These songs are listed in chronological order, by their order of release, not necessarily in the order of the time period in which they take place.
1. 1961 and 1964: Marie's the name... of Roy Orbison's "Pretty Woman"
Roy and Elvis were friends, from their days recording together in Memphis. As far as I know, neither ever made a move on the other's woman. But what if the guys in the songs in question were friends?
Elvis' character begins by calling the other guy "a very old friend." Said friend doesn't call Marie a "pretty woman," but "I heard him say that she had the longest, blackest hair, the prettiest green eyes anywhere." (Claudette Orbison didn't have green eyes, but she did have black hair.)
Claudette and Roy
It would be out of character for a guy like Roy Orbison to steal a friend's girlfriend. But "His Latest Flame" doesn't say that Marie's new boyfriend had any idea that she was the other guy's old (or current) girlfriend. Maybe he just didn't know.
Then again, the other side of the single that had "His Latest Flame" was "Little Sister." Maybe that's a sequel, showing that the older sister had a habit of cheating, and the hope that the younger one wouldn't.
2. 1963-67: All of Lesley Gore's hits are linked
But there is an established theory that she plays the same girl in all her hits, or at least her early ones. "You Don't Own Me," from early 1964, has been considered one of rock and roll's earliest feminist anthems, and turns the old double standard on its head: She doesn't want him to cheat on her, as he did with Judy, but she says, "Don't say I can't go with other boys."
But between "Judy's Turn to Cry" and "You Don't Own Me," there was "She's a Fool," in which she sees the boy she loves with his new girlfriend, and, "She has his love but treats him cruel." "She" could be Judy, and this could have inspired her move to take Johnny back at the party mentioned in "Judy's Turn to Cry." Maybe "Judy's smile was so mean," not just because she had stolen Johnny from Lesley, but also because she knew she had stolen somebody else's boyfriend as well, before Lesley struck back.
Some of Lesley's other hits could be part of the story, but out of sequence. In "Maybe I Know," she considers the possibility that "he's been cheatin'." And she admits "I Don't Wanna Be a Loser." A later hit is "We Know We're In Love," but a still later hit, from 1967, is "Brink of Disaster." In an earlier hit, "That's the Way Boys Are," she seems to have come to terms with it, and she later sings "I Won't Love You Anymore (Sorry)."
(UPDATE: In 2021, a thought occurred to me about The Beatles' song "I Don’t Want to Spoil the Party." The reason John Lennon's character can't find his girlfriend at the party is because it's Lesley Gore's infamous party, and John's girlfriend is Judy, who's gone off with Lesley's boyfriend, that other Johnny.)
One of her minor hits, in late 1964, was "Sometimes I Wish I Were a Boy." Not only does this predate Beyoncé's "If I Were a Boy" by 44 years, but presaged her coming out. In a 2005 interview, she said she'd known she was gay since she was 20, in 1966: "I just kind of lived my life naturally, and did what I wanted to do. I didn't avoid anything. I didn't put it in anybody's face."
One of her minor hits, in late 1964, was "Sometimes I Wish I Were a Boy." Not only does this predate Beyoncé's "If I Were a Boy" by 44 years, but presaged her coming out. In a 2005 interview, she said she'd known she was gay since she was 20, in 1966: "I just kind of lived my life naturally, and did what I wanted to do. I didn't avoid anything. I didn't put it in anybody's face."
Speaking of which:
3. 1967: The man sittin' on the dock of the bay is gay
On December 10, a plane crash in Madison, Wisconsin killed Otis and 4 of the 5 members of his touring band, The Bar-Kays. Trumpeter Ben Cauley, the only survivor, lived until 2015. None of them were hurt: They died because they crashed into Lake Monona, and drowned. Cauley couldn't swim, but was the only one who was able to get out of his seat belt, and survived by hanging onto his seat cushion until he was rescued.
On November 22, 1967, Otis Redding recorded a song he'd written on the houseboat he was renting on San Francisco Bay, using it during a performance stand at the Fillmore Auditorium. The song was "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay." He recorded it in Memphis with Booker T. & The M.G.'s. On December 7, Otis had some overdubs put on the recording.
