Greatest Song Evah 5/24/24

Hey Hey What Can I Do

Hey Hey What Can I Do is somewhat of an anomaly in the Led Zeppelin catalog in that it did not appear on a Led Zeppelin album. That’s not unusual in and of itself, most bands of that era have plenty of classic songs that were non-album singles, or as it was in this case, B-sides. But Zep famously rarely released singles; chart nerds always noted that despite its mega-popularity, Stairway To Heaven was never released as a single, so it did not chart on the Billboard Hot 100.

Hey Hey was the B-side of Immigrant Song and was not included on the Led Zeppelin III album. It still took off as a radio hit, and continues to be one of their most popular songs to this day. It wonderfully showcases Zeppelin’s quieter side, with lots of acoustic guitars, mandolins, and the like. I also really like the twist in the lyrics. Robert Plant is expressing his love for a woman who’s no good, but it’s not sung with a bitter tinge to it. How many songs have you heard sung by a female singer with the perspective of “my man is a dirty dog but I love him anyway?” That’s essentially what Plant is doing here. He would be better off with a woman who treats him better, but he can’t help himself.

There were 2 sides to Led Zeppelin. One is their blues inspired side, with deep bass lines, pounding drums, and guitar pyrotechnics. There was also their British folk inspired side. Both forms of the band were equally great, this song just might be their best example of the latter.

Programming Note

Monday is Memorial Day (and my birthday weekend - don’t worry, you don’t need to get me anything) so there will not be a newsletter on Monday next week. I’ll post something on Tuesday, I’m just not sure if it will be regular length or not. Wednesday and Friday will proceed as normal. Please adjust your schedules accordingly.

The Hero That We Deserve

As someone who came of baseball age in the 1970’s there are several artifacts from that era for which I have irrational affection. One of the biggest was the bullpen cart. If (when?) I become MLB commissioner one of my first acts will be to mandate universal usage of the carts. A few teams currently have working carts, but for the most part pitchers don’t use them. Which is why seeing this story about Twins relief pitcher Steven Okert got me all giddy. Not only did he ride the cart when he entered Wednesday’s game, but he gave the driver a $5 tip! It’s only May, but this just might turn out to be the biggest highlight of the entire season.

Is This Really Necessary?

This doesn’t irk me enough to qualify as a pet peeve, but there has been an increasing trend in broadcasting that puzzles me. We’ve all seen the intro shot at the beginning of a game or studio show - “I’m ____ joined by the Hall Of Famer ____.” Does a Hall Of Famer always need to be identified as such? This reeks of the old Joe DiMaggio demand that at any personal appearance he should always be introduced as the greatest living player, otherwise he would refuse to attend.

On the other hand, I really shouldn’t talk. I’ll bet that if I was a member of a HOF I would similarly insist that I always be addressed as such, and I would make sure that no underling makes eye contact unless instructed to do so. One of my closest friends won an Emmy a few years ago, and whenever I see the trophy I think to myself that if I were in that position I would hang it on a chain and wear it around my neck 24/7. “Oh, this old thing?” I guess it’s just me.

Getting back to my original point, it would be more understandable if there was a direct proven correlation between on field greatness and broadcasting skill. Anyone can name countless examples of great athletes (Joe Montana, anyone?) who were busts in the broadcast booth. It just seems a little embarrassing for the play-by-play man; it has the vibe of “I’m not worthy to share a booth with such exalted figure as you are, but I’ll try my best.” Don’t get me started on the insistence of addressing former coaches as “coach” no matter how many years it has been since they had actually coached a game.

Now That Is A Name I’ve Not Heard In A Long Time

One of my favorite bonkers stories of recent vintage was the saga of former White Sox first baseman Adam LaRoche. He abruptly retired during spring training in 2016 because management told him that his then 14 year old son Drake was spending too much time in the clubhouse. I understand that often teammates can sometimes treat young family members as mascots or good luck charms, but this was extreme. I’m sure that most of his teammates loved having Drake around, but it couldn’t have been a universal feeling. It’s hard to imagine the franchise putting its foot down unless a few prominent members of the team had registered complaints to team management. The story was punctuated by a line that should be preserved in Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations - Adam Eaton actually said “We lost a leader in Drake.” To be fair, the White Sox have not won a World Series since they lost the crucial leadership of Drake LaRoche. Coincidence?

Which is what makes this story so interesting. Birmingham-Southern College will close due to budgetary issues on May 31, yet the baseball team is currently in the Division III playoffs. If the team remains alive long enough, they will be representing a school that no longer exists. And look who is a pitcher on that team. You guessed it, Drake LaRoche. The dude is everywhere.

TV Of the 21st Century - Friday Night Lights

Friday Night Lights cracked two important codes that had proven difficult for many other TV shows. The television graveyard is filled with the remnants of failed adaptations of beloved movies. There’s a good reason for that; movies and television are two vastly different media. Unless it’s intended to be part of a franchise, the ideal movie tells a self-contained story with a satisfying conclusion in the space of two hours. Television by necessity needs to stretch things out much longer, and too often there is just not enough story to make that stretch.

