small stations and the one we had our car turned to was KFRC and it played pop and rock and schlock and mainstream jazz and soul and R&B and it had a large audience and we all heard all the variety and we liked it! Music will get made because music is a necessary form of human expression and there’s something for everyone. Lou Reed’s Transformer still sells for Pete sake.

    Robert Cray remains awesome to this day.

  29. 29.

    Jess

    I love those kids as well. I found them via “Jolene,” but the two song reactions I really loved best were “Creep” and Nina Simone’s “Feelin Good.” Check those out for sure!

  33. 33.

    CaseyL

    I enjoy these two so much, listening for the first time to songs that I loved so very long ago.  It’s especially fun when they go out of genre altogether, like the time they listened to Luciano Pavarotti.

  34. 34.

    Kent

    @TaMara (HFG): What? No love for Robert Cray? I haz a sad.

    In the late 1970s when I was in HS in Eugene Oregon, Robert Cray lived there and played with Curtis Salgado. Couple of friends and I once snuck out to see him play at a local road house along highway 99 between Eugene and Springfield. He was HUGE in Oregon at the time.

    He and his band were reportedly the inspiration for the Blues Brothers after John Belushi saw them play in Eugene during the filming of Animal House.

    I took my jazz saxaphone-playing 17 year old daughter to see Curtis Salgado in Portland last year but have lost track of Robert Cray

    So plenty of love from me.

  35. 35.

    Nora Lenderbee

    @Nicole: That’s country music in a nutshell.

    “He does me wrong (but I love him anyway).”

    “She left me and I don’t know why.”

  37. 37.

    patrick II

    @Nicole: 

    Sometimes its self-esteem issues, and sometimes it’s just fact. Some people are remarkably attractive to the opposite sex and can pretty much be with whom they want. And they can treat those easy relationships trivially — which is what Dolly was afraid of. I used to have pretty good self-esteem in that context, but I would not fool myself into thinking if Brad Pitt came after my girlfriend that I wouldn’t be in trouble.

  38. 38.

    TaMara (HFG)

    @pamelabrown53: You are the third person this week to ask me about that. I need to be able to fly out to LA for a week and walk around to get my groove on the newest location. Here’s the tidbit I told the others – there is a year or two time jump and when we return to TJ and Colby they are deep into their relationship, so no more will they, won’t they. But there are other surprises in store for them.

    Meanwhile, I’m writing a cute little mystery series set in a small town in MA and another series set here in Boulder, so something by the beginning of next year for sure. Depending on which book 1 makes it to the finish line first.

  39. 39.

    Barbara

    @Frankensteinbeck:  Drip, drip, drip, drip . . . Whatever “He lied/people died” might have failed to do it kicked Lawn Order off the news cycle for the entire week. Like LoserGate did the previous weekend. Now, if Trump tries to double down on his hatred of Portland it will be obvious to most people that deadly fires are the story, not made up villains.

  40. 40.

    Kay

    FBI Portland
    @FBIPortland
    · 1h
    Reports that extremists are setting wildfires in Oregon are untrue. Help us stop the spread of misinformation by only sharing information from trusted, official sources.

    Thousands of Trump nutcases are acting out again.

  41. 41.

    Nicole

    I googled the top 30 songs of 1952, which is as far from when “Take Me Home Tonight” was on the chart as “Take Me Home Tonight” is from now.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard_year-end_top_30_singles_of_1952

    … And I don’t know any of these songs. But I knew all 30 of the top songs from 1986:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard_Year-End_Hot_100_singles_of_1986

    Pop music truly is the purview of the young.

    And I’m really mad at myself that I did this, because I now have an ear worm of “Burning Heart” (#8 on Billboard’s Hot 100, way ahead of “Take Me Home Tonight,” at 59) which is a song I literally have not thought about in at least 30 years. I can’t wait for my husband to get home so I can say, “Hey!  There’s another single by Survivor we forgot about- remember ‘Burning Heart’?” to annoy him because I bet he gets an ear worm, too.

    Many years ago, I read a short story about a man who went to see a doctor, claiming he had a parasite in his body, and that it was passed to him when he refused to believe another man had the parasite.  The doctor listens to the story, and says, finally, “I don’t believe you!” and the worm pops out, and jumps down his throat.  I have always thought that story was a metaphor for passing along an ear worm.

  43. 43.