On December 10, a plane crash in Madison, Wisconsin killed Otis and 4 of the 5 members of his touring band, The Bar-Kays. Trumpeter Ben Cauley, the only survivor, lived until 2015. None of them were hurt: They died because they crashed into Lake Monona, and drowned. Cauley couldn't swim, but was the only one who was able to get out of his seat belt, and survived by hanging onto his seat cushion until he was rescued.
Otis had wanted to add sound effects of waves and seagulls to the song. M.G.'s guitarist Steve Cropper added them, and the song was released. It became the 1st rock and roll song to become a posthumous Number 1 hit.
San Francisco has long been a haven for gay men. One reason is America's drive west. San Francisco is the end of the line, a place where people can reinvent themselves, and turn their back on everything before them. It's the opposite of New York: If you can't make it there, you probably can't make it anywhere. Hence, the Golden Gate Bridge became the bridge most known for suicide jumps.
Another reason it became a gay haven is its status as a port city. Soldiers and sailors returning from the Pacific Theater of World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War had to stop in San Francisco before being sent back home. Those who had been gay, and had to hide it, and were tired of hiding it back home, stayed.
In the 2nd verse of the song, the narrator says, "I left my home in Georgia, headed for the Frisco Bay, 'cause I've had nothing to live for, and looks like nothin's gonna come my way." In the bridge (not to be confused with the Golden Gate), he says, "I can't do what ten people tell me to do, so I guess I'll remain the same." And in the 3rd verse, he admits that it hasn't worked: "This loneliness won't leave me alone." Whether "it" involved finding true love, we can only guess. And we can only guess whether he's straight or gay.
Otis was completely straight, having 4 children with his wife, Zelma Atwood, including singer Otis Redding III. He adopted a very macho stage persona. On "Tramp," one of his duets with Carla Thomas, he blurted out, "Ooh, I'm a lov-er!" And he almost certainly didn't meant to suggest, a year and a half before the Stonewall Uprising, that he was playing a gay man in this song.
But the idea fits. And black men have an even harder time surviving in their own community, living gay among straights, than white men do. (Same for Hispanics.) While it's hardly the only possible explanation for why the man in the song feels so lonely and helpless, it's plausible.
4. 1968: Delilah is still alive at the end of the song
In 1968, Tom Jones sang "Delilah," which is considered one of the great "murder ballads" of all time. The narrator catches "my woman" (he never says "wife" or "girlfriend") cheating on him. The next morning, he shows up at her door: "She stood there laughing. I felt the knife in my hand, and she laughed no more." He closes by saying, "So, before they come to break down the door, forgive me, Delilah, I just couldn't take anymore."
Sounds cut and dried, doesn't it? Not so fast. He never says she's dead. He never even says that he used the knife, only that he felt it in his hand, and that, as a result, she stopped laughing.
Why would "they" (presumably, the police) have to break down the door? If he's killed her, he should be on the run, get as far from the scene of the crime as possible, unless he believes he deserves to go away for it. If the door needs to be broken down, maybe Delilah is still alive, being held as his hostage.
5. 1969: The "Silver Hammer" murders are all in Maxwell's head
There had to be at least one Beatles song on this list. And, like "Delilah," it involves an apparent murderer. Oddly, no one seems to have connected this one to the "Paul is dead" rumor that seeped into public consciousness shortly thereafter.
In the 1st verse of "Maxwell's Silver Hammer," we learn that Maxwell Hedison is a university student, and that he murders a fellow student, named Joan. In the 2nd verse, apparently taking place sometime later, he gets revenge on a teacher who's punished him, by killing her. In the 3rd verse, he's been arrested, and he's put on trial. He testifies in his own defense, but the judge isn't buying it. So Maxwell kills him, too, and there, the song ends. We don't find out what happens to him thereafter.
There have been plenty of Beatle songs that don't seem to make much sense, but most of these are the result of John Lennon's drug use. In spite of the 3 murders mentioned, this is a light, bouncy Paul McCartney song. Sir Cute One probably never intended for people to analyze the hell out of it.
San Francisco has long been a haven for gay men. One reason is America's drive west. San Francisco is the end of the line, a place where people can reinvent themselves, and turn their back on everything before them. It's the opposite of New York: If you can't make it there, you probably can't make it anywhere. Hence, the Golden Gate Bridge became the bridge most known for suicide jumps.
