Nov 122007
Manfred Mann led bands in two eras and experienced the thrill of a big hit song in each era. His early big hit was this one.
I hear you rustling through your dog-eared copies of the Billboard Top 40 book, nerdboys: a few smaller ’60s hits, including his cover of Bob Dylan’s “The Mighty Quinn”, should also be considered from this era. I’m not calling the guy a 1-hit wonder through the ’60s.
Then the ’60s ended, and Manfred Mann fell out of most rock music circles until he came back with his Earth Band and this cover of an album cut by a “new Dylan”:
Has any other artist had two hits from two different eras that had so little in common?
Closest I can think of — in five seconds or so — is Patti Smyth. Two hits: “Goodbye to You” (fake new wave) in the ’80s and “Sometimes Love Just Ain’t Enough” (fake Eagles, complete with Henley co-vocal!) in the ’90s.
Yes, pince-nezzers, I know “Goodbye to You” is by her then-band, Scandal.
How about Bee Gees? Something like Massachusetts vs. something like Stayin’ Alive?
Patti Smyth’s hits weren’t that memorable, though, especially not the one with Henley. On the right track.
The Bee Gees would be good if they didn’t have a dozen hits in each era and style.They had built enough of a career to justify developing from one style to another and dragging an audience into each stage. Manfred Mann…who remembered him after his first big hit and who saw that second big hit coming?
You didn’t say they had to be memorable!
Slightly unrelated, but I really hate Manfred Mann’s “Blinded By the Light.” It seems to go on forever.
Hmmmmm. I could think of someone like Cliff Richard who may have had different hits in 3 eras
Did Cliff Richard have hits in even two eras that were even halfway completely unrelated? Isn’t each batch of Cliff Richard hits all in the contemporary soft-rock style?
Oats, I didn’t say they had to be memorable, but I implied it by citing the nerds who’d be furiously paging through their Billboard Top 40 books. You know the type I’m talking about.
Uh oh. Another one of these threads where Mr Mod chops down any response a townperson makes that isnt “Wow, Mr Mod, that’s the most astute thing I’ve ever read”. You must be coming down with something!
And Yes, I do believe the skiffle/rockabilly hits he had with The Shadows are different than the 70’s soft rock hits he had.
Similar to Sir Cliff, Del Shannon and Gary US Bonds both had early ’80s soft rock hits.
Sour grapes, Andyr! Quick, whistle me a few measures of one of those skiffle hits you’ve read about. Come on, man, A LOT of thought went into this question. It deserves strict adherence to the guidelines inherent in the question, or at least those implied after the fact.
Great 48, you think the difference between any Del Shannon or Gary U.S. Bonds classic from their peak and any MINOR soft-rock hit they may have had compares to the difference between a ’60s Manfred Mann hit and “Blinded by the Light”? I need more – and you, Great One, and Hrrundi should know that I will NOT accept a Jam-Style Council span of hits. While we’re at it, to whom it may apply, this is NOT a time for bitching about Steve Winwood.
How about Damon Albarn’s two U.S. hit singles?
In the ’90s: “Song 2” (Blur)
In the ’00s: “Feel Good, Inc.” (Gorillaz)
Albarn’s contributions are on the right track, but he flowed directly from Blur to his offshoot Gorillaz. It’s not like he fell off the face of the earth for 7 years and then struck gold with a hit song that had nothing to do with his initial blast of success. Nevertheless, this is definitely a better recommendation than what Andyr and The Great 48 put forth.
Who’s still paging through that Billboard book?
I accept this exception. I’ve got one more up my sleeve, inspired by last week’s Dugout Chatter. Golden Earring: “Radar Love” (pro forma boogie) in the ’70s, “Twilight Zone” (pro forma sci-fi-rock) in the ’80s.
The Kinks’ You Really Got Me and Come Dancing.
The Kinks don’t work – too much continuity.
Perhaps the Golden Earring hit would be a good suggestion…IF I COULD REMEMBER THE SONG! Let me look into it and get back to you.
