There are many songs about girls and women named Sally; if this is one of the less inspiring of the genre it is because it is a purely functional one. The first number from the musical Call Me Madam, like the rest of the songs in the show it was written by Irving Berlin.
In the 1953 film version, this brief number is performed by three women - secretaries or some such - who sing down their telephones:
"Mrs. Sally Adams Requests the pleasure of your company"
The song includes a tiny snatch of "God Bless America." When Berlin refers to "Mrs. Sally Adams, queen of all the madams" there is no innuendo or smuttiness implied, Mrs. Adams - played in the film by Ethel Merman - is a wealthy widow, and a person of some importance in political circles, hence the invitation to one of her parties. The song is also reprised at the end of the second act.
This song was inspired by a personal relationship. After the band moved to the States, guitarist Laurie Wisefield became engaged to an American girl, but when they returned to England their relationship ran into difficulties.
"Lichtenburg" is the fourth song from the 1950 Broadway production Call Me Madam, which has words and music by Irving Berlin. There is no such country as Lichtenburg, which might just be a hybrid of Lichtenstein and Luxembourg, but Perle Mesta, the real hostess with the mostess on which this musical was based, was appointed US Ambassador to Luxembourg in 1949.
This dreamy ode to a girl finds Valentino eschewing recording contemporary beat-driven songs about sex for a jazzy tune filled with more affectionate lyrical content.
"Good night to you my soul flower I hope you wish upon my star."
Valentino explained to The Drop.FM : "We all love sex, but we all talk about that. Let somebody be that one to step out and do something different or say something different, so that's how I feel."
Valentino added that releasing music on his own label, Blu Kolla Dreams, has given him more creative freedom in making the music he wants. "I've always been a situation where I had to chase a hit record or a song," he explained. "I've always had to go into the studio make a song that's a certain tempo so that the record company can work that song easily."
"Shannon" was a song written about the passing of Beach Boy Carl Wilson's Irish Setter of the same name. The song went gold and became a worldwide hit. The second single, "Springtime Mama," sold just short of gold. This was Gross' first album and first hit on the new Lifesong Record label.
This song was a hit in the US in 1976, but is perhaps best known for being the subject of a legendary, profanity-laced tirade by American Top 40 radio show host Casey Kasem while recording an episode of the show in 1985. A listener had requested the song as a "Long Distance Dedication" (a regular feature of the AT40 show) to his own recently-deceased dog. Kasem was upset that the show's producers had placed the dedication immediately following the Pointer Sisters' hit "Dare Me," an up-tempo song that Kasem considered a poor lead-in to a sad song like "Shannon" - and he let the producers know of his displeasure in no uncertain terms. In the end, the dedication, and the mismatched songs, were presented as scripted in spite of Kasem's objection, but the outtake of his rant eventually surfaced as a bootleg recording. The so-called "Snuggles tape" (named for the dog to whom the dedication was made) contradicted Kasem's normally straight-laced, easygoing on-air persona, and provided an amusing footnote to his 18-year-long run as the show's original host.
The falsetto vocals on "Shannon" were written because Gross was a big fan of Beach Boy member Brian Wilson and was influenced by his singing style.
This song is about a guy who uses a girl just for his own pleasures. The story is told from the girl's viewpoint; she loves this boy so much that she would let herself be used by him just to be with him. The boy knows that anytime he calls her name, she would come even if she knew it was just to be used. No matter what she tells herself, she could never say no.
This song evolved from a conversation that took place between band member Kenny Loggins and a longtime friend of his from the business side of music. During a live performance of the song, Loggins explains his desire to bring a female singer songwriter into the musical trio he was forming. As Loggins tells it, he flew to Nashville and met Georgia Middleman. Within one hour, they wrote a song together. The vibe was magical, and he was excited for what Blue Sky Riders might become. Upon returning to his home in Santa Barbara, he called his friend and told him, "I think I found something amazing. I might be on to something." The friend replied, "Forget it, you are too old. You can't start over at your age." That night Loggins would text Middleman the words "too old to dream." She then turned those words into what would become the chorus for this song.
