Bachman-Turner Overdrive -- "Let It Ride" (1974)

One of the most maligned rock bands of the 70's, Bachman-Turner Overdrive proved that critics didn't mean a damn of Joe Blow loved your music.

BTO truly appealed to the Everyman, a rough brutal "let the tape roll" rock music with not many chords, most of them major, and a fixation on just a few topics: driving ("Roll On Down The Highway," "Four Wheel Drive") working ("Blue Collar, "Hey You"), touring in a rock band (the wonderfully-named "Rock Is My Life, This Is My Song" and "Not Fragile") and good old 70's sexism ("You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet," "Let It Ride").

Then, to top it off, these guys all looked like bearded mountain men, as hairy and beastly as their music.

The irony of BTO was the pedigree of guitarist/singer/songwriter Randy Bachman, who did the same chores for the fabulous Guess Who in their late 60's heyday. There was nothing in the Guess Who's songbook to suggest that Bachman had this primal loud and amp-ed up rocker in him wanting to get out, much like William Hurt's peyote tripping deprivation tank professor in the film "Altered States."

Paired with C.F. "Fred" Turner and his brother Rob on drums, Bachman's quartet went on to sell a bazillion albums for Mercury Records. Bachman-Turner Overdrive II was the breakout album with two huge singles, "Let It Ride" (always my favorite) and what became an eternal classic, "Takin' Care of Business." A third Bachman, Tim, appeared on just this one album before he got the boot, singing on the FM cult song "Blown" ("woo-wooo!").

You didn't listen to BTO because of their artistry. There was nothing fancy here. They didn't reinvent anything. Both Bachman and Turner were hoary scratchy vocalists. And they didn't produce any great Dylan-like visions in those three magic subject matters they sang about.

Nope, you listened to BTO because it was big dumb rock music that was catchy, the kind you poured a Rolling Rock or Labatt beer down the old chute to. And when you wanted to teach yourself a BTO song on the guitar, it would usually take about, oh, five minutes to nail down the chords.

Sometimes, Bachman would really throw a curveball and dish out some jazz chops and solos just to show he could play more than your average heavy barre chords. On Bachman-Turner Overdrive II's "Welcome Home," most of the song is just the usual heavy riffing, when all of sudden, for no reason whatsoever, the drums start playing swinging bebop, while Bachman goes noodling around with Charlie Christian-like octaves and solos.

"Let It Ride" is the only BTO song I recall with a jangly quality that just rings out in the very first chords. If you listen to the chorus of Golden Earring's "Radar Love," you can tell both songs share the very same chords -- D major, A major, E major, F# minor. The verses are based on this galloping and stop F#m bass riff, Turner doing his best bellow:


You can see the mornin', but I can see the light,
Try, try, try, let it ride.
While you've been out runnin', I've been waitin' half the night,
Try, try, try, let it ride.

And would you cry if I told you that I lied?
And would you say goodbye or would you let it ride?
Good bye, hard life, don’t cry, would you let it ride?

Babe, my life is not complete, I never see you smile
Try, try, try, let it ride.
Baby you want the forgivin' kind, and that's just not my style
Try, try, try, let it ride.


The genius of "Let It Ride" is it just won't quit, damn it. The chorus guitars really ring, the melody is really catchy, Bachman has this searing guitar counter-melody that underscores the chorus, he has the dumbass guitar solo, and then the big drum breakdown where it's "Ride, ride, ride, let it ride" getting louder and louder until they're all screaming "Won't you let it ride?" until it just stops. That's the false ending, because those ringing chorus chords that open the song come right back in after a beat, with the boys all screaming and whooping it up.

Here's a strange video from way back when of BTO performing "Let It Ride" in concert, while the lighting director shouts out his cues.

The Bells -- "Stay Awhile" (1971)

Once a year, an early 70's piece of fluff comes on the radio that causes such personal revulsion and such disbelief in its inanity, that I will actually listen to the whole thing in very much the way people check out car crashes on the side of the highway. It's a rarely-played song that happened to play this morning over XM Radio's 70's channel on my drive to the train station. I had to remind myself that this song actually was a hit.

And that song is The Bells' "Stay Awhile."

This is not one of those things that is "so bad, it's good." It's just bad.

"Stay Awhile" was one of the bigger soft rock horndog hits at the time, a duet of a girl and a boy having the most sensitive caring sex of their lives. Sylvia's "Pillow Talk" was probably even steamier," but it at least had slightly more redeeming value (just slightly).

When "Stay Awhile" comes on, you feel like you should be lighting scented candles, hanging posters of kittens and sunsets on the walls, and popping the bottle of wine you've been hiding in the fridge. It's all soft acoustic guitar arpeggios, piano chords, fizzy cymbal rolls, finger chimes, and light drums with a rimshot keeping the beat. As a matter of fact, the volume level of the whole song is defiantly low, like it was made to be played when seducing the chick in the dorm room next door.

The girl starts first, whispering in the most come hither voice made for phone porn you've heard on a song, and you're half expecting her to break into a giggle. Every syllable is clearly enunciated and the ending "s" is held slightly for effect (notably on "creeps" and "peeps").

Into my room he creeps,
Without making a sound.
Into my dreams he peeps,
With his hair all long and hanging down

How he makes me quiver,
How he makes me smile.
With all this love I have to give him,
I guess I'm gonna stay with him awhile.


Then it's the boy's turn and this was nothing macho about this. He sings just as softly, describing the babe that just entered his bedroom with nerve-wracking anticipation.

She brushes the curls from my eyes,
She drops her robe on the floor.
And she reaches for the light on the bureau.
And the darkness is her pillow once more.

How she makes me quiver,
How she makes me smile.
With all this love I have to give her,
I guess I'm gonna stay with her awhile.


Then there's the harmonica solo.

The couple sing the chorus a few more times together, it slows down and the girl sighs and whispers "I guess I'm gonna stay" just as the final chord fades.

You can throw up now.

Klaatu -- "Sub Rosa Subway" (1976)

You really have to be a music fan to remember the weird frenzy Klaatu caused when this album appeared in 1976. Certainly in Buffalo, where I was going to college at the time, this was the talk of the radio jocks and music mags.

The buzz was that this album was secretly made by the Beatles. And since the Beatles were the subject of one of the greatest musical hoaxes of all time ("Paul is dead"), it was not much of a stretch to think this was another prank being pulled by some if not all of the Fab Four.

All the hallmarks for this rumor were firmly in place: no photos of any band members, no band members names, the song credits were credited to "Klaatu," and the intricate album artwork with all kinds of hidden characters (and its ever present brown mouse) fed the fuel of the raging rumor mills. For movie buffs, Klaatu was the robot played by actor Michael Rennie in the film "The Day The Earth Stood Still."

Most importantly, the music sounded remarkably like Sargent Pepper/White Album era Beatles, especially when the single "Sub Rosa Subway" came out and it was prototypical Paul McCartney. The story of Alfred Beach, who invented the first underground subway, featured swirling harpsichords, Liverpudlian lead vocals and background harmonies, "laughing horns" (reminiscent of "All You Need is Love"), and smacked tubular bells at the chorus' echoing repetition. During the last 30 to 40 seconds of musical cacophony, you can hear Morse code being tapped out, and that was the Beatles cherry on the cake.

"Sub Rosa Subway" sounded like a really good Paul McCartney song left off Magical Mystery Tour. Of course, the whole album sounded like a 60's psychedelic Beatles record, done absolutely beautifully, with the classic compressed drums in some parts, wide dynamics, masterful studio trickery, and all kinds of Beatles touches that were made for headphone listening.

Back in 1870 just beneath the Great White Way
Alfred Beach worked secretly
Risking all to ride a dream
His wind-machine
His wind-machine

New York City and the morning sun
Were awoken by the strangest sound
Reportedly as far as Washington
The tremors shook the earth as Alfie
Blew underground
Blew underground
He blew underground, yeah.

Klaatu kept their mystery for a few albums until it was discovered that they were a small group of fanatical Canadian studio musicians. Ironically, I don't recall any of their names.

Below are some cool and bizarre video treats. First you have a well done homemade video about subway inventor Alfred Beach done to "Sub Rosa Subway." Then there is this super cheesy way-out homemade video done to the debut album's magnificent opening epic "Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft" (note: the song does start very quietly with the sounds of the outdoors and somebody moving through the brush), followed by The Carpenters (Yes! Karen and Richard) doing their truly kitsch cover from 1977 where you get to see Karen Carpenter floating in space and some alien dudes make a cameo. Oh baby, put on your tie-dyed shirts and space helmets and let's go for a ride!
"SUB ROSA SUBWAY" by Klaatu

"CALLING OCCUPANTS OF INTERPLANETARY CRAFT" by Klaatu

"CALLING OCCUPANTS OF INTERPLANETARY CRAFT" by The Carpenters (1977)

The Kings - "This Beat Goes On/Switching To Glide" (1980)

Paul McCartney was the pioneer of segue songs -- you get two, two, two songs in one. Once he left the Beatles, he went segue song crazy, even to this day. The one that started it all, of course, was "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey."