    HumboldtBlue

    @patrick II: 

    Without a doubt that’s a jewel, but Phil Collins is a close second. “Who drops the beat three minutes into the song?”

    I believe it was Rikyrah who introduced the twins and I followed up with Jamel_AKA_Jamal who also does great reaction vids.

  44. 44.

    Heidi Mom

    I’ve always thought that “Jolene” beautifully echoes the darkness of old Scots-Irish ballads.  If there were another verse, someone would die.

  46. 46.

    geg6

    @Nicole:

    That’s pretty harsh.  I know that feeling in that song…been right there. Not only was she breaking my heart, I knew she would break his.  Which is exactly what happened.  I don’t have self-esteem issues.  I just knew what was going to happen, why it would happen and that she would walk away without a care in the world while our 18-year partnership was ripped apart and he was left with nothing but heartbreak.  Be glad it’s not a situation you’ve ever been in but know that it could be you.

  48. 48.

    Jess

    @Nicole: As I recall, this song grew out of an inside joke between Dolly and her hubby. There was a female bank teller that would flirt outrageously with him whenever he came in, and Dolly and hubby would jokingly refer to her as his girlfriend and laugh about her attempts to “steal” him away.

  55. 55.

    Chyron HR

    @patrick II:

    Your beauty is beyond compare
    With flaming locks of auburn hair
    With ivory skin and eyes of emerald green
    Your smile is like a breath of spring
    Your voice is soft like summer rain
    And I cannot compete with you, jolene

    I’m not saying the person addressing Jolene is a lesbian, I’m just saying I know a lot of lesbians and something doesn’t add up here.

  56. 56.

    WaterGirl

    @TaMara (HFG): I had never even heard of him, but I listened to the whole song and then sent it to my niece.  Just finished the song a couple of minutes ago.

    I would go see him live in a heartbeat!  Well, I would have, before COVID.  I need to get out more – is he popular?  If he’s not, he should be.

  57. 57.

    Anotherlurker

    @laura: I enjoy the twins. As you said their reactions are wonderful.

    I wonder if they take suggestions?  Mine would be they give a listen to Johnny Winter’s cover of “Highway 61 “.   When I saw him perform I was always amazed that the neck of his guitar didn’t burst into flames.

  59. 59.

    J R in WV

    @patrick II:

     

    @Nicole:

    Guys, it is just a Country Song!

    It isn’t a psychological analysis of Dolly Parton, who has been married to the same one guy for decades now — since 1966!

    And has created a foundation that has provided a 100 millionth book to little kids in her literacy effort, and, and, and. A stunning success in her personal life, her performing life and her philanthropy.

    So ease up there. please!

  61. 61.

    Nicole

    @TaMara (HFG): OH MY GOD I LOVE NIGHT GALLERY!

    I definitely read it as a short story (a collection of terrifying short stories that was in my 5th grade classroom, for some reason, but then again, so was a copy of a horror novel, “The Swarm,” so there you go; it was the early 1980s), but I am SOOOO excited to hear this, because we own all of Night Gallery on DVD and I’m watching that episode TONIGHT, DAMN IT.

    (For all I know, the book was a novelization of Night Gallery episodes. I remember the final lines were something like, “He swallowed experimentally, hoping it was rage. He was not thinking about lunch.”)

  63. 63.

    J R in WV

    @laura:

    Robert Cray remains awesome to this day.

    This !!

    When we saw him here in town, he came out alone, with a sheet of blank paper and a marker. Started out by saying “This is the set list… ya’ll need to help me fill it out…” Which got a huge laugh and lots of shouted suggestions. And he did play what the crowd wanted to hear, solo. A great show.

  66. 66.

    HumboldtBlue

    @kindness:

    Hip Hop is an organic movement that grew from the streets of the Bronx. It wasn’t band-based it was MC/turntable based, it was centered around providing your own fun and entertainment in neighborhoods where the was nothing on offer.

    Young DJs took their turntables outside and cut into the electrical wires of light poles for electrical power for their gear and then held impromptu dance block parties.

    That led to the growth of the giant speakers, the modern DJ as we know it now and of course the rapper/MC and his hype man.

    Folks would come listen and dance to a DJ jamming on the block and then he would battle with a second DJ from another neighborhood and pretty soon you hip hop battles across NYC and the growth of a new musical genre.

