Song Nebula

“King Kong Song” (1974) – Abba * Written and produced by Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson * LP: Waterloo * Label: Atlantic

Those who’ve invested emotionally in Abba as songcraft sophisticates likely wince at songs like this, in which they instruct listeners to “let your arms hang down and waddle all around.” Those who experienced the sugar high of the 1974 Abba invasion as kids, though, will regard it as novelty gold. On the Swedish foursome’s first US album, “King Kong Song” happened to follow a track called “Sitting in the Palmtree,” in which Björn Ulvaeus sings of living like “a monkey in the zoo.” The Beach Boy “bom bom” vocals locate it smack in the middle of the seventies nostalgia boom.

“I Guess It’s a Beautiful Day Today” (1973) – Coven * Written by Chris Neilsen * 45: “One Tin Soldier (The Legend of Billy Jack)” / “I Guess It’s a Beautiful Day Today” * LP: Coven * Produced by Frank Laughlin * Label: MGM

The strident “One Tin Soldier,” from the sleeper hit Billy Jack, had a complicated history, with as many as three issues of the single, all by Coven (not including a previous version by a group called The Original Caste), charting in the wake of the movie’s success. Although their first album had been a macabre occult outing called Witchcraft Destroys Minds and Reaps Souls that the Mercury label withdrew after negative publicity, Coven would tone it down a bit for eponymous album number two (but not enough to refrain from flashing the horns on the cover). It would appear on conservative Mike Curb’s MGM imprint, making them label mates with the Osmonds. Side B of the MGM issue of the single contained a refreshing country-rock change-up called “I Guess It’s a Beautiful Day Today,” written and sung by guitarist Chris Nielsen. The production credit of Frank Laughlin was likely used by Tom Laughlin, the film’s director, as a rights ploy; Frank was actually Tom’s son, and he would not yet have been old enough to drive, let alone produce a hit record. But you never know.

“Letter from Hiro” (1980) – The Vapors * Written by David Fenton * LP: New Clear Days * Produced by Vic Coppersmith-Heaven * Label: United Artists (UK)/Liberty (US)

England’s Vapors released one of their era’s most satisfying power pop albums with New Clear Days, but the novelty notoriety of “Turning Japanese” overshadowed it and likely shortened the band’s lifespan. That song was too clever—a nuanced self-identity exercise that translated to the masses strictly as cultural mockery. The album ends, though, with a six-plus-minute track called “Letter from Hiro” that handles the Japanese theme with comparative sensitivity. The koto in the outro (playing notes in the ryosen scale) has an emotional effect directly opposed to the brazen oriental riff that opens up “Turning Japanese.” The sequence that closes “Letter to Hiro” probably seeped into Fleetwood Mac’s “Gypsy” during a time when Lindsey Buckingham was scarfing down new wave records. (On the US version of New Clear Days, “Letter from Hiro” ends side one.)

“It’s Still Warm (long version)” (1987) – Dramarama * Written by John Easdale * LP: The Days of Wayne and Roses (The Trash Tapes) (1992) * Produced by John Easdale, Mark Ettel, and Chris Carter

This longer version of Dramarama’s 1987 single, which turned up on a 1992 fan club-only release called The Days of Wayne and Roses, intensifies its wistful vibe. They were a New Jersey band who became KROQ darlings in Los Angeles but couldn’t convert that notoriety into commercial success. So by extension, “It’s Still Warm” can feel like a poignant wallow in the lost promises of youth, especially for listeners who spent their teen years in the late ’80s. The long version, with its quiet merry-go-round intro doing a I-IV-VIIb pattern, brings to mind the Motors’ “Dancing the Night Away,” which also had a long and short version, either being essential in its own way.

“In the Midnight Hour” (1965) – Wilson Pickett * Written by Steve Cropper and Wilson Pickett * 45: “In the Midnight Hour” / “I’m Not Tired” * LP: In the Midnight Hour * Label: Atlantic

As a song, “In the Midnight Hour” is an irresistibly coverable soul primer. As a recording, Wilson Pickett’s original version is untouchable. The stories told about it involve uncredited producer Jerry Wexler demonstrating dance steps to insure that Al Jackson (drums), Steve Cropper (guitar), and Donald “Duck” Dunn (bass) would punch the backbeat hard on the 2 and 4. They also tell of Cropper and Pickett composing it in the Lorraine Motel (later the assassination site of Martin Luther King, Jr.), and of Cropper claiming to have secularized an early Pickett gospel recording that had also included the words “in the midnight hour.” (He was likely remembering Pickett’s already secular “I Found a Love” with the Falcons.) The record’s ultimate power, though, is Pickett’s vocal, which sounds like a man manipulating hurricane winds.

