Music Question: More Than a Follow-Up: The Art of the Song Sequel. Next: My weekly new music radio show. Week 1018. Musical thoughts: Matter of Time Doc (Eddie Vedder solo concert for EB)
Chris, I'm going to miss out seeing Matter of Time in the theaters, but hope somehow I can either stream or buy a copy through the Ten Club. How was it?
Quite an extensive overview, Chris! Nicely done! I enjoyed the Springfield bits.....he seems like he'd have a casual, no-big-deal about things such as this! That Kimmel skit had a date of 12/80, which is very accurate (of course, you had Rick there to verify)!
"Working Class Dog" and its "Jessie's Girl" was released in Feb. '81, and Rick came into the Music Plus Records & Tapes in Glendale, CA (he lived in that L.A. suburb), likely, sometime in January of that year. I know because I was working the register! He must've been on his way home after a mixing session or something. With his "General Hospital" turn looming, also, this may have been one of the last times, for a while, he'd be able to safely and quietly venture out in public! When Rick got that TV daytime soap gig, RCA had no idea he had gotten it! In fact, Rick's manager advised Rick to take the "GH" gig when he was offered the part, as "that record thing with RCA probably won't work out" (only because Rick and his mgr didn't sense the label was too enthused about it, and likely wouldn't lift much of a finger to promote it)!
Anyway, Rick was perusing cassettes in the case next to my register, and having had 3 of his '70s albums (one for Capitol in about '72, one for Columbia around '74, and my favorite, "Wait For Night" for Chelsea Records in '78-ish, I asked him (in a bit of a twist of the usual line): "Has anyone ever told you you look like Rick Springfield?" Which must have surprised him, as a few weeks before his TV gig beginning and his record dropping, few would really recognize him!! That would rapidly change!
Good stuff, Chris.....have you ever delved into "answer" songs? Like Neil Sedaka's early-'60s "Oh, Carole," and Carole King recording her answer, "Oh, Neil"? There are others, too!
Really interesting examples. The Jessie's Girl skit was really fun. I didn't know about the Unforgiven sequels.
There's an MTV version of Another Brick in the Wall 2 that's really powerful and brings the message home in a frightening way -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YR5ApYxkU-U
Q: Another one of the songs here is “The Death of Sis Draper.” I remember your first “Sis Draper” song [from 1999’s Cold Dog Soup] — how many other installments do you have now?
A: Well, Shawn and I co-wrote the first one, and then we kept thinking, “Man, there’s another song in here somewhere.” So we started thinking up other situations that would fall into that, and there’s probably seven or eight songs that reference Sis Draper at this point. I can’t bring all the others to mind at the moment, but this one’s about the death of Sis Draper, because we couldn’t think of anything else and finally went, “We need to killer her off!” We just made it up where she got poisoned by a jealous barmaid, which seemed appropriate. But Sis Draper was actually a real person; she was the woman who taught Shawn to play fiddle when he was a kid, so it’s kind of loosely based on truth.
[Shawn Camp] I was just sitting around with Guy trying to write a song, but got stuck. It led to us talking for an hour or so until I eventually got around to telling him about a lady I knew in Arkansas named Sis Draper. She had a big beehive hairdo and a fiddle she carried around in a coffin case that she’d shred these old-time fiddle tunes on. Before I ever saw her, my grandpa and Uncle Cleve built her up as such a superstar that she was a world traveler in my eyes, even though in reality I don’t think she did much traveling at all.
How did I miss the "Jessie's Girl" sequel?! It looks like it was released five years ago. Is that really Rick in the video or is it an AI version? He looks too good this many decades after the original song was released!
Chris, I'm going to miss out seeing Matter of Time in the theaters, but hope somehow I can either stream or buy a copy through the Ten Club. How was it?
Haven’t seen it. Was just mentioned it (for myself and others) can’t wait. From what I’ve heard it’s powerful.
Quite an extensive overview, Chris! Nicely done! I enjoyed the Springfield bits.....he seems like he'd have a casual, no-big-deal about things such as this! That Kimmel skit had a date of 12/80, which is very accurate (of course, you had Rick there to verify)!