Another reason it became a gay haven is its status as a port city. Soldiers and sailors returning from the Pacific Theater of World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War had to stop in San Francisco before being sent back home. Those who had been gay, and had to hide it, and were tired of hiding it back home, stayed.
In the 2nd verse of the song, the narrator says, "I left my home in Georgia, headed for the Frisco Bay, 'cause I've had nothing to live for, and looks like nothin's gonna come my way." In the bridge (not to be confused with the Golden Gate), he says, "I can't do what ten people tell me to do, so I guess I'll remain the same." And in the 3rd verse, he admits that it hasn't worked: "This loneliness won't leave me alone." Whether "it" involved finding true love, we can only guess. And we can only guess whether he's straight or gay.
Otis was completely straight, having 4 children with his wife, Zelma Atwood, including singer Otis Redding III. He adopted a very macho stage persona. On "Tramp," one of his duets with Carla Thomas, he blurted out, "Ooh, I'm a lov-er!" And he almost certainly didn't meant to suggest, a year and a half before the Stonewall Uprising, that he was playing a gay man in this song.
But the idea fits. And black men have an even harder time surviving in their own community, living gay among straights, than white men do. (Same for Hispanics.) While it's hardly the only possible explanation for why the man in the song feels so lonely and helpless, it's plausible.
4. 1968: Delilah is still alive at the end of the song
Sounds cut and dried, doesn't it? Not so fast. He never says she's dead. He never even says that he used the knife, only that he felt it in his hand, and that, as a result, she stopped laughing.
Why would "they" (presumably, the police) have to break down the door? If he's killed her, he should be on the run, get as far from the scene of the crime as possible, unless he believes he deserves to go away for it. If the door needs to be broken down, maybe Delilah is still alive, being held as his hostage.
5. 1969: The "Silver Hammer" murders are all in Maxwell's head
In the 1st verse of "Maxwell's Silver Hammer," we learn that Maxwell Hedison is a university student, and that he murders a fellow student, named Joan. In the 2nd verse, apparently taking place sometime later, he gets revenge on a teacher who's punished him, by killing her. In the 3rd verse, he's been arrested, and he's put on trial. He testifies in his own defense, but the judge isn't buying it. So Maxwell kills him, too, and there, the song ends. We don't find out what happens to him thereafter.
There have been plenty of Beatle songs that don't seem to make much sense, but most of these are the result of John Lennon's drug use. In spite of the 3 murders mentioned, this is a light, bouncy Paul McCartney song. Sir Cute One probably never intended for people to analyze the hell out of it.
And yet, what the flying...
In the 1st verse, Maxwell is "majoring in medicine." So, he's in what we in the U.S. would call college. But the instructor in the 2nd verse is called the "teacher," not the "professor." This makes it sound like she's teaching at a level below college. So at what level is Maxwell here?
That brings us to the court case. It certainly appears that he is being tried as an adult. And there's 2 women in the gallery, named Rose and Valerie, shouting that he must go free. This would seem to be quite a validation for Maxwell, especially as it's coming during his testimony.
Any defense attorney worth his salt would tell you that the best way to gain an acquittal in a murder trial is to keep his client from testifying, thus preventing the prosecutor from cross-examining him and possibly tripping him up. So why is Maxwell on the stand? Is his lawyer an idiot? Did he overrule his lawyer's recommendation that he not testify?
And since he's already murdered 2 people (that we know of, there could be more), and both of them were female, why would the people championing his release also be female? And why would he take the chance of murdering the judge? In front of witnesses? Including law-enforcement officers? Who (at least, in America, they would) have guns? And how did he get his hands on the murder weapon, his silver hammer, when it should have been entered into evidence, away from him?
None of this makes any damn sense, unless you consider that it's a fantasy. It's all in Maxwell's head. Nice girls like Joan, Rose and Valerie would never take his side in anything, much less go out with him. And maybe he is still in high school, and the teacher punishing him is the only real part of the story.
So he gets his revenge, but only in his mind. And he imagines a trial, at which he "wins." But, in reality, he doesn't have the guts to carry any of it out. As The Temptations would sing of a far more benign situation, a year and a half later, "It was just my imagination, once again, running away with me."
Is this what McCartney intended? Almost certainly not. But a similar idea was used by Bret Easton Ellis in his 1990 novel American Psycho and its 2000 film adaptation. It's also been suggested for the 2019 film Joker, an alternate take on the classic Batman villain: The main character is an unreliable narrator, and so the murders we see him commit may not have actually happened. Or maybe they did, but he isn't the perpetrator.
