Seventies Soft Parade of Sleazy Sex, Death and Sadness

[cabinessence]

This is a branch off of the Alone Again, Naturally thread.

Ian came up with a killer manifesto and representative canonical list of seventies AM singles to go with it.

Here his statement and his stack o' trax followed by a few more tunes that occured to me. Can you think of more?

The 70's are the period of pop music I am most interested in, and the themes recurring throughout the decade's music are most worthy of serious study. The era was filled with such derangement, sadness, anger, ennui, and hedonistic thrills that it infected even the most banal of art forms, the AM single. While in earlier and later days, the radio was able to blissfully ignore all the societal chaos surrounding it, the 1970's embraced and exposed it in all possible venues. It couldn't hide anything any more, so it just told it like it was and celebrated the decline. A SMiLEY-face sticker on a casket filled with hopes and delusions.

Death:

Dark Lady (Cher)
Billy, Don't Be A Hero (Bo Donaldson & The Heywoods)
One Tin Soldier (Coven)
The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia (Vicki Lawrence)
Train Of Thought (Cher)
Don't Fear The Reaper (Blue Oyster Cult) (Bubble-Metal)
D.O.A. (Bloodrock) (Bubble-Metal)
Detroit Rock City (KISS) (Bubble-Metal)
etc...

Sleazy Sex:
Chick-A-Boom (Daddy Dewdrop)
Brand New Key (Melanie)
Afternoon Delight (Starland Vocal Band)
Chevy Van (Sammy Johns)
More More More (Andrea True Connection)
December 1963 (The Four Seasons)
Miracles (Jefferson Starship)
Midnight At The Oasis (Maria Muldaur)
etc...

Just Plain Sadness:
Daddy Don't You Walk So Fast (Wayne Newton)
I'm Not In Love (10CC)
All By Myself (Eric Carmen)
Cats In The Cradle (Harry Chapin)
etc...

Apocalyptic Sad/Soul:
Freddie's Dead (Curtis Mayfield)
The World Is A Ghetto (War)
Slippin' Into Darkness (War)
Back Stabbers (O'Jays)
Papa Was A Rollin' Stone (Temptations)
Have You Seen Her (Chi-Lites)
Didn't I (Delfonics)
etc...

A few more variations

Sad Sex and Sleazy:

I Honestly Love You (Olivia Newton John. Sample Lyric: But there you are with yours
And here I am with mine. So I guess we'll just be leaving it at this)
Torn Between Two Lovers (Mary Macgregor)
There's Got to Be a Morning After (Maureen McGovern. Poseidon Adventure -the movie it accompanied- as metaphor for romantic shipwreck. I imagine this as sung by a woman caught in an abusive-drunk trailerpark marriage)
Always on My Mind (Willie Nelson's version: a disturbing song in a bunch of ways)
Run to Me (Bee Gees)

Sad, Lonesome and Weird Sex/Romance

Angie Baby and Leave Me Alone (Ruby Red Dress) (both Helen Reddy)
Mandy and Hooked on a Feeling (Barry Manilow and BJ THomas: Drugs as lover: "It's my wife and it's my life" as Lou Reed once put it)

Beyond Weird-and-Sleazy

Master Jack (by Four Jacks and a Jill. It's '68 but its dark-light vibe is extremely apropos. It plays like a twisted Jess Franco sexploitation movie. The Jill singing is a sadomasochist Alice in Wonderland type out of Story of O whose Mary Hopkins-like innocence is given the lie by the creepy lyrics:

It's a strange, strange world we live in, Master Jack
You know how I feel as if I'll never come back
It's a very strange world and I thank you, Master Jack

You taught me all the things the way you'd like them to be
But I'd like to see if other people agree
It's all very int'resting the way you disguise
But I'd like to see the world through my own eyes

You're a very strange man and I thank you, Master Jack
You're a very strange man and I thank you, Master Jack

Death:

Seasons in the Sun (Terry Jacks)
Maggot Brain (Apocalyptic soul by Funkadelic)

Sad Lifestyles (scariest of seventies genre):

Me and You and a Dog Named Boo (Travelin' and Livin' off the Land) (Lobo)
Chevy Van (Sammy Johns; also Sleazy Sex, and Sad Identification with Capitalist Consumer Item Posing as Totem of "Freedom")

[I. Spaceman]

Killer. Gotta go now, but I'll do some more thinking. Great thread.

[Lester Byrd]

One thought: the seventies were the decade when Lou Reed scored a Top 40 AM hit, and Steely Dan scored multiple Top 40 AM hits. 'Nuff said?

