Super Seventies

marychrist/eastofeden:

Hey Jim, Jim, just a minute y’all
I want to ask you somethin’
I want you to spell somethin’ for me Jim
Can you do that? Sure John
But I want you to spell for me New York
John, why you ask me to do that?
I just want you to spell New York, Jim
Well alright, I’m gonna go ahead man

N-E-W Y-O-R-K, that’s New York man
No Jim, you’ve made a mistake, Jim
I’m gonna teach you the right way
And the proper way to spell New York
Well, go ahead, John

A knife, a fork, a bottle and a cork
That’s the way we spell New York, Jim

Dillinger: “Cocaine In My Brain” (1973)
The one song from Downtown 81 not
featured on the soundtrack.

musichistory:

“Holidays in the Sun” by The Sex Pistols [1977]

Random Music History Song of the Day

The Sex Pistols took break from the pressure of London by visiting the island of Jersey. Being the hooligans they were, the band members were booted from the island, forced to take their holiday elsewhere. They ended up in West Berlin. Johnny Rotten wrote “Holidays in the Sun” about the experience of being in a lively Western city, mutually watching more subdued communists across the Berlin Wall.

The song also serves as a look inside the mind of Johnny Rotten’s head (or at least the image he wanted to portray of what he was thinking):

Claustrophobia 
There’s too much paranoia
There’s too many closets I went in before 
And now I got a reason, it’s no real reason to be waiting

The Berlin Wall

There is some debate whether the band stole the main riff from The Jam’s famous single “In the City,” which had been released only a few months before. Either way, both songs are punk classics. It’s not like The Sex Pistols let Sid Vicious anywhere near the studio during the recording sessions to ruin the song with his incompetent bass playing.

“Holidays in the Sun” was first released as the band’s fourth single in mid-October, 1977. It was also included as the opening track on the band’s debut album Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols, released only two weeks later.

eyesturnedskyward:

Low Rider by War. From the album, Why Can’t We Be Friends? (1975)

The weather round here matches this song perfectly.

Iron Virgin: Rebels Rule (1974)