Greatest Song Evah 3/17/23

How Soon Is Now?

Years ago I was listening to legendary alternative rock station WLIR & the disc jockey introduced this one by calling it “our format’s Stairway To Heaven.” I’m not sure if I fully agree with that, but it’s an interesting thought. Just like Zeppelin, The Smiths were one of the signature artists of their idiom. Just like Zeppelin, their most famous track had somewhat of an epic vibe to it. Regardless of how much Morrissey’s middle aged deplorability has tarnished his legacy, it’s undeniable that the Morrissey/Johnny Marr combo often produced magic.

Marr’s guitar work here is absolutely superb, from the Bo Diddley inspired riff that runs throughout the song to his intermittent sonic flourishes. I don’t think he gets quite enough credit for his instrumental wizardry. And for all of the cliches about Morrissey being so inherently mopey, this one is easily relatable. Beyond the song’s depiction of crippling shyness, who can’t relate to the line “I am human and I need to be loved, just like everybody else does?”

Possible Side Category Inductee - The Photographers

Last year attorney Allen Grubman was one of the inductees which was met with a collective shrug by most people. I suppose it’s notable that he helped make a boatload of money for a lot of people and the fact that he was one of the founders of the Hall adds a level of incestuousness to his inclusion, but by definition a lawyer adds nothing to the creative process. In his acceptance speech he called for more lawyers to get inducted, to which I say no.

But if the Hall wishes to expand the scope of the Ertegun Award beyond the usual songwriters, producers, record executives, etc. might I suggest taking a look at some of the legendary rock photographers? Aesthetics are a big part of the music’s appeal, and a great photo tells us so much about an artist. Particularly in a pre-MTV era in which musicians did not appear on TV very often, our connection to a musician frequently came from an album cover or a picture in a magazine article.

There are several good candidates - Mick Rock, Bob Gruen, Jim Marshall, Henry Diltz, among others. There is also Annie Leibovitz, but in her case even though she has many famous portraits of rock figures in her portfolio, it would probably be more reasonable to focus on photographers more specifically identified with rock portraiture.

The Hall is filled with figures who were crucial to the way the music sounds, and rightfully so. There should also be a small space set aside to those who were crucial to way the culture looks.

Really Long Droughts

Circling back to an item from Wednesday’s newsletter concerning MLB teams that have not celebrated a championship in some time, there were 4 teams that stood out for me. I came of baseball age in the 1970s and a quartet of dominant teams from that decade has really hit hard times in this era. The Orioles, Reds, A’s, and Pirates fielded consistent winners that contained some of the game’s most memorable players yet in recent years they have too frequently become complete nonentities.

And those 4 franchises maintained significant success for extended stretches. Among them they combined for 8 of the 10 championships in the decade, 12 of the 20 World Series slots, and 22 of the 40 playoff positions. Now, the most recent title for any of these teams was Cincinnati’s 1990 victory. For Pittsburgh you have to go back to the 1979 We Are Family team to find their most recent run at glory.

I was too young to recognize it at the time, but those runs were historically anomalous for each franchise. The A’s did have 3 separate dynasties throughout their history, but each one was punctuated by a mass sell off of the important players followed by a long stretch as a cellar dweller. The Reds and Pirates both spent significantly more seasons as bottom of the standings teams than they did as pennant contenders. And although the Orioles run lasted almost 2 decades, the franchise has its roots as perennial occupants of the second division in St. Louis.

The near future looks bleak for 3 of the 4. They are all among the teams with the lowest payroll, and the A’s appear likely to relocate to Vegas before too long. The only one that shows hope is Baltimore. They have a group of promising young prospects, yet they didn’t do much to improve the team this offseason, and they are in a brutal division so there is little margin for error. They could very easily regress back into last place this season.

I would love to see at least one, if not more of these teams turn the corner and go on an extended period of success. Seeing those clubs make deep October runs would bring back fond memories of my youth.

Speaking Of 1970s Artifacts

The Reggie! Bar is back on a limited basis. There are 2 stores in the New York area that are selling the long discontinued confection. Worry not, even though the original candy was full of preservatives, these are not 40 year old candy bars pulled out of a dusty old warehouse. New batches are being made.

I have to admit, as much disdain as I always had for Reggie Jackson that combo of chocolate, peanuts and caramel was tasty. I’m certainly not gonna go out of my way to get my hands on one, but if we’re bringing back old artifacts from the late 70s we can do a lot worse.

What Exactly Does Woke Mean?

“This is gonna be one of those moments that goes viral.” Bethany Mandel proved herself to be a soothsayer as she was unable to answer a simple question asked of her by Briahna Joy Gray - how would she define woke? We often see words and phrases pop up that lose their meaning; they turn into basic shorthand for people to use to complain about whatever it is they do not like. At times it’s been “politically correct,” “socialism” is an old standby, now it’s “woke.”