If we were to ask Paul, he'd probably say we're thinking about it too much. But if John had written it, and were still alive to ask about it, he might match Joaquin Phoenix's last line from Joker: "You wouldn't get it."
6. 1970: "Kentucky Rain" is a sequel to "Suspicious Minds" -- or maybe it's even darker than that
In the 1st verse, Maxwell is "majoring in medicine." So, he's in what we in the U.S. would call college. But the instructor in the 2nd verse is called the "teacher," not the "professor." This makes it sound like she's teaching at a level below college. So at what level is Maxwell here?
That brings us to the court case. It certainly appears that he is being tried as an adult. And there's 2 women in the gallery, named Rose and Valerie, shouting that he must go free. This would seem to be quite a validation for Maxwell, especially as it's coming during his testimony.
Any defense attorney worth his salt would tell you that the best way to gain an acquittal in a murder trial is to keep his client from testifying, thus preventing the prosecutor from cross-examining him and possibly tripping him up. So why is Maxwell on the stand? Is his lawyer an idiot? Did he overrule his lawyer's recommendation that he not testify?
And since he's already murdered 2 people (that we know of, there could be more), and both of them were female, why would the people championing his release also be female? And why would he take the chance of murdering the judge? In front of witnesses? Including law-enforcement officers? Who (at least, in America, they would) have guns? And how did he get his hands on the murder weapon, his silver hammer, when it should have been entered into evidence, away from him?
None of this makes any damn sense, unless you consider that it's a fantasy. It's all in Maxwell's head. Nice girls like Joan, Rose and Valerie would never take his side in anything, much less go out with him. And maybe he is still in high school, and the teacher punishing him is the only real part of the story.
So he gets his revenge, but only in his mind. And he imagines a trial, at which he "wins." But, in reality, he doesn't have the guts to carry any of it out. As The Temptations would sing of a far more benign situation, a year and a half later, "It was just my imagination, once again, running away with me."
Is this what McCartney intended? Almost certainly not. But a similar idea was used by Bret Easton Ellis in his 1990 novel American Psycho and its 2000 film adaptation. It's also been suggested for the 2019 film Joker, an alternate take on the classic Batman villain: The main character is an unreliable narrator, and so the murders we see him commit may not have actually happened. Or maybe they did, but he isn't the perpetrator.
If we were to ask Paul, he'd probably say we're thinking about it too much. But if John had written it, and were still alive to ask about it, he might match Joaquin Phoenix's last line from Joker: "You wouldn't get it."
6. 1970: "Kentucky Rain" is a sequel to "Suspicious Minds" -- or maybe it's even darker than that
If anybody else had recorded the songs that Elvis Presley had from his 1968 "Comeback Special" to his 1977 death, even without Elvis' stage shows in that last period, that somebody else would be considered a legend. It's just that, as with the ex-Beatles and Bob Dylan, everything Elvis did after his initial success usually gets treated as an anticlimax.
Eddie Rabbitt, later to be known for writing and singing country hits like "I Love a Rainy Night," wrote "Kentucky Rain," and it was recorded by Elvis. It was a Top 20 hit for him in 1970.
The narrator is singing to his wife. (Or girlfriend: He never actually says they're married.) In the 1st verse, he says he's looking for her. She's left him, and he has no idea why. He has to know. In the 2nd verse, he talks about his search, as he gets help from some old men outside a general store and a preacher who offers him a ride. And in the 3rd verse...
As with "Rag Doll" by The Four Seasons, there is no 3rd verse, and the song is left open-ended. As the song fades out, he hasn't yet found her and gotten an explanation. Nor has he given up, gone home, and then found a letter from her, saying that people have been telling her that he's looking for her, and she feels she has to finally give him an explanation. We never find out, and neither does he. As a storytelling device, and as a way of making it easier on the art (Rabbitt got out of having to write a 3rd verse), this was a stroke of genius. But it's frustrating. The narrator has to know, and we should get to find out, too.
