From “Undercover Of The Night”, with Mick’s big lips on full display
IT'S A GAS, GAS, GAS!!
MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVES/WEEKLY ROCK POLL POST
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Name: Keno
E-Mail: keno@fairpoint.net
Subject: Poll Post for the week starting Monday, Feb 15
Date: Sunday, February 14, 2021
Time: 11:12:57 PM
Remote Address: 8.41.160.9
Message ID: 320863
Parent ID: 0
Thread ID: 320863
Its Poll Post time, so let’s get our 4 weekly polls off and running in the way we always do, that is, talking ‘bout the Stones poll first, which enters week 1,123 of voting, and where we will continue to rate the band’s songs. For this week we ask: Rate the Rolling Stones release of the song 'Undercover Of The Night', from zero (lowest) to 10 (highest)”.
From “Undercover Of The Night”, with Mick’s big lips on full display
When this past Saturday afternoon came around, I found that it was time to build and get published the 4 new weekly polls for the upcoming new week. Only problem was, I hadn’t thought even once about which song we might rate for this week's Stones poll, but since it was time to publish the new polls, I had to think of where I wanted to go next with this song rating poll. So, since I hadn't giving it any thought, I just decided to go to the top of my site's lyrics page where I have the 27 letters of the alphabet listed with links to each group of songs listed by going by what letter the songs title starts off with. Figured that since I haven’t a clue which song I wanted to rate next, I just ran the mouse’s cursor back and forth over these letters without looking for maybe 10 seconds or so and then stopped on one letter -planning to then once in that letters’ group of songs, I would do perhaps the same thing and pick a song in that crazy, lazy matter. Why not pick a song by random in that way? So of course, I landed on the letter "U", which only has 3 Stone songs listed, plus a cover, along with a fifth song by Stevie Wonder that the Stones played live with him back in 1971. So there weren't enough choices to do what I planned and I decided to rate one the 3 Stones original songs listed, but one was off of A Bigger Bang, and we rated a song last week from that same LP, and 2 weeks ago we rated an oldie from the '60s. So I just picked the one song that was released in the band's middle time period, and a song that I at least like a lot, that being "Undercover of the Night". Then perhaps in 2 weeks we will rate the '60s song, "Under My Thumb"? Well, maybe, but yes, 1983's "Undercover of the Night" is what we will look at this week.
According to Keith Richards, Mick Jagger wrote "Undercover of the Night", totally alone without him (which is how most of their songs written since been written, either by MJ alone or Keith alone)... This song looks at the then rampant political corruption in Central and South America. Its main video is looked at by many Stones fans, including myself, as perhaps their best ever made video, and in it it tells a story, with Mick playing 2 parts in the video, and in one of his roles, while playing a private eye, he's shot by a bandit played by Keith Richards, and dies from his wounds. But we are of course not rating videos here and only the song itself, therefore, to not let the video get in the way of just voting on the song only, I linked to the B version of the video instead, which in time, while not supposed to become a standalone video for the song, became one anyway. This video was made for the first video, to show the Stones playing on TV while this young female fan is alternating between the Stones playing on TV, and a violent movie on another channel - which of course is the Jagger/Richards movie - aka the first video. The Stones ended up releasing the B video on its own a few months after the release of the first video, while still using shots from video version B in the first video, including the 2 kids (the girl and her boyfriend) watching it – and they ended up being in both videos using the same footage. But again, we aren't rating videos here (we already rated both of these some time ago), just the song is what we rate, and with a lot less action in the B video and with it just mainly showing the Stones playing the song that we’re rating. Yes, that one fits in great here for using it to link to so we can hear the song before we vote.
The lineup for "Undercover of the Night" is: Lead Vocals: Mick Jagger; Electric Guitars: Keith Richards & Ron Wood; Bass: Bill Wyman & Robbie Shakespeare; Drums: Charlie Watts; Percussion: Sly Dunbar, Martin Ditcham, Moustapha Cisse & Brahms Coundoul; Organ: Chuck Leavell.
BTW, there are different releases of this song (length wise), so for the most part, let’s just rate the single, since it’s the best know version. To rate this tune, just click on the following link: Stones Weekly Poll.
Last week at the Stones poll we answered this questionRate the Rolling Stones release of the song "Laugh, I Nearly Died", from zero (lowest) to 10 (highest)”.
“Laugh, I Nearly Died”, lyrics from A Bigger Bang
Well this song was really all over the place in the voting, although overall, its top ratings were rather low, with 2 of the top 3 ratings being below the Mendoza line (which is a 5). Yep, the top pick was only a 4, taking in 14.7% of the vote. You can check out the full results from this poll, here: Stones Weekly Poll - week 1,122. Or, to check out the song standings, located at the Stones newest List Page, you can visit this still somewhat new page here: Stones Top Picks, List Page 3., list page 5, and see where all of the songs rated so far have landed in those standings.
Okay, now let’s check out this week’s Classic Rock Poll, where we enter week 764 of voting, and for this one, as usual, we vote in 2 different Rock Polls each week.
This week’s first question asks: What was the best performance by a Choir singing on a Rock song?
“Okay, ladies, we’ll sing it my way, this time”… The Bach Choir taking their orders from a Rolling Stone
There's only so many Rock songs that feature choirs singing on them, and for this poll, I found 29 such songs to vote on (I did actually find another 5 or 6 classic rock songs that had a choir on it, but I felt they had no chance of receiving any votes, so I didn't list them for that reason). For most of these songs I was able to find the name of the choirs singing on the tunes, but not always. On a few songs, the choirs used had no names, and on a few others, they didn't wish to be named, including the choir that sang on the Stones song YCAGWYW, after they heard what some of the songs on the album LIB were to be about. The Stones named them anyway… kinda… (calling them “The London Bach Choir”, who’s actual name is “The Bach Choir”). Most of the choirs that had no names, were put together just for the song in question. Neil Young's song "Living With War" was this way, as his 100-voice choir, which he put together for the song, never had all of the 100 singers singing together at the same time, because of limited space in the studio, so Neil assembled groups of 20 or so singers to sing together at one time, and recorded all of those vocals about 5 separate times and then he just edited all the voices together for the final take of the song.
There are some excellent songs listed in this week's poll choice, along with (I bet) a few you may have never heard. But which one will you go with? Making a pick may not be as easy as you might think if you really listen closely to the songs and consider what some of the choirs had to sing. On the Beatles/Lennon song, “I Am The Walrus", the choir had to sing totally nonsense lyrics that made no sense at all - and I bet they never again had to sing for a gig like that one again!
To make your pick and see this week's song list for this week’s first Rock Poll question, just click on here: Classic Rock Poll, and when you get to this page, choose “Poll 1” to vote in this poll.
For our second Rock Poll this week, we have the Rock Video poll, and we ask this: Rate Simon & Garfunkel's video for 'I Am A Rock (Live)' (Click here for the video), from zero (lowest) to 10 (highest)
Simon & Garfunkel in 1966 singing “I Am a Rock”
This live Simon and Garfunkel performance came from a Canadian live TV show in 1966, made at University College, at the University of Toronto. Truth is, Simon and Garfunkel videos are all like this clip, since they never made any real videos as a duo, so all we have are live performances of them singing live, well that, and also some fan made or lyrics videos for them, too. So this was made early on, back when they were young and Garfunkel still could grow hair up on the top of his head. But this is so early on that he doesn't yet have his giant afro yet, either.
The song "I Am A Rock" was written by Paul Simon, as was 99% of the songs the 2 sang, and is about a loner who just lost his love and now hates everything, including the idea of ever loving another again. Simon actually first recorded this song without Garfunkel, as it appeared on his first solo album in early 1965, a UK only released LP that most fans forgot that he even made. He put that LP together after the second Simon and Garfunkel break up and was living in London (the first time the duo broke up was in the late '50s, back when they were a teen duo known as "Tom and Jerry"). "I Am A Rock" was not on Simon & Garfunkel's first LP, either, but showed up on their second effort, put together after they got back together again, this when Paul was still in London and received a call from Garfunkel telling him that their old song "The Sounds of Silence" from 1964, had suddenly became a hit after it was rerecoded, renamed ("The Sound of Silence") and released in late 1965 (without Simon’s knowledge). They suddenly needed to make a follow up to the first LP and Paul decided to record “I Am a Rock” again, this time with Art for the new LP.
So to watch, listen to, and then rate this week’s Rock video, just click on this link: Classic Rock Video Poll, and when you get to this page, choose “Poll 2” to vote on this question.
Last week in the first Rock Poll we asked this question: Who was/is the overall best singing drummer?
Don Henley of the Eagles, was the top pick
Last week we looked at the best singing drummer and Don Henley of the Eagles took first place with 8% of the votes in very close voting. Second place went to The Band’s drummer Leon Helm (at 7.9%), with Micky Dolenz of the Monkees taking third place with 7.8. You can check out the full, final results from this poll and see where the other drummer ended up by clicking on the following link: Classic Rock Poll, week 763, Poll 1. Or, to see the Top 10 (well, Top 11, as for the third week in a row, there was a tie for the last spot… just what is going on here with the last spot and 3-way ties, 3 weeks in a row?) results from this poll at the list page, just click on here)
Last week at our Rock Video poll, we asked this: Rate Todd Rundgren's video for 'Bang the Drum All Day (Live)' (Click here for the video), from zero (lowest) to 10 (highest)
Todd Rundgren bangs away on the drums while actually working
The top rating for this poll question was a “10” score, doing very well indeed, taking in 47.7% of the vote. It was also cool to read that Todd got nominated for the Rock Hall last week, too. I hope he makes it! But getting back to last week’s video, you can click on the following link to see the full, final results from this one: Classic Rock Poll, week 763, Video Poll. Or, to see where in the updated Video standings this one lands, just go here: Rock Video Standings list page. The standings can be found at the very top of the page.
