Adventures Through The Mines Of Mellow Gold 8
Welcome back to another edition of Mellow Gold goodness, sissies!
I’ll be honest – when Jefito suggested I start a series about Mellow Gold, I was skeptical. I wasn’t sure there was really an audience eager for review of this music. However, given that many of you have sent me tracks you feel embody Mellow Gold, clearly I’m wrong. Thanks for sending them in, and keep sending – in time, I’ll try to cover as many as I can, and together, we can TAKE OVER THE WORLD!
So, on that note, I’m happy to present the All-Request Edition of Mellow Gold! Rejoice!
The Boys Band – Don’t Stop Me Baby (I’m On Fire) (download)
If you’ve heard this song before, shame on you I’m impressed. Much like Sneaker, I was not previously familiar with the works of The Boys Band. Our good friend Gerald (aka “The Clone Ranger”) from Austria sent me some tracks by the group, which he faithfully transferred directly from the original LP. (Stop laughing at Gerald, people, that’s not cool.) There were a handful to choose from, and it was a tough decision, but I eventually decided to go with this track, for reasons I’ll explain in a minute. First, some history on The Boys Band.
(look! Doug Henning’s in a rock band!)
The Boys Band released their self-titled debut in 1982, and originally was comprised of three members: Greg Gordon (lead vocals), Rusty Golden (keyboards), and B. James Lowry (guitars). Eventually, they fleshed out the band to include other members, most notably Rusty’s brother Chris Golden on drums. All four were, at one time or another, musicians in The Oak Ridge Boys; Rusty and Chris’s father, was a member of the Oaks since 1965, and had financed The Boys Band project.
The band represents the country-twinged side of Mellow Gold. Gerald likens them to Poco, which I definitely hear, and I think Gordon has a vocal quality not unlike Glenn Frey’s. The tracks I’ve heard are just gentle enough, with enough of the smooth harmonies, to qualify for wuss status – especially this one.
“Don’t Stop Me Baby (I’m On Fire),” which opens with the smoldering intensity of a Joey Scarbury tune, spent 8 weeks in the Billboard Top 100, but gosh darn it, I can’t find any record of how high it got. So I’m going to guess it peaked at around #88, maybe.
There are two ways, in my opinion, to express the emotion of being on fire. You can be like Bruce Springsteen, who expresses such a sentiment in “I’m On Fire” and is clearly referring to a slow and steady fire; not out of control, and perhaps bubbling just below the surface. Or you’ve got the clearly out-of-control, high danger sentiment of setting someone on fire, like “Fire” by Arthur Brown.
The Boys Band express “I’m On Fire” in such a way that you’re left thinking that maybe one of them is holding a match, or maybe a birthday candle. If anything’s on fire, maybe it’s his shoelace. There’s no danger here. I’m not convinced you’re on fire, sir! Plus, the line in the chorus actually goes, “PLEASE don’t stop me baby, I’m on fire.” Please? PLEASE? How frickin’ polite of you! If you’re on fire, and you want to stay on fire, you’re going to have to make this plea much more urgent. Because I’m about to take a little paper Dixie cup of water and throw it on your shoelace. Pssssssstttt! Now you’re not on fire anymore, you big baby!
I’m left to wonder why they shortened the title. “I don’t know, Boys, leaving ‘Please’ in the title makes us sound wimpy. Whereas the rest of the song clearly lets the audience know we’re on fucking fire. Yeah, let’s leave ‘Please’ out. Ooooh – and let’s put in a key change near the end, right on “higher and higher,” so they actually know we’re really going higher and higher! We’re geniuses! Get ready, Boys, we’re finally gettin’ laid for sure!”
The Boys Band’s debut was also their final album. Each member went on to a number of different projects – too many to list here. However, I would like to mention that the Golden brothers did go on to form the following band:
You can’t make this shit up. Thanks, Gerald, for your Mellow Gold suggestion!
Lauren Wood – Please Don’t Leave (download)
Everybody, please thank our reader woofpop for this one. When he described Lauren Wood as “the female McDonald” in the comments of a previous MG entry, I knew we had to feature it here. For starters, you could listen to “Please Don’t Leave” and imagine McD singing every single word. As it is, the song is a duet between the two of them, and a fine, fine one at that. I mean, it’s got the McD trademark drums, bass and keys, production by McDonald compadre Ted Templeman, a sax solo, and a drum break with hand claps. It’s a fucking awesome song, and for that reason, I really don’t have much to say about it (because clearly I only have a lot to say when I’m being snarky). In fact, woofpop describes it best: “it’s pure ’79 – sleeker than a Camaro Berlinetta. That popping bassline; the bells; that breakdown in the middle of the song – Robbie Dupree would have killed for a song like this.” You said it, brother!