The movie version of Friday Night Lights, which was a fairly faithful adaptation of Buzz Bissinger’s non-fiction book, spent a season with a high school football team in West Texas and told the story of how the hopes of the town were wrapped in the success of the team. The show was more of a loose adaptation - in this case it was set in a fictional town, but the similarities were obvious. In both the real and fictional settings, the town had clearly seen better days, and the football team was one of the only positive things that everyone could hold onto. The creative forces behind the show recognized that the town of Dillon was the real star of the show; and that was where the fertile crop of stories could come from.

As a sense of how relatively unimportant the actual football was, it’s only a slight exaggeration to say that game action in the series tended to go one of two ways. Either Dillon would win in a blowout, or they would find themselves staging an implausible comeback. They would either be down 27 points at the start of the 4th quarter, or find themselves pinned back at their own 2 yard line down 4 points with less than 10 seconds on the clock. Can our heroes eke out a victory?

The second successful code crack is connected to the common drawback of shows set in high schools. As a general rule of thumb actors that are a few years older than the characters they play are cast in these roles. As a result, once a show has run for a few years, actors that are approaching their thirties are still portraying high school students. Friday Night Lights worked around that by allowing their characters to naturally age. That meant, of course, that many of the more popular faces from early seasons would wish to escape a dying town and were written out of the show. As a result of that turnover there was almost an entirely new set of students by the show’s conclusion.

Even though a lot of wonderful characters were no longer regulars at the end, 3 of the most important were. (This was one of those shows with such a deep bench that trying to come up with a top 5 list is tough. Who do you leave off?) Coach Eric Taylor and his wife Tami were one of the most wonderful TV couples you will ever see; their relationship was natural and had a believably lived-in feeling, with no artificial drama. Tami made it clear just how exhausting the life of a coach’s spouse can be, but there was never a sense that the writers were going to threaten their marriage to raise the stakes. When the show began the pair already had a well-established give and take, which helped make the ultimate conclusion of the series and their story (I won’t spoil) feel like it was earned. And these were the roles that both Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton were waiting all their careers for. Each had been floating around for several years - Chandler as your generic blandly handsome leading man type, Britton as the fifth or sixth person on the cast sheet who always inspires that moment of recognition. “Oh yeah, I know her. I like her.” (For example, Spin City) (Should I also add that Connie Britton is a major celebrity crush of mine? With those kind eyes and the lovely little Texas twang her character had, let’s just say I was always jealous when that shot of Tami warmly hugging Eric would pop up in the opening credits.)

They both nailed their roles perfectly. Chandler would go on to win an Emmy, and Britton was nominated a couple of times but I’ll pretend that she actually has a trophy or two on her mantle. The third key character who lasted for the entire run was Taylor Kitsch’s Tim Riggins. The fullback on the team, he was a classic troubled soul, and it made perfect sense that unlike many of his classmates, he had no way out of town and no future after graduation. A brooding presence, it’s unfortunate that stardom didn’t happen for him. He had lead roles in two notorious big budget box office bombs - John Carter & Battleship - which brought his budding movie career to a screeching halt. I also would have thought that Adrianne Palicki would have become a bigger star. As misunderstood bad girl Tyra, she was a very compelling presence. She has had a steady career, but I had hoped for better.

The show did produce two massive future stars, however. When FNL began, I would not have pegged Jesse Plemons to be the breakthrough. He played Landry, a mathlete who was best friends with QB Matt Saracen. Perhaps because the producers recognized his talent, the character became more important as the years went on, and now he is the actor that you want to hire if you’re hoping that your movie gets some Oscar nominations. And as part of the second wave of characters, Michael B. Jordan joined the cast in season 4, proving that he had life beyond The Wire. I don’t think I need to tell you that he has done pretty well for himself since.

FNL was yet another show that had wide acclaim, but suffered from poor ratings. In an attempt to ratchet up the melodrama, in season 2 there was a silly story arc involving Tyra & Landry that read like it came from a schlocky show and is best put in the Armin Tamzarian Let’s All Pretend This Never Happened Vault. Cancellation appeared certain after season 2 until NBC signed a unique deal to keep the show alive. Seasons 3-5 ran exclusively on DirectTV in the fall, before NBC would run the episodes in the summer, when audiences are smaller and large rating numbers are not as crucial. That allowed the series to run 5 seasons in total and give it a proper closure. I liked the fact that many of the episodes in the final season were set around the holiday break; that meant that the majority of the characters that had been written out were able to come back for an episode or two under the guise of returning home to visit for the holidays. It allowed for a series of de facto curtain calls.

Because it was on network TV & not cable, and because the leads were not anti-hero archetypes, I don’t think that Friday Night Lights gets the respect that it deserves as part of the Peak TV era. I personally rank it up there with any of them. Everyone say it with me - Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose.

Originally aired on: NBC & the DirectTV 101 Network

Currently streaming on: Netflix, Prime Video, & Hulu

Closing Laughs

I’ll wrap this up with a wonderful personal moment. Last week I finally saw my first Cybertruck in the wild. You may think that photos give you a good idea of what a hideous monstrosity it is, but you really need to see one in person to appreciate it in all its glory. May you all have a relaxing holiday weekend. See everybody once again on Tuesday.