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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, February 5
Date: Tuesday, February 6, 2024
Time: 4:54:29 AM
Remote Address: 216.245.78.27
Message ID: 321632
Parent ID: 0
Thread ID: 321632
Well, there’s 2 old sayings that can be used to describe why the new polls stared up over a day late and last week’s polls ended a day early, and they are: “Better late than never” and “when it rain it pours”, but I’ll explain all of that down below at the Poll Post’s close for those of you that want to know what happened, but just one thing, the problem had nothing to do with the poll’s old ASP programing, it was something else, and as I write this out, the polls’ been up for over three hours now and it’s good to see that even in the middle of the night, people are voting in large enough numbers , and of course, it’s past sunrise in Europe now, and people have started their Tuesday already. …. So, as usual we’ll start off talking about the Stones poll first, which enters week 1,277 of voting and week 168 of rating their songs. Here’s the question and the song we’ll rating this week: Rate the Stones song “Far Away Eyes", from zero (lowest) to 10 (highest).
"Far Away Eyes", is a Country-Rock ditty by the Stones, and it’s one of those rare Stones songs that was a true Jagger/Richards written number, as the Glimmer Twins really did write it together - both the lyrics and music. Recorded between October and December, 1977 and then released in the U.S and UK on the album Some Girls, on June 9, 1978. It was also released on that same day as a B side single to the A side, "Miss You".
Ronnie Wood's pedal steel guitar playing is excellent and part of the reason this one is clearly more Country than Rock, in fact if this one had been made by a non-rock band, it would just be called a Country song. But it’s not just Ronnie who shines on this one, all of the band’s members do, with the rhythm beat of Watts and Wyman just perfect!
The opening lyrics to this one alone makes this tune one of the greatest Stones songs ever made in regard to openings lyrics for any one of their songs, and the opening line came from MJ, as he noted in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine in 1978, that the one part of the song that was true, was the bit about driving through Bakersfield, Calif, as he has this to say about the tune: "You know, when you drive through Bakersfield on a Sunday morning or Sunday evening — I did that about six months ago — all the country music radio stations start broadcasting black gospel services live from L.A. And that's what the song refers to. But the song's really about driving alone, listening to the radio". Yep, this one is about as true as the old "Bakersfield Sound" gets!
Sorry, but since I started to write this at 3:30am on Tuesday morning, I don’t have the time to write more on this one (and I want to get it up on line ASAP), so, here's the studio lineup for this tune: Mick Jagger: Lead and Backing Vocals, Piano; Ron Wood: Pedal Steel Guitar, Backing Vocal; Keith Richards: Electric and Acoustic Guitars, Piano, Backing Vocal; Bill Wyman: Bass Guitar; Charlie Watts: Drums.
To rate this song – just click on the following link to get to the voting page: Stones Weekly Poll.
Okay, last week we may have lost most of the last day of voting cause the domain was off line as of late Sunday morning (usually the slowest day of the week, voting wise, anyway), but even so, the Stones Poll saw a record number of votes – ever in well over 20 years of me running this poll (for the Stones’ poll, that is, as the old closed weekly Rock Poll’s top 20 plus voted on polls are far ahead of this one and the weekly Beatles Polls, too)! Oh yes indeed, that was a nice turnout last week! Anyway, at the Stones Poll this is what we voted on and rated last week: Rate the Stones song “Salt Of The Earth", from zero (lowest) to 10 (highest).
“Salt Of The Earth” From the lyrics video for the song
Not only did this poll see record turnout, after a few week of the Stones’ poll not see any top ratings of a 10, well, “Salt Of The Earth” did, with 76.6% of the first place votes. To view how high up in the Stones poll’s rating standings, just visit the Stones Song Ratings & Standings - List Page 5 to find out! Plus, to view the full, finial results from this poll, just click here: Stone Poll, week 1,276.
Okay, now let’s take a look at this week’s Beatles Poll, where we enter week 666 of voting, and week 100 even of rating their songs. Yep, perhaps if you believe in the devil (I don’t), this week’s poll week number was perhaps why the poll’s started up so late, yeah, blame the devil, if you like! But at least, other than this opening, everything below this (other than the close, too), was the only thing that I had written up before Sunday’s mess took place. So, here’s this week’s new question and song to rate: Rate the Beatles song, “The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill”, from zero (lowest) to 10 (highest)
“The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill” The real Bungalow Bill , Richard A. Cooke III, along with his mom, after the actual killing of the tiger
After seeing Bungalow Bill's name in the wanted poster in the drawing/photo I posted here last week for the Beatle song that we were rating, "Rocky Raccoon" (the cool drawing is down below), it got me wondering if we had rated "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill" yet in this poll, and after checking, no, we hadn’t, so while this one wasn't really a song about the U.S. west in the 1800’s, it's still in the same vein as "Rocky Raccoon" is in. So that's what we are rating this week. "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill" was written by John Lennon (and credited to Lennon/McCartney), and just like "Rocky Raccoon", this one too was written while the band was staying with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, at his ashram in Rishikesh, India, in early 1968. Damn, if nothing else, John and Paul wrote some great songs while staying there.
The number was recorded at EMI Studios, UK, on 8 October 1968 and was completed in the very same day, and released by the Beatles on their November ‘68 double LP The White Album.
"The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill" makes fun of the actions of a young American named Richard A. Cooke III (called "Rikki"), who was with his mother, Nancy Cooke de Herrera, at the ashram at the same time that the Beatles were there. According to his mother, both she and her son maintained friendly relations with all of the Beatles except for John, who according to Rik's mother, was "a genius", but distant and contemptuous of her and her clean-cut, college-attending son. According to Nancy's account, the song's genesis occurred when she, Rikki, and several others, including guides, set out upon elephants to hunt for a tiger for her son to kll. Their pack of elephants was soon enough “attacked by a tiger”, which Rikki shot dead. Rik was initially proud of this kill, and posed for a photograph with his prize (and mother, shown above). However, after John wrote this mocking song about him, he has not hunted tigers since (so he claims). No question, John was mocking what he saw in Rik's attitude when he returned from the hunt, and didn't believe Rik's mother's story that the tiger attacked them before it was shot. No kidding, the animal saw these fools as dinner and got killed for acting like a tiger would act in such a situation. John later told his version of the story in an interview, stating that: 'Bungalow Bill' was written about a guy in Maharishi's meditation camp who took a short break to go shoot a few poor tigers, and then came back to commune with God.". In another interview, John noted that "... I used the name 'Bungalow Bill' after thinking of 'Buffalo Bill'. The song is really more of a joke than a social comment".
According to always wrong Wiki (I guess when it comes to music in general and not just the Stones' music), this tune “also contains co-lead vocals by Yoko Ono, and is the only song recorded by the group to feature lead vocals by a non-member". Bullshit! Just listen to the song, the lead is clearly sung by John (other than the opening vocal, which Ringo Starr sings lead), while Yoko and Ringo’s then wife Maureen, joined in with the Beatles to sing the backing vocals; and while yes, Yoko does get in a few lead vocal samples, too - but only a few, that isn’t the first time such a thing took place on a Fab record.
So here's the studio lineup for the ditty: John Lennon – Lead Vocal, Acoustic Guitar, Organ, Mellotron (main); Paul McCartney – Backing Vocal, Bass Guitar; George Harrison – Backing Vocal, Acoustic Guitar; Ringo Starr – Opening Lead Vocal, Backing Vocal, Drums, Tambourine; Chris Thomas – Mellotron (at the beginning [it sounds like a guitar, but it’s not] and at the song’s ending); Yoko Ono – Backing Vocal, Vocal Sample; Maureen Starkey – Backing Vocal. To vote in this week’s poll, just click on: Beatles Weekly Poll.
Let’s now look at last week’s Beatles poll results, which asked: Rate the Beatles song, “Rocky Raccoon”, from zero (lowest) to 10 (highest)
“Rocky Raccoon” I like the “Bungalow Bill” wanted poster on the wall! (from https://mcillustrator.com/rocky-raccoon/)
Yep, a strong 10 was the top pick for this excellent outlaw Country-Rock song, bringing in 64% of the votes for first place. To see where this one landed in the Beatles top rated Songs Top 10, just click on here: The Beatles Song Ratings and Standings Page . Or, to take a look at the full, finial poll numbers, just go here: Beatles Poll, week 665.
So that will do it for this week’s Poll Post! I thank all of you who voted in our polls last week!
Now for the PP Blog, where for this week, I’ll just explain why the polls started up late and why for me anyway, I noted that old saying up above. First, the old Windows 2000 server that my domain keno.org is on, stopped working about 10am Sunday morning, and wasn’t fixed until around 11 am Monday. But since I had another insane week, last week, I haven't yet built the 2 polls for the new week Sunday morning, when the domain went off line. So even though the domain was back up by Monday morning, I was out of town until late Monday afternoon, and was dead tired after little sleep the night before, and crashed about 7 PM and didn’t awake for 5 hours, at which time I got the 2 new polls up, and then started to write up this Poll Post, which takes me a lot longer to write these days that it used to, since I’m getting old and my brain has slowed down. But to only touch on one other happening of several crazy things to happen last week for me and mine, my grandson and I had to rush his 2-year-old baby to the hospital, as she wasn’t breathing right (and this hit her real fast). Turns out she had (still has) RSV, which so many babies been getting of late (at least here in the States). She was in the hospital for 4 full days, and was released Saturday afternoon, but since I have my own lung problem and I'm on oxygen myself (so is she for the next few days), the doctors told us that she needed to stay somewhere else, instead of being at my home, since RSV can kill a elderly person like myself with a underlying condition, even if I had already gotten the RSV vaccine). So my great granddaughter and her dad are staying at the baby’s mother’s house for the next 2 weeks, and I’m missing that little sweetheart, badly! Damn, this house is so quiet with her gone and not running all over the place like she does! They actually checked me out while at the hospital since they saw I was on oxygen, but I’m okay, relatively speaking.
I hope all of you have a great week ahead!
Keno
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