Today’s SotW is a guilty pleasure dating back to 1974, the year I graduated from high school. Maybe it’s that connection that keeps the song so fondly in my memory. It is “Life Is a Rock (But the Radio Rolled Me)” by the fake band Reunion.
A few months ago I wrote a post about the Pooh Sticks. On their web page (thepoohsticks.blogspot.com) they did a countdown of their top 50 songs. “Life Is a Rock” came in at #17.
Joey Levine, the song’s lead singer, was also involved in other fake bands including bubblegum music giant The Ohio Express (“Yummy Yummy Yummy” and “Chewy Chewy).
This single established the template for songs with scores of cultural references spit out in a machine gun like, rapid fire delivery. R.E.M’s “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” (1987) and Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire” (1989) followed in a similar vein.
Listen closely… some of the references are pretty hip for 1974, bubblegum music fodder.
Enjoy… until next week.
Ouch. That’s the worst posting since Leonard Nimoy’s Ballad of Bilbo Baggins.