“Please Don’t Leave” went to #20 on the Billboard Pop charts, and #3 on the Adult Contemporary charts. In 1981, she recorded a song entitled “Fallen,” which was somehow selected for inclusion on the Pretty Woman soundtrack nine years later. I will come clean right now and tell you that for my birthday in 1990, I received my first CD player from my parents and a handful of CDs. The very first one I received was the Pretty Woman soundtrack. This has nothing to do with Lauren Wood.
Did I mention that if Lauren Wood is the female McD, her hair makes her the female Rod Stewart?
(or maybe Dave Pirner?)
Check out her website, why don’t you? It’s well-designed and quite funny. You’ll note, when viewing her discography, that she sang the theme song to Just Shoot Me, is probably a familiar voice to your kids from her voiceover work, and successfuly negotiated the end of the Vietnam War. (I’m totally stealing this for my acting resume.)
Thanks again to Gerald and woofpop for sending in Mellow Gold selections. If we gave out medals around here, you’d be getting them for Wimps Of The Highest Order. See you next week!
November 15th, 2006 at 12:48 pm
Great picks!
What ever happened to Joey Scarbury? I still think that song is a gem! Too bad the cover of the album looked like it was designed by first graders.
November 15th, 2006 at 2:46 pm
I’m looking forward to listening to that Lauren Wood song when I get home (no sound card on my work computer). The name didn’t ring a bell at first, but then you mentioned "Fallen." I loved that song back in ’91. Jason, I too owned the "Pretty Woman" soundtrack back then, but I actually selected it from Columbia House instead of it being a gift. So I’m more of a tool than you. But I still love "King of Wishful Thinking," and I even liked that Peter Cetera song on the soundtrack. What was it called? "No Explanation"? I’m too lazy to look it up on AllMusic.com right now.I liked the snarkiness this week. When will you cover Bread and David Gates and the latter’s classic solo hit, "Goodbye Girl"? I love every second of that song, but I can’t deny its wussiness.
November 15th, 2006 at 2:50 pm
You got it, Robert – "No Explanation." How sad for both of us. If I recall correctly, Pretty Woman was interesting in that I believe it fit about 5 or 6 of the soundtrack songs into the first 15 minutes of the movie: snippets on the radio, at a club, etc…but I’d have to go back and watch it to be sure.
I’ve never heard "Goodbye Girl." If only someone would send it to me. cough
November 15th, 2006 at 3:09 pm
"Goodbye Girl" coming up! … once I get home tonight. I’ll also send you a few examples of mellow Gallic gold — Phoenix and Tahiti 80, two current bands who are soft-rockin’ it across the Atlantic.
I think you’re right about "Pretty Woman" — that Natalie Cole song ("Wild Women Do"?), that Iggy Pop song ("Real Wild Child"?), and something else were all featured near the beginning when Gere first meets Roberts. "Fallen" shows up before they go to the opera. Was "King of Wishful Thinking" played over the closing credits?
I really liked "Pretty Woman" when it came out. I still might like it a lot, but I’m not as easily fooled by nostalgia when it comes to movies as I am with music. Gere and Roberts definitely had chemistry, and her performance was a star turn if there ever was one. I saw "Pretty Woman" with my grandparents in Douglas, GA, five months after it came out because Douglas only had a second-run theater at the time. At one point my grandmother leaned over to me and said, "Is this rated X?" God bless that woman.
November 15th, 2006 at 3:31 pm
Your grandmother cracks me up. In her defense, the first half of that movie is all about the whores.
Awesome story!
November 15th, 2006 at 5:27 pm
I’m listening to Lauren Wood right now, and I feel like I’m in a fern bar. Wearing velour.Also, I’ve never seen Pretty Woman. This is something I’ve been proud of for nearly seventeen years.
November 15th, 2006 at 5:40 pm
Gates makes me so conflicted. On the one hand, he has an undeniable gift for catchy, pretty melodies. On the other hand, he’s written some of the worst lyrics in the history of bad.
