I know you’ve been saving your celebrating until now. I feel embarrassed that it slipped my mind until NPR reminded me: Today is Shakespeare’s birthday!
In honor of Avonian Willie and his prolixity, let us celebrate with a Last Man Standing that features lyrics penned by The Bard.
Yes, Cliffs Notes are allowed, but no, you can not include broadcasts of Shakespeare productions, or movies and their soundtracks. Subtle paraphrasing is also permitted.
I start you off with Rush, “Limelight.”
In honor of the newly late Margaret Thatcher, feel free to compile a list of songs about the late Prime Minister. Not being a very politically astute guy, I think I know enough to identify The English Beat‘s “Stand Down Margaret” as our first entry. Even I am aware of 2 other songs that will fit this bill.
I got to thinking about The Beatles’ “Tell Me Why” this morning. What a joyous, swinging, grin-inducing song! A song about being in an utterly miserable state! You just can’t help but rock along to it in the car, at your desk, by the washer/dryer, despite the psychic devastation! I’m sure there are many other songs like this out there, but can one knock Tell Me Why off of its pedestal?
Easter is coming up. I know the holiday is really centered around Jesus and deeply spiritual matters, but the lure for kids is the basket of Easter candy that the Easter bunny leaves on Easter morning. In honor of Easter baskets, I propose a Last Man Standing on Candy Songs, that is, songs specifically about candy or, if not specifically about candy, involving a candy in its song title. Songs that merely mention a candy in passing do not count. Candy must be essential to the song, as is the case with my lead-off entry, Autumn Carousel’s “Lollipop.”
Let’s fill a rock ‘n roll Easter basket!
As I may have mentioned a few times over the years, I HATED THE 1980s!
I hated ’80s style and culture in general, but as a music-obsessed person, I especially hated “’80s” music, which I typify as synth-pop featuring Yahmaha DX7s and strained vocals. I hated hair gel and guys with dyed hair. I hated asymmetric hairdos and shirt collars. I hated shirts with shoulder pads and epaulets. I hated puffy socks and women wearing jeans with high-riding waistbands. I even hated Madonna, although stripped of her iconic ’80s style she was my idea of a Hot Woman. Thankfully Madonna provided some opportunities to confirm that suspicion.
I hated what the ’80s did to Michael Jackson. I hated the bright colors. I never aspired to androgyny. I even hated much of the “cool” underground music of the ’80s: hardcore, shitcore, REM, that goth stuff like Bauhaus coming out of England… I even hated bands that were making music fairly similar to my own band’s aspirations because I was jealous of their relative success.
I think I hated myself as much as anything. I grew up in the 1970s, feeling pretty much out of place but certain that I would develop into a well-rounded hipster in my early ’80s college years only to be unleashed in a world where I fit in even less. Damn you, 1980s!
Today, my wiser, kinder, gentler self occasionally hears Human League‘s “Don’t You Want Me Baby” on the radio and thinks to himself, “At least I always liked that song. There must have been another 24 hit songs in the ’80s that I liked, right?”
Well, were there? I am calling on you, my trusted Townspeople, to help me recall whether I liked 25 hit songs from the 1980s. The rules for submission follow…after the jump!
THIS may be the elusive shortest Last Man Standing Ever! Your mission is simple: spot the instruments and performance schtick that are NOT employed in Beck‘s understated performance of David Bowie‘s “Sound + Vision.”
I think I’ve got it: the Hall’s shortest Last Man Standing topic ever! I happened upon a Cowsills documentary while flipping channels last night. I knew almost nothing about that band. It turns out I knew a couple of their songs, but I’d never put the song titles and tunes together. I knew they were somehow the inspiration for The Partridge Family. It wasn’t covered in the two thirds of the doc that I saw, but I’m pretty sure I knew that sister Susan Cowsill was once married to The dB’s’ Peter Holsapple. That’s correct, right? Although that fact likely means something to us, I’m sure it was not deemed important for regular people who might be watching the documentary.
Anyhow, I tuned in just when the band’s lead brother pissed off the dad and got fired from both the band and the family. Pops Cowsill sounded like a complete asshole. The oldest brother, the “Brian Wilson” of the group, as one of the brothers described him, got a raw deal. The band’s career quickly went down the tubes. Pops Cowsill sounds like he was an even worse person than Murray Wilson. The family crap that followed was horrendous. Somehow Mama Cowsill, in classic tyrannical father/dysfunctional family lore, was almost completely glossed over. It bugs me when mothers are glossed over in these screwed-up family tales, even though I’m sure the message was that Mama Cowsill was as brutalized as the kids were. This from a guy who grew up with a Mom fond of letting me know that “Everyone’s guilty…of something.” But I digress…
I got to thinking: are there ANY family bands that were not driven by a tyrannical dad and/or a fundamentalist religious background, in which God, it might be argued, serves as the stern father? I’m not trying to beat up on all family bands and all family bands with religious backgrounds, mind you. I hope Pops Staples and his clan, for instance, lived as functional lives as any of us might reasonably expect. And if it doesn’t already exist the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame should create a special “rock ‘n roll chapel” to pay tribute to the essential roll the church has played in the devil’s music.
For the purposes of this Last Man Standing, I’m hoping we can cite family bands that, to our knowledge, were not driven by a tyrannical dad or were not rooted in a fundamentalist religion. Can’t families just sing and play music together? Can’t they all just get along more often than not?
Also for the purposes of this thread, we shall define “family bands” as bands containing at least 3 family members. Family duos and bands containing only 2 family members will NOT count. Sorry, Kinks. Sorry, highly dysfunctional Everly Brothers, assuming you grew up in a relatively stress-free family.
I can think of at least 3 possible entrants, but probably no more…unless you spoil my quest for The Hall’s Shortest Last Man Standing Ever!