"Working Class Dog" and its "Jessie's Girl" was released in Feb. '81, and Rick came into the Music Plus Records & Tapes in Glendale, CA (he lived in that L.A. suburb), likely, sometime in January of that year. I know because I was working the register! He must've been on his way home after a mixing session or something. With his "General Hospital" turn looming, also, this may have been one of the last times, for a while, he'd be able to safely and quietly venture out in public! When Rick got that TV daytime soap gig, RCA had no idea he had gotten it! In fact, Rick's manager advised Rick to take the "GH" gig when he was offered the part, as "that record thing with RCA probably won't work out" (only because Rick and his mgr didn't sense the label was too enthused about it, and likely wouldn't lift much of a finger to promote it)!
Anyway, Rick was perusing cassettes in the case next to my register, and having had 3 of his '70s albums (one for Capitol in about '72, one for Columbia around '74, and my favorite, "Wait For Night" for Chelsea Records in '78-ish, I asked him (in a bit of a twist of the usual line): "Has anyone ever told you you look like Rick Springfield?" Which must have surprised him, as a few weeks before his TV gig beginning and his record dropping, few would really recognize him!! That would rapidly change!
Good stuff, Chris.....have you ever delved into "answer" songs? Like Neil Sedaka's early-'60s "Oh, Carole," and Carole King recording her answer, "Oh, Neil"? There are others, too!
I love this. Thank you for sharing. I have done answer songs. I’ll look and give you the link if you want.
Thanks for the comment and reading! Have a brilliant day🤘👊
I'm here, so I'll search for "answer songs" here....thanks!
Here you go. https://open.substack.com/pub/shapedbysound/p/i-get-the-feelingthat-i-am-responding?r=4rlix2&utm_medium=ios
Really interesting examples. The Jessie's Girl skit was really fun. I didn't know about the Unforgiven sequels.
There's an MTV version of Another Brick in the Wall 2 that's really powerful and brings the message home in a frightening way -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YR5ApYxkU-U
It’s been awhile since I watched that. So good. Thank you! I need to watch it again. So bloody good🎸🤘👊
Another great, challenging theme.
Nothing came immediately to mind, but then I was re-reading this fantastic interview with Guy Clark and this bit jumped out at me: https://lonestarmusicmagazine.com/qa-guy-clark-by-james-mcmurtry/
Q: Another one of the songs here is “The Death of Sis Draper.” I remember your first “Sis Draper” song [from 1999’s Cold Dog Soup] — how many other installments do you have now?
A: Well, Shawn and I co-wrote the first one, and then we kept thinking, “Man, there’s another song in here somewhere.” So we started thinking up other situations that would fall into that, and there’s probably seven or eight songs that reference Sis Draper at this point. I can’t bring all the others to mind at the moment, but this one’s about the death of Sis Draper, because we couldn’t think of anything else and finally went, “We need to killer her off!” We just made it up where she got poisoned by a jealous barmaid, which seemed appropriate. But Sis Draper was actually a real person; she was the woman who taught Shawn to play fiddle when he was a kid, so it’s kind of loosely based on truth.
Looking it up, those songs have been collected on an album, and there's more about it here: https://thebluegrasssituation.com/read/shawn-camp-pays-homage-to-a-childhood-hero-on-the-ghost-of-sis-draper/
[Shawn Camp] I was just sitting around with Guy trying to write a song, but got stuck. It led to us talking for an hour or so until I eventually got around to telling him about a lady I knew in Arkansas named Sis Draper. She had a big beehive hairdo and a fiddle she carried around in a coffin case that she’d shred these old-time fiddle tunes on. Before I ever saw her, my grandpa and Uncle Cleve built her up as such a superstar that she was a world traveler in my eyes, even though in reality I don’t think she did much traveling at all.
Whoa. That’s so bloody cool! Thank you for the comments too!!! 🤘🎸👊
How did I miss the "Jessie's Girl" sequel?! It looks like it was released five years ago. Is that really Rick in the video or is it an AI version? He looks too good this many decades after the original song was released!
Oh it’s him and yes he looks that damn good. Bastard! Life’s not fair.
Starting to check this all out Chris.
Thank you! 🎸🤘👊
👏🏻🙏🏻🙃