As with "Rag Doll" by The Four Seasons, there is no 3rd verse, and the song is left open-ended. As the song fades out, he hasn't yet found her and gotten an explanation. Nor has he given up, gone home, and then found a letter from her, saying that people have been telling her that he's looking for her, and she feels she has to finally give him an explanation. We never find out, and neither does he. As a storytelling device, and as a way of making it easier on the art (Rabbitt got out of having to write a 3rd verse), this was a stroke of genius. But it's frustrating. The narrator has to know, and we should get to find out, too.
A few months earlier, Elvis had what turned out to be his last Number 1 on the pop charts, "Suspicious Minds," written by Mark James. In this one, the narrator desperately wants to keep the woman he loves, but she doesn't believe him when he says he hasn't cheated on her. As much as her accusation hurts, he says he can't leave her. But she doesn't leave him, either. It's a codependent relationship.
Maybe "Kentucky Rain" is this song's sequel. Maybe she left him because she was sick of thinking that he had cheated, and sick of his protests. This would make her the villain of the story.
But maybe she's not. Maybe he's the villain. Maybe she's a victim of domestic abuse, and leaving without leaving a note behind was the only way she could get out.
And maybe he's just too dumb to know that's the reason why. Maybe he's so he so deluded that he thinks everybody else is trying to help him, including the preacher and the old men outside the general store.
In this case, the song to which "Kentucky Rain" would be a sequel would be "Baby, Let's Play House," one of Elvis's earliest songs, which he closes by saying, "I'd rather see you dead, little girl, than to be with another man."
And that became the first line of one of John Lennon's Beatles songs, "Run For Your Life." When discussing the music of Elvis and John, we tend to not want to talk about those songs.
7. 1973: Leroy Brown won the fight
Jim Croce had 2 very different-sounding songs with similar themes. The result of the 1st was very definitive. As such, it throws the result of the 2nd into doubt.
In 1972, he sang "You Don't Mess Around With Jim." Big Jim Walker is the king of pool hustlers in New York, but he makes the mistake of hustling a "country boy" named Willie McCoy, a.k.a. Slim. Slim wants a rematch.
Actually, he wants revenge. They fight with knives, and "Big Jim hit the floor." Next, instead of the song's title, everyone sings, "You don't mess around with Slim." Jim may not be dead, but it doesn't look good for him: "He was cut in 'bout a hundred places, and he was shot in a couple more." Unquestionably, Slim won the fight.
A year later, shortly before his own death in a plane crash, Croce released "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown." Leroy Brown is a gambler on the South Side of Chicago, specializing in shooting dice, and is every bit as tough as Big Jim Walker, and the song makes it clear that he's smarter, better-dressed, and more successful with women.
It's implied that Leroy is also more successful at gambling: While both men drive Cadillacs -- Jim's is a convertible, a "drop-top," Leroy's is an Eldorado, and being the same model is possible -- Leroy also has a custom Lincoln Continental, which, along with a Caddy, had long been the standard for a rich American's car.
Anyway, in the 3rd verse, "at the edge of the bar sat a girl named Doris, and, oh, that girl looked nice." It turns out, she's married, and her husband is there. The 4th verse, in its entirety: "Well, the two men took to fightin', and when they pulled them from the floor, Leroy looked like a jigsaw puzzle with a couple of pieces gone." The result is so bad, Jim couldn't even rhyme it. Sounds like Leroy lost the fight, and his life is in danger.
But then, unlike when he changed the lyric for Jim Walker, Jim Croce goes right back to the chorus, still singing that Leroy is "the baddest man in the whole damn town." How can that be, if he lost the fight?
Maybe he didn't lose. Croce never said what the other guy looked like, only that both men were pulled from the floor. Maybe the other guy looked worse. Maybe Leroy is still the baddest man in the whole damn town, because he took the worst beating of his life, and still won.
8. 1975: The woman in "Lyin' Eyes" is a Red Sox fan
I first thought of this theory before the Boston Red Sox started winning the World Series again in 2004, and first wrote about it on this blog in 2011.
In October 1975, "Lyin' Eyes" by The Eagles hit Number 2. This was a month when the Red Sox were in the World Series, complete with the legendary Game Six when Carlton Fisk did the Fenway Twist.
Lead singer Glenn Frey was from Detroit, and a Tigers fan. Don Henley, who contributed some of the writing, is from Texas, but I've never heard him talk about baseball. Yes, he later had a solo hit titled "The Boys of Summer," but it doesn't mention baseball. Like the Roger Kahn book about the Brooklyn Dodgers, its title seems to have taken its inspiration from a Dylan Thomas poem. Certainly, neither Frey nor Henley was a Red Sox fan.