Kenny Loggins wants the message in the song to reach people. On stage, he dedicates the song to "Everyone who thinks it's over and you have to get out of the way. Forget about it."
In our interview with Georgia Middleman , she explains: "I love 'Dream' because it says so much and really hits home to me, because any time anyone tells me I can't do something, that's the first thing I do. And, when somebody said to Kenny, 'You're too old to do this band,' he came to us and he went, 'uh, uh, we're doing this, we're going to do this anyway, We're not too old.' Our listeners and our fans, a lot of them are middle age, and they are reinventing their careers, they're finding a new career. Even in Nashville when I write with 20-year-old girls, they think that if they don't get their record deal now, they'll never get it, they feel too old. And it's like, God, that's just not true. That's why I love that song."
The song opens with a beautiful arpeggio picked on a 12-string guitar. The beat is simple and steady. It is an approach often used in songwriting when the artist wants to make certain the lyrics are not lost in the instrumentation.
Many have been hit with tough times. Encouragement and confidence are sometimes lost. In music's finest moments, it will provides inspiration. This song is an example of a real life occurrence with a negative implication, and talent from this gifted songwriting trio to spin this circumstance into a positive message of hope and belief.
This song is not what it appears on first listen. You might assume the lyrics reflect a back and forth conversation with two people that have a history together. Perhaps a strained romance. In reality, the lyrics relay the words of a man talking with himself. The words reflect the exchange between the head and heart. The man's heart wants to take a girl home. His head wants him to slow down and think it through, it may not be a good idea. A classic dilemma. The song delivers one of the finest lines from the album: "blah, blah, blah, in my head all day, I don't listen to a word you say."
The Honky Tonk backbeat is laid down right out of Bourbon Street. Close your eyes and envision Dr. John passing by. A boogie-woogie style piano kicks off in the first measure and does not stop until the final note. Not credited in the album's liner notes is a Hammond B-3 organ that highlights the song's defiant attitude. The vocals are handed off flawlessly between Kenny Loggins, Georgia Middleman, and her husband Gary Burr.
Blue Sky Riders is comprised of Kenny Loggins along with the husband-and-wife team of Gary Burr and Georgia Middleman. In our interview with Georgia Middleman , she explains the process that went into writing this song: "We talk about writing a saying. There's a saying that Gary and I always say to each other, which is the title of the song 'You're Not The Boss Of Me.' We're married, but we were dating at the time when we were making this record, and we always are really snarky with each other: 'Well, you're not the boss of me, you can't tell me what to do." We took that line and made it sloppy on the record. That's one of my favorites, because it's just so snarky and it's so much fun. The groove is really rockin'. It's like a soulful New Orleans groove. That's one of my favorites, and I love playing it on stage because you can dance to it."
Songwriters observe life and collect ideas. The beauty is when they turn despair into hope.
In May 2009, the Jesusita Fire torched over 8,000 acres in Santa Barbara, California. Nature's battle to survive and fight back provided Kenny Loggins the inspiration for writing this song. He took a bike ride through the same charred land in August of 2010 and cried as he rode through the devastation. In early spring of 2011, he finally saw hope in the scorched earth. He could smell new sage just beginning to return. He saw plant life trying to force its way back. He whispered to himself, "I guess it's going to take another spring."
Loggins wrote in his blog for the band's website: "I recognized how long it was taking for nature to come back from this destruction, but also, paradoxically how quickly and tenaciously life wants to rebuild, to send out it's shoots of rebirth, of the promise of a coming spring. I was immediately struck by an inner promise, of the awareness that my own personal spring was only one more season away. It was a message of hope for a heart still in repair, even after all the seasons."
