Proper Names in Song - Part 2

Honoring the bands and musical artists that left an indelible mark, and returning the favor on record. Plus Alex Chilton deep-dive by fellow 'Stacker Brad Kyle

Before I start, I wanted to say thanks to those of you new to Earworms and Song Loops. I super appreciate you coming to check this out and subscribe. I’d love it if you could email me and let me know how you found out about this newsletter.

You can expect, usually, two posts a week. One weekly longer exploration into a song that has been an earworm for me. This song tends to lead to a personal exploration of some sort, often from my distant past. I label it musical memoir, but it’s way more than that. Sometimes I get a calling for a 3-part theme, like this one on Songs with Proper Names! I also will write about pop culture and other forms of art that move me and which I want to share with you.

Continuing with the theme of songs with proper names in the title, I thought I’d narrow the topic down a bit and focus on several songs about famous musicians.

I began my research by listing the songs that came to mind without having to look anything up online. For those of you new to me, I’m not shy about how sieve-like my memory has become (I wrote about this in great detail in a prior post featuring Peter Gabriel’s “I Don’t Remember”), so this part of the complete list was fairly limited.

Here’s the few that did make the first cut:

Van Morrison — Jackie Wilson Said (I’m in Heaven When You Smile)

I played Morrison’s St. Dominic’s Preview cassette probably more than any other during my college years. I think listening to a lot of Van Morrison and Bob Marley were prerequisites to get into University of California at Santa Cruz, my alma mater. I included images of my tape collection along with my admissions application.:)

Weezer — Buddy Holly

I’ve talked enough about Weezer in these Earworm pages, but it’s undebatable how well their debut single still holds up almost 30 years later. (Can it really be almost 30 years?) And this video is so genius.

Minutemen — Political Song For Michael Jackson To Sing

One of my favorite bands of all time, known to name-check their idols in their songs. In addition to this one, there is also “Bob Dylan Wrote Propaganda Songs,” which is a fantastic song as well, but I had to choose. Apparently bassist Mike Watt did send this song to Michael Jackson asking him to sing on it, but never heard back.

The Replacements - Alex Chilton

If you were a teenager or a 20-something in the late 1980s, you likely heard this song on college radio stations. It was the 2nd highest charting song by the band. And it was the first single from the band’s 1987 critically acclaimed album Pleased To Meet Me.

(I so wanted to say “the highest” but that honor went to “I’ll Be You” from their 1989 album Don’t Tell a Soul, which made it to #50 on the Billboard charts. A far weaker song in my opinion.)

I asked my friend and fellow ‘Stacker Brad Kyle, who writes the excellent newsletter Front Row and Backstage and is a researcher extraordinaire, to write a little deep dive into this ode to Big Star and Box Tops singer and guitarist Alex Chilton.

Take it away Brad!

Thanks Steve!

"Alex Chilton" is a song written by Replacements members, Paul Westerberg, Tommy Stinson, and Chris Mars, and recorded by the band in 1987.

Written as a tribute to the front man of early-'70s power pop kingpins, Big Star (and singer of The Box Tops' 1967 smash, "The Letter"), Alex Chilton was an idol of The Replacements, with the subject of their song actually collaborating with them on occasion. In fact, Chilton was often in attendance at the recording of Pleased to Meet Me, recorded at the same Memphis studio (Ardent) that Alex and his Big Star had recorded both #1 Record in 1971 (and parts of '72), and Radio City in '73!

Chilton Photo: Michael O'Brien

Chilton guested on the band's album, playing guitar on "Can't Hardly Wait." Westerberg recalled Chilton's presence at the time to Bob Mehr in his 2016 Trouble Boys: The True Story of The Replacements: "His aura is different than the average person's. He could be from another planet."

Mehr also revealed that "Alex Chilton" originated "as a demo called, 'George From Outer Space,' which featured lyrics about Replacements roadie, George Lewis. Westerberg changed the lyrics to make them an homage to Chilton, who had seen a resurgence in popularity in the college rock scene, and Westerberg developed a 'singsongy pop kind of thing [like] Big Star' for a chord sequence. The hook, 'I'm in love / With that song,' was based on Westerberg's first encounter with Chilton, when, in an effort to make conversation, Westerberg told him, 'I'm in love with that one song of yours---what's that song?', having forgotten the title to Big Star's 'Watch the Sunrise.'"

Finally, Mehr recounts, the band actually sought to keep the song away from Chilton, fearing it might make a bad impression on their hero. Chilton, of course, eventually heard it in its finished form while touring with the band. Chilton allowed that it was "a pretty good song," and joked, "I feel like a great legendary outlaw, like John Wesley Harding or something!"

(ed note: Thank goodness they didn’t keep the song as “George From Outer Space.”)

I feel like I should insert a little bit of bragging here and mention that I got to see The Replacements live in 1989 on the Don’t Tell a Soul tour at a small club in the San Fernando Valley where I grew up called Reseda Country Club. It was sort of like the Whiskey A-Go-Go of the Valley. (My L.A. readers will scoff at the comparison, I imagine.) It also was the setting for many scenes from Paul Thomas Anderson’s film Boogie Nights.

The Replacements were definitely bigger than the regular hair-metal types of bands that played the Country Club and I remember worrying that the show was going to be terrible as Paul Westerberg (and the rest of the band too) was known for getting pretty wasted before and during concerts and would often end shows after 30 minutes and slur and stumble through the songs. But some nights they’d be just the right amount of high and perform a transcendent show.

Luckily, the latter was the case for the show I saw. (July 30, 1989 the internet tells me.) It was one of these live shows where the music transforms the crowd and everyone in attendance is sharing one body and that body is imbued with 100 percent joy. It was the sort of experience that when it is over you don’t remember any specific moments, any specific songs, just the power of the entire experience. I’m kind of bummed that I have no distinct memory of the show other than going to it and even that is hazy and if I didn’t still have my ticket stub, I would think it all was a dream.

What Reseda Country Club looks like today; maybe the 80s were just a dream

The following songs triggered an “oh yeah!” response from me when they appeared in my online search for other song tributes to musicians, using first and last names. There are about a dozen more that I will share with you all in a playlist on my next post.

Cake - Frank Sinatra

Cake is one of those bands that either annoys people or they really love. I was in the latter group. As they were based out of Sacramento, California, Cake would drive down to play in San Francisco in the ‘90s all the time when I lived there and I got to see them at small clubs like Bottom of the Hill before they hit the big time and went “The Distance.”

Such a great live band.

Jude - Rick James

I didn’t know this song before today but I really liked it, and it calls out the horrible, violent acts that Rick James pulled in his heyday. If anyone knows anything about Jude or has heard of them, let me know in the comments.

MGMT — Brian Eno

I had to include the live version here. It’s so friggin’ good! What happened to MGMT? After their first album Oracular Spectacular in 2008, they went from critical darling hipsters headlining festivals to pariahs who lost the plot. I think their 2nd album, Congratulations, is every bit as good as the debut. It’s been 5 years since their 4th album Little Dark Age, and if they don’t make any more music, it just might start to feel like a little dark age.

I discovered quite a few more songs written about other musicians and a playlist of these songs will appear in the next EW&SL newsletter.

I do want to ask you, dear readers, you human repositories of decades of musical history — what songs can you think of that were written about a famous or less-than-famous musician and include said artist in the song’s title?

You know what to do, click that “leave a comment” button below and let’s build a communal playlist!

Until we read again….