OK, Oats, the judges will accept this one, even though they were German or whatever and may not have been aware of what was going on in their musical evolution! I do remember this song. For no other reason than to satisfy alexmagic’s curiousity, I feel it’s important to post the lyrics as well:
GOLDEN EARRING, “Twilight Zone”
Somewhere in a lonely hotel room
there’s a guy starting to realize
That eternal fate has turned it’s back on him
It’s two a.m.
It’s two a.m. the fear has gone
I’m sitting here waitin’ the gun still warm
Maybe my connection is tired of taken chances
Yeah there’s a storm on the loose sirens in my head
I’m wrapped up in silence all circuits are dead
I cannot decode
my whole life spins into a frenzy
Help I’m steppin’ into the twilight zone
The place is a madhouse
Feels like being cloned
My beacon’s been moved under moon and star
Where am I to go
Now that I’ve gone too far
Help I’m steppin’ into the twilight zone
The place is a madhouse
Feels like being cloned
My beacon’s been moved under moon and star
Where am I to go
Now that I’ve gone too far
Soon you will come to know
When the bullet hits the bone
Soon you will come to know
When the bullet hits the bone
I’m falling down a spiral
destination unknown
A double crossed Messenger
all alone
I can’t get no connection
I can’t get through
Where are you
Well the night weighs heavy on his guilty mind
This far from the borderline
And when the hitman comes
He knows damn well he has been cheated
And he says
Help I’m steppin’ into the twilight zone
the place is a madhouse
Feels like being cloned
My beacon’s been moved under moon and star
Where am I to go
Now that I’ve gone too far
Help I’m steppin’ into the twilight zone
The place is a madhouse
Feels like being cloned
My beacon’s been moved under moon and star
Where am I to go
Now that I’ve gone too far
Soon you will come to know
When the bullet hits the bone
Soon you will come to know
When the bullet hits the bone
When the bullet hits the bone
(Musical interlude)
Help I’m steppin’ into the twilight zone
The place is a madhouse
Feels like being cloned
My beacon’s been moved under moon and star
Where am I to go
Now that I’ve gone too far
Help I’m steppin’ into the twilight zone
The place is a madhouse
Feels like being cloned
My beacon’s been moved under moon and star
Where am I to go
Now that I’ve gone too far
Soon you will come to know
When the bullet hits the bone
Soon you will come to know
When the bullet hits the bone
Soon you will come to know
When the bullet hits the bone
Soon you will come to know
When the bullet hits the bone
When the bullet hits the bone
When the bullet hits the bone
When the bullet hits the bone
When the bullet hits the bone
When the bullet hits the bone
When the bullet hits the bone
When the bullet hits the bone
When the bullet hits the bone
Damn, the ‘continuity’ defense. How could I have missed that one?
Dear Moddie: eat me.
Herbie Hancock: “Watermelon Man” and “Rockit.”
what about bobby darin? I immediately thought of the near do-wop of “mac the knife” versus his later folk stuff.
how about Rod Argent’s successes with the Zombies compared to the 70s prog of his “hold your head up” song?
there’s also the Floyd: “Arnold Layne” versus “Another Brick in the Wall”.
and how about Smokey Robinson’s early Motown vs. his smooth single “Bein’ with You”?
neil young: “heart of gold” versus “hey hey my my”? if there’s a perceived continuity there, it’s because we know so much more about neil, and he has “sold” us his changes better.
i don’t know that any of them are as cleanly disparate as your example, mr. mod. but they’re worth mentioning in this vein.
Townspeople, check out the benefits of patiently following instructions, gauging the feedback on initial responses (and brave ones, I might add – don’t think I’m being critical of you quick responders, Andyr and The Great 48). Check out Hrrundi’s first response:
Whether “Watermelon Man” was a Billboard Top 40 hit or not, he’s spot on! We’ll even leave alone the continuity thing, because Herbie was a jazz artist, which ensures a high degree of invisibility. Nice work, my man.
Joe Cocker: “With a Little Help From My Friends” and “Up Where We Belong.”
Saturnismine checks in with the following thoughtful suggestions:
Hits or just laughable misses in the latter category? I don’t recall hits.
I thought about him, but he wasn’t the band leader in The Zombies, despite being a key member. Close but no cigar!