As is always the case, we’ll close up this Poll Post looking at our Beatles Poll for this week, being week 515, and we will answer this: Rate The Beatles' video for “Day Tripper” (Click here for the video), from zero (lowest) to 10 (highest)
Beatles playing “Day Tripper” , on UK TV in ‘66
This video came from a UK TV show, a Granada TV special titled The Music of Lennon & McCartney, that aired in 1966. The song itself was released on Dec 5, 1965, and was a double A-side single with "We Can Work It Out", that went to #1 on the UK charts (and in several other countries), but only to #5 in the U.S. That begs me to ask the question, what the hell was wrong with us Americans in not making this a #1 here? I recall loving this song the second I first heard it (okay, that was the case for most Beatles songs I guess, but this one was a bit different for me). Written by John Lennon, he sang the lead along with Paul on this one. The one thing I recall really digging on this number was George’s guitar riff for the song. This was perhaps the first cool guitar riff that George ever played on a Beatles track. He may not have written it, it came from Lennon, but George was the one who played it and he played this cool riff great and it stood out to help make the song great. The full lineup for this tune was: John Lennon – Double-tracked lead vocal, rhythm/lead guitar; Paul McCartney – Double-tracked lead vocal, bass guitar; George Harrison – Lead guitar, harmony vocal; Ringo Starr – Drums, tambourine.
I can't help but think that those young blond gals show in the beginning dancing, are today more than likely in their early 70s, or perhaps late 60s. Wonder if they still dance today like that, and just what they might look like now? Not sure why I think in that way, but then again, I guess it's just human nature (as I know I'm not the only one who thinks in this matter). But heck, I still wonder what happened to some of the young ladies I knew in my youth and where they are now and what they might look like today. I only know about a few of them today as it is, and the rest of them are long lost forever. So that's maybe why I and others think in this way when we see something like this? Perhaps I'm going too far-off base here, sorry 'bout that. But getting back to the Fab poll, guess it's time to vote on this vid, to do so, just click on this following link: Beatles Weekly Poll.
Looking back at last week’s Beatles poll, we voted on this question: Rate The Beatles' video for “Maxwell's Silver Hammer” (early take of song) (Click here for the video), from zero (lowest) to 10 (highest)
“Maxwell's Silver Hammer”
Yep. One more 10 for the top rating for another Beatle video, this time taking in 73% of the vote! To view this poll’s full, final results, just go here: Beatles Weekly Poll – week 514. Or you can look at the Beatles’ Video standings both over at the regular Rock Video page (see the link at the Rock Video poll results above) or at the Beatles own video and movie page, here: Beatles Movie and Video Ratings and Standings list page.
So that does it for yet another Poll Post. The last week was crazy indeed, starting with our messed-up U.S. government letting a guilty pig off the hook, thanks to his fellow GOP buddies who think their party and former president (along with their rioters, too) are above the law and can do whatever they want. Well, that’s what it all boils down to anyway.
Then for crazier ass BS, how the hell did one of the worst ever rock acts get nominated to the Rock Hall? Yes, Devo is being considered – the nuts who wore lamp shades on top of their heads (or whatever those stupid things were) while pretending they knew how to play their instruments. This group of fools had zero original hits and one cover hit, that was it!
For the last crazy thing last week, well, since it’s wintertime, this isn’t really crazy at all, just normal cold weather for the wintertime. But from what I’m hearing, the entire U.S., even way down south, has had a very cold week and is still in a deep freeze as of now. Makes me wonder how it is over in Europe? Just as cold perhaps? But it’s cold tonight outside of my house with the temp at 8F (or -14C) and falling at the moment, and it’s been snowing non-stop for 37 straight hours now, mainly very light snow for the most part, but not all time, as we got over a foot on the ground now, with about 6 to 7” of that new snow that fell in the last day plus. But hay, I dig snow, so it’s fine with me as long as I don’t have to drive in it! Plus, I made homemade chicken noodle soup yesterday (It takes forever to make soup from scratch, but it’s worth it, too!) and it goes great with the cold weather, as you already know!
I hope all of you stay healthy and warm and have a great week ahead!
Keno
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