Like the earlier examples, no one really defines it. It is simply used as a synonym for any bad thing, which is why we had the absurdity of SVB being blamed on wokeness. Yes, Mr. Smart Oberver, please tell me how diversity caused a bank failure. Those never happened when the board of every bank consisted of nothing but old white men. Too often the use of the word as an epithet is an attempt to get away with using the n-word without actually saying it. Just look at the Tucker Carlson White Supremacy Power Hour for proof.

In a perfect world Pavlovian invocation of the word “woke” should be met with this same pushback that Gray gave to Mandel. You want to blame everything on a particular mentality, fine, then explain it and show your work. And the Democrats aren’t off the hook either. Stop apologizing for showing basic empathy. When my dips**t mayor complains about wokeness it makes my blood boil.

World Bad Hot Takes Classic

Every team’s worry when it comes to the World Baseball Classic is that one of their players gets hurt. Every team’s nightmare is that the injury is season ending. And so another chapter has been added to literature’s lengthiest tome, This Is Why Met Fans Can’t Have Nice Things.

What makes the Edwin Diaz injury notably unfortunate is that the Puerto Rico/Dominican Republic game epitomized everything that is best about the tournament. Here were two heavily favored teams with two passionate fanbases closing out pool play in a high stakes game with the winner moving on and the loser heading back to spring training. The players on both sides clearly demonstrated the same level of passions that their fans did. And then literally moments after the game ended the mood suddenly turned somber. Although it wasn’t immediately evident who the injured player was, it was clear that someone was terribly hurt. Cameras showed the same looks of shock and concern on players’ faces that one sees when a football player has suffered a serious injury.

The really sad irony is that the perennial concern major league clubs have is the worry that pitchers could air it out full tilt before their arms are fully regular season ready. That is not what happened here, as Diaz’s injury occurred during a fairly sedate celebration. Another unfortunate result is that the people who have no use for the event to begin with are now all in full “I told you so” mode. Look, these circumstances are awful. But players get injured all the time, it’s a byproduct of competing at a high level. I know people argue that it’s not worth the risk to compete in the WBC but just a few weeks ago Gavin Lux suffered a serious knee injury and you don’t see anyone calling for the abolition of spring training games following that. I’m pretty sure 1930s Twitter wasn’t calling for the All Star Game to be scrapped following Dizzy Dean’s injury. Yes, this one feels a little different because it was caused in a celebration & not in game play, but don’t forget that Cody Bellinger’s injury was the result of an overly exuberant celebration. WBC participants show such a joyous level of enthusiasm as they participate. It’s possible that in future years teams will be even more reluctant to let players rehabbing from injuries to play, which is unfortunate. But preliminary ratings results show that 61% of TV viewers in Puerto Rico tuned in to the game. The tournament isn’t going anywhere.

Spring Training For Announcers As Well

There was an interesting article in The Athletic earlier this week, interviewing several play-by-play men about how they need to adjust to the new pace of play rules. With the loss of so much dead time, it will not only have a major effect on game play, but broadcasting as well. It will cut down on storytelling, or even the use of instant replay. It’s tough to show multiple replays if the next at-bat is already taking place.

The general consensus of the men interviewed as part of the piece is that they are professionals and will find a way to present a compelling broadcast. Just as there are likely to be more violations early in the season as players continue to search for the ideal tempo, so will early season broadcasts sound a bit more rushed until they find their feet. The best take came from Wayne Randazzo, for those who fear that we may lose Vin Scully levels of storytelling comfort with the pitch clock:

“Eighty percent of Vin’s career, he worked with games that were this time or shorter,” Randazzo said. “So, I think there’s still a way to do it and still make it fun and entertaining and kind of a normal broadcast.”

And if less dead time means that we’ll hear less of John Smoltz bitching about how poor he believes the product is, consider it a win-win.

Bobby Caldwell

Bobby Caldwell, who passed away earlier this week, only had one big hit as an artist, but what a hit it was. What You Won’t Do For Love is so evocative of its time, and it perfectly hit that sweet spot in the area between blue-eyed soul & yacht rock in a way that Michael McDonald could only hope to achieve. Even though that was his only crossover hit as an artist he was a prolific songwriter, and actually had his biggest success from writing a drab ballad that hit #1 with a Pete Cetera/Amy Grant duet, a phrase that makes me nod off just writing about it.

But What You Won’t Do will long outlast anything else he did. It has stood the test of time and that has been a frequently sampled hook.

Remember It’s St. Paddy’s Day, NOT St. Patty’s Day

Enjoy your day everyone, and hopefully all of your brackets are relatively intact. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next week.