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.

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.

John Lennon, "Instant Karma"

There is nothing funny or witty about Phil Spector's murder of Lana Clarkson. Well, yeah, the wigs were a sight - but they served to trivialize and divert attention from the loss of a life, which I believe was at least partially intentional on Spector's part.

And as one life ended, alas, another did too, though Phil's took several years to wind its way through the courts and may well take several more years of appeals for justice to resolve. I offer only a few half-formed meager thoughts on the matter:

He wore on his head a fright wig
(Strategic gambit, that -
Diverted all attention from his eyes).
And you never saw his eyes.
Always there were screens,
Filters; walls, if you will.

Over months of testimony
He strode, strutted; then strained,
Then shrank, and finally shriveled.
The same madness that had once
Enabled him to create joy for millions
Sent him to a place few can know.

Some among the exceptional people
Learn to enjoy the indulged ride on the outside
And forget to live by the same rules
As those around them. Renegades
With entitlement always are brought down;
Instant Karma’s not instant, but it gets you.

Derek & the Dominos, "Why Does Love Got to Be So Sad?"

Today's Eric Clapton's birthday, so the occasional classic-rock radio station is playing even larger doses of him than usual. Personally, I find him to be a genius but a lazy one: he can do whatever he wants with his guitar, yet often just doesn't seem to want to do all that much beyond what is expected of him. Hence the tedium of his '90s adult-contemporary phase.

But Clapton's done some magnificent work too, my favorites mostly coming from the Derek & the Dominos album Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs. (Lame title, by the way: assorted seems extraneous or redundant.) "Layla," of course, was the monster hit, several minutes of vigorous, epic tragedy; but scaling nearly as high a height was "Why Does Love Got to Be So Sad," a song just as desperate and miserable in its message and as fiery and ferocious in its dual-guitar-attack playing.

But to answer the ungrammatical question: love got to be so sad because we keep forgetting what it means to love. Love is sad when love is an aim to possess, because that kind of love can never grow, only shrink. It's worth reminding oneself of that, especially considering that it didn't exactly work out when Clapton actually won his Layla's heart.

The Tee Set, "She Likes Weeds"

Every once in a while, you'll hear an oldie from one of those bands we music geeks like to call "one-hit wonders," and you'll think, "Hmm, I wonder why they couldn't make it happen again."

And then you decide to try to figure it out, upon hearing the Tee Set's "Ma Belle Amie," a 1970 hit from a Dutch band that never hit the Top 40 again, since you've got YouTube right in front of ya, and you see what else they've got.

And you go WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE when you find their follow-up, "She Likes Weeds." I mean, holy mother, the song's bad enough, but those utterly random video cutaways! Those framing stretchy girls! Seriously, if this had been available around 1995 when Mirsky's Worst of the Web was the best of what the Web had to offer, I think it would have headlined for a day.

Research for this entry informs me that although "She Likes Weeds" did not chart - apparently U.S. radio steered clear of it because of that title; no Wadsworth Mansion of subtlety were they - another song, "If You Do Believe in Love," did stumble to #81 in 1970. But I'm afraid to seek it out on YouTube.

The Supremes, "Stoned Love"

Now --

I wanna tell ya
Of a GREAT LOVE ...

It will light up,
It will SURELY light up
Darkened worlds ...

If you just believe ...

Today one of our long national nightmares is over, as George W. Bush leaves the White House for a life of ignominy in Texas and Barack Obama at long, long last officially becomes the 44th President of the United States.

So why on earth am I marking the occasion with a 1970 Supremes song with a pothead title? Because its lyrics apply quite nicely to today's scenario, our country exiting an era of extreme division to declare, "We Are One," if only for a day --

A love for each other will bring fighting to an end
Forgiving one another - Time after time doubt creeps in
But like the sun lights up the sky with a message from above
Oh yeah, I find no other greater symbol of love

-- and the ladies offer a quick message that could easily have been meant for the Commander in Chief:

And to the man
On whose shoulder
The world must depend
I pray for peace and love - Amen.

This is not to say that America is the world or that one's appreciation of Obama's temperament and talents should take on messianic worship of the man. But now that we've seen the damage an incompetent, inept and unthinking president can do, change feels pretty damn good. And with a soundtrack like this thumping, retro Supremes number (retro enough to bring back that farting baritone sax sound; not surprisingly, this was the biggest of the Supes' post-Diana hits), it is all the easier to gaze with hope on the million thronged on the National Lawn and really believe that, for today, We Are One.

Lead us with kindness and wisdom, Mr. President.

Christie, "San Bernardino"

My friend Mike is a fan of the retro chart shows on a British radio station, Capital Gold, that simulcasts on the Web. The cool thing about British charts of the '70s is that you get a lot more OMGWTFLOL inexplicability: sauced football anthems, aging crooners, and glammy covers share the space with the more anticipated pop stars. So, for example, for the show airing this week, from November 1970, you get some things you might expect of the time (Edwin Starr's "War") along with some you may have forgotten (Dave Edmunds, "I Hear You Knocing") and some you never knew to forget (Jimmy Ruffin, "It's Wonderful"; Andy Williams, "Home Lovin' Man").

Decidedly in the latter camp is the pleasantly melodic if hardly memorable "San Bernardino" from Christie, a follow-up to their only hit in the U.S., "Yellow River." Now that's one hell of a long road trip. Hooray for British acts laying claim to random parts of California without knowing the lay of the land! (A list for another day.)

ETA: The Web suggests that they consistently misspelled it as "San Bernadino." Until I get tangible confirmation of that, I'll err on the side of correctness.