"Baby I’m-a want you, baby I’m-a need you . . . Lately I’m a-prayin’, that you’ll always be a-stayin’ beside me."
"If a picture paints a thousand words, then why can’t I paint you? The words will never show the you I’ve come to know." People love this song, but that attempt at an extended metaphor is completely bollixed. It gets worse: " There’s no one home but you, you’re all that’s left me too. And when my love for life is running dry, you come and pour yourself on me." You’re all that’s left me too?? Crikey.
And my favorite: "Lost without your love, life without you isn’t worth the trouble of. I’m as helpless as a ship without a wheel, a touch without a feel." That’s right, he uses "of" as a line rhyme — and then doesn’t finish the sentence! In the chorus! The astnished listener scarcely has time to recover to appreciate the awfulness of "a touch without a feel", which sounds like it comes from the mind of a frustrated adolescent.
But don’t think it’s just the hits that are terrible. When his gift for melody fails him, his bad writing picks up the slack: " Freedom – get goin’ / Lots to be learned and lots to be knowin’ ’bout / People – gotta reach ’em / Sit ’em right down and then you gotta teach ’em ’bout / Freedom – gotta win it / Gotta put yourself smack dab in it". Yeah! Let’s all get smack damn in the freedom!
November 15th, 2006 at 5:42 pm
Smack damn? Oh well. –I just can’t seem to get the hang of formatting my comments here.
November 15th, 2006 at 10:02 pm
Robbie Dupree gets mentioned AGAIN!
Just post Hot Rod Hearts and get it over with…..
November 16th, 2006 at 1:03 am
OMG , Worst Mellow Gold ever………….. SNOOD LOVES THEM!!!! Keep them coming. Somebody help me! Can’t stop laughing at the drum – bongo or whatever break in PLEASE DON"T LEAVE. Number 20?? Really?
November 16th, 2006 at 2:10 am
Great analysis, Scraps. I forwarded it to a woman I work with who likes to laugh about “If.”
Jefito, see “Pretty Woman” just so you can see the only nudity of Julia Roberts’s career. (Your wife will understand.) It lasts two seconds, but it’s her. And what’s odd about it is that at the beginning of the movie when you see her character putting on a bra, putting on her boots, etc., it’s a body double, yet there’s no nudity in those shots. I don’t see why Roberts didn’t just do those shots herself, unless they were done after principal photography had ended.
“Pretty Woman” was directed by Garry Marshall, whose next film was 1991’s “Frankie and Johnny.” Guess what’s on that movie’s soundtrack? “What a Fool Believes.” The cosmic ballet goes on …
November 16th, 2006 at 9:25 am
Okay, for the record, I’m not the one who mentioned Robbie Dupree.
Scraps, I agree with Robert – great commentary!
For those having trouble with comment formatting: for the moment, I’m going in and fixing up your posts so the breaks (either <br> or <p>) are where you intended them. I’m going to try and get this fixed. Not sure what the problem is, but Robert thinks it may be some kind of Firefox issue.
November 16th, 2006 at 5:33 pm
Thank you! I wear my medal of wimp of the highest order with pride.. and will try to work Robbie Dupree into a future conversation, too!
November 17th, 2006 at 7:50 am
These are both great tracks. I’d never heard of The Boys Band.
But I really should remember to listen to the whole song before reading Jason’s commentary. It was a little distracting, listening to the song and wondering if "Doug Hennings" was getting any action …!
The hand claps really make the Lauren Wood song.
Good selections, thanks!
December 6th, 2006 at 9:30 am
[…] VanWarmer signed with Bearsville Records, a local label run by Albert Grossman, Bob Dylan’s manager, whose most prominent artist was Todd Rundgren. "Just When I Needed You Most" eventually reached #4 on the Billboard charts in September 1979, and it proved to be VanWarmer’s only hit. As a writer, he penned a #1 country song recorded by the Oak Ridge Boys in 1984, "I Guess It Never Hurts To Hurt Sometimes." (Quick MG connection: members of the Oak Ridge Boys were also in The Boys Band, covered here in MG #8!) In 1992, he also hit #1 on the country charts as a writer for Alabama, with their hit "I’m In A Hurry (And I Don’t Know Why)." "Just When I Needed You Most" was covered by a few artists, most notably Dolly Parton in 1996. […]