But I was able to match every line of the song with something connected to the Red Sox. Here's the short version: There are plenty of "big old houses" owned by "rich old men" in Boston and environs. Kenmore Square, long before the steroids, could have been called "the cheating side of town." Being 1975, the boy "with fiery eyes and dreams no one could steal" would be Fred Lynn. "She drives on through the night, anticipating," because Boston traffic is horrible at any time of day.
"She whispers that it's only for a while," because she knows the Sox will blow it in the end. The only times when they don't blow it is when they don't get close enough to blow it. "She swears that soon she'll be comin' back forever." Someday, they will win the World Series. She’s sure of it. If she only knew...
"She wonders how it ever got this crazy. She thinks about a boy she knew in school." This boy could be Tony Conigliaro, Carl Yastrzemski, or Harry Agganis. "Ain't it funny how your new life didn't change things." Foreshadowing of finding out that what happened from 2004 to 2018 was fake?
The theory that The Eagles' song "Hotel California" is about winding up in Hell has been debunked. The entire album of the same name is about how the American Dream coming true, particularly the Western, and especially the California, part of it, was a disaster.
9. 1982: "Billie Jean" was a "beard"
A "beard" is a term for a woman who serves as a man's date to ward off a rumor that he is gay. Michael Jackson faced accusations that he was gay, and, worse, had molested boys. He was tried on such charges once, and was acquitted, but some people still think he was guilty.
If such actions did happen, when did they start? Had there already been such a rumor in 1982, when he recorded "Billie Jean"? Maybe a song where he played a character who was going out of his way to say he was not, as the woman in the song claimed, the father of her child was a defense against the darker rumors.
Like an inoculation: The defense against the disease might backfire and make you feel lousy for a little while, but you'd still be better off than if you got the disease. If that was the idea, it worked no better than did his marriage to Lisa Marie Presley, Elvis' daughter.
10. 1983: The "Her" in "Tell Her About It" is Brenda, and the narrator is Eddie
In 1977, Billy Joel released his album The Stranger. It includes "Scenes From an Italian Restaurant," and lots of people think it's his best song, and he agrees. It seems to be 3 songs in 1, with the bulk of the song being "The Ballad of Brenda and Eddie" -- or "Brender an' Eddie," if you want to use the N'Yawk accent.
Brenda and Eddie seemed like a great couple in high school, but they "had had it already by the Summer of '75." And yet, after the divorce, "they parted the closest of friends." So, before the marriage, great; after it, okay; during, not so much.
Fast-forward to 1983. BJ has released An Innocent Man. This is my favorite album of his, because he's copying acts from his youth, especially the early 1960s. The title track has been compared to a Drifters song. "Uptown Girl" makes no pretense of hiding that it's a tribute to Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons. "The Longest Time" isn't just doo-wop, it's a cappella. And "Tell Her About It," a Number 1 hit, sure sounds like it could have been sung by Dion DiMucci during the John F. Kennedy Administration.
The narrator of "Tell Her About It" is telling a guy that he used to date the woman the other guy wants to get with, and that if he doesn't "tell her everything you feel," he'll blow his chance with her. The narrator has already had a relationship with her and blown it, because he wasn't honest with his feelings, but he also suggests that she may not have been fully open with hers: "She's a trusting soul, she's put her trust in you, but a girl like that won't tell you what you should do."
So the narrator has no problem setting his ex up with another guy. He's actively encouraging it. Could he be Eddie, trying to set this new guy up with Brenda? It would make for a decent sequel. Certainly, some of Joel's songs could use a good sequel.
*
Let me give you one more theory that sounded great when I thought of it, but it doesn't pan out: President Harry Chapin. In his 1974 Number 1 hit "Cat's in the Cradle," he says he missed a lot of the important moments in his son's childhood, because "there were planes to catch and bills to pay."
Presidents fly off considerably more often than most people who have regular jobs. While they don't pay their own bills, they do have to submit budgets. In the 2nd verse, the father blows the son off, but the son's smile never dims, and he still says "I'm going to be like him." Sounds like the sort of thing a son says to a powerful, charismatic father -- for example, if the father is the President of the United States.