    Plenty of 80s and 90s NYC hip hop featured jazz and soul classic samples until Blue Note records was purchased and they could no longer use the jazz material for free.

    There was some absolute gems that came from that era in both musical stylings and lyrics with instrumental samples.

    Hip Hop came about as a form of necessity and it’s original roots are still at work today.

    Here’s Chuck D (lead man for Public Enemy) narrating the history of Hip Hop — Founding Fathers: The Untold Story of Hip Hop.

  72. 72.

    patrick II

    @J R in WV:

    She started it!

    But, to go on inadvisably.  But she got me thinking that it was a song written in the 60’s about a character from from a small mountain town in Tennessee (where Dolly grew up)  when and where people got married right out of high school to someone they knew locally.  Listening to it with the modern “she hasn’t got enough self-esteem” is from someone who has a more modern context, more choices and a broader outlook.  Songs aren’t always to be judged, but listened to with empathy for time and place.

    Just a country song to you, but it’s not without its depth.

  75. 75.

    Nicole

    Update: My husband said, “Oh yeah!  I remember ‘Burning Heart’!” when he got home.

    Ten minutes later, he is now scowling at me.

  77. 77.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Kay: Reports that extremists are setting wildfires in Oregon are untrue. Help us stop the spread of misinformation by only sharing information from trusted, official sources.

    The Episemtic Closure of the Right in action, when confronted with undeniable proof their minds resort to fantasy of conspiracy.

  81. 81.

    Nicole

    @patrick II: Listening to it with the modern “she hasn’t got enough self-esteem” is from someone who has a more modern context, more choices and a broader outlook.

    Which is what provides an awful lot of the fun of watching the videos of people hearing songs for the first time that came out long before they were born.  Totally different context to hear them in.

    One could write an entire think piece on Rick Springfield’s creepy Nice Guy songs. (I say this as an unabashed fan of those same songs). ;)

  82. 82.

    TinRoofRusted

    @patrick II:   I highly recommend the podcast Dolly Parton’s America. There is an entire episode on Jolene and they go into what makes the song unique and at the time groundbreaking. They also discuss the lesbian angle brought up elsewhere in the comments. The whole series is wonderful.

  83. 83.

    Aziz, light!

    Cray was still in town when I was a grad student in Eugene in 1983. He had a repeating gig at a little bar near campus that couldn’t have held more than 25 people. I think the cover charge was $2. Three years earlier I was living in Austin, and the cover for Stevie Ray Vaughn was $4. Those were the days.

  84. 84.

    Mike in Pasadena

    Called a right wing trump-supporting friend I served with in the military.  Called my older brother, also a lifer in the military.  I posed two questions to both of them: How do you like being called a sucker and a loser (“looser” on twitter) by Trump?  How credible is his defense (of lying about the dangers of corona) that he lied because he didn’t want people to panic?  Is it credible when he uses fear ever day and at every Nazi rally that the blahs are coming to burn down your suburb?  The first answered his phone but said he’d get back to me on my two questions.   I had to leave my brother a voicemail.  I don’t expect to hear back from either one.

  85. 85.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @japa21: He doesn’t need to, it will do it’s own thing threw social media. This is like the idiot shooting up the pizza joint when he realized there was no basement in it.

  86. 86.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Nicole:

    I googled the top 30 songs of 1952, which is as far from when “Take Me Home Tonight” was on the chart as “Take Me Home Tonight” is from now.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard_year-end_top_30_singles_of_1952

    … And I don’t know any of these songs. But I knew all 30 of the top songs from 1986:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard_Year-End_Hot_100_singles_of_1986

    Pop music truly is the purview of the young.

    That’s so funny. I was 9-10 years old in 1952, and I remember almost every one of the songs on that year’s list (and, FWIW, now I have the #1 song, “Blue Tango,” as an ear worm!)

    OTOH, I don’t think I know any of the songs on the 1986 list, and don’t recognise half the names of performers or groups. I say “I don’t think I know them” because it’s quite possible I would recognise the odd tune from commercials or soundtracks or restaurant Muzak — but they’re not part of my conscious musical awareness. I’d be willing to bet that you would similarly perk up your ears at a few of the 1952 songs — “Oh! I’ve heard that tune! What’s it called?”

    :-)

  94. 94.

