hit singles

Give me some water, cool cool water

Posted on by brucehhackett

Water has been an essential commodity since before man walked the Earth. Communities have been founded based on their proximity to fresh water. It’s been said man can go weeks without food but no more than three or four days without water. Nearly 75 percent of our planet’s surface is covered with water…but that’s salt water. As the parched sailor in the middle of the ocean would say, “Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink.”

So many sayings involving water can be found in literature and contemporary discourse: Like a fish out of water. Keep your head above water. Still water runs deep. Spending money as if it were water. Blood is thicker than water. Makes your mouth water. Water over the dam. Throw cold water on something. Blown out of the water.

These days, we’re all reminded of the dangers of dehydration, and are urged to drink eight 8-ounce glasses of water daily. Indeed, we may someday fight wars over access to fresh water.

Songwriters have written many dozens of songs with lyrics about water, and I’ve identified 15 from the classic rock era (plus another baker’s dozen of honorable mentions) that I think you’ll find worthy of your attention.

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“Dirty Water,” The Standells, 1966

This garage-band classic was written by producer Ed Cobb in 1966 as a mock paean to Boston and its then-polluted harbor and the Charles River. The song, recorded by The Standells and reaching #11 on US pop charts that year, was inspired partly by an incident when Cobb was mugged during a Boston visit. Despite its negative connotations, “Dirty Water” has been embraced by the city in the years since, particularly by its rowdy sports fans, thanks to the line, “Oh-h, Boston, you’re my home” at end of each chorus. The song has often been played at Bruins hockey games and Red Sox games following victories. In 1979, British garage band The Inmates recorded a raucous cover of “Dirty Water,” substituting “River Thames” and “London” for “River Charles” and “Boston.”

“Hell & High Water,” The Allman Brothers Band, 1980

Most rock bands go through peaks and valleys during their career, but perhaps no group has had a wilder roller-coaster ride than The Allman Brothers Band. From early struggles to critical praise, from tragic deaths to #1 albums, from drug busts and addiction to multiple rebirths in the ’90s and beyond, these guys have seen it all. In the early ’80s, they were in a trough with two lackluster albums on Arista Records (the terrible album cover of “Reach For the Sky” was an indication), but there were moments of that old spark, like Dickey Betts’s song “Hell & High Water,” which actually chronicles the group’s up and downs up to that point: “We’ve been through hell and high water, ready to go through it all again, /As long as we’ve got a quarter between us all, we’re gonna have money to spend…”

“Walk on Water,” Eddie Money, 1988

Between 1977 and 1988, Edward Mahoney, better known as New York rocker Eddie Money, released seven albums that reached between #20 and #70 on US charts. He also fared quite well on various singles charts with hits like “Two Tickets to Paradise,” “Baby Hold On,” “Think I’m in Love,” “Maybe I’m a Fool, “Take Me Home Tonight” (in a duet with Ronnie Spector) and “I Wanna Go Back.” His final Top Ten entry was 1988’s “Walk on Water,” written by former Sammy Hagar keyboardist Jesse Harms, in which the narrator frustratingly asks what he has to do to regain his lover’s trust: “Well I’m no angel, now I’ll admit, I made a few bad moves I should regret, /If I could find some way to prove, if I could walk on water, would you believe in me? /My love is so true…”

“Smoke On the Water,” Deep Purple, 1972

The iconic opening guitar riff and indelible hard rock groove made “Smoke on the Water” a landmark hit in 1972-73, and Deep Purple’s highest charting song. Its lyrics tell the true story of how the entertainment/casino complex on the Lake Geneva shoreline in Montreux, Switzerland, accidentally burned down one evening in 1971 during a Mothers of Invention concert, the night before Deep Purple were due to begin recording an album there. As the first verse and chorus put it: “Frank Zappa and the Mothers were at the best place around, but some stupid with a flare gun burned the place to the ground, /Smoke on the water, a fire in the sky…” The song was released on their “Machine Head” album in 1972, then reached #4 on US pop charts when released as a single in 1973.

“Bring Me Some Water,” Melissa Etheridge, 1988

Kansas-born Etheridge was discovered playing clubs in Pasadena and grabbed attention right out of the gate with her 1988 debut LP and its single, “Bring Me Some Water.” Her confessional lyrics, pop-based folk-rock, and raspy, smoky vocals have sustained her through an impressive career that has featured a dozen Top Twenty LPs and a half-dozen high-charting singles in the 1990s and 2000s. Even though her handful of singles in 1993-1995 charted higher, I’ve always returned to “Bring Me Some Water and its heartbreaking exuberance: “Somebody bring me some water, can’t you see I’m burning alive?, /Can’t you see my baby’s got another lover, and I don’t know how I’m gonna survive, /Somebody bring me some water, can’t you see it’s out of control?…”