Way too much continuity. In fact, Pink Floyd did nothing but write songs about Syd Barrett. Chances are they would have been pretty much the same Pink Floyd had Syd stayed healthy and in the driver’s seat.
Nah, he’d done tons of similar ballads and had a long string of hits leading up to a brief fallow period.
He’d already recorded dozens of songs in the vein of “Heart of Gold” – including an entire album, After the Goldrush, right? Nope.
Definitely.
Hrrundi wrote:
Should have quite while you were ahead, my man… There’s a little matter of that giagantic mid-70s hit, a soft-rock ballad that I’m suddenly blanking on – something like “Three Times a Lady” crossed with “Wonderful Tonight”. Help me, somebody. “You Are So Beautiful”! Definitely a transitional shapes of things to come hit that spoils your nomination. I stll love you, though. You too, Andyr and Great One.
Rick Derringer in The McCoys-Hang on Sloopy
Rick DerringerSolo-Rock and Roll Hootchie Coo
Just about any Clapton track from the 60’s/70’s vs the limpwristed efforts of the late 90’s/00’s
his “Babyface” collabs.
Kpdexter has a WINNER!…
…Followed by a loser Sigh… Clapton’s also gone through the transitional wimp-rock route mentioned in my shootdown of Cocker.
We’ll remember our best answers. Keep ’em comin’!
thanks for the blow by blow comments, mod.
darin’s “if i were a carpenter” was a smash. and i don’t think he earned much chart action after “knife”, though i could be wrong.
but argent was definitely one of the leaders of the Zombies, right?
oh, and what does neil’s output before “heart of gold” have to do with anything?
he had a number one with heart of gold, and then fell into a chartless five or six album abyss, only to re-emerge with a very different sound in ’78.
another comes to mind:
the band that did “vehicle” in the 70s, the Ides of March, had a minor garage sounding hit with a song called “roller coaster” in the 60s, which wound up on a pebbles volume. very different sounds, and nothing to speak of in between.
finally, michael bolton had a video (which I cannot find on youtube) in regular rotation on mtv that showcased him as a guitar slinging heavy rocker. he then disappeared for *quite* awhile, only to reemerge in the 90s with his hit cover songs.
again, these aren’t exactly like the manfred mann example, but it’s a fun topic to think about.
Sergio Mendes with 1968’s Brazillian flavored, The Look of Love (#4 on the charts), not repeated again till 1983 with another Billboard #4 with the soft rock “Never Gonna Let You Go.”
How about it?
Mod was confused ‘causre that Twilight Zone song is really “When The Bullet Hits the Bone”
That’s what I thought the title was, Kilroy.
Saturnismine asks:
EVERYTHING: “Heart of Gold” – musically – was not much different than a dozen or more songs he’d already released, just happened to be a hit. There was always that “two sides of Neil” thing in action.
I DO appreciate your tenacity, Sat!
How about Santana? There’s a solid decade between his first round of hits and Winning where he wasn’t really on the charts, and I think Winning sounds sufficiently different enough from Oye Como Va or Evil Ways that someone hearing it for the first time today would probably have to be told it was him.
Maybe Ted Nugent, if he gets credit for the Amboy Dukes and Damn Yankees. Journey To The Center of Your Mind was about eight years before Stranglehold, and then there’s ten years between Wango Tango and High Enough.
Exile of the disco-ized hit “Kiss You All Over” went on to have a number and country hits, but for some reason this is a very unfun fact.
I used to really like Exile — Kiss You All Over and especially Woke Up In Love. I need to replace my Exile’s Greatest Hits LP.
‘Albatross’ (1969 – UK#1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSZHT2XvoLM
‘Big Love’ (1987 – UK#6)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxfg_qe5J_E
“Hong Kong Garden” (1978, UK #7)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PF0OjrFIVWY
“Peek-A-Boo” (1988, UK #16)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PjUY8IXvnA
or:
I love the earnestness, lighting, and earth tones of that “Albatross” clip, but Fleetwood Mac had long prepared audiences for their transition to “Big Love”.
