These (Truly) Are the Worst of Times

I have no idea if anyone was ever charged in the stabbing.

Of course I'll spend the wee hours some night googling trying to find out. Loose ends bug me.

 

No fucking way I'm clicking on that.

 

Congratulations to that station. They have great track from Rupert Holmes and two other tracks that, while pretty decent, wouldn’t make my Top 30 or so lists of their best efforts.

 

I had never heard of Rupert Holmes before M-H brought up his name in this thread. So I Googled him and discovered that he was the man behind a 1971 Top-40 song I do remember well, "Timothy" by the Buoys. According to Wikipedia, Holmes wrote and produced the song (providing piano), believing its theme of cannibalism would get it banned from many radio stations and thereby give the group a big dose of publicity.

According to Wikipedia, Scepter record label "executives did not catch what the song was about until after it started climbing the charts. Holmes rejected this attempt to change the premise of his song; he had intended it to be offensive."

"Timothy" was Holmes' first international hit, according to Wikipedia. I recall hearing it, probably on WLS, in '71; I think I heard it more often in the years after its rise and fall from the charts, though.

 

Can't say I was aware of this, but have no problem standing behind @Machine Head's musical chops. And if you consider "Babe" came out in 1979, and "Keep on Loving You" followed a year later, well that certainly can be considered more than circumstantial evidence.

Other musings from this thread:

The Pina Colada Song is probably my most hated song. Just ugh. If it ever appears on my radio, it's an immediate channel switch.

Since Foreigner is the highest selling non-RRHOF band, now I almost root for them to get in now, just to be able to enjoy @PCLoadLetter's diatribe should that happen.

Re: Head East--back in the early 80s at the University of Illinois, a group of four fraternities arranged for Head East to play in a little park area behind some of the frat houses. To get around the liquor licensing, we sold cups for $5 or $10 to attendees, and then had beer trucks where they could get their cups filled at no charge, wink, wink. Everyone in the fraternity was assigned some sort of role. Mine was to be "security", which basically meant standing next to the stage, drinking beer from my purchased cup. Quite an enjoyable night. However, the city leaders didn't quite concur when they found out about this unsanctioned event, and the guy in charge from our frat ended up sitting in the mayor of Champaign's office early that next week, getting chewed out something good. Fortunately, no jail time, but I do think we ended up paying a fairly decent fine to the city.

 

Oh, Rupert Holmes' reach is far and wide in pop culture ..

Did you know the the Bonanza episode when Little Joe and Hoss were trapped in a mine and only one came out was the inspiration for Timothy:

Bonanza

 

It will be glorious

 

It'll be a good one. I should start working on it now.

 

The Pina Colada song is storytelling at its finest. How anyone can hate it, and to extremist ends, is beyond me.

 

I am bigly anti-cannibal

 

Head East has been stuck in my head since it came to this thread last week. Dammit.
Yesterday, I atttended a Concert in the Park (covers for Billy Joel and Elton John). They played recorded music between groups and, dammit, Head East came on. Dammit.

Incidentally, I've never been a Billy Joel fan. After having been ambivalent about Elton John, I have come to accept that he is pretty damn great. Both of the groups yesterday really cooked. Besides the leads on pianos, they both had other musicians behind them (guitar, bass, organ, drums, sax) and they blew the doors off a few songs. "Funeral for a Friend" was the highlight, full 11-minute version. The guy playing Elton was Kenny Metcalf.

 

Never understood this either.