In Georgia Middleman's Songfacts interview she was asked to the reflect on idea behind the song. "That was Kenny's idea," she replied. "He lives in Santa Barbara and they had some wildfires. He was bike riding one day and he said all the plants and the trees, the bushes, they were charred and he was riding through black. He stopped his bike and looked down, and out of one of the bushes there were green sprigs coming out of the black, charred branches. And he went, 'Oh my God, it's amazing how much nature wants to renew itself. And it will.' He said, 'It'll probably take another spring, but we're going to get the wildlife back, we're going to get these trees back. He said, 'It's kind of like life. Nature wants to renew itself, people want to renew themselves.' He came to us with the idea of, 'it will probably take another spring,' and we wrote it as an analogy to opening yourself back up to life after you feel like you've died."
Few instruments capture the mournful sound of a lonesome whippoorwill like the dobro. The dobro's first note, struck in the intro at the :09 mark, pays homage to nature's loss. It represents the sounds of wildlife and nature, the inspiration for this song.
"Opening Night" is the opening number from the musical and 2005 film The Producers - no surprises there. Like the rest of the score, it was written by the multi-talented Mel Brooks. The song is performed by the Ensemble, and introduces Max Bialystock, who has just produced Funny Boy!, a musical version of Hamlet, which opens and closes the same night. Needless to say, the song is a joke at Bialystock's expense:
"What he did to Shakespeare Booth did to Lincoln"
The original 1968 film The Producers did not include this song; of the musical numbers therein, only "We're Prisoners Of Love" and "Springtime For Hitler" were written by Mel Brooks.
Is this song really about Louis Armstrong? Apparently so, although when he introduced it at the S.P.A.C.E. music venue in Evanston, Illinois on June 3, 2012, Al said it was a one of only two happy songs he had ever written - which is surely an exaggeration. Rock songs are written in metaphors, he said, but this one is written entirely in similes.
Running to 3 minutes 47 seconds, the studio version is the 5th track on his 1993 Famous Last Words album, and yes, Satchmo does get a brief mention towards the end. In a simile, of course.
The third song from the 2005 film The Producers is a duet between self-styled King of Broadway Max Bialystock and his accountant Leo Bloom. In the film version it begins in the office and finishes outside. In the London production at Theatre Royal Drury Lane it takes place entirely in his office. The programme gives the actual date as June 16, 1959, earlier than in the original 1968 film.
Max is played by Fred Applegate; Leo by John Gordon Sinclair. What is it they can do? His latest show having closed on its opening night, Max is told that it would be possible to make more money with a flop than with a hit; the song is about him attempting to persuade the accountant to help him set up such a scheme.
Like the rest of the songs in the show, "We Can Do It" was written by Mel Brooks.
This is about a guy deciding that a fake life with a woman is leading him nowhere and he wants to cut it off. Despite the fact that he seems popular being with this woman and she wants him, he is drinking, they fight, and all of his friends are fake. It is a song about not selling out for the high life.
There are some drug references in this song, such as "Eating breakfast on a mirror," which implies doing cocaine after waking up. The controlling girlfriend doesn't want the singer to do them, and he resists.
More lyric interpretation: "The amount of pills I'm taking, counteracts the booze I'm drinking, And this vanity I'm breaking lets me live my life like this" - He's doing many things at once. The "vanity" could have a double meaning, literally it's a piece of furniture but it could also indicate how self-absorbed he is.
"And you can cry all you want to, I don't care how much." - He doesn't care how much she cries and begs him to stop using drugs, he won't stop so she might as well give up.
This is one of only two songs written by Mel Brooks for his 1968 film The Producers; the other is "Springtime For Hitler." Much later he would compose the entire score for the remake and stage musical.
"We're Prisoners Of Love" sees crooked producer Max Bialystock a prisoner of Uncle Sam. In the 2005 version, this song is called simply "We're Prisoners Of Love". The title is also that of a musical written in Sing Sing prison after Max is convicted of a financial scam - the theme of the film. Happily though, on account of writing this musical he is pardoned.
This song is about a guy (most likely a nerdy, self-conscious guy), who falls in love with a girl who works a few cubicles down from him in an office, but she leaves and his world falls apart. The whole CD has a lot to do with classic movie plots, with themes of vampires, zombies, office romance and lovers running from the law together.