Here's a few more:

Death:
"Wildfire"-Michael Martin Murphy
"Fire And Rain" - James Taylor
"Shannon" - Henry Gross

Sadness:
"Smile A Little Smile For Me"-Flying Machine
"Can't Get It Out of My Head" - ELO

Cannibalism:
"Timothy"-Bouys

Sleazy Sex:
"Me and Mrs. Jones"-Billy Paul
"The Way I Want to Touch You"-Captain and Tennille

Transvestitism:
"Lola"-The Kinks

Transvestitism, Prostitution, Drug Abuse:
"Walk on the Wild Side" -Lou Reed

Prostitution:
"Lady Marmalade" - LaBelle
"Island Girl" - Elton John

Toddler Sing-Alongs about Substance Abuse
"No No Song" - Ringo Starr

Why, Yes, I've Wasted My Entire Life
"Cat's in the Cradle" - Harry Chapin
"Taxi" - Harry Chapin
"Lyin' Eyes" - Eagles

Crime and Violence
"The Night Chicago Died" - Paper Lace
"Barroom Blitz" - Sweet
"Kung Fu Fighting" - Carl Douglas

Imprisonment
"Tie a Yellow Ribbon" - Tony Orlando and Dawn

Anonymous Sex
"Chevy Van" - Sammy Johns
"Knock Three Times" - Tony Orlando and Dawn
"December 1963" - The Four Seasons

Animal Sex
"Muskrat Love" - Captain and Tennille

[forgetemarie]

Fantasy World Songs:

Ruby Baby   Helen Reddy
Jackie Blue   Ozark Mountain Daredevils
Imaginary Lover  ARS
Playground in My Mind  Clint Holmes

Creepy Novelty Songs:

Anything by Ray Stevens or Jim Stafford

This is all bringing back unpleasant childhood memories.  It's like picking a scab.

[pavlos brenos]

What about  the immortal Dean Friedman and his all-time classic album "Well, Well" Said The Rocking Chair ? He had a hit (in Oz, at any rate) in '78 with a song called "Lucky Stars".
http://www.deanfriedman.com/

[Lester Byrd]

Fantasy World Songs:

Ruby Baby   Helen Reddy
Jackie Blue   Ozark Mountain Daredevils
Imaginary Lover  ARS
Playground in My Mind  Clint Holmes

And the most exquisite fantasy world song of all:

Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me) - The Temptations

[al]

Oh yes, the last two posts hit two very big spots - Just My Imagination - what a sublime record, by contrast, 'Lucky Star' to me is the most annoying record EVER MADE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! By a very long way. I hate Dean Friedman for what he inflicted on the world. I remember him doing it on TOTP and the version on that was even more horrible (they sometimes made the artists rerecord backing tracks and either do a live vocal or mime so it always sounded worse than the record!)

Interesting how many songs above were not UK hits, or were by different bands. My list of weirdness and crud would be very different to most of you yanks!

[cabinessence]

Bring on the UK madness-crud-sadness!

I spent several seasons with Radio Luxemburg keeping me abreast of what was happening over the alps and across the channel,  and I'm starting to remember just a little, oh no! Lieutent Pigeon, and Gilbert singing about his dog (euthanize them both already!), and Donny Osmond in alternation with David Cassidy (for the 'weenyboppers') constantly with songs that had no impact at all back in America, thank goodness for Suzy Quatro and Wizzard and even Gary Glitter (but Alvin Stardust? I'm not so sure)...and there were the dreaded Rubettes, and emerging  Eurovision group Abba, as cheesy and unreal as the rest but hypnotically appealing.


One Brit-hit from much later, retro in style (note the title), is one of the best bubblegummy squalid-sad songs to make it up the charts I've ever heard: Big South's Bell Bottomed Tear

 

[Chance]

Songs For Slaughtering Psychos:
Ticking - Elton John
I Don't Like Mondays - Boomtown Rats
Excitable Boy - Warren Zevon

Sleazy Sex:
If Loving You Is Wrong (I Don't Want To Be Right) - Luther Ingram
Disco Lady - Johnny Taylor ("Move it in, move it out, shove it in round about, disco lady")
How Do You Do - Mouth And MacNeal
Go All The Way - Raspberries
Bang A Gong (Get It On) - T Rex

Why, Yes, I've Wasted My Entire Life:
Young Hearts Run Free - Candi Staton

Crime And Violence:
Long Cool Woman In A Black Dress - Hollies (You even get corrupt cops!)
I Shot The Sherriff - Eric Clapton (well, he had the AM hit)

And what about some of the strange album covers? I'm thinking "Toys In The Attic," with the demented toys pulling the innocent child into their evil world for god knows what... Or "News Of The World," with bloody people falling to the ground...