“Heavy Water,” Jethro Tull, 1989

Chemically, heavy water is a form of water that contains a “heavier” hydrogen isotope that makes it ideal for production of nuclear power and weaponry. In the Tull song from the 1989 LP “Rock Island,” Ian Anderson was actually referring to acid rain, a type of precipitation with low pH levels caused by sulfur dioxide emissions that can have harmful effects on plants and animals. “On my first trip to New York in the summer of 1968, everyone else was running from the rain, and I realized it was because each drop of was leaving a dirty black mark. It was raining coal and sulfur!” The lyrics are bleak — “Thumping in my heart, and it’s hurting me to see, /Smokestack blowing, now they’re pouring heavy water on me” — but are offset by a sprightly, accessible melody and tempo that stand tall in the band’s latter-day catalog.

“Black Water,” The Doobie Brothers, 1974

Guitarist/singer Pat Simmons provided a lighter country element to The Doobies’ brand of ’70s rock and roll, offering homespun songs like “South City Midnight Lady” and “Tell Me What You Want.” His catchy track “Black Water” was an easygoing acoustic tune originally released as the B-side to Tom Johnston’s “Another Park, Another Sunday,” single, but a disc jockey in Roanoke, Virginia, began playing it because of the Blackwater River that ran not far outside the city. The intense regional interest caught the record label’s attention, and they re-released it as an A-side single, which made it all the way to #1 in March 1975. The lyric was actually written during a visit to New Orleans, with a reference to the Mississippi River and wanting to “hear some funky Dixieland.”

“Madman Across the Water,” Elton John, 1971

Lyricist Bernie Taupin, fascinated by mental illnesses, adopted the fractured imagery and detached thought process of an asylum inmate for this mind-bending title track from Elton John’s 1971 LP. The song had been originally recorded in 1970 with Bowie cohort Mick Ronson on lead guitar and intended for inclusion on his “Tumbleweed Connection” LP, but instead “Madman” was reimagined a year later using the orchestral flourishes of Paul Buckmaster’s dramatic strings arrangement, Elton’s compelling vocal delivery and Davey Johnstone’s understated guitar work. I think it’s one of the most riveting songs in his entire catalog. When American critics assumed the title referred to then-President Nixon from a Brit’s point of view, Taupin whistled and said, “Wow, that is genius. I never would’ve thought of that.”

“Bridge Over Troubled Water,” Simon and Garfunkel, 1969

This monumental tune is so ingrained in pop music culture that it’s hard to imagine a time when it didn’t exist. But in November 1969, a rapt audience at Carnegie Hall in New York listened as Art Garfunkel performed the song for the first time, six weeks before its release as one of the biggest singles of the year, and their response was thunderous rapture. Garfunkel sang it alone with Larry Knechtel on piano, and the recording of it, finally released 40 years later in 2009 on “Live 1969,” is presented here. Simon had been inspired by gospel singer Claude Jeter’s line, “I’ll be your bridge over deep water if you trust in my name,” coming up with his own gospel classic later covered by Aretha Franklin, Roberta Flack, Elvis Presley and dozens of others.

“Fire and Water,” Free, 1970

Vocalist Paul Rodgers and troubled guitarist Paul Kassoff were the linchpins of Free, one of England’s best yet underrated rock bands of the 1968-1972 period. (Rodgers and drummer Simon Kirke later went on to form the more commercially successful Bad Company.) “All Right Now,” which reached the Top Ten in a dozen countries in 1970, got most of the attention, although “Oh I Wept,” “Stealer” and “Wishing Well” also got airplay. The title track to Free’s third album, “Fire and Water,” does a nice job of examining the yin and yang of romantic relationships: “Lover, you turn me on, but quick as a flash, your love is gone, /Baby, I’m gonna leave you now, but I’m gonna try and make you grieve somehow, /Fire and water must have made you their daughter, /You’ve got what it takes to make a poor man’s heart break…”

“Water of Love,” Dire Straits, 1978

This track from the Dire Straits 1978 debut LP is a sterling example of the kind of haunting ballads guitarist/songwriter Mark Knopfler was writing in juxtaposition with the more uptempo hits like “Sultans of Swing” and “Lady Writer” in the band’s early years. His languid guitar work and seductive arrangement on “Water of Love” complements the clever melancholy of lyrics, which notes how both water and love are essentials in life: “I’ve been too long lonely and my heart feels pain, crying out for some soothing rain, /I believe I have taken enough, yes, I need a little water of love, /Water of love deep in the ground, but there ain’t no water here to be found, /Some day, baby, when the river runs free, it’s gonna carry that water of love to me…”

