By Vivek Nenmini

An old chestnut at most popular music quizzes involved identifying a man in long raven wavy hair, twisting his hands in not exact unison with another adorned in a fro- two steps to the right of a balding black man in a red karate gi. The camera then follows two other black men in gis, who spar with each other in choreographed harmony involving faux karate chops and the subtlest of shakes of the heads and hips while the balding protagonist urges his predominantly white audience to get the swing on. The denouement would follow, first that the man in question was Indian, then an expansion on his epoch defining bio-data including having launched the career of the voice behind Aap Jaisa Koi, Nazia Hassan, hand held Alisha Chinai through Made in India, that the song on the screen was Carl Douglas’ Kung Fu Fighting and eventually his name, Biddu Appaiah.

The video was definitely fascinating with the flashing strobes and an alien-ship interior like stage, but what took a grip of our auditory attention was the eerie mix of the stereotypical oriental riff, the funky beats of disco, the power of Carl Douglas’ soulful voice, all interjected with savage ‘hoos!’ and ‘haas!’, “Like someone was giving somebody a karate chop” explained Biddu, who produced the song, in an interview in 1988.

“Kung Fu Fighting”, written by the Jamaican born Carl Douglas and Vivian Hawke was initially recorded as a B-side track to Brooklyn songwriter Larry Weiss’ I Want to Give You My Everything. On presenting it to the Pye Records’ A&R ‘big boss’ he thought it would be a good A-side and released it in the late spring of 1974. A quick aside on the state of martial arts in the West- the 70’s saw the rise of karate. 1973 saw Bruce Lee in an inspired blurry of swishing limbs and snapped necks etch kung fu as a popular martial art in the mindscape of movie goers and others through Enter the Dragon.

The business acumen of the people at Pye Records, who were probably equally inspired, anticipated a big hit in the making and true to their intuition it rose to number one on the British charts within five weeks of its release, whipping sales of more than nine million copies. It was released in the United States by 20^th Century Records entering the Billboard charts at 94 and chopping its way to the top of the iconic magazine’s Hot 100 pop chart in eight weeks.

Douglas, a former engineering student, attributes the idea for the song in three parts- a kung fu movie screening, followed by a jazz concert by Oscar Peterson, and the hazy side-effects of pain killers (Douglas had injured his foot playing football). His homage to martial art movies earned him a Grammy for Best Selling Single in 1974. Sadly it overshadowed the rest of his career with a reprise in Dance the Kung Fu which reached number 48 on the Billboards in March 1975 and another Top 30 on the UK Singles Chart with Run Back in 1977. Fading into the background with the ‘one hit wonder’ label, Douglas has appeared on cover versions of the song including the 1998 version by British dance act, Bus Stop which reached number 8 on the UK Singles Chart. The track has had its fair share of cover versions including a punk version by Merrill Nisker (who now goes under the moniker of Peaches), and reggae versions by Lloyd Parks, The Maroons and The Cimarons. It even has a Finnish version by Frederik and is titled Kung-Fu Taistelee. In 2008 Cee-Lo Green (one half of Gnarls Barkley) and the inimitable Jack Black paid their tributes while credits rolled for the hilarious animated Kung Fu Panda.

The song’s influence on popular culture is noticeable in its various appearances on TV shows, movies, theme songs for games including a re-recorded version featured in Lego Rock Band & Band Hero. In the same 1988 interview Biddu reflected on the international success of “Kung Fu Fighting”, “If I had a theory why the record was a hit, I’d have more hits! You never know why a record is a hit. It had street appeal, I think. It was a bit of a novelty, but… it was a hit all over the world. Maybe it was just a good pop record without us knowing about it.” Good pop, funky beats, fun lyrics, turn the strobes on, pump up the volume and now sing-a-long, “The sudden motion made me skip, now we’re into a brand new trip… Everybody was kung-fu fighting” After all those years, we still are.