Susie (yeah, I know – I can’t spell that name she uses) & the Banshees had also been making that move along with The Cure from proto-whiney ’80s music to actual whiney ’80s music, no? Had she disappeared in-between these hits, though, this would have been in the running.
Would Peter Gabriel count? He went from long, overblown Genesis stuff to nice little Top 40 pop songs. I suppose Genesis did the same thing.
Sadly, Genesis never went away, and the distance from “Follow You, Follow Me” (I think their first little hit with Collins on lead) to Gabriel’s first solo hit is not far. Good try, though.
I’m sure this will be WRONG, but:
The Osmonds, from “Go Away Little Girl” to “Crazy Horses”!
“Crazy Horses” wasn’t a big hit, so you were right about being wrong.
I’m sensing a little hostility, Townspeeps. What gives?
I really want to know if people here actually like Manfred Mann’s Earth Band’s “Blinded by the Light,” or if they simply regard it as the lesser of two evils.
Fair question, Oats. As you know, I’ve got a few years on you. When this song came out I was a preteen, I believe. The faux Who’s Next keyboard parts, which I had not yet identified as such, and overlapping vocals blew my preteen mind! In a nostalgic way, I’m still a bit dazzled whenever I hear this version, including the breakdown at the end and the little Santana-styled guitar break. Call it my “Dream Weaver”, a song that had a lesser effect on me at that point in life.
I actually kind of like the Mann version. The Springsteen version totally leaves me cold, like most of his stuff. (I thrifted a copy of “Darkness…” the other day, to give it the old college try. Nope.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CN-5-_2xJJI
Someone help me out here. The Earth Band combine the tepid boogie of Steve Miller with the overweening prog ambitions of ELP on this track! I’m not convinced the song didn’t merely exist so FM DJs could sleep off their hangovers.
The Eagle (Remember him? He remembers.) keeps strict tabs on the allowances made for ’70s rock mediocrity on this blog!
How bout Tom Jones? His big early 70s hit was “She’s a Lady”, he drops off the map into Vegas to make his living distributing damp scarves to needy old bags who can’t get into the Elvis show, until the late 80s where he scores a hit with a cover of a song by “he who shall not be named, nor his image used, nor his works sampled or referenced without express written permission by the National Goofball League” – “Kiss”?
Oats, that mention of the Eagle merely makes me want to “fly like an”. Now there’s some AOR music to fall asleep to only to find you’ve woken up in a puddle of drool in your math textbook. Of course the angry visage of the eagle also reminds me of the Colbert Report opening. Feckin writers’ strike.
As for being deaf to Blinded By The Light, I think as kids, we may have given it more credit than it deserved because it always sounded like they were singing “douche” instead of deuce, which is one of those naughty words that your mom doesn’t like to hear. Plus there was still a bit of mystery as to why that word was somehow worse than, say tampon. Later, waiting for the the “who the fuck are you” in Who Are You would make those days seem truly innocent.
I like this “Blinded by the Light” way better than the Springsteen one. However, just like “Hold Your Head Up” it is too fuckin long. People who like Springsteen, like him to sing for like 6 minutes or whatever. It makes them think he’s smart like Bob Dylan or something. MM’s version is spacey and mildly overproduced and fun. WMGK style. I like all that “Uncle Rock” that:
Guess Who
Exile
Climax Blues Band
ELP
Argent
BTO
Supertramp(might be aunt rock)
Firefall
Foriegner
Ambrosia
America
Bread
Christopher Cross
Player
And so do you. It’s the egg that holds our classic rock burger together. It cant all be Zepp, and Stones, and sirloin.
Alan Parsons Project
I appreciate everyone’s honesty. I too have a soft-spot for “Uncle Rock” but I’m more partial to something like “Ride Captain Ride.” It’s concise, it’s got hooks, it rocks! Hell, it has a driving beat!
