by Kevin Burton One of the few Steely Dan tunes I don’t really like took on more juice recently when I read that the song is an attack on John Lennon’s “Imagine.” I had no idea the song “Only A Fool Would Say That,” from the 1972 album “Can’t Buy A Thrill” casts Lennon as …
Category Archives: 1970s
“If You Could Read My Mind” Is A Masterpiece
by Kevin Burton The greatest songwriters will leave room in their songs so you can climb in, look around and make yourself at home. Just be careful, there is going to be a mirror in there in the place you least expect. You’re going to see yourself. You’re going to be confronted. If …
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Video Killed Your Imagination, Not Radio
I think I’m done writing about MTV and Clear Channel for the moment, but I have one more thought on that Buggles tune, “Video Killed The Radio Star.” I raised the question without answering it in my Friday story: “If you could get your favorite top 40 hits, with pictures, moving pictures, wouldn’t that …
Clear Channel (iHeart) Killed The Radio Star
by Kevin Burton In the old days we turned on our radios for music, for news, for sports and weather forecasts, and we got all those things. But what we really loved, and what kept us coming back for more, was the way those things were delivered, something that was woven throughout the …
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Raised On Radio: MTV And Killer Video
by Kevin Burton In J.G. Ballard’s short story “The Sound-Sweep,” the main character is a non-verbal boy who has the job of vacuuming up all the stray sounds in a world without music. He befriends an opera singer living in an abandoned recording studio. The opera singer is destitute, having been displaced from …
Can You Imagine Elton John As A Banker?
by Kevin Burton Elton John turns 76 today. So when I was nine years old listening to Crocodile Rock, he was all of 26. He wasn’t called Sir Elton back then, not hardly. He was a sight to behold. His wild costumes and antics on stage. His huge international hit songs, these …
Spoonful’s John Sebastian Turns 79
by Kevin Burton Happy 79th birthday to the personable multi-instrumentalist singer-songwriter John Sebastian. Both his music and his personality seem accessible, based on how he comes off in interviews on You Tube. I mean, here’s a rock and roller who plays the auto harp of all things. He said he learned the instrument …
Hey Baseball, Get Off My Lawn!
by Kevin Burton The seasons are changing, calendar and sports calendar; the time is changing (spring forward Saturday night, kids), too much is changing. Any number of poets have rhapsodized about the beginning of spring and all it symbolizes. OK, I’m good with that. But as a sports guy in the man cave, …
The Abacus Is Still A Low-Tech Wonder
by Kevin Burton Do you remember any of the gifts you received in fourth grade? Do you have any of them still? Are they in working order? I have one. In fourth grade our teachers at the Ohio State School for the Blind sat us down and introduced us to Mrs. Davidow. …
Love Is Growing New And She’s Still The One
by Kevin Burton Found a lyric last week that is so cool, I want to use it to tell my happy Valentine’s Day story. This is what happens when my usual Tuneful Tuesday post coincides with Valentine’s Day. The song “Still The One” went to number five for Orleans in 1976. It’s …
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