“Candle on the Water,” Helen Reddy, 1977

The original script for “Pete’s Dragon” was written in the 1950s for the Disneyland TV series but was shelved until its reimagining as a live action/animated musical film released in 1977. Popular Canadian singer Helen Reddy was tapped to not only sing the featured song “Candle On the Water” but as one of the film’s actors as well. The song, written by Al Kasha and Joel Hirschhorn, was nominated for a Best Song Oscar, and a slightly different arrangement by Reddy’s label got airplay on Adult Contemporary stations. The writers said they deliberately placed religious and spiritual symbols in the lyrics: “I’ll be your candle on the water ’til every wave is warm and bright, /My soul is there beside you, let this candle guide you, /Soon you’ll see a golden stream of light…”

“The Water is Wide,” James Taylor, 1991

This Scottish folk song was first written in the mid-1800s and has undergone many changes in lyrics and musical structure since then. Its hymn-like melody and modern lyrics published in 1905 have become widely accepted as definitive, exploring how love often wavers between exhilaration and heartbreak: “Oh, love is handsome and love is fine, the sweetest flower when first it’s new, /But love grows old and waxes cold, and fades away like summer dew…” A host of major artists have offered their interpretations: Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, Fred Neil, Steve Goodman, Karla Bonoff, Bob Dylan, Barbra Streisand, Eva Cassidy, Cowboy Junkies and a collaboration of Jewel, Sarah McLachlan and the Indigo Girls. I’ve always been partial to James Taylor’s version, which concludes his highly regarded 1991 LP “New Moon Shine.”

“Cool Water,” Joni Mitchell with Willie Nelson, 1988

Bob Nolan, a respected singer/songwriter of Western music and actor in Western movies, wrote “Cool Water” in 1936, and it now ranks #3 on Western Writers of America’s list of 100 Greatest Western songs of all time. It tells the tragic tale of a parched man and his dying mule on a trek across a wasteland in search of water: “Come the dawn, we carry on, /We won’t last long without water, cool clear water… /Old Dan and I, our throats slate dry, /Our spirits cry out for water, cool clear water…” Nolan first recorded it as a member of Sons of The Pioneers with future singing movie star Roy Rogers, and a 1948 record with a different Sons lineup peaked at #4. Joni Mitchell invited Willie Nelson to join her on a sublime revival of the song for her 1988 LP, “Chalk Mark in a Rain Storm.”

“Rock Me on the Water,” Jackson Browne, 1972

Browne has said, “It’s meant to be kind of a gospel song, using this gospel language: ‘stand before the father,’ ‘sisters of the sun.’ But it’s turning that around 180 degrees so it’s not about religion, it’s about society.” The lyrics are clear: “Oh people, look around you, the signs are everywhere, /You’ve left it for somebody other than you to be the one to care… /Rock me on the water, /sister, won’t you soothe my fevered brow…” Browne wrote it in the tumultuous political year of 1970, and it ultimately appeared on his 1972 debut LP and as his second single, peaking at #48, following the Top Ten hit “Doctor My Eyes.” Johnny Rivers, Brewer & Shipley and Linda Ronstadt loved the song and recorded it during the same period and, much later, Keb’ Mo’ did it justice on a “Songs of Jackson Browne” tribute album in 2014.

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Honorable mentions:

“Don’t Drink the Water,” Dave Matthews Band, 1999; “Something in the Water,” Pokey LaFarge, 2015; “Cool Cool Water,” The Beach Boys, 1970; “Gimme Some Water,” Eddie Money, 1978; “Washing of the Water,” Peter Gabriel, 1992; “Water Woman,” Spirit, 1968; “Oily Water,” Blur, 1993; “Deeper Water,” Paul Kelly, 2010; “Cool Water,” Joy Askew, 1996; “Something in the Water (Does Not Compute),” Prince, 1982; “Head Above Water,” Avril Lavigne, 2019; “Down By the Water,” The Decemberists, 2011; “Water,” The Who, 1970.

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It’s B-side the point

Posted on by brucehhackett

In 1962 in London, a Decca Records executive, a hapless soul who shall remain nameless, yawned as he listened to the audition of a fledgling band from Liverpool.  He showed them the door as he told their manager:  “Guitar groups are on the way out, Mr. Epstein.  Go back to Liverpool.” A few months later, George Martin at EMI Records signed The Beatles and went on to change popular music history.

Record company executives have certainly made their share of correct decisions over the years when it comes to backing the right artists and picking the right song.  But there are hundreds of examples throughout the rock ‘n roll era of some glaring missteps, when execs showed questionable judgment and made some wrong choices.  Sometimes others stepped up later to make the right choice, or disc jockeys and radio listeners made the right choice for them.

There have been many instances throughout the rock music era when a record company or producer showed tin ears when selecting the songs that would appear on the next single.  They would listen to a new artist’s work and say, “THIS is the song that has hit potential.”  They would then release a single, which had an A-side and a B-side. The supposed hit would be promoted on the A-side, while the B-side was pretty much just thrown in as an extra, taking up space on the other side of the 45.  But lo and behold, sometimes the song these wizards thought would be a hit was not as compelling as the supposed “filler” that sat on the B-side.  Savvy DJs checked out the flip side and decided it was the better song, and it became the hit instead.