Next to McCartney, the most famous one in my book is by this Canadian band called The Kings, who blew out the charts in the new wave heyday of 1980 with "This Beat Goes On/Switching To Glide." Teaming up with super producer Bob Ezrin (Pink Floyd, Alice Cooper, Kiss), The Kings created one of the pluckier party songs of the time and it still sounds great cranked up in the car.

When I was in graduate school, one of my roommates was always quoting one of the lines from the "Switching to Glide" part of the songs, which I think was his favorite: "Nothing matters but the weekend/From a Tuesday point of view."

The Kings represented everything that was going right with the New Wave style of music -- it was heavily indebted to early 60's rock and roll with basic instrumentation. The song starts with an overdriven rhythm guitar playing your standard major 5th/6th boogie riff, joined by the cheesy Farfisa sounding organ, then the drums, and then lead singer David Diamond's greasy come-on to the girls to party:

Hey Judy, get Trudy,
You said to call you up if I was feeling moody,
Hey little Donna, still wanna?
You said to ring you up if I was in Toronto.
I have lots of friends that I can ding at anytime.
Can mobilize some laughs with just some call.
Like a bunch of lunatics, we'll act till way past dawn,
Sure, we'll be rockin' till our strength is gone,
Yeah, this beat goes on!

After boogying for a minute or so with the girls, there's a big synth swoop down, sort of like the song's bookmark, and it's into the march beat intro of "Switching To Glide." Ramming down on power chords between lines, Diamond sings those famous lines (with those guitar chords notes in the bars):

Nothing matters but the weekend [bam, bam]
From a Tuesday point of view [bam, bam]
Like a kettle in the kitchen [bam, bam],
I feel the steam begin to brew [snare snap]
Switching to glide!

You can distinctly hear the the 8th note chords playing in military precision during the "Switching To Glide" chorus, the organ bashing the chords, and a new synth echoing the "glide."

One of my favorite little production tricks is the second verse, when following the line "Energy can be directed," where he says "I'm turning it up, I'm turning it down" and he literally goes up the scale and then down, along with the rest of the band. It's a very striking and funny part of this truly great song.

The Kings followed with other albums that never quite caught on here at all, although they had some later success in their native Canada.

One piece of advice: some new wave music CD compilations only have one half of the song, either "This Beat Goes On" or "Switching To Glide." Do not accept substitutions or cut-in-half songs! Get it only if it's the whole thing!

Below is an exhilarating video as described by band member "Mister Zero" in an e-mail to me: "The video was cut to the studio version of the song from over 40 sources, all live in concert except the 'American Bandstand' footage which I obtained legally from Dick Clark's company."

Lighthouse - "One Fine Morning" (1971)

Unlike The Ides of March, which hit it big out of the gate with "Vehicle" and then dropped out of sight, it took this 11-man Canadian group four albums to finally have a hit.

A far brighter and jazzier song than "Vehicle," "One Fine Morning" could have easily been mistaken for Chicago or BS&T. This was a huge band with a big sound -- an unmistakable electric rhythm guitar riff that any beginner could play, all kinds of horns, a string section, shaking tambourines, a funky bass over the extended drum bashing intro, and suitably jazzy electric piano solo.

Somehow, and you have to give them a lot of credit, they get this monstrosity moving in a fast-moving groove, building to a big blast of a climax. You have to love these 70's horn-driven singles that didn't fade out -- they ended in one colossal blasted chord.

Again, a good song that becomes great when heard in its full extended album version.

My only geek trivia, is that I remember Donnie and Marie Osmond opening up their mid-70's ABC-TV variety show one night with this song.

I went searching for a YouTube version of Lighthouse performing this song, but there were none. I sorted through a lot of poor sounding videos until I found this one that sounded decent and had the full version of the song, even if the visuals look like bad diner paintings. Just shut your eyes and listen to the tune, which was a big hit in '71.