rdiakun

I don’t think that Si is THAT diabolical!

Rich

“I want a brand new house on an episode of Cribs, and a bathroom I can play baseball in”

No takers on the cheese and onions?

David Day wrote:

That’s hilarious! 😆 What a great dissertation!

I think Rich blew a few brain cells on this one! 😆

Welcome back, Sir david. Methinx thou dost oweth us a dream explanation now

TiVo Alert!

I would offer to help Bruce with lyrics if he wants to go down the, uh… road less travelled. However, I think that if he were to read the explanation of “Candy Mountain Run” that I threw out for public consumption, he would run sreaming with his hands up in the air so as to get as far away from me as possible.

On the other hand, nobody got too terribly upset or bothered when lyrics like “Elementary penguin, singing hare krishna, man, you should have seen them kicking Edgar Allen Poe” found their way into the common musical lexicon and the must-have list for any rock album collection.

Oops, my bad. I’ve got to quit mentioning penguins.

Rich

Like I said, everything you read on the internet is 100% true. That’s why Al inventned the thing.

This one was tough. I read the lyrics, and read them again, and then listened to the song, and, well, you get the idea. Exhaustive research went into trying to figure this tune out.

Then it hit me.

Bruce has taken several opportunities in his career to write story songs about the so-called seemier side of the human experience. