The Melkweg's Finest

365. GOLDEN EARRING, "Radar Love"
Produced by Golden Earring; written by George Kooymans and Barry Hay
Track/MCA 40202 1974 Billboard: # 13

366. GOLDEN EARRING, "Twilight Zone"
Produced by Golden Earring; written by George Kooymans
21 Records 103 1982 Billboard: # 10

A quick one about Golden Earring--my favorite Dutch rock band!

Actually, Golden Earring is the only Dutch rock band I know, but I am honestly a fan of both these songs.

The former song is still ubiquitous on classic rock stations and shows up repeatedly in polls as one of the greatest driving songs of all time. When it comes to gearshifting, it's no "Call Me," but it certainly leaves the overhyped "Free Ride," for example, in the dust. In the immortals words of Stan Lee, nuff said.

As for "Twilight Zone," it's part of that great unappreciated genre of late Cold War pop spy thrillers, which I hope to do a post on at some later date. If you lived through early MTV, you probably have the visuals for the video of this song seared into your brain, but I for one am rather pleased that I can listen to it now without automatically thinking of pre-Robert Palmer trenchcoated supermodel types. It's a great little gnarled thriller--but it should have been called "When the Bullet Hits the Bone," since that's the phrase I always come away chanting after each time that I hear it.

In both cases, though, what really stays with me is the perfect snarl of group founder George Kooymans. Has there ever been a European pop star who sounded so unquestionably American? It's that primordial stew of global pop again, making America European and Europeans American. Hearing him howl for Brenda Lee or archly note that "It's 3 a.m, the gun is still warm," I find it hard to believe Kooymans actually grew up in the Netherlands.

He did, of course, but like every other postwar kid in Western Europe, he apparently sucked up every facet of American culture he could. And anyway, Americans don't snarl like that in real life, just in the movies and on pop records.

Git Down, Eeyore, Get Funky

172. SMITHS, "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now"
Produced by John Porter; written by Johnny Marr & Morrissey
Rough Trade 156 1984 Did not make pop charts

Not my favorite Smiths single, but almost certainly their epitome (and how cool is it, by the way, to come up with the title this early that sums up most of your work). The singly named Morrissey bitches and moans as Johnny Marr--whose very name echoes a phrase of French derision--jangles along in the background. Twelve years later, the Cardigans would actually chart with an almost direct instrumental ripoff of this single on "Lovefool," but the genius here, of course, is that that bouncy music is under these misanthropic words.

If the increasing trend toward self-conscious "loser" singles during the 1980s and 1990s allowed slackers to indulge and feel superior at one and the same time, Brit pop like this allowed alienated would-be intellectuals on both sides of the Atlantic to do the same thing: yes that's exactly how it is--but I'm not that whiny, just clever.

Moreover, "Caligula would have blushed" as a throwaway is genius, particularly the way Morrissey's voice goes all trilly and such when he sings it.

Yes, Son, There Was a Time When We Weren't Ironic

836. VILLAGE PEOPLE, "In The Navy"
Produced by; written by
Casablanca 973 1979 Billboard: # 3

College students and intellectuals--is there really any difference?--are always ironic, but American culture wasn't really reflexively ironic until the 1980s at the earliest. I'm tempted to date the turning point as the beginning of Late Night with David Letterman. One thing I know for sure is that it didn't begin with Bob Hope.

Most people under the age of thirty don't remember this, but if you grew up in the 1960s and 1970s, television was regularly punctuated by variety specials hosted by, among others, Bing Crosby and Bob Hope. As one worked through childhood and adolescence, one of the fun things about watching these specials was seeing how those two showbiz veterans tried to stay "current." One can only repurpose Kathryn Crosby and Martha Raye so many times. I remember being as riveted by Der Bingle's duet with David Bowie on his last Christmas special as a teenager as I am to this day. But then again, there was the time Ol' Skinose tried to incorporate the Village People into his act.

It was pure 1940s radio: there's a new single to promote, and the established host works the act in question into his variety show. The only thing was the act in question was the Village People, and this particular Hope show was filmed live on an active-duty US Navy aircraft carrier. On the one hand, it was perfect; on the other hand, it was a built-in collision.

This is another one of those cases where I haven't had the guts to hunt up the inevitable YouTube clip. As a teenager, I remember the seamen in the audience being stonefaced, even menacing, as the VP went into their act. Odds are, there were probably a number of closet cases among them, but many were probably plain old het homophobes. The thing was, the guys in that audience (who were probably almost exactly my age, come to think of it) got the joke that Bob Hope didn't. They knew the song was saying they were all gay, whether they admitted it or not; Hope thought it was a bouncy little tune with a nautical theme, even though he had been playing "swish" for laughs for decades by that point. He was listening to the choruses; they were noting the release.

Okay, I may be overemphasizing this particular instance. A few years later, "Born in the USA" would be read in the same exactly opposite way. Even as recently as ten years back, the real YMCA was using the Village People's homocelebratory song about it to promote its clubs. Still, even as soon as ten years later, I'm not sure that something so unknowing would have happened.