Greatest Song Evah 3/24/23

Waterloo Sunset

Ray Davies has been one of rock’s most superb lyricists, with a strong observational skill. He has an impeccable talent for developing well-rounded characters within the confines of a three minute pop song. Many of his references were uniquely British, yet they still contained a universality that made his musical short stories relatable. When you combine that poetic skill with with one of the most beautiful melodies imaginable, this song is what you have.

Waterloo Sunset drops the listener into a relatively drab commuter rail station and makes it sound like the most romantic spot on the planet. It conveys the idea that where you are is less important than who you’re with. The river may be dirty, and millions of people may be swarming like flies, but as long as Terry and Julie have each other all is fine.

The musical arrangement is flawless as well. The track combines the same blend of wistfulness and hope that is conveyed in the lyrics.

Possible Side Category Inductee - Don Cornelius

The absence of Don Cornelius from the Hall is another one of those puzzling exclusions. He made a significant cultural impact, yet the Hall has yet to properly honor him. His much deserved Ertegun Award would unfortunately be posthumous, but for historical purposes it is a necessary one.

Soul Train was not the first national television show to focus on black music & black artists, that would be Soul! which began a short run on PBS a couple of years earlier. But Soul Train was the one which lasted the longest and which established a media empire that continues to exist to this day. At the time of its premiere, with the exception of American Bandstand there was little room for adventurous contemporary music acts on network TV. There was a plethora of variety shows, but those programs generally only made room for mainstream artists. Even Bandstand usually gave the bulk of its airtime to acts with big pop hits. Soul Train shone a spotlight on artists that fell outside that narrow focus.

For a white kid like me growing up in a fairly homogenous neighborhood, watching Soul Train exposed me to so much music that I would not have known about otherwise. And I grew up in a city; I can only imagine how the show opened up the eyes and ears for small town youth all across the land. Soul Train was syndicated, so it aired at different times in each market, but in New York you could watch Soul Train & Bandstand back to back and see the contrasts between the two. The fashion and the dance skills were so much more impressive on Soul Train. Who can forget the line dance or the Soul Train Scramble?

In short, the Hall could use a lot more love, peace, and soul. And with that I’ll put a wrap on this particular segment. Over the past several weeks I’ve brought up a lot of candidates who would be great additions to the Hall. I’ll have some closing thoughts on Monday.

Things I Miss

Back in the day when VH-1 was still a music channel, 100 greatest specials were a staple of their programming. Every few months they would compile a list of top 100 this or top 100 that and over the course of a week would produce 5 hourlong specials counting down from 100-1. The entertainment value would not come so much from the list itself as it would from the quality of the show’s production.

The point isn’t really any individual placement. I suppose one could watch one of these and grow irrationally angry. “What! That is not the 74th greatest dance song in history! It clearly belongs at #28!” I won’t get too judgmental if that’s the way a viewer would want to watch a countdown special. OK, maybe a little. I prefer to look at it the way Joe Posnanski summarized his recent countdown of the 100 greatest pro football players. As he said, the point is to remember, and in the case of a music related retrospective there are so many great ways to help one remember.

Those VH-1 specials consisted of clips interspersed with sound bites from fellow artists or critics or random celebrities extolling the virtues of those names on the list. It would be a treat if they pulled out a rare clip or if one of the talking heads made a great point. Admittedly when watching those shows once they reached around #40 or so I would take a mental inventory to see who I would expect to see pop up, but other than that as long as the special was interesting the actual makeup of the lists wouldn’t bother me one way or the other.

The programs fell into a downward spiral as VH-1 morphed from its original roots as a music channel into its current format filled with reality programming. The last one I recall seeing was the 100 Greatest Women In Music which aired around a decade ago. By this point they no longer had musicians on the company Rolodex that they could invite onto the show so instead of perceptive comments from people who knew what they were talking about the insight was coming from the likes of Jersey Shore cast members or Mob Wives. It was pretty worthless. It’s a shame that there is no current cable channel for which a program like this would still be a good fit. They were always entertaining.

