Song Lyric Sunday: “Rocket 88”

Jim’s prompt for today is "Automobile, Car, Jalopy, Vehicle," suggested by Melanie B Cee. I picked a song that many believe was the first rock & roll record.

"Rocket 88" was credited to "Jackie Brenston & His Delta Rhythm Cats," who were actually Ike Turner & His Kings of Rhythm. Brenston was Ike’s saxophone player and is listed as the author of the song; he said it wasn’t particularly original, that it was basically Jimmy Liggins’s "Cadillac Boogie" from a few years earlier. The record came out in April 1951 and by June it had reached the top of Billboard‘s Best-Selling R&B Records chart, and by the end of June it had reached the top of the Most Played Juke Box R&B Records chart.

The "Rocket 88" was a car manufactured by Oldsmobile. A number of Oldsmobiles were issued under the "88" banner. The last of the 88’s was the Delta 88, which was made up until 1999.

The lyrics, from Genius:

You women have heard of jalopies
You’ve heard the noise they make
But let me re-introduce my new Rocket ’88
Yes, it’s straight, just won’t wait
Everybody likes my Rocket ’88
Baby, we’ll ride in style
Movin’ all along

V-8 motor and this modern design
Black convertible top and the gals don’t mind
Sportin’ with me, ridin’ all around town for joy
Blow your horn, baby, blow

Step in my Rocket and don’t be late
Baby, we’re pullin’ out about a half-past eight
Goin’ ’round the corner and get a beer
Everybody in my car is gonna take a little nip
Move on out, oozin’ and cruisin’ along

And that’s Song Lyric Sunday (and Song of the Day) for July 25, 2021.

Rory’s Song Challenge: Series 1, Game 4

I didn’t realize this was a weekend thing. Not that it matters. Anyway, Rory provides us with five song prompts, and we respond with our choices.

A song featuring one of your favourited colours: Bachman-Turner Overdrive, "Blue Collar" (Rarely heard and always a favorite)

A song that makes you think about life: Lou Christie, "Beyond the Blue Horizon" (guess this could have worked for the last one, too)

One of your favourited song titles from the 70’s: Starbuck, "Moonlight Feels Right" (Either this or Little River Band’s "reminiscing")

A great song for cooking with: Tears For Fears, "Everybody Wants To Rule The World" (it is for me, anyway)

The first song you danced to as a twenty something in love: Carpenters, "We’ve Only Just Begun" (our first dance as a married couple. Probably a lot of peoples’ first dance….)

Fancy Colors #socs

Or, as the band Chicago would say, "Fancy Colours." From Chicago, their second album.

J-Dub talked about how her prom was named after Chicago’s other "Colour" song, "Colour My World." A lot of senior proms in the mid-to-late ’70’s used that as the theme for theirs. I told J-Dub that I went to my girlfriend’s prom, which was not "Colour My World," because the sister of the guy who wrote the song was a classmate, and they figured she was pretty sick of it. By that time, a lot of us were. Thanks to every radio station in the country playing it over and over, it had become an EBS Special.

There’s a company called Pantone who specialize in color consulting and creation. Every year they choose two colors as the "Color Of The Year." These are the colors for this year.

They’ve named these colors "Illuminating" and "Ultimate Gray." Most of us, guys especially, would call them "yellow" and "gray."

Stream of Consciousness Saturday is brought to you each week by Linda Hill and this station. Now a word from Schlitz, real gusto in a great light beer. Schlitz: the beer that made Milwaukee famous!

Song of the Day: Lynda Carter, “Toto (Don’t It Feel Like Paradise)”

The happiest of birthdays to the lovely actress Lynda Carter, who played Wonder Woman on the series of the same name from 1975 through 1979. She is also a singer and songwriter who started professionally with a band called The Relatives, whose drummer was Gary Burghoff, who played Radar O’Reilly in both the movie and TV versions of M*A*S*H. Lynda’s first album, Portrait, was released in 1978, and included "Toto (Don’t It Feel Like Paradise)," which she wrote with C. Siller and Bill Cuomo. She performed it on the episode of Wonder Woman titled "Amazon Hot Wax."

Five For Friday: More Instrumental TV Themes

Here are some more instrumental TV themes. Six, to be exact, just like last week.

Nelson Riddle, "Route 66 Theme": After last week, Fandango pointed out that I had omitted this one. Actually, I left it out because I thought I played it a little too often, but apparently not. Which is good, because this is a great TV theme. CBS didn’t want to pay royalties to Bobby Troup for his song "(Get Your Kicks On) Route 66" and commissioned Nelson Riddle to write a new theme for the 1960-1964 TV series that starred Martin Milner and George Maharias. This was one of the TV themes that made it to the Billboard Top 30, along with Ray Anthony’s "Dragnet" and "Peter Gunn" and Henry Mancini’s "Mr. Lucky." It also received two Grammy nominations in 1962.
The Charles Randolph Grean Sounde, "Quentin’s Theme": From the 1966-1971 soap opera Dark Shadows. Bob Cobert wrote the theme and it was nominated for a Grammy for Best Instrumental Theme, but it lost to John Barry’s theme from Midnight Cowboy. This version was released as a single in 1969 and it reached #13 on the Hot 100 and #3 on the Easy Listening chart.
The Marketts, "Batman Theme": Neal Hefti composed the theme for the 1966-1968 TV series Batman, and Nelson Riddle conducted it. The Marketts, who had a million-seller in 1963 with the song "Out Of Limits," covered the song in 1966 and took it to #17.
Barry DeVorzon and Perry Botkin Jr., "Nadia’s Theme": Originally titled "Cotton’s Dream" and written for the 1971 movie Bless The Beasts And The Children, it became the theme music for the soap opera The Young & The Restless when that show began in 1973. ABC’s Wide World of Sports used it as the background music for a montage of clips of gymnast Nadia Comaneci taken during the 1976 Summer Olympics, which is why the song was associated with her and was renamed "Nadia’s Theme." (She never used the song in the Olympics, however; she used a piano arrangement of "Yes Sir, That’s My Baby" and "Jump In The Line.") The song reached #7 on the Canadian Adult Contemporary chart and #8 on the Canadian singles chart, and #8 on the Billboard Hot 100 and Adult Contemporary chart in the US.
Rhythm Heritage, "Theme From S.W.A.T.": Barry DeVorzon also wrote the theme song for the 1975-1976 TV series S.W.A.T. Rhythm Nation’s single reached #1 in the US and Canada, one of the few TV themes to top the charts.
Grant Geissman, "Theme From Monk": I wanted to include this original theme from the 2002-2009 TV series Monk lest it become lost to the ages. It was written by Jeff Beal and performed by jazz guitarist Grant Geissman. It won the 2003 Emmy Award for Best Main Title Music. So, of course, it was replaced. Starting with Season 2, Randy Newman’s "It’s A Jungle Out There" became the theme song for the show starring Tony Shalhoub, and judging from the comments on this video, more than a few fans of the show (myself included) were disappointed, not because Newman’s song is bad, but because this was just so perfect.

And that’s Five For Friday for July 24, 2021.