Have you ever wondered how listening to music would have been like had the audio compression format called MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3, or MP3, not been invented? Since its introduction in early 1994, the growth in popularity of MP3 songs has been phenomenal, thanks to its ease of creation and advent of players like Winamp. Even today, in spite of numerous other compression formats, MP3 continues to be the most used music format. And I resume the Song A Day series after a long gap with a song that was, quite literally, the harbinger of the MP3 revolution, and earned its singer the moniker “Mother of the MP3″.
Tom’s Restaurant is a family-owned eatery located on the corner of West 112th Street and Broadway, near Columbia University, in New York City. Followers of Seinfeld would remember Tom’s as Jerry Seinfeld’s frequent hangout Monk’s Cafe. But long before this happened, it also used to be a regular haunt for singer-songwriter Suzanne Vega who was a receptionist at the time, and would have breakfast from Tom’s on her way to office. Once Vega’s friend and photographer Brian Rose made a comment to her that as a photographer, he saw his whole life through a pane of glass, and always felt like he was the witness to a lot of things, but

Tom's Restaurant

was never really involved in them. This gave her the idea for a song, and on a cloudy morning in late 1981 or early 1982, Suzanne Vega sat in Tom’s, looked around her, and thought, “well, if I were Brian today, how would I be perceiving these different things?”. And Tom’s Diner resulted.
Vega wrote Tom’s Diner imagining a piano playing in the background while she sang the song. Unfortunately for her neither did she play a piano nor was she acquainted with any pianist, hence Vega ended up recording Tom’s Diner as an a cappella piece. Quite a good idea as it turned out. The soliloquious tone of the song’s lyrics is best conveyed in the a cappella version itself, Vega rendering the song as though reciting a poem. And the same vocal quality caught the attention of Karlheinz Brandenburg once when he heard Tom’s Diner on radio. Those were the days he was fine-tuning his compression algorithm that would later become MP3. He heard the song and knew that “it would be nearly impossible to compress this warm voice”. Since the song depended on very subtle nuances of Vega s inflection, the algorithm would have to be very, very good to select the most important parts of the sound file and discard the rest. Brandenburg started using Tom’s Diner as the testing ground for each refinement of his system, and wound up listening to the song thousands of times! (As it appeared on the now defunct magazine Business 2.0). This incident earned Vega an informal title of “Mother of the MP3″.
Tom’s Diner was first released as a track in Jan 1984, but the first time it was featured as part of any album was in Vega’s Solitude Standing which came out in 1987. However it took three more years for the song to attain international success. Two British dance-music producers Nick Batt and Neal Slateford who went by the name DNA, came out with a remix of Tom’s Diner in 1990 without Vega’s permission. The song went on to become a huge hit, topping all music charts. More bands followed suit. Vega, seeing the increasing number of remakes, compiled all the hit versions of Tom’s Diner and came out with Tom’s Album in 1991.
Apart from the numerous covers that Tom’s Diner spawned, a number of artists have sampled the original loop in their works. Some of the major ones include Sarah Connor’s French Kissing, Know That by Destiny’s Child, Lean by Will Smith and Ludacris‘ Playpen To The State Pen. People from the South would, on hearing the tune, get instantly reminded of an ad from the 90s for the now defunct biscuit company called Craze. The ad used the exact loop for its soundtrack, and was rendered by Ravi Khote if I am not wrong. The composition has been credited in many places to A R Rahman though I personally find it impossible to believe that a person as resourceful as Rahman could have done such a blatant lifting for the ad of a non-descript company like Craze biscuits. We leave you as usual with a few videos pertaining to the song, the first one even having a quote by the singer. Enjoy!

“A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose”, said Gertrude Stein. What she meant was how the word rose used by various poets in different context evokes similar emotions in the reader.  The song “Turn the Page” proves how it is so in music. The song was originally written by Bob Seger for his 1973 album Back ’72 and its lyrics make it pretty much clear what the song is about. Bob Seger originally intended to show the ups and downs of an artist while he is on the road. However, the song has been covered by many artists after that and many of them have given the song a different interpretation. Nevertheless, almost all versions evoke similar emotions in the heart of the listener despite the music. So while Metallica’s video shows the song to be about the life of a stripper and Waylon Jennings version covered this song after he came over his drug problem, the song always educes sorrow.