    Nicole

    Dolly Parton-adjacent: the Twins viewing of Whitney Houston’s cover of “I Will Always Love You” is a good watch, too.  They have an older- brother?  Friend? I don’t remember- watching with them and as someone commented, watching him fall in love with Whitney Houston over the course of a four-minute song is really endearing.

    Dolly Parton talked about how Elvis Presley wanted to record a cover of the song, but for him to do a song, he took half the publishing rights as a matter of course.  It tore her up, but she turned him down because she didn’t want to give up the rights.  Then, as she put it, twenty years later Whitney Houston recorded it and she made enough money from Whitney’s version to buy Graceland.

  97. 97.

    prostratedragon

    @Jess:  That story is so funny in the context of the song that I hope it’s true.

    As to Robert Cray, always on point, but never more so than here. And remember, we were warned.

  98. 98.

    Nicole

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    That’s so funny. I was 9-10 years old in 1952, and I remember almost every one of the songs on that year’s list (and, FWIW, now I have the #1 song, “Blue Tango,” as an ear worm!)

    Right????  Salon did a piece a few years ago about why the music of our teen years (I’d push it a few years earlier, to starting around 9 or 10, actually) has such an emotional effect on us, and how we remember it, decades later, in a way we can’t remember more current music.  It has to do with where our brains are in their development.

    I remember being somewhat embarrassed, about seven years ago, to find myself very taken with One Direction’s “What Makes You Beautiful,” as I considered myself a bit old for boy bands.  A friend sent me a link to a guy who did an excellent You Tube video pointing out that, musically, the song was basically an updated version of REM’s “Stand,” which was a big hit when I was in high school. I had their Green album on LP, and played it many, many, many, many times.

  99. 99.

    Bluegirlfromwyo

    @HumboldtBlue: It always creeped me out when weddings in my youth had “Every Breath You Take” as the newlyweds’ first dance. Um, you want to stalk your spouse?

  101. 101.

    Matt McIrvin

    @SiubhanDuinne: The 1986 list is the soundtrack of the movie of my adolescence. There are a lot of songs on there I didn’t like much, but I think you could count the ones I don’t clearly remember on one hand.

    And… yeah, I turned 18 that year.

  103. 103.

    Nicole

    @HumboldtBlue: “Every Breath You Take” is a legendary entry in creeper songs.  Sting realized it, and after the Police broke up, wrote “If You Love Somebody Set Them Free” as an antidote, but it’s just not as good a song as “Every Breath You Take,” which is one of the great pop songs of the 1980s, creepiness and all.

  105. 105.

    CaseyL

    @HumboldtBlue: I think it was meant to be creepy.  I don’t think it was ever considered a “love song.”  It was about obsession, and stalking.

    (Sting later spoofed that song a little, in Dire Straits’ “Money for Nothing.”  There’s a point in the song – I don’t remember when, exactly, possibly at the very end – where, way in the background, you can hear Sting sing “Every cake you bake.”)

  106. 106.

    patrick II

    @TinRoofRusted:

    I love that Dolly’s podcast is sponsored by Thirdlove — a company that makes comfortable bras of all sizes.  So practical, and in a way another measure of Dolly taking something personal and doing something worthwhile.

  108. 108.

    raven

    @Nicole: REM was really taking off when I moved here in 84. They had a great impact on Athens and their staff are the nicest people you’d ever want to know.

  110. 110.

    Betty Cracker

    Regarding the origins of “Jolene,” I listened to a wonderful pubic radio program a while back called “Dolly Parton’s America.” I think it was Radio Lab? Anyhoo, highly recommended! IIRC, she got the name “Jolene” from a little girl she met while signing autographs. She was intrigued by the name, so she wrote a song about it. And she wrote “I Will Always Love You” on the same damn day!

  111. 111.

    Haroldo

    @Kent:

    Big fan of Cray here, too.

    I had the pleasure of regularly playing with Curtis Salgado  in the early ’70s, pre-Cray.  Don’t know what Eugene was like in the late ’70s, but in the beginning of that decade, that town was crawling with good players.

  112. 112.

    Nicole

    @CaseyL:That’s so funny. I was 9-10 years old in 1952, and I remember almost every one of the songs on that year’s list (and, FWIW, now I have the #1 song, “Blue Tango,” as an ear worm!)

    He actually spoofed it in “Love Is the Seventh Wave,” off the Dreams of the Blue Turtle album (the same one with “If You Love Somebody Set Them Free,” I think.  Clearly he had some issues with “Every Breath You Take” he was working out.)

