everyone together: skyrockets in flight! afternoon delight!

the big mamajama. ’cause i couldn’t ignore it, now, could i.

this one perpetually tops worst 70s songs lists, running neck and neck with (you’re) having my baby. and you really have a DC-area restaurant chain, Clyde’s, to blame for this one:

According to an account in Rolling Stone, Taffy credited the song’s creation to a culinary repast. “Bill wrote this after having lunch at Clyde’s in Washington, D.C.,” she explained to an audience before performing the song. “It seems Clyde’s has a menu called ‘Afternoon Delight’ with stuff like spiced shrimp and hot Brie with almonds. So Bill ate it — the food, that is — and went home and explained to me what ‘Afternoon Delight’ should be.”

yeah. i always think of stuffed shrimp when i hear this one.

i always marvel at americans. they get up in arms, self-righteously apeshit about sex. yet who are the homophobes you witness waving their arms at football games in time to YMCA? and who do you see singing afternoon delight with their kids when the song is about enjoying a nooner with the missus?

and they somehow even didn’t blink when, after this single hit skyrocketed in flight to the top of the charts, the starland vocal band got their own TV show featuring a new and corny comedian named david letterman. captain and tennille at least had a few hits — but this group literally had one! one lousy countrified bit of schlock chockablock with benny hill-worthy hints about naughtiness. nudge nudge, wink wink. pullllease.

corny, corny, corny. i knew it then, and i know it know. i think we were so preoccupied with the nation’s bicentennial that we let this one slip into the top spot of the charts.

———————-

it being the last day of november, i am freeing you all — fly, be FREE! — from the curse of blatantly bad 70s songs. for now, of course. you never know when one will show up on a guilty pleasure monday. (i don’t always have great taste, you know.) who knows : maybe i’ll do a month of guilty pleasure mondays that will make people vomit or weep with joy. (or both? it could happen.) thanks to all for joining me on this journey to ear-bleeding nirvana and for sharing your candidates. special thanks to middlebro and leifer for their contributions. i can share their addresses if you’d like to send hate mail.

may the force be with you. or, as one of my favorite TV characters said in the 70s, nanoo, nanoo.

another day in the life of mama’s family.

oh, miss vicki, miss vicki. i love you when you’re with carol burnett, especially as cissy in gone with the wind:

so why did you have to go and spoil it by creating a melodrama of your own?

basically, this lovely ditty — which control freak sonny bono turned down when it was offered to cher — concerns a sister, a brother, a cheating wife, brother’s former best friend, and the corrupt legal system of the South. it was even turned into a TV movie at one point with kristy mcnichol, dennis quaid, and mark hamill (LUKE??? you fell to earth and landed in Georgia??) did the nation hate the South so much that people made this song a hit just to remind the South that it hadn’t amounted to much good, not even since the Civil War came to straighten it out? lawd have mercy.

anyway, some things about this song i don’t understand, not now, not in the 70s:

1) what self respecting person goes up to a friend and announces that they’ve been sleeping with their wife while he’s been away? duh. i have a death wish.

2) what sister could stand by and watch her brother go down for murders she committed?

3) and now, why is she basically confessing in song? dimwit.

4) just how did the sister hide the body? and,

5) where the hell is the amos boy? probably shacking up with the sister, i bet.

anyway, i think i see the inspiration for mama’s family here. mama’s angry, vengeful, and violent family.

(and how did this become a hit? you can’t even dance to it.)

trying to forget my feelings of plagiarism…

ah, morris. or is it MaurÃcio, as you started out life in your native brasil? i hear tell that a california court found you guilty of plagiarism in 1988, that you stole this monster of a song from french singer line renaud? well, as we all know, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. and that means that a gazillion people love this song, as it has been covered by everyone from fraaaaaank sinatra to nina simone to the offspring.

and of course, by my fave muppet, beaker.

when i was young, i would stay home from school sick and watch game shows all day long. i loved game shows and still am bummed that daytime tv lacks these gems. (and no, we don’t get the game show network, sadly.) one of the shows was the incredibly painful chuck barris creation the gong show. at age 11, i was able to discern that these folks had to be doing some serious drugs on that show. zany didn’t describe some of the moments. but the most memorable show of all was the show when every single act came on and sang feelings. the song was that ubiquitous, and someone — barris?– was having a huge laugh about it. it was one of the most hilarious shows i ever saw.

and that is how i try to remember this song whenever it comes on while i’m on hold for a doctor’s office. otherwise, i might tear my hair out, strand by strand. so sappy. so dripping with sugar.

it makes my teeth have feelings of pain.

happy thanksgiving to my american friends! and yes, here’s some buttah for your parkerhouse rolls.

you’re welcome.

i don’t know about any of you, but i don’t want to turn on the radio to hear another couple kvetching about their relationship. (i tune in to Dr. Phil went i want that nonsense. and i tune into springer when i want to see lower class people fist-fighting with their partners. cos nothing says lovin’ like a roundhouse punch.) this song practically SCREAMS bad soap opera. it’s pure melodrama from an earlier time. how it became a hit record in 1978? well, barbra was probably still riding high from a star is born, and neil, well, let’s just say that neil did well when other people recorded his songs.

break out the turkey and give me some schmaltz. schmaltzity-schmaltz schmaltz!

seriously, what really happened is that both barbra and neil recorded the song (in the same key, natch) on two separate albums. some clever dj, probably bucking for a promotion for his creativity, sliced the two versions together for his audience’s listening pleasure. babs and neils got wind of it and decided, hell, let’s get the royalties for this suckah. and VOILA! a new star was born.

on the bright side, they never got to make the feature film that was planned based on this song, as neil got busy with his remake of the jazz singer. (see? there IS a G-d!) can you imagine the movie? (no. try not to. it will wreck your day.)

okay, okay. i can’t be completely mean on a holiday. here’s the one version of the song that you might enjoy. ice-t and tupac, a marriage made in heaven. it’s definitely not a turkey.