Bob Seger released the song in 1973 but it never made it to the charts. However, the song also featured on his 1976 Live Bullet album and then it started receiving significant airtime on radio stations. I have also heard this song a lot of times in pubs in India that play rock music. The song begins with a Saxophone piece played by Alto Reed followed by shimmering cymbals. The entire song is quite minimal yet expressive on the instruments for a rock song. What make this song popular even today are its powerful lyrics and their structure. The song follows a very odd rhyme scheme and the patterns repeat quite oddly in its chorus paragraph. In totality however, the lyrics and the music make you empathise with the trials of an artist.

In their 1988 cover album Garage Inc., Metallica released a cover of this song which is probably more popular than the original song. As against Seger’s version, Metallica’s rendition is very strong on the instruments. In this version, the saxophone of Alto Reed is replaced by a slide guitar played by Kirk Hammett. The amplitude of the song never reduces except for the verse “Later in the evening..” which creates a brilliant effect because “the echoes of the amplifier are ringing in your head”. This is then followed by a guitar solo by Hammett. The video of the song is about the life of the stripper (played by Ginger Lynn Allen) who also works as a prostitute at the same time raising a child. The video has been brilliantly directed by Jonas Akerlund.

Both versions of the song are great in their own ways. A number of other artists such as Kid Rock and Staind have also covered the song. Notably Waylon Jennings has covered the song in an album by the same name when he was recovered from his drug problem.

With the year getting to an end, we hope that the New Year will bring a new and exciting page in your life. Wishing you a very happy and musical new year we leave you with a few videos of the song. Enjoy!

The word Rai in Arabic has many literal translations like “opinion”, “my way”, “tell it like it is” etc. Rai is also the name of a popular genre of world music which originated in Algeria in the 1920s, having its roots in Arabic love poetry and Bedouin folk music, and drawing influences from Spanish, French, African and Arabic musical forms. As its Arabic meanings implied, Rai music was indeed a way of Arab youngsters of the time to express their views on alienation, poverty, drug abuse and sexual desires, many things considered taboo by Islamic beliefs. Rai music however took a long time to spread to the rest of the world, and the artist who was instrumental in taking Rai music outside the Arab precincts was Khaled. Khaled made it big on the international scene with his 1992 self titled album which contained his legendary song Didi. And in 1996 Khaled followed up his success with an even bigger hit, which was the love song Aicha.

The song was written originally in French by singer-songwriter Jean-Jacques Goldman. The original French single however was never released in an album, though Khaled’s 1996 album Sahra featured a bilingual version of the song, sung both in French and Arabic. The Arabic lyrics were penned by Khaled himself. Like other Rai singers, Khaled was also known for his socially progressive themes in his songs and videos, something that didn’t earn him a lot of buddies on the conventional Islam side. In fact threat to his life forced Khaled to move to Paris in late 80s. Even in case of Aicha, the lyrics imply equal rights for woman and man, which represent true love, the words in Aicha’s reply to the man who woos her like “A cage is a cage, even if it’s made of gold” suggestive of the fact.

Aicha bears about it all the charm and romance of a pop ballad, hooking you onto it from the word go. The refrain played on guitar, and the ambient effect created by the synth make a mesmerizing combo. Add to that Khaled’s inimitable rendition and some eastern percussion and the song becomes absolutely irresistible. If I have heard anyone do an equally commendable job on covering the song, it would be the Danish hip hop band Outlandish. The band recorded an English version of the song for their album Bread & Barrels of Water. Outlandish did a complete revamp of the instrumentation keeping just the tune intact, and did a fantastic job of it, maintaining the haunting effect, though in an Outlandish way. The cover versions of Aicha have come from varied genres which widened the ambit of music lovers who were smitted by Aicha. Apart from Outlandish, other notable covers include a salsa variant by Senegalese band Africando, and a very entertaining a cappella version by Pennsylvania-based Hindi a cappella group called Penn Masala. The Penn Masala version though is more a cover of Outlandish’s Aicha than of the original, with some Hindi lyrics thrown in nevertheless.