[I. Spaceman]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Alice Cooper, who has songs that fall into nearly every category mentioned thus far.
Great top category there, Chance. Another great in that category is Sniper by Harry Chapin.

[Jason Penick]

"D.O.A." by Bloodrock-- probably good for at least 3 of those categories!! 


EDIT:  dammit, ian beat me to it!

[I. Spaceman]

Yep, that one was in my list on top. I'm glad someone else knows it!
The Teen Angel of the 70's.

[Jason Penick]

FUM YOU YOU MOURDOROUS BASTARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[cabinessence]

Bloodrock DOA, yes. I first heard it over the sound system in a bowling alley when I was 12 or 13 years old. The kids I was with and myself momentarily thought it was an air raid warning which made us  scared and bummed till we discovered it was a song which made some of us excited in varying  jittery ways. Heaviness of music what some primarily liked (like Iron Butterfly or Bubble Puppy) Those lyrics blaring slow death that loud in a small town which voted for Nixon for everyone to hear was as close as I ever got to MC5 playing the 1968 Democratic convention, but better since that band just got mowed down by the cops while making their stand, whereas this one got instantly accepted because it was on the top 40 the way Vietnam was on TV and was allowed to rattle around in the  collective consciousness seeping septic stuff...maybe, that's how I fantasized it.

A key figure in this general category as singer and songwriter and insinuator of bad junkie vibes into the mainstream was Kris Kristofferson whose influence spread every which way (and whose pseudo-autobio-pic, more like an extended music video fantasy distilling essence of Kris, Cisco Pike is truly great!) 

Songs like Bobby McGee and Monday Morning Comin' Down are the exact equivalent of  the post-Easy Rider road existential movies about seeking freedom fleeing west and running into a redneck roadblock so popular at the time. His persona in person gave birth to hippie cowboy outlaw C&W on the spot, and his brief cache of great inspirations and concepts seeped into top 40 vocabulary through cover versions by everyone. I just heard one of Sunday Morning by a Neil Diamondesque guy (blanking on his name, a whiteguy Motown arranger) that shows the bridge between gruff Kris to Chevy Van (a romantic song about borderline rape, as well as 'anonymous sex', I'd say) and Me and You and a Dog Named Boo via the Jimmy Webb school of bizarre easy listening techniques.

Martin Scorsese and Paul Schrader in Taxi Driver nailed the alienated-sad-sleazy-sick mass appeal of Kris in the figure of Travis  Bickle who Cybil Shepherd defines in terms of a Kristofferson song, and whose story, I have no doubt, took some serious cues from both Harry Chapin's Taxi song of a similar angry vibe (and romantic dynamic) plus that Jackson Browne song Fountain of Sorrow , another reflection of the collective unsconscious of the day, kids slow dancing to it on Dick Clark's show and the object of De Niro's boot smashing the TV set, it either striking too close to home, or the pre-punk desire of many alienated souls to violently eliminate Jackson and his wimpy ilk  from  the world, both viable explanations ;-)

[I. Spaceman]

Those lyrics blaring slow death that loud in a small town which voted for Nixon for everyone to hear was as close as I ever got to MC5 playing the 1968 Democratic convention, but better since that band just got mowed down by the cops while making their stand, whereas this one got instantly accepted because it was on the top 40 the way Vietnam was on TV and was allowed to rattle around in the  collective consciousness seeping septic stuff...maybe, that's how I fantasized it.

That's one of the best sentences about the power and meaning of rock and roll that I have ever read.

[cabinessence]

Thanks, Ian, I'll sleep easier tonight for the affirmation!

[pavlos brenos]

Oh yes, the last two posts hit two very big spots - Just My Imagination - what a sublime record, by contrast, 'Lucky Star' to me is the most annoying record EVER MADE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! By a very long way. I hate Dean Friedman for what he inflicted on the world. I remember him doing it on TOTP and the version on that was even more horrible (they sometimes made the artists rerecord backing tracks and either do a live vocal or mime so it always sounded worse than the record!)

Interesting how many songs above were not UK hits, or were by different bands. My list of weirdness and crud would be very different to most of you yanks!

Having a hearty chuckle after reading your post, Alan: that Dean Friedman song is   notoriously bad. I rememeber seeing very many copies of said album begging to be sold for a buck in a clearance sale at a leading record chain back in the day..........................