A close cousin of the VH-1 100 greatest specials is the annual AFI 100 Years specials that used to run on CBS. It initiated with the American Film Institute celebrating 100 years of movies by counting down the 100 greatest films of all time. Following the interest that list generated every year there would be a different top 100 special produced. The drawback is that rather than 5 separate hour long specials, these lists would run on a single 3 hour long special, which would feel a bit rushed. On the other hand, rather than the VH-1 model of 20 entries per hour, which would mean the same amount of time was devoted to each entry, CBS would gradually increase the time allotted to each entry, so that they would spend more time talking about #6 than #84.

I realize that I’m not necessarily representative of the American TV audience as a whole, but there’s gotta be enough of an audience somewhere that would make a revival of listicle television feasible. I suppose music licensing rights can add up, but otherwise these seem to be relatively cheap to put together.

Previews Of Coming Attractions

By this time next week the baseball season will officially be underway. The games will count in the standings and everything. Anticipation runs high this year, partially because we’re coming off of the first normal offseason/spring training that we’ve had in years. The pandemic cut 2020 spring training short, followed by a truncated regular season of only 60 games. The schedule returned to the normal 162 in 2021, but clubs still had to deal with the reality that coming off a shortened season they had to somehow coax an additional 900 innings out of their pitching staffs with the increased injury risk that comes with such a dramatic increase in workload from one season to the next. Finally, the lockout interrupted the 2022 offseason, which caused a scramble to sign free agents and fill rosters once it ended in addition to another shortened spring training as a result of the lockout.

This year, everything was back to normal. In fact, the increased cash flow encouraged teams to spend more freely, so most of the major free agents were locked in by late December. There was no revisit of the era in which camps opened with stars such as Bryce Harper and Manny Machado still sitting in limbo. I’ll have my certain to be 100% accurate predictions ready to share next week. Make your plans accordingly.

Intolerance 1, Inclusion 0

There has been a recent epidemic of NHL players refusing to wear pride jerseys on their team’s Pride Night celebrations. Sometimes it has been individual players boycotting, other times it has been a team wide refusal to don the gear done out of solidarity so as not to isolate the refuseniks. This follows an incident from last summer in which 5 Tampa Bay Rays players similarly refused to wear pride patches on their uniforms. These examples prove that bigotry is accepted as long as religion is used to justify intolerance.

I will admit that the number of Russian players on NHL rosters adds a degree of difficulty to the issue. With the Putin regime holding such an anti-LBGTQ stance, I realize that there is fear of reprisal against family members living in Russia. But I have no patience when I hear “I love everyone but I don’t condone their lifestyle.” First off, you can couch that excuse however you wish, but you’re still sending the message that a certain percentage of your fandom is not welcome. And I’d like to see just one of these deeply religious guys make a similar statement on a Military Appreciation Night. Shouldn’t a devout man have similar feelings against war?

So, No Indictment Yet?

3 days later Vladimir and Estragon continue to wait for an indictment. Meanwhile, assorted GOP leaders have been railing against Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg. Interesting that the party of “lock her up!” has made such a sharp turn and collectively rage over what they claim to be a politically motivated indictment. Witchhunt for me, but not for thee.

It bears repeating that the claims that an indictment was going to come down on Tuesday came from Orange Man himself. The grift is always on, he knows that an indictment is inevitable, but by connecting it to a specific day he uses the threat as a fundraiser. Even worse, he includes vague threats of violence in his solicitations. In some posts he has used a generic “take our country back” admonition with just enough plausible deniability to protect himself just in case things turn ugly. In one of his most recent ones he has flat out said there will be destruction if he’s held to account. Once again, the potential charges in the New York case are not as serious of a matter as what he is possibly facing in Georgia. New York is the appetizer, Georgia could be the multi-course meal.

As for the Elise Stefaniks and Ted Cruzes of the world that are pre-defending him without knowing what the actual charges are, they run the risk of having serious egg on their faces if they were only capable of feeling any shame. And do they really want to waste political capital by putting their necks out for him of all people? He’s gotten to the point that he barely bothers with dog whistles anymore. In one of his most recent Truth Social rants he described Bragg as a “Soros backed animal,” being simultaneously racist and antisemitic in one short phrase. Anyone with self respect would want to steer as far away as possible from that.

Another Week In The Books

Thanks for reading everybody. Feedback is always welcome, as are simple recipes - I hate chopping, so the less preparation necessary, the better. Have a great weekend friends!