Today is a time when World Music has grown to become a part of mainstream music itself, rather than being restricted to certain elite sections of the musical audience. The trend has also had its impact on Rai music, increasing its acceptance factor on the international front, some artists even using rai to send positive messages post 9/11. Khaled still continues to bring out albums, the latest one being Liberte. But none have so far managed to enrapture the audience worldwide on a scale like Aicha or Didi did. Being a fan of Rai music and specifically of Khaled, I hope that the “King of Rai” spins out another such magical composition, soon enough.




Live version by Khaled, Rachid Taha and Faudel (Courtesy: Adriana)

It was the best of times; it was the worst of times…..

This Dickensian quote did go well with the times of the French Revolution. Another period that would fit the description perfectly would be the 60s, also called the swinging sixties. The sixties were turbulent times. It was the times when people started questioning the conservative approach in politics and the social repression measures used by the authorities. The sixties were the time of the counterculture movement which emphasized on the freedom of expression and diversion from rigid social rules. It was also the time when there were lots of political movements like Anti War movement, Civil Rights movement and much more evolved. Musicians and music also prospered in the sixties with 4 young musicians from Liverpool paving the way.

The Sunset Strip in California was also witnessing the new wave of music in a big way. Musicians and performers used to hang around in night clubs like The Troubadour, Whisky a Go Go, Roxy, Pandora’s Box and the London Fog which were like a haven for musicians and hippies alike. The Sunset Strip was also the main centre for counterculture movements. It was November 12, 1966 when numerous youthful demonstrators erupted in protest against the perceived repressive enforcement of a few curfew laws at the Sunset Strip. It was because of the forceful closing down of the club at the corner of Sunset Strip named Pandora’s Box. This was known as the Sunset Strip Riots, also known as hippie riots. It is also the main inspiration behind the political song For What It’s Worth by Buffalo Springfield, a band comprising of Stephen Stills, Dewey Martin, Jim Messina,  Bruce Palmer, Richie Furay and Neil Young.

The instrumentation which comprises of the electric guitar plays two notes repeatedly with tremolo, the acoustic guitar strumming and the quiet pulse like beat on the drums along with the laid-back vocals gives a mildly creepy feel to the song which bears about it an overall mood of regret. It’s the lyrics of the song penned by Stephen Stills that stand out nevertheless. “There’s somethin’ happenin’ here what it is ain’t exactly clear” was the popular line in 60’s counterculture. The repressive measures are highlighted by the clever use of verses like “There’s a man with a gun, over there Tellin’ me I got to beware”, “Young people speakin’ their minds Gettin’ so much resistance from behind” and “Step out of line, the man come and take you away”. The repeated use of the lines “Stop, hey, what’s that sound? Everybody look – what’s goin’ down?” is like a wakeup call to the generation of the 60s. (It is still good enough to serve as a wakeup call to our generation and those to come.) The standout line for me in the whole song has to be “Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong”. (Still makes me think or must I say Stills makes me think!)

The beauty of this song is that it manages to warn of increasing polarization and violence in American society of the sixties, without taking any political stand other than that of acceptance of diversity and free speech. This song has been hailed as an antiwar song since it was written during the time Cold war was raging, and at times is mentioned as written based on the Kent state shootings which happened much later during the start of 70s. It does give us a feel that Stills possessed powers of prophecy just like Nostradamus did.

Led Zeppelin covered the song during Communication Breakdown medley, at their famous Live on Blueberry Hill concert. Another notable cover of the song would be the one by CSNY which had Stills accompanying himself on piano, and with vocals that are positively histrionic. The February 13, 1978 episode of The Muppet Show re-writes the song with animals singing slightly altered anti-hunting lyrics. The musical interlude was filled with hunters wildly shooting their guns while animals hide. In 1998 the group Public Enemy released He Got Game, a rap song that sampled lyrics and music directly from For What It’s Worth. This song deserves special mention because Stephen Stills appears and performs in the music video for this song.

Buffalo Springfield was a short-lived folk rock group that served as an excellent launchpad for the likes of Neil Young, Stephen Stills and others who went on to have awesome music careers. For what it’s worth is one song which made sure that the Buffalo Springfield legacy stays on. The song is a classic retort to those who argue that rock is just being loud, aggressive and violent. Rock may be all that, but it is much more than loudness and aggression and violence. It is also about standing up for a cause. And this song is an example, a great one at that.