This song is about rejection, but it's framed in the context of everyday office life. He writes love notes to a girl every day, but never has the nerve to give them to her, so tears them up and throws them out of the window. Then eventually, she switches jobs, and he says that whoever takes her place in her cubicle, it will only be a temporary stand in for her. And he starts to think that he's never going to meet anyone and he'll die alone. He Imagines things that they could have done together, that he knows that they will never do because he would never talk to her. It's about loving someone that you see regularly, but they don't even realize you exist.
This one-off single was released in time for Jane's Addiction's August 9, 2013 co-headlining appearance at the Rockstar Energy Uproar Festival, in Scranton, Pennsylvania and was a centrepiece of their five-week Uproar Tour. "Being that we have a tour, I'm really happy that we have a good song that will serve as our calling card when we hit various cities," frontman Perry Farrell told Rolling Stone. "Jane's is kind of known for long songs; being this is a one-song single, I thought it'd be interesting to try and write a Beatles-esque short song that would be fast and furious and it would just be fun, dig it and move on, short attention span."
This was inspired by a girlfriend of Perry's wife, Etty Lau Farrell. "This girlfriend, as all people do, really wanted a mate," the singer explained, "and I think she shortchanged herself an awful lot in life. She's a good-looking woman, she had a career, but when it came to love and romance, she sold herself short all the time and she would reach out to guys that we would scratch our head like, 'What is she doing with this guy?' She said, 'I feel like he's my soul mate.' Any time she'd meet a guy she'd say, 'I feel like he's my soul mate.' So I wrote this song."
The song was first performed live by Jane's Addiction back in 2010 when bassist Duff McKagan was sitting in with the band.
This was released as the first single from Los Lonely Boys' sixth album. Guitarist Henry Garza told AntiMusic : "We picked this track to be the first to be released because we felt that this song really took us back to our Texican roots, and it was a song that almost anyone could connect with."
Garza added: "The real inspiration behind this song was love, and we were looking for a way to say that love is the reason for everything. In all honesty, who hasn't had a situation where they could blame the outcome on love!? If we really pay attention, everything we do is motivated by love."
The track was recorded at Bismeaux Studios in Austin, Texas with Don Gehman manning the boards. Gehman is best known for his work in the 1980s with John Mellencamp and R.E.M. Garza told AntiMusic regarding the veteran producer: "He has worked with so many greats, and it was a humbling experience to be in the studio with him. Don just has a way of knowing how to make a track pop, and he did that with 'Blame It On Love.'"
At a concert, The Reverend explained that this song is about a real band called The Loco Gringos that used to play in California. They had a lot of character, and would literally bring "5 bales of hay" to decorate the set; they cruised town in a "Cadillac Hearse" and had a tour bus painted like the Mexican flag; they lived in a house they called "Gringo Manor;" and there was a guy who would sell corndogs at their shows, which explains the line, "Hey there, Pablo, whatcha got in the bag?"
This dance-rap track is a collaboration between American producer Diplo and British drum & bass artist DJ Fresh. It features Tampa, Florida hip-hop artist Dominique Young Unique. The song was released on August 18, 2013.
This features on the second installment of Mark Millar's ultra-violent comic turned movie franchise Kick-Ass.
The Jonas & François directed video features Dominique leading a costumed gang of disreputable superheroes in New York. The scenes of mayhem they create is in keeping with the spirit of the Kiss Ass 2 movie. Discussing the clip with Digital Spy , Fresh said: "It's the first music video I've actually appeared in, so it was really good fun. I had to act - which sounds ridiculous as it's a two-second clip of me standing up! This was a pretty big video for me as we're starting to move in America, also because it was with Diplo and the director was incredible."
American rapper Angel Haze was originally supposed to be on the track. DJ Fresh recalled to Digital Spy : "What happened was Diplo sent it to Angel Haze to potentially rap on, then she took it as an opportunity to rap over it for five minutes about how much she hates Azealia Banks and put it out as a free download on her SoundCloud. We decided to change it after that!"
