Category Archives: Songs from 1973

Album: Raw Power, 1973

Justification: I know, Raw Power‘s not a patch on the first two Stooges albums, James Williamson changed the band, it’s not even technically the Stooges blah fucking blah. And look, I have nothing but time for the Stooges, but this is my favourite album of theirs. And this song is the main reason.

“Is someone talking up the back? Don’t make me come over there.”

Lyrically it’s Iggy’s Vietnam song. The “search and destroy” tactic was a popular one for US military forces: it basically meant “find target, destroy target, run away” – and of course “heart full of napalm” was something of a giveaway. But musically it’s Williamson’s baby: that searing lead work, sounding like the world’s most pissed-off mosquito, still slices through the speaker like a hot blade through flesh. Apparently the trick is Les Paul Custom using only the bridge pickup (a Humbucker, in Williamson’s case), fed through a Marshall’s boost channel with volume up full and bass wound down, for anyone playing at home.

It also cuts through so beautifully because when Iggy was producing the recording he somehow managed to put everything onto three (mono) tracks: vocals on one channel, lead guitar on another, and everything else – drums, bass, rhythm guitar, the lot – onto a channel by itself. This meant that once the tapes were given to David Bowie to mix, there was basically nothing he could do but bring vocals and lead lines up and down. Want to know why the album sounds like nothing else before or since? The answer: Iggy didn’t know how to use a 24 track desk.

It’s a song that I loved when I was a teenager, then went off the Stooges for some inexplicable reason when I got into indie pop and pretty much forgot about until it was a playable song on one of the early Guitar Hero games (GHII, if memory serves). I got pretty amazingly good at the level, let me tell you.

It’s also quoted in one of my favourite Onion stories: ‘Headphones-Wearing Pedestrian Loudly Proclaims Iron Man Status’.

SONG YOU SHOULD HAVE REDISCOVERED THIS TIME IN 2010: Depeche Mode’s magisterial ‘Never Let Me Down Again’.

502. Franz Ferdinand: Ulysses (27 July)

503: The Animals: We Gotta Get Out Of The Place (31 July)

504. Luna: Superfreaky Memories (6 Aug)

505: The Stairs: Mary Joanna (8 Aug)

506: Screamin’ Jay Hawkins: I Put a Spell on You (10 Aug)

Album: New York Dolls, 1973

Justification: For a long time my knowledge of the New York Dolls was limited to a live version of this and ‘Pills’ on a cut-price punk compilation my ex-wife owned, and that Morrissey had been obsessed enough with them to self-publish a book about the band in his teens. However, since having finally set up the dame’s turntable in the loungeroom this album has been getting a lot of spins of late (ah, Universal and your weird heavyweight vinyl reissue program, I could kiss you) and I’ve been remembering things like how ‘Frankenstein’ is a fucking incredible song, and how if it wasn’t for this bunch of cross-dressing NYC weirdos  making the sort of ballsy rock and roll,  everyone from the Ramones and Television to Talking Heads and Blondie wouldn’t have had a door to sneak through.

Admit it: these chaps are pretty damn eye-catching almost 40 years on

And my god, they were ballsy: this was the early 70s and just look at the reaction shots of the audience in this clip. Aside from the fans singing along down the front, the entire room looks either terrified, disgusted or furious. And let’s face it, David Johansen is pretty startling on those heels. He’s a tall chap in any case: stick them stacks on him and he’s getting into Spring Heeled Jack territory.

The Dolls played earlier this year – well, the a version of the Dolls played featuring the two surviving members, Johansen and Sylvain Sylvain, plus three hired guns including former Bowie sideman Earl Slick. And you know what? They were pretty fucking great. They’re in their 60s and they still sounded astonishingly rockin’. Morrissey, you were on to something.

SONG YOU SHOULD HAVE REDISCOVERED THIS TIME IN 2010: Glorious Sydney-via-Canberra  indiepop with Falling Joys and ‘You’re in a Mess’.

SONG YOU SHOULD HAVE REDISCOVERED THIS TIME IN 2011: Look, I’m just going to put this out there: it was Weird Al Yancovic’s ‘Dare to be Stupid’.

AND HERE’S THE LAST FIVE…

442. Archers of Loaf: Web in Front (8 Mar)

443. Blondie: Hanging on the Telephone (14 Mar)

444. The Handsome Family: Your Great Journey (16 Mar)

445. Bacarra: Yes Sir, I Can Boogie (19 Mar)

446. Magic Dirt: Plastic Loveless Letter (20 Mar)

Album: Innervisions, 1973

Justification: Sure, the Red Hot Chili Peppers did their best to turn this playful piece of soul-funk genius into a lead-footed wah-wah frenzy with Flea gurning and slapping away in the middle. However, the song has been able to weather a number of terrible cover versions, proving once again that the size of Stevie Wonder’s 70s-era genius is matched only by the baffling absence of it for most of the subsequent three decades. There’s a reason that people talk about this and ‘Superstition’ and ‘Sir Duke’ and ‘My Cherie Amour’ and even ‘Master Blaster (Jammin’)’ in hushed tones, and it’s not because the raw power of ‘I Just Called To Say I Love You’ and ‘Don’t Drive Drunk’ cannot be adequately vocalised. Or rather, it kinda is – but for significantly different reasons.

SONG YOU SHOULD HAVE REDISCOVERED THIS TIME IN 2010: Eh, archive trawl time – have a look at 1973, I dare you.

Album: Nutbush City Limits, 1971

Justification: Acoustic guitar through a wah wah: so simple, and so effective!

This song has been ruined by a million terrible hen’s nights, a billion wedding receptions and Tina’s own ghastly 1991 remake, but just listen to it again without thinking “oh Christ, do we have to do the Madison now?” The brass sound like they’re playing backwards, that Moog solo line comes in from outer space, and Ike steps way back and concerns himself only with keeping that wah-wah groove going. And then there’s Tina’s vocal: no human should be able to make a line like “No whiskey for sale!” sound so joyful and carnal all at once.

It’s also worth pointing out that the woman born Anna Mae Bullock wrote the song herself, inspired by her Tennessee hometown. And while Ike did the production on the piece, there’s good evidence that that aforementioned guitar was actually played by an uncredited Marc Bolan – and before you scoff, note that he’d done sessions on other Ike & Tina singles, and his partner Gloria Jones had toured with ‘em. Also, that chordy wah-wah thing sounds a lot more Bolany than it does Ike Turnery.

Like all children, I though this song was awesome, thanks my folks spinning the eponymous album at parties. Then I ignored it for about 25 years, had it pop up on a compilation and went “fuck, this is amazing!”

Oh, and for the record: as an unincorporated township, Nutbush doesn’t technically have “city limits”. The song is filled with LIES!

SONG YOU SHOULD HAVE REDISCOVERED THIS TIME IN 2010: The Smiths’ dropped one of their last – and best – singles with ‘Sheila Take A Bow’.