I was never a big fan of The Jetsons. The Flintstones is more my kind of thing. But I’ve always loved the theme song of The Jetsons. Those fast filler riffs have always blown me away. And then the perverse use of “Chopsticks” is too great.

The song was written by Hoyt Curtin. He wrote the theme song for just about any Hanna-Barbera cartoon you ever saw. The Los Angeles Times called him the “Mike Post of animation sound tracks, the John Williams of the Smurf set.”

Apparently, in 1986, the song was re-recorded and released in a slightly longer form along with a “music video.” It’s interesting, because they managed to take out the truly sexist (and ahistorical) bit where George hands Jane a dollar bill, and she leaves him with it, taking his whole wallet before zipping off to “Shopping Center.” It reached “No 9 on Billboard magazine’s retail sales charts,” which is, really amazing.

Do we not deserve a little happy music? I think we do. First, we have a great nuclear deal with Iran. Second, that nuclear deal is making conservatives apoplectic. They are absolutely certain that it is going to be the worst thing ever. But it is strange. If we back out of this deal, all our European partners are just going to let the sanctions end. It will be America going it alone, as we have with Cuba all these years — and with the same results I’m afraid. So we could use some happy music — the conservatives most of all.

Here is a nice Caribbean influenced tune, “And Then She Stopped” off Dizzy Gillespie’s album, Jambo Caribe. It’s very pleasant — the kind of music you should listen to when it is too hot (which it is). Of note here is James Moody on flute.

In 1977 Weather Report released the song “Birdland” on their album Heavy Weather. It’s the band’s keyboardist Joe Zawinul’s composition. I know the song more from the version by The Manhattan Transfer. That’s because I went to a music festival, and in between bands, the sound person played the same set of music over and over. And one of the songs was this version of “Birdland” off their Extensions album.

The two versions of the song are actually quite similar. But the vocal harmonies on The Manhattan Transfer version — with the vocal slides — are really fantastic. And I’m not that fond of the Weather Report live version I found. So here is The Manhattan Transfer doing the song live, with lots of stage business, which I never would have expected, given the great care they show their music. It’s impressive that they can do this live. And the scatting at the end is incredible.

I have an active dislike of Bob Seger. Really, his work is mostly just crap. And I’ll admit, part of it is not his fault, because he didn’t write “Old Time Rock and Roll.” But I got thinking about him because I just watched Night Moves again. I’ll probably write about it later. I have a few things to say about it. The song, of course, has nothing to do with the film.

Anyway, I do think that “Night Moves” is a song that transcends its artist, much the same way that “Jack & Diane” transcended the then John Cougar. But ultimately, both songs are typical rock posing: we are young and have sex. Still, there are worse things to listen to. This is an indictment of the music business. “I awoke last night to the sound of thunder; how I got this rich really makes you wonder…”

I have an odd relationship with The Doors. On the one hand, they are solid band with a lot of strong material. On the other hand, I hate them. But if I had to be honest, I would admit that I mostly just hate Jim Morrison. He has always struck me as a fraud. Just the same, I think it speaks to Ray Manzarek’s brilliance that he saw that the young poet had “it.”

I thought we would listen to the one Doors song that most assaults me, “Touch Me.” It was written by guitarist Robby Krieger. He also pretty much wrote “Light My Fire.” Both of those are perfect Doors songs in that I love and hate them. With “Fire,” you’ve got that great Middle East sounding melody. Yet it is the ultimate in sexual braying. “Touch Me” has a wonderfully awkward verse melody — I really do love that. But the terrible slant rhymes make me want to scream.

Enjoy!

In the film Primary Colors, Jack Stanton mentions “You Are My Sunshine,” and says, “It is the most American goddamn song I can think of.” He also says, “A southern governor wrote it.” He doesn’t mention who it is, so years ago, I looked it up. It’s a deceptive claim, because it is more accurate to say that a famous singer became a south governor. The song was written years before he was governor too. The famous singer was Jimmie Davis and the state was Louisiana.

The other thing is that Davis almost certainly didn’t write it. He was given credit for it — along with his writing partner Charles Mitchell. He appears to have bought it from Paul Rice of The Rice Brothers Gang — who recorded the song before Davis. But even they weren’t the first to record it. They were beaten by three weeks by The Pine Ridge Boys. So who knows who actually wrote it. Given the usual way of American capitalism, I think we can assume whoever did write it didn’t get paid.

Here is Jimmie Davis performing the song on television. I have no idea when. He only died in 2000, at the age of 101.

Joe Tex was one of the greatest soul musicians ever. People know his music, but they don’t tend to know him. One of the reasons is that he died so young — just 47 years old. But he also lived and performed in the shadow of James Brown. But it is hard to argue that Tex wasn’t just as great as the Godfather of Soul. The two of them had quite the rivalry. I explained this last year in post about Tex:

This reached a peak in 1963, when Tex opened for a Macon, Georgia homecoming concert for Brown. “Tex, who opened the show, arrived in a tattered cape and began rolling around on the floor as if in agony, and screamed, ‘Please—somebody help get me out of this cape!'” Brown was understandably not pleased, but as much as I admire Brown, that’s funny as hell. Allegedly, James Brown found Tex later and shot at him.

Anyway, here is “I Gotcha,” which is a pretty great way to start a day:

The great thing about Sonny Curtis’ “I Fought the Law,” is that it takes the usual rock-n-roll bellicosity and turns it on its head. I’ve always had a problem with Bruce Springsteen’s early work because it was all about how we’re gonna drive this car out of town and conquer the world. It offends my sense of dramatic believability. I much prefer “The River,” where an older man looks back on his naive younger self. Anyway, “I Fought the Law,” is wonderfully perverse from the perspective of a traditional rock worldview.

What’s more, the wording is very important. It isn’t, “I fought the law, but the law won.” That would at least go somewhat along with rock bellicosity. I fought the system but fate was conspired against me! No, the wording is, “I fought the law, and the law won.” It is axiomatic. If you fight the law, the law will win. Things didn’t go badly for it. They went exactly as you expected them to go. In fact, maybe you should be glad that you are breaking rocks in the hot sun and not dead. Resignation in rock-n-rock is a great thing.

Here is The Clash’s iconic rendering of the song live at the Lyceum Theatre, London back in 1979.

After the Fourth of July, I think we could use a little French music. So I offer up to you Renaud — a French singer-songwriter so popular, he actually has an English language Wikipedia page. We are going to listen to a very sweet song, “Mistral Gagnant” off his most successful album, 1985’s Mistral Gagnant. The title refers to a kind of candy, apparently. The song is sung to Renaud’s daughter and reflects on his own childhood, including stealing candy from the store.

People know that I’m fond of French film and music. But that’s not exactly true. I do tend to like things more if I know that they are French. I like some idea I have about the French. And the one time I was there, I liked it very much. But it is rather that I like certain kinds of French films and music. I’m sure that France produces all the same dreck that America does. But thankfully, I’m spared that. Also: I’m very fond of wine and cognac.