Norman Connors, "You Are My Starship"

Barry Scott's weekly Lost 45s show yesterday reminded me of a number of songs I neglected to include the Friday before last in my moon/space celebration set. Rather than miscontextual fluff like "Desert Moon," I should have gone with Bobby Womack's splendid take on "Fly Me to the Moon." And how did I forget Paul Revere & the Raiders' whimsical confection "Mr. Sun, Mr. Moon"?

Another bit of Barry's space travel last night was Norman Connors' R&B hit from 1976 "You Are My Starship." The smooth-jazz drummer had his sole pop crossover moment with this Michael Henderson-sung ode to a love that liberates. "Starship" is a bit crass in places - "and don't you come too soon" can mean only one thing in this context - and in the unedited album version, it seems implausible that someone would repeat the refrain twice before plunging into the verse of self-doubt: "I just can't say / It's here that you want to be." But once that doubt's reassured, once the beloved is here willfully and here to stay, "You Are My Starship" reveals itself to be a soft seduction - nothing more, nothing less, and sometimes that's all that's needed.

Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, "A.C.D.C."

A friend on a message board introduced me to Joan Jett and the Blackhearts' "A.C.D.C." today. The 2006 track was totally new to me, and I instantly fell for it: it rocks, and I dig songs with bisexual themes. I don't know if Joan is formally out or in open-secret-land, but she did the GLBTs proud with this one.

Why I love YouTube: it allowed me to hear this song and learn that it was a cover (Sweet did the Chapman-Chinn composition way back in '74 - !).

Why I hate YouTube: I made the mistake of reading the comments, many of which were predictably homophobic. God, people are idiots, especially when granted anonymity.

Starsailor, "Faith Hope Love"

Starsailor's never caught on in America like I wish they would. At their best, they combine simple but thoughtful lyrics with driving music to create something of universal value. Their product over the decade has been inconsistent from song to song, but damn if there's a better song than "Faith Hope Love" to hear at 4 a.m. on the way home from work when you're stressed out and wondering if maybe a few people don't really have your back after all. "Faith, hope, love - be enough," you might sing to the skies and the gods and yourself in such a moment.

R. Dean Taylor, "Indiana Wants Me"

I used to make a lot of mix tapes - for myself, for friends; as gifts, as mementos. My dual-cassette boom box got quite a workout over the years. Some songs came from my tape collection; far more were recorded off the radio. (Sorry if I've upset the apple carts of the copyright police by admitting this. It's not like I haven't spent thousands of dollars on the music industry.)

One of the interesting things about recording songs off the radio was the segues you'd wind up with before and after: sometimes the intrusiveness of a DJ, more often the abrupt shift of one song beginning its fade into another having just kicked in. The best such crossfade I ever created was a happy accident: Frankie Valli's vamping wails on the Four Seasons' pop psychedelicacy "Tell It to the Rain" magically turned into the police sirens that open R. Dean Taylor's morbid story-song "Indiana Wants Me." Same key and everything, I could swear. I wish I could have found a studio clip of the 4S tune to play them side by side for you.

But that's not the only reason to listen to "Indiana Wants Me." One doesn't want to sympathize with a guy who opens the lyric with his declaration of a revenge killing, yet one cannot help but be touched by such a naked line as "It hurts to see the man that I've become." I heard the Top 10 song hundreds of times on Pittsburgh oldies station 3WS during my formative years (back when "oldies" meant 1957-1970) and have always appreciated the tale-telling effort from one of Motown's second-stringers. My friend Mike just told me he thought it was Simon & Garfunkel on first listen, and I can totally hear that. Too bad Taylor's subsequent efforts, like "Ghost in My House", couldn't find similar footing in our charts or our hearts.

They Might Be Giants, "Destination Moon"

One final word of tribute to man's desire to touch the face of the moon: "Destination Moon," a They Might Be Giants tune from the underappreciated John Henry album. The LP, edgier and less whimsical than previous TMBG efforts, returned the duo from the near-mainstream to their unique spot on the pop fringe (Ween and Flaming Lips are neighbors, but they don't visit much anymore). And the song, typical for John & John, is both evocative and inscrutable: it's based on the space-travel film inspired by Heinlein, but that doesn't explain its backwards-recursive refrain, nor why its subject's leg is revealed to be withered at the end. (Of the song, not the leg.)

So enjoy the tune, and enjoy the notion of space travel as man's unrelenting urge to go further. But ignore the Simpsons visuals of the YouTube clip I've provided above; they're not useful. A better fan vid would have turned for inspiration to The Adventures of Tintin. Or Wallace & Gromit. Or the moon movie that inspired Smashing Pumpkins' greatest video.

Friday Funtime: Pop Argot Goes to the Moon

With Monday marking the 40th anniversary of the moon landing, here's a 10-song set celebrating the final frontier and the achievements of Armstrong, Aldrin et al. Sort of, anyway. Alas, I could not find a clip of the B-52s' "There's a Moon in the Sky Called the Moon."