In 1954, the record company for Bill Haley and the Comets — Decca, again showing poor judgement — somehow didn’t see the appeal of the band’s effervescent “Rock Around the Clock” and shuffled it off to the B-side of an otherwise forgettable song, “13 Women.”  The next year, “Rock Around the Clock” was featured in the teen flick “The Blackboard Jungle,” ended up a #1 song in 1955 and is generally regarded as the first-ever rock ‘n roll hit single.  

This continued:  Gene Vincent’s landmark “Be-Bop-a Lula” and The Champs’ classic “Tequila” were originally released as B-sides, playing second fiddle to clunkers like “Woman Love” and “Train to Nowhere” respectively.  “Save the Last Dance for Me,” the marvelous 1960 tune by The Drifters, was a B-side upon release, as was Booker T. and the MGs’ 1962 hit “Green Onions,” an instrumental that easily overshadowed the intended single “Behave Yourself.”

Decca Records may have passed on The Beatles but they managed to sign The Rolling Stones…however, more than once, the song they assigned to the B-side outperformed the A-side.

“The Last Time” was more successful than the intended 1965 single “Play With Fire,” and Decca also chose “Let’s Spend the Night Together” as the 1967 single, but its lyrics were considered too risqué for AM radio, and DJs instead played its B-side, “Ruby Tuesday,” which went to #1.

There was also Rod Stewart’s 1971 single “Reason to Believe,” a modest remake of an old Tim Hardin folk song that Rod’s people felt would do well as a single.  On the flip side, they inserted an album track called “Maggie May.”  DJs chose to play that one instead, and it, too, rocketed to #1.

In 1974, The Doobie Brothers released a single, “Another Park, Another Sunday,” that barely cracked the Top 40, but its B-side, “Black Water,” got substantial airplay and ended up as the group’s only #1 single. Even a fabulous tune like the 1971 Bill Withers beauty “Ain’t No Sunshine” was initially pegged as a throwaway B-side.  In 1972, The Spinners put out a single called “How Could I Let You Get Away” that stiffed, but its B-side, “I”ll Be Around,” became a #3 hit that year.

In 1979, Gloria Gaynor, a disco vocalist, released a new single called “Substitute” (no relation to The Who’s song of the same name), but DJs preferred the B-side, a little number called “I Will Survive,” and instead played that as, um, a substitute.  It went on to become not only a monster #1 hit but one of the iconic songs of the disco era, and the feminist and gay rights movements as well.

Usually, B-sides were songs found on the same album as the A-side song, but now and then, artists would use the B-sides to feature rare extra tracks unavailable elsewhere.  If you were an album buyer like me, you didn’t buy singles, so you wouldn’t know, for instance, that when Led Zeppelin released the single “Immigrant Song” in 1970 from “Led Zeppelin III,” the flip side, a catchy track called “Hey Hey What Can I Do,” was available only if you bought the single.  Same with Fleetwod Mac’s 1977 hit “Go Your Own Way,” the leadoff single from the 25-million-selling album “Rumours.”  The flip side of that single, Stevie Nicks’ gorgeous “Silver Springs,” had been cut from the “Rumours” lineup and ended up becoming a B-side rarity.

Bruce Springsteen released an unprecedented nine singles from his 1984 blockbuster “Born in the USA” album, and each one featured a B-side that was unavailable elsewhere (“Pink Cadillac” paired with “Dancing in the Dark,” and “Johnny Bye Bye” paired with “I’m On Fire,” for example).  He later compiled all these B-sides on a limited edition EP, but for years, they could only be found on the 45s.

As vinyl singles gave way to cassette singles in the ’80s and ’90s and then to mp3 files, iTunes, and other online music delivery systems, the importance of A-sides versus B-sides was significantly diminished.  Fans can now get their hands on pretty much whatever songs they like, so it’s no longer as relevant which tracks the record labels and artists designate as the hit or the also-ran.  But for decades, it was fun for DJs, fans, and collectors to sometimes prove the “hit makers” wrong by finding B-sides that were superior to their trumped-up A-sides.

In 1969, a band known as Steam recorded a song called “It’s the Magic in You Girl,” selected by their label as a potential hit.  They were then told, “Okay, now record something else, anything at all, to put on the B-side of the single.  It can be instrumental, it doesn’t matter.  Whatever you want.”  In less than an hour, they came up with a light commercial jam with throwaway lyrics and a chorus of “na na na”s, and they were done.  When the single was released, the DJs thought “It’s the Magic in You Girl” was lame and ignored it, but they loved the catchy ditty on the B-side.  Within a few weeks, “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye” was the #1 song in the country!

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