    “Money for Nothing” uses the melody from the chorus of “Don’t Stand So Close To Me,” for “I want my, I want my, I want my MTV” and the only way Sting would give Dire Straits permission to sample it  is if he got to sing it.  Or so I remember from my avid days of watching MTV back when “Money for Nothing” was a hit. :)

  113. 113.

    Nicole

    @raven: That’s so cool to hear!  I absolutely adored them in the late 80s-early 90s.    Out of Time was one of my favorite albums for years.  As was Automatic for the People.

  114. 114.

    Another Scott

    @SiubhanDuinne: My MIL’s family nickname was “Jada”.  Apparently it was a popular song when she was a toddler and she enjoyed bopping to it.  Stuck with her all her life.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ja-Da

    The rest of us decades later were, like, “WTF is a ‘Jada’??!”

    Be careful in picking your musical tastes as a child!!1

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  115. 115.

    Nicole

    I’m heading out for a run before it gets dark- what a delightful post this was to read, guys.  Thanks for brightening the afternoon. I’m totally checking out the Dolly Parton podcast, too.  After Night Gallery. :)

  116. 116.

    Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)

    @TinRoofRusted: Did Dolly mention she recently saw “Jolene” and “She ain’t that hot now!”

    I tend to think of Angelina Jolie when I hear this song nowadays.

  117. 117.

    Elizabelle

    Blue Tango.  I think we have all heard it, even if we did not know the name.

    It’s been used in a lot of cartoons, for one.

  118. 118.

    raven

    @Nicole: Weaver D’s!  Stipe’s mom is really sweet, he brings the family to my neighborhood eatery (at least he did until March) and I’ve had a couple of nice conversations with her. His dad was a chopper pilot with a couple of tours so we’ve chatted about that. Whenever they’d play Atlanta they’d have a quiet pre-sale here so the Athens folks could get good seats.

  119. 119.

    TinRoofRusted

    @patrick II:  Exactly. In more than one of the episodes that issue comes up. She talks about how she uses boob jokes to turn things back on people and to diffuse tense situations. I have always been a Dolly Parton fan but after listening to the podcast I am now a super fan. The woman is a national treasure.

  124. 124.

    patrick II

    @J R in WV: 

    Guys, it just a County Song!

    Well, after reading Nicole’s comments Chyron Hr, and taking TinRoofRusted’s advice and listening to a Jolene podcast, I have to say that’s a wrong take. That song has resonance, as most great songs do, that I hadn’t even considered before. Thanks guys.

  126. 126.

    opiejeanne

    @Nicole: I remember a handful from the 1952 list. I was 2 but probably remember them from a little later.

    I recognized all of the list from 1986.

    Mark Twain wrote an amusing little short story about an ear worm and how he got rid of it by passing it on to a preacher by singing it to him. I have a favorite ear worm by the TingTings, “That’s Not My Name”, but having recently watched “Moonstruck” I now hear, “When the Moon Hits Your Eye, Like a Big Pizza Pie” all of the time.

  128. 128.

    There go two miscreants

    @TaMara (HFG): No love for Robert Cray?

    Late to the party & just scrolling through the comments. I heard that Robert Cray song a couple of weeks ago on the local college radio station (a real station, has good coverage) and was nodding right along with it! Good to hear something that forthright.

  129. 129.

    geg6

    @HumboldtBlue:

    I remember so many friends getting married around that time that used that song as “their” song, either at the ceremony or reception.  They obviously never listened to the words and I would get creeped out every time.  None of those people are still married to each other.

  130. 130.

    Nicole

    @Elizabelle: Oh, it was a lovely run, now that it’s not 85 every day.  Central Park is so pretty in late summer and I could see the new statue of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Sojourner Truth and Susan B Anthony from the main loop.

    Night Gallery is really fun. It’s not quite Twilight Zone, but a lot of the episodes are really great.  I highly recommend “The Messiah on Mott Street,” which I just saw for the first time, and the very first episode I saw as a kid, which terrified me… augh, I can’t remember the name, but it’s about a woman who’s really good at gardening and that’s all I want to say about it.

  131. 131.

    Nicole

    @raven: Oh, good stories!  And that’s nice to hear that REM would make seats available to the hometown fans first. :)  I never saw them live, but my husband saw them on the Monster tour and it’s one of his favorite concert memories.

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