But this theory falls apart in the 3rd verse, when the son asks the father for the car keys. If this was really the President and his son, the Secret Service would have been doing the driving.
Also, Harry's character in "Taxi" is driving his cab in San Francisco, not New York. So that blows another theory I thought of: He doesn't become either Travis Bickle in the film Taxi Driver or any of the characters on the sitcom Taxi.
Maybe "Kentucky Rain" is this song's sequel. Maybe she left him because she was sick of thinking that he had cheated, and sick of his protests. This would make her the villain of the story.
But maybe she's not. Maybe he's the villain. Maybe she's a victim of domestic abuse, and leaving without leaving a note behind was the only way she could get out.
And maybe he's just too dumb to know that's the reason why. Maybe he's so he so deluded that he thinks everybody else is trying to help him, including the preacher and the old men outside the general store.
In this case, the song to which "Kentucky Rain" would be a sequel would be "Baby, Let's Play House," one of Elvis's earliest songs, which he closes by saying, "I'd rather see you dead, little girl, than to be with another man."
And that became the first line of one of John Lennon's Beatles songs, "Run For Your Life." When discussing the music of Elvis and John, we tend to not want to talk about those songs.
7. 1973: Leroy Brown won the fight
In 1972, he sang "You Don't Mess Around With Jim." Big Jim Walker is the king of pool hustlers in New York, but he makes the mistake of hustling a "country boy" named Willie McCoy, a.k.a. Slim. Slim wants a rematch.
Actually, he wants revenge. They fight with knives, and "Big Jim hit the floor." Next, instead of the song's title, everyone sings, "You don't mess around with Slim." Jim may not be dead, but it doesn't look good for him: "He was cut in 'bout a hundred places, and he was shot in a couple more." Unquestionably, Slim won the fight.
A year later, shortly before his own death in a plane crash, Croce released "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown." Leroy Brown is a gambler on the South Side of Chicago, specializing in shooting dice, and is every bit as tough as Big Jim Walker, and the song makes it clear that he's smarter, better-dressed, and more successful with women.
It's implied that Leroy is also more successful at gambling: While both men drive Cadillacs -- Jim's is a convertible, a "drop-top," Leroy's is an Eldorado, and being the same model is possible -- Leroy also has a custom Lincoln Continental, which, along with a Caddy, had long been the standard for a rich American's car.
Anyway, in the 3rd verse, "at the edge of the bar sat a girl named Doris, and, oh, that girl looked nice." It turns out, she's married, and her husband is there. The 4th verse, in its entirety: "Well, the two men took to fightin', and when they pulled them from the floor, Leroy looked like a jigsaw puzzle with a couple of pieces gone." The result is so bad, Jim couldn't even rhyme it. Sounds like Leroy lost the fight, and his life is in danger.
But then, unlike when he changed the lyric for Jim Walker, Jim Croce goes right back to the chorus, still singing that Leroy is "the baddest man in the whole damn town." How can that be, if he lost the fight?
Maybe he didn't lose. Croce never said what the other guy looked like, only that both men were pulled from the floor. Maybe the other guy looked worse. Maybe Leroy is still the baddest man in the whole damn town, because he took the worst beating of his life, and still won.
8. 1975: The woman in "Lyin' Eyes" is a Red Sox fan
In October 1975, "Lyin' Eyes" by The Eagles hit Number 2. This was a month when the Red Sox were in the World Series, complete with the legendary Game Six when Carlton Fisk did the Fenway Twist.
Lead singer Glenn Frey was from Detroit, and a Tigers fan. Don Henley, who contributed some of the writing, is from Texas, but I've never heard him talk about baseball. Yes, he later had a solo hit titled "The Boys of Summer," but it doesn't mention baseball. Like the Roger Kahn book about the Brooklyn Dodgers, its title seems to have taken its inspiration from a Dylan Thomas poem. Certainly, neither Frey nor Henley was a Red Sox fan.
But I was able to match every line of the song with something connected to the Red Sox. Here's the short version: There are plenty of "big old houses" owned by "rich old men" in Boston and environs. Kenmore Square, long before the steroids, could have been called "the cheating side of town." Being 1975, the boy "with fiery eyes and dreams no one could steal" would be Fred Lynn. "She drives on through the night, anticipating," because Boston traffic is horrible at any time of day.