Article written by Easwar.

A few days back, Anirudh wrote about the Dire Straits hit Money For Nothing in this column. The ending phrase by Anirudh “Although good music still continued to be produced, how good MTV truly was for music will always remain a question” did make me think. What also made me think was the fact that “Knopfler was not very enthusiastic about making a video for the song as he believed it destroys the purity of the writers and performers”. And all those thoughts did hook me up with the song called Video Killed The Radio Star by the New Wave Band called The Buggles, the first video to be aired on MTV.

The Buggles was a band formed by the trio of Trevor Horn, Geoff Downes and Bruce Woolley. The origin of the name Buggles has two stories. It is believed that it was intended to be a pun on The Beatles. Another thread is that Horn wanted the most disgusting name he could ever think of at that time and he narrowed down on The Buggles. The Buggles is a one-hit wonder, the hit being Video Killed The Radio Star.

The Buggles mainly consisted of the tandem of Geoffrey Downes on percussion/keyboards and Trevor Horn doing bass/guitar/percussion/vocals. Woolley left the band shortly, although he is credited for the song Video Killed the Radio Star. Woolley’s contribution was mostly musical, although he did come up with the words “put the blame on VTR”. As per Trever Horn the inspiration for the lyrics was mainly the short story The Sound-Sweep by J. G. Ballard, in which the title character, a mute boy vacuuming up stray music in a world without it, comes upon an opera singer hiding in a sewer.

Video Killed the Radio Star is an electronic pop marvel. The lyrics are quite intelligent. They tell the story of a singer whose career is cut short by the T.V. The synthesizers and computers used for the song never overpower Trevor Horn’s amazing vocals, and Geoffrey Downes’s musicianship. Debi Doss and Linda Jardim are the female backing vocalists.

The first version of the song was recorded by Woolley & the Camera Club. The Buggles released this song as a single. They also released it along with their first Album, The Age of Plastic where it has an additional piano coda. There have been about a dozen covers of the song, but most of them have been a low key affair. One prominent cover is the one by alternative rock band The Presidents of the United States of America for The Wedding Singer soundtrack. Less than a month ago Horn performed the song with Robbie Williams at the BBC Electric Proms.

There is another reason why Indian music lovers will instantly connect to this song. Just about a year after Video Killed.. made its famous appearance on MTV came the movie that established the cult status of Mithun Chakraborty, Disco Dancer. The movie was especially famous for its songs, composed by Mr. “Mobile Gold Souk” Bappi Lahiri, widely acclaimed as pioneer of disco music in India, but also one of the pioneers of large scale note-for-note plagiarism from the West. And in Disco Dancer he happened to compose a song called Koi Yahaan Naache sung by Usha Uthup and himself, which had its Auwa Auwa hook and most of the mukhda ripped straight off Video Killed.. Nevertheless he showed good taste in his lift, the song turning out a classic, one of the most remembered songs of Usha Uthup.

Video Killed.. was aired on MTV on Aug. 1, 1981. MTV once again honoured the song by making it the millionth song to be aired on MTV on February 27, 2000. Sadly, today MTV has evolved (!) from a music channel to a melee of reality shows and fictional programs. Let’s just assume (hope) that MTV will play this song again as their two millionth video. If the two millionth song happens that is. Looking at the way things are going, it looks to be a distant possibility.

Co-written by Easwar and Vipin.

In the year 2000, Volkswagen aired an advertisement on TV having a song called Pink Moon as its background score. Within a month after this ad was aired, the artist of the album sold more records than he had in the previous thirty years. The artist was Nick Drake and sadly he did not live long enough to enjoy this success.

Nick Drake was one of those obscure artists who hardly enjoyed any success during his lifetime but became quite a respectable figure posthumously. In his short career of around five years he released three albums none of which sold more than 5000 copies. Pink Moon was his third and last album and the entire album was recorded in 2 sessions of 2 hours each. All songs in the album Pink Moon are unembellished unlike his previous album. The entire album runs for only 28 minutes with 11 songs on it. Throughout his life Drake had suffered with depression and insomnia and the music and the effects of these can be very clearly seen in his last album. By 1972, he had retreated so much into his own world that it is difficult to interpret what the lyrics mean and sadly now there is no way to find out. Most of the songs had lyrics more than a verse or two. However, his depression and aloofness strikes though every word of the songs.

