In 1983, this second single from the second album for Men at Work reached #3 on the Billboard chart. The song, written by lead vocalist Colin Hay (who would later cover it himself).
The song itself is about a guy who has insomnia because he can't stop overthinking everything. I feel personally attacked by these relatable lyrics. For a hit song, it's a little dark, especially since this is the same band who had just smiled and made you a Vegemite sandwich.
We have billed this song, the title song to the 1980 disaster of a roller-skating movie, as being an Olivia Newton-John song, but that's not entirely true.
The Xanadu soundtrack was split in two parts. Side A was written by John Farrar - principle songwriter for Olivia - and performed by ONJ, with several guests backing her. Side B was written by Jeff Lynne of Electric Light Orchestra and performed by ELO - but the closing song was this one, with a guest lead vocalist.
So really, it's an ELO song. And the single - ELO's biggest hit - was billed to both of them.
At any rate, the song is a delightful coda to an abysmal movie.
Of course, we also published an ELO-only version on Totally Covered. Go check it out.
The third is that this is a great song that didn't get nearly enough attention, despite the fact that it an emotional powerhouse of a song. This was Sam's first single as Sam - she had previously gone professionally by her legal name, Leslie - and her first single as a secular, and not Christian, artist. Keep that conflict in mind as you listen to this.
We finish our week with one of the band's biggest hits.
I have to admit, when I first heard Nevermind, this was my favorite song on the album, and I was thrilled it was released as a single. It isn't still my favorite, but it's still great.
We've done a good job highlighting all the members of the band this week except for Krist Novocelic - and this is a great song to point out the bassist, who tends to not get a ton of attention. He's an excellent bassist in a band with a genius in front - and this song highlights just how reliable his work was.
Yep. We posted this in the middle of the night, on an early Saturday morning, JUST TO HIDE IT. And we probably won't share this on Twitter.
There are at least two times that Nirvana had a hidden track on albums featuring them. The first one we will mention is from the 1993 AIDS fundraising album No Alternative. Most versions of the album feature this song, titled "Sappy" as a hidden track, although some bill it as "Verse, Chorus, Verse." After Kurt Cobain's death, it was discovered that there was another song called "Verse, Chorus, Verse" in the Nirvana unreleased catalog, and so subsequent releases of this song on various compilations do restore its original title.
The second is well known for those of us who one day decided to just leave their Nevermind CD running after "Something In The Way" was done. 10 minutes of silences are followed by this very loud and forceful song.
It was not my first listen to the album when I discovered it. And yes, I did have a "what the f***" response when I did.
Thus far, we have avoided In Utero, Nirvana's followup to Nevermind.
That was not purposeful. Nirvana had a short catalog, but it was deep, and so it's hard to fit everything into one week. We're trying, though.
This song wasn't actually a single, because DGC, their record label, didn't want to cannibalize album sales. Nevertheless, the song got an awful lot of airplay. But what's it about? It is said that it is about children with cancer... but some, and by some, we mean Courtney Love, think the song is about her.... and her vagina.
Kurt's not here to tell us what this song is about, but he did leave the song behind for all of us to question and ponder.... and enjoy.
Let's look at the song live, where you can really hear Kurt belt the song. More apparent here are Dave Grohl's harmonies (with Pat Smear adding some vocal assistance). Most apparent to me is Kurt's reluctance to be in the spotlight.