"She whispers that it's only for a while," because she knows the Sox will blow it in the end. The only times when they don't blow it is when they don't get close enough to blow it. "She swears that soon she'll be comin' back forever." Someday, they will win the World Series. She’s sure of it. If she only knew...
"She wonders how it ever got this crazy. She thinks about a boy she knew in school." This boy could be Tony Conigliaro, Carl Yastrzemski, or Harry Agganis. "Ain't it funny how your new life didn't change things." Foreshadowing of finding out that what happened from 2004 to 2018 was fake?
The theory that The Eagles' song "Hotel California" is about winding up in Hell has been debunked. The entire album of the same name is about how the American Dream coming true, particularly the Western, and especially the California, part of it, was a disaster.
9. 1982: "Billie Jean" was a "beard"
Yes, people not old enough to remember the 1980s,
this is Michael Jackson in 1982.
A "beard" is a term for a woman who serves as a man's date to ward off a rumor that he is gay. Michael Jackson faced accusations that he was gay, and, worse, had molested boys. He was tried on such charges once, and was acquitted, but some people still think he was guilty.
If such actions did happen, when did they start? Had there already been such a rumor in 1982, when he recorded "Billie Jean"? Maybe a song where he played a character who was going out of his way to say he was not, as the woman in the song claimed, the father of her child was a defense against the darker rumors.
Like an inoculation: The defense against the disease might backfire and make you feel lousy for a little while, but you'd still be better off than if you got the disease. If that was the idea, it worked no better than did his marriage to Lisa Marie Presley, Elvis' daughter.
10. 1983: The "Her" in "Tell Her About It" is Brenda, and the narrator is Eddie
Brenda and Eddie seemed like a great couple in high school, but they "had had it already by the Summer of '75." And yet, after the divorce, "they parted the closest of friends." So, before the marriage, great; after it, okay; during, not so much.
Fast-forward to 1983. BJ has released An Innocent Man. This is my favorite album of his, because he's copying acts from his youth, especially the early 1960s. The title track has been compared to a Drifters song. "Uptown Girl" makes no pretense of hiding that it's a tribute to Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons. "The Longest Time" isn't just doo-wop, it's a cappella. And "Tell Her About It," a Number 1 hit, sure sounds like it could have been sung by Dion DiMucci during the John F. Kennedy Administration.
The narrator of "Tell Her About It" is telling a guy that he used to date the woman the other guy wants to get with, and that if he doesn't "tell her everything you feel," he'll blow his chance with her. The narrator has already had a relationship with her and blown it, because he wasn't honest with his feelings, but he also suggests that she may not have been fully open with hers: "She's a trusting soul, she's put her trust in you, but a girl like that won't tell you what you should do."
So the narrator has no problem setting his ex up with another guy. He's actively encouraging it. Could he be Eddie, trying to set this new guy up with Brenda? It would make for a decent sequel. Certainly, some of Joel's songs could use a good sequel.
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Let me give you one more theory that sounded great when I thought of it, but it doesn't pan out: President Harry Chapin. In his 1974 Number 1 hit "Cat's in the Cradle," he says he missed a lot of the important moments in his son's childhood, because "there were planes to catch and bills to pay."
Presidents fly off considerably more often than most people who have regular jobs. While they don't pay their own bills, they do have to submit budgets. In the 2nd verse, the father blows the son off, but the son's smile never dims, and he still says "I'm going to be like him." Sounds like the sort of thing a son says to a powerful, charismatic father -- for example, if the father is the President of the United States.
Also, Harry's character in "Taxi" is driving his cab in San Francisco, not New York. So that blows another theory I thought of: He doesn't become either Travis Bickle in the film Taxi Driver or any of the characters on the sitcom Taxi.
I also have a theory that the Beach Boys' 1965 hit "Help Me Rhonda" is a sequel to their 1964 song "Wendy". If you read the lyrics to both songs, it makes sense. What do you think?
ReplyDeleteYou think Wendy is "her," as in, "Help me, Rhonda, yeah, get her out of my heart"? It does make some sense. Especially if this Wendy (not to be confused with Brian Wilson's daughter, born a few years later) is also the previous year's "Surfer Girl." Which might make Rhonda the girl who's making the singer "pick up Good Vibrations," and so on.
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