The title song of the album just like all others was recorded with just an acoustic guitar and Drake dubbed some piano on it later on. The lyrics of the song composed of just two verses of speak about a Pink Moon that is coming to get us all indicating a sense of pessimism and helplessness of Drake. However, this album which is probably his best work sold fewer copies than any of other works.

It is quite strange that for an artist who despised commercialism, success came in the form of a Volkswagen ad. Nevertheless, we can only hope that such artists whose music was probably far ahead of his time will be appreciated at least now.

The other day Vipin and I were discussing about how we have been writing about too many rock songs under this section and thus making this section quite monotonous. And when I was watching an episode “That ‘70s Show”, one of my favourite TV shows Gloria Gaynor made a special appearance in that episode with the disco hit “I Will Survive”, I thought that this could be a perfect song to write about as disco and rock have often been considered diametrically opposite musical styles. I guess that most of you, like me, are not a big fan of the disco genre of music. Heck, the song was even listed at #9 on George Carlin’s list of “10 Most Embarrassing Songs of All Time”. However, when a song becomes as popular as this one, it is bound to show up in other musical genres as well as popular cultures and cannot be ignored and while researching on the song I found that some of my favourite bands such as Cake and R.E.M. have also covered it.

The original song performed by Gloria Gaynor was written by Freddie Perren and Dino Fekaris. The lyrics of the song are about a woman trying to get over her breakup. No wonder that it has been used for female empowerment and other awareness campaigns. The song sounds nice for the first 25 seconds with a decent arrangement of piano, percussion and bass with the bluesy voice of Gloria. However, the moment the disco beats set in. As disco has been often accused, the beats leave a little scope for variation in the music and hence it becomes repetitive. Nevertheless, the song has made it to Rolling Stones magazines “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time”.

So for people who do not appreciate the original version, I recommend the cover version by the alternative rock band Cake. Although not nearly as good as there other songs such as “Comfort Eagle” or “Short Skirt, Long Jacket”, it has definitely got a funky bass-line and some decent guitar solos. Plus, the use of brass instrument towards the end adds a jazzy edge to the song. R.E.M., another alternative rock band, has also given an acoustic rendering of the song. Done in a simple style with acoustic guitars and some synthesizers in the background, the song does not come out nearly as nice as the version by Cake.

If you are thinking that I am biased towards rock music, cheer up! Watch this amazing comical version of the song by “Igudesman & Joo”. Besides these there are a lot of other covers of the song and it has been used extensively in other media as well as is evident from its wiki page. However, to keep this article short, I will sign off here with the words of Cake frontman John McCrea,“It is only right to leave you with a little bit of false hope!”

Gloria Gaynor performing live

Cake’s Version of the song

R.E.M’s Version

Igudesman & Joo

“If you tried to give rock and roll another name, you might call it Chuck Berry.”

Well, the quote above belongs to none other than John Lennon. Chuck Berry is one of those legends we should never miss out when we talk about Rock ‘n’ Roll music. A stalwart in the rock and roll music, he has been highly influential in the nurturing of the rock and roll guitar techniques. Chuck Berry was one of the first musicians to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. One song of Chuck Berry which testifies his legendary status would be Johnny B. Goode.

The song is basically about a young boy from Louisiana who becomes famous owing to his guitar-playing skills. The song can be called autobiographical considering the fact that Chuck Berry himself had a middle class upbringing  and he also like Johnny B. Good could play the guitar just like a ringin’ a bell. Also the fact that Berry was born on Goode Avenue in St. Louis adds credence to this argument. But its also believed that the inspiration of the song is Johnnie Johnson, the pianist who played alongside of Chuck Berry. It is said that Johnnie Johnson’s drinking issues made Chuck Berry write the lines “Johnny Be Good“. Much later, in a November of 2000, Johnnie Johnson sued Chuck Berry claiming that he co-authored about a dozen songs of Berry, and demanding credits and royalty for the same.