Mockcarr, you may be interested to know that twenty-some years after this song’s release, when it still held its grip on AOR radio, teenagers continued to marvel over the “douche/deuce” duality.
mod, based on your manfred mann example, your criteria are:
a hit, followed by an absence, followed by a hit of a different stripe.
if you say something in your original post about what the artist does BEFORE that first hit, i must it.
and suddenly, mystifyingly, neil’s output before “heart of gold” is cited as a reason for disqualifying him (your explanation simply re-states this what you said the first time, without really really explaining further).
me no understand.
nor do i really care.
at first i thought the others who claimed, early in the thread, that you were shifting the rules and making them up as we went along were just a coupla babies. but there may be some credence to their claims.
kilroy, i don’t like the bands you list. i supplement my love of the beatles / stones / zep, etc. not with those acts you name but with punk rock, etc….
regarding the mann version of “blinded by the light”, there was a two month period when that song came out when i was inundated by it. everytime we got in the car, there it was. yuck. i find nothing more annoying than that opening organ riff.
it was a wordy, annoying song to begin with, written by a geek who was mastering the art of writing songs out of his fantasies of partying with the badass in-crowd. but at least the springsteen version sounds like a *real* band playing rather than a coke-addled 70s studio budget piece run amok.
I knew I could count on you, Saturn! Some smooth chords on the car radio, eh?
Having long wondered what “Ride Captain Ride” was supposed to be about, what mysterious nautical history was being referenced by the cryptic lyrics, I found out today that it’s not really about anything. The “73 men” who sailed up was just something the guy from Blues Image thought of when he looked down and saw 73 keys. I can’t help but think this is going to hurt Ride Captain Ride’s ranking on my list of songs in the musical-subgenre of dead sailors and pirates.
Sat says:
i supplement my love of the beatles / stones / zep, etc. not with those acts you name but with punk rock, etc….
I say:
What the fuck is etc?
Am I to take that literally?
Like “and Cetera”
Solo or with Chicago?
I prefer the Mann version to the Springsteen version, and I find the Mann version enjoyable when I hear it on the radio, which by now is only about once a year. I’m as much laughing at it as getting into it when I do hear it, but it’s still a fun enough ride.
Nice Cetera comeback, Shawnkilroy! Try topping that, Sat!
kilroy,
i’m fond of writing “what does this mean?” next to “etc.” when my students use it, so there’s no wriggling out of this for me!
but i can’t possibly list all the bands i like *instead* of the ones you name.
are you suggesting that liking zep, the stones, the who, and the beatles, NECESSARILY means i have to start liking those shitty bands on your list?
i’d much rather listen to the velvets, the fall, joy division, the sex pistols, the clash, the jam, the ramones, the ny dolls, the buzzcocks, on up into the 80s, with hüsker dü, dino jr., sonic youth….et fucking cetera.
you get the idea now, right?
I saw Bruce on Storytellers on VH-1 Classic recently, and even he brought up the douche thing. The original lyric is “cut loose like a deuce,” with the internal rhyme that was his basic method, or crutch, in those days. (On the show he admits to using a rhyming dictionary.) The Manfred Mann guy sings “wrapped up like a douche.” I actually don’t think he’s singing “douche,” he’s just trying to sound cool.
“Cut loose like a deuce” sounds equally filthy. I hope they air out the E-Street tour bus.
I actually hate the rhyming in Blinded By the Light – early pearly curly wurly go-kart mozart…yeah.
uh…sure I do. I was just breaking balls pal.
You do like Eddie Money though, don’t you?
Joe Jackson, he’s kinda…punky, right?
That’s funny, I supplement my love of punk, garage and weird, kinda twangy country punk with the few classic rock acts I can still stand. I always thought Chicago, Boston and The Doobie Brothers were the Nickelback’s, Coldplay’s, and Dave Matthews Bands of the 70’s.
Then again, I’m a snob.
On the way home today I heard a piece on NPR from Mo Rocca (sp?) about lisps, specifically Giuliani’s lisp. He was talking to a speech therapist who had a technical name for it but who called substitution of an ‘sh’ sound for an ‘s’ sound “the Carol Channing lisp.” He did not bring up the Manfred Mann dude’s douche, but I believe that sound has no place in rock and roll, and I am shocked by today’s poll results.
I wish it were true that this sound had no place in rock ‘n roll: it would have save us Paul McCartney singing “My love don’t give me preshunts.”