“I Found a Love” (1962) – The Falcons * Written by Wilson Pickett, Willie Schofield, and Robert West * 45: “Swim” / “Lu Pine” * Label: Lu Pine

Guitarist Steve Cropper has been quoted as having taken inspiration for “In the Midnight Hour” from one of Pickett’s gospel tracks, in which he sings, near the end, “I want to see Jesus in the midnight hour!” It’s almost certain he was thinking of this track, though, which sounds gospel and features Pickett saying at 2:25, “and sometimes I call in the midnight hour!” The only record Pickett had appeared on before the Falcons (who also included Eddie Floyd and Mack Rice) was called “Sign of the Judgement” (1957), in which he sang second lead with the Violinaires in Detroit, featuring nothing Cropper could have even misheard that way. (Tony Fletcher, in his In the Midnight Hour: The Life and Soul of Wilson Pickett, dispels other rumors that Pickett had recorded with a group called The Spiritual Five.)

“Very Nice of You to Call” (1970) – Aardvark * Written by David Skillin * LP: Aardvark * Produced by David Hitchcock * Label: Deram Nova

A London prog band with no guitar, Aardvark (who once included Paul Kossoff and Simon Kirke of Free) released a lone album, and it mostly gurgled under heavy torrents of Hammond organ. The second track on side one, though, in spite of its ambiguous lyrics, glides into your memory banks on ruminative piano and handclaps, sounding more ’67 than ’70.

“My Head Is a Drum” (1984) – What Is This * Written by Hillel Slovak and Michael Tempo * EP: Squeezed * Produced by David Jerden * Label: San Andreas/MCA

The same wind blowing down LA’s Melrose Avenue that turned up the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Burning Sensations, among others, brought forth the band What Is This. Their debut EP, though, has never been reissued and preserves the cool aura of fidgety, early eighties indie rock. Its two standout songs—”My Mind Have Still I” and “My Head Is a Drum”—both addressed cranial matters and were the brain children of guitarist Hillel Slovak, who’d later gain a higher profile with the Chili Peppers but would succumb to a heroin addiction in 1988. Of those two songs, “My Head Is a Drum” transforms What Is This’s herky-jerky sound into more of a Carribean rhythmic joyride that seems like appropriate output from a beach town like theirs. Alain Johannes (vocals) and Jack Irons (drums) would both pursue active decades-long music careers.

“Alley-Oop” (1961) – The Hollywood Argyles * Written by Dallas Frazier * 45: “Alley Oop” / “Sho’ Know a Lot About Love” * Arranged by Gary (Flip) Paxton * Label: Lute

Inspired by the neanderthal comic strip that first appeared in newspapers in 1932, “Alley-Oop” trudged all the way to Billboard‘s #1 slot with the sort of inspired dementia that’s crucial to pop music’s very vitality. The record came to life thanks to the team of Gary Paxton, who is credited on the label as arranger, and LA pop scenester/dark lord Kim Fowley, whom Paxton has credited as co-producer (although he doesn’t appear on the label). Written by future Nashville Songwriter Hall of Famer Dallas Frazier, the record especially benefited from Paxton’s bored hepcat vocal, which increased in brilliance as the song faded (“Heil dinosaw-wuh”). Although an alternate story that a Rochester poet named Norm Davis actually did the vocal in Las Vegas has gotten legs, other Paxton tracks, such as one called “Spookie Movies,” contain a voice that matches the Hollywood Argyles record, while a comparison with Davis’s speaking voice doesn’t hold up. 

“They Long to Be Close to You” (1979) – Jimmy “Bo” Horne * Written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David * 45: “You  Get Me Hot” / “They Long to Be Close to You” * LP: Goin’ Home for Love * Produced by Harry Wayne Casey and Richard Finch * Label: Sunshine Sound Disco

Produced by the Sunshine Band’s KC and Richard Finch, this disco-era version of the Burt Bacharach-Hal David standard will carry you off on a love cloud if you keep listening until the glockenspiel motif comes in at 2:50. Although Horne—who first made his mark with the 1975 bubblegum soul hit “Gimme Some”—appears cagey on the album cover, he sings his heart out, then drifts into spoken Isaac Hayes territory for the outro.