Johnny B Goode opens with a guitar riff which is the most famous guitar riff in rock and roll history. It is essentially a note-for-note copy of the opening single-note solo on Louis Jordan’s Ain’t That Just Like a Woman, played by guitarist Carl Hogan.  

Johnny B Goode is a gem of a song which leads us to appreciate the guitar play/ art of the genius Chuck Berry. Typical of the rock n roll songs of the time, it is a very fast rhythmic song with the vocals handled by Berry himself, accompanied on the piano by Lafayette Leake, a blues and jazz musician. The song was a defining musical turnaround in the life of Chuck Berry and he went on to use and reuse Johnny in two more of his subsequent compositions, Bye Bye Johnny and Go Go Go. The song is the rock and roll embodiment of the American Dream.

I think we can classify musicians into three categories, those who have covered Johnny B. Goode ,  those who haven’t covered Johnny B. Goode and the third being Chuck Berry. Numerous musicians have covered Johnny B. Goode that picking a few artists from among those talented musicians would be a hard endeavour. So sit back, relax, listen to the few versions of the song we have given below and B Good!

This article comes from our regular guest columnist Easwar. If you wish to contribute to this section or to any other section of Music Aloud please do drop a mail to response [at] musicaloud [dot] com.





Cover by Judas Priest (Courtesy Arun A S)

An omnipresent feature of the ’60s and early ’70s pop radio was the sophisticated, often elegant, pop of the legendary American songwriting team of composer Burt Bacharach and lyricist Hal David. Their music was seen as a throwback to a prerock era of popular song, flourishing during a musical landscape of British invasion, psychedelia and folk rock. Having been introduced to each other at the Brill Building in NY city in 1957, the duo went on to have a prolific 15 years, the unconventionality of Bacharach’s melodies forming a perfect fit for the eloquent romanticism of Hal David’s poetic lyrics. And in 1969, as part of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, was born the song that got the duo their only Oscar (as a duo this was their only Oscar. However Bacharach also won a second Oscar for his movie score for the same movie, and in 1981 won a third for the movie Arthur) – Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head.

The story goes that the title of the song came to Bacharach’s mind the instant he saw the bicycle scene in the movie and kept recurring whenever he saw it. Hal David tried changing the lyric to something else but it never seemed to work, and hence they fixed on Raindrops.. The pair wrote the song with Ray Stevens in mind, but he didn’t like the song and declined to sing it. Bob Dylan was also reportedly approached to sing the song but he too turned down the offer. It was around the same time that American singer B J Thomas was creating waves with his single Hooked on A Feeling (famous for its featuring of an electric sitar). Dionne Warwick, a singer who had had many successful partnerships with Bacharach-David, recommended Thomas to the duo and they chose Thomas to render Raindrops.. Apparently Thomas was getting over laryngitis when he recorded the song, giving the song a raspy quality which was instantly liked by the producers of the movie. Later on Thomas came out with a single version of the song, and by 1970 it was on top of the charts, the first #1 single of the 1970s.

One of the most prominent bands to cover Raindrops.. was the Rat Pack. Welsh rock band Manic Street Preachers perform the song at each of their live concerts. The band even recorded a version inclusive of a trumpet solo by their drummer Sean Moore. Dionne Warwick collaborated with Kelis for her 2006 duets album version of the song. There have been numerous other covers of the song which we restrain ourselves from talking about. The song has also made appearances in various films, the most famous one being in Forrest Gump. Leslie Nielsen does a parody of the whole scene, complete with the song in the background, in his 1996 movie Spy Hard. The song also made its appearance in Spiderman 2.

David once described his lyrical technique as, “I search for believability, simplicity and emotional impact.” And Raindrops.. is an embodiment of this statement. And his combo with Bucharach, a classic case of lyricist and composer coming together in perfect synergy, shall ever be remembered for this work of theirs. So whenever you feel a bit down, we recommend you listen to this song. We guarantee that it will have you back in your elements in no time! Au revoir..