1. The Police, "Walking on the Moon"
2. The Beach Boys, "Surfer Moon"
3. Dennis DeYoung, "Desert Moon"
4. Duran Duran, "New Moon on Monday"
5. Paul McCartney and Wings, "Jet"
6. Vik Venus, "Moonflight"
7. Kate Bush, "Rocket Man"
8. David Bowie, "Space Oddity"
9. Peter Schilling, "Major Tom (Coming Home)"
10. Nina Simone, "Everyone's Gone to the Moon"

Gary Puckett and the Union Gap, "Don't Give In to Him"

I was listening to some Gary Puckett and the Union Gap last evening.

Yes, I listen to that cornball. Gary and his band are the pork rinds of '60s pop: ridiculous and unhealthy, but enjoyable under the right circumstances. And I realized, in the midst of his medley of molestation - the "Young Girl" whom he woos as his "Lady Willpower" with an ultimatum and then "Is a Woman Now" after he pops her clutch - that there was a Top 40 hit of his that I'd never heard before.

YouTube to the rescue. Thank you, kachzvi, whoever you are, for posting a clip of "Don't Give In to Him," a #15 hit from 1969 that is rightly forgotten. It's not a bad song, just a bland one, something less than a footnote. At least it isn't creepy... Unless you take "You don't dare refuse him" as something more than an ultimatum.

In other matters, isn't Mr. Puckett himself something a dead ringer for Gary Cole?

Grace Jones, "Slave to the Rhythm"

On another day, for another song, I might simply say by way of introduction: It's Grace Jones; what else do you need to know?

In this case, though, for this 2009 live performance of "Slave to the Rhythm," you need to know that:

• She's wearing a bustier and thong.


• Her heels are ferocious.

Oh, and ...

• She hula-hoops ... for the duration of the song.

That's amazing, Grace.

ETA: H/t to Jose for sending me this clip in the first place.

Melanie, "Look What They've Done to My Song, Ma"

It's Bastille Day, but that's not a useful holiday for a rock critic to write about - there's not much in pop music concerned with the affairs of the French. There was one #1 hit sung in French - but I dobut anyone here is itching to hear "Dominique." A handful of songs have dropped in a line or two of French language - the Beatles' "Michelle" and ELO's "Hold On Tight" being perhaps the most notable examples - but I'll highlight a different one today.

"Look What They've Done to My Song, Ma" was a Top 20 hit for the New Seekers in 1970, but the original, written and sung by the ever barely hinged Melanie, is a superior reading. Melanie was incapable of delivering a line without sincerity, even en francais - at least, until "Brand New Key" made her a superstar and ruined her career. But back to "Song, Ma": It's a vague but evocative lament that a writer's words have been misappropriated - which makes one wonder how Melanie felt about its treatments in the hands of Ray Charles and Barbra Streisand and Puf'n'Stuf urchin Jack Wild. I'd like to think she approved of what they did to her song.

The Easybeats, "Friday on My Mind"

If on Monday you have Friday on your mind, you need this. Never has a singer look so elated to be on stage - or maybe simply elated to be alive - as the Easybeats' lead singer Steven Wright does here on "Friday on My Mind." The jangling rocker (with a class-conscious line railing against the rich man!) was the Australian band's only hit, and is the only song I've ever heard from them. I don't want to correct that - I could only be disappointed, as this power-pop precursor is one of the more perfect songs of its ilk, hardly capable of being improved upon. It certainly got my Monday off to a nice start.

PS: Favorite unexpected line: "Even my old man looks ... good."

Friday Funtime: Pop Argot's "Sweet" Tooth

Still with "Wicked Game" in the back of my head, I considered a Friday setlist of the sexiest songs I have ever heard. But Robert Palmer's "You Overwhelm Me" was nowhere to be found, and without that, my list would have felt woefully incomplete. So instead, a celebration of confections: some of my favorite "sweet" songs. I hope you find them tasty too.

1. Anita Baker, "Sweet Love"
2. Sade, "The Sweetest Taboo"
3. Jackie Wilson, "I Get the Sweetest Feeling"
4. Rufus & Chaka Khan, "Sweet Thing"
5. Barbra Streisand, "Sweet Inspiration / Where You Lead"
6. Commodores, "Sweet Love"
7. Sweet Sensation, "Sad Sweet Dreamer"
8. Barry White, "Your Sweetness Is My Weakness"
9. Four Tops, Loving You Is Sweeter Than Ever"
10. Juice Newton, "The Sweetest Thing (I've Ever Known)"

Peter Criss, "You Matter to Me"

In the middle of 1978, Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons were on top of the world. Their band, Kiss, was the hottest touring commodity in the world; they'd lodged seven Top 40 hits in less than three years; and they were poised to break it big in other media as the worlds of TV and comic books came a-calling. They even had the marketing gimmickry and inspiration for each of the four band members to release a solo album that fall - though surely Paul and Gene expected theirs to perform best, as they were unquestionably the leaders and creative vision of the group as well as the songwriters and primary singers.

So it must have been galling to Stanley and Simmons when Ace Frehley scored the sole Top 40 hit of the lot (with the infectious "New York Groove") and Peter Criss unexpectedly turned in the best pop song. "You Matter to Me" wasn't a hit, but it holds up nicely as a period piece alongside the similar "Stumblin' In" by Suzi Quatro and Chris Norman. (My apologies, though, for that YouTube clip - it was the only one I could find of the song. Who knew there were adult men who are fans of both Peter Criss and My Little Pony?) Paul and Gene would have to content themselves with moderate sales success and eventual solo follow-ups, not to mention increasingly tight control over the group (it's not for nothing that KISS was taken by many to be an initialism for "KISS Is Stanley & Simmons").

Anyway, listen to "You Matter to Me" and tell me it isn't one of the more underrated songs of the late '70s. For sub-Chapman-&-Chinn, it works for me.

Thomas Dolby, "I Love You Goodbye"

This morning I dreamed about my friend Brandon for the first time in recent memory. Maybe even the first time since his passing away 3 1/2 years ago. It was one of those dreams where a number of surrealistic situations come and go (a few and far between thing for me - I don't dream much anymore); the germane detail was that Brandon and I had skipped a river boat cruise and gone instead to a boardwalk Vietnamese restaurant. We were seated, ordered some appetizers; I fretted over what to have to drink ... and then started crying. Sobbing. "I know I'm dreaming," I said softly to him, "because you're talking and I can hear you." At that point his voice faded to mute, his visage blurred to my eyes, and I woke up.

I'm hoping that by typing this out I'll transcend the empty, hollow feeling that results from a dream like that. It's not hard to interpret: one of my many regrets about his passing is that it came so suddenly, at 3,000 miles' distance, that I had no opportunity to say goodbye to him.

Back in February 2006, when a wake was held for him in San Francisco, two songs reverberated as part of my grieving process. There was a self-pitying and self-destructive impulse to be found in Death Cab for Cutie's "Soul Meets Body" ("if the silence takes you, then I hope it takes me too," even if that's not what they meant by that). And then there was Thomas Dolby's "I Love You Goodbye," a 1992 nonhit that I've heard on the radio from time to time over the years. Its storyline of a Britisher joyriding in the deep Cajun Southeast has nothing at all to do with Brandon or me, but its refrain became my plea to myself for strength:

"There is a spirit here that won't be broken ... Some words are sad to say, some leave me tongue-tied / The hardest words I know: I love you, goodbye."

Chris Isaak, "Wicked Game"

A gentleman doesn't kiss and tell.

Having said that ... If one were a gay man, obsessed with music; and one were being seduced by a (mostly) straight musician in the country on holiday; and that musician, at 7am in an eccentric and mural-splashed hotel room, were to preface what he was about to play with, "This is the sexiest song ever written" - well, one could hardly do better than to hear Chris Isaak's sublimely erotic "Wicked Game."

ETA 7/7/09: In re-reading this, I realize how my ambiguous wording could be misconstrued. The musician in question was not Chris Isaak himself, but rather, a person who was playing various songs for me on his iPod speakers, including "Wicked Game." I sincerely apologize if I gave any impression otherwise; it was certainly not my intent.

Friday Funtime: Pop Argot Goes to the Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell

For all of you who are gonna be firecrackin' this weekend: I did a 4th of July Funtime set last year (I was a bit angrier toward our nation at the time) although I wish I'd linked to more of those. Ah well, y'alls know how to navigate YouTube.

Instead, I'll celebrate the convergence of two of America's most American concepts: fast food and corporate merger. It's hard to explain its appeal, but this summer's novelty hit manages to laugh at itself while laughing at franchise marketing, overconsumption habits, stoner disorientation, and belief of the hype. But ignore the original version of "Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell" by Das Racist (cute name, that: it deflects the criticism it simultaneously invites). Instead, go with the funked-up, popped-out, Propeller-headed Wallpaper remix, which gives authority to its absurdity. Really, what summarizes 2009 America better (on a hamburgers-and-hot-dogs holiday, no less) than "I got that Pizza Hut / I got that pizza gut / I got that pizza butt / I'm at the Pizza Hut"?

Axwell, "I Found U"

This past weekend I marched in NYC's GLBT Pride parade. There are many reasons for these events, but my favorite is simple: the reminder that what matters is not who you love; it's that you love.

I had the pleasure of riding on a float for the first time - "I'm on a float!" - and enjoyed hearing the blaring dance music coming from the bear-ish float in front of ours. One song that recurred was a club hit from two summers ago, Axwell's "I Found U," whose video serves as a great reminder that we find ourselves when we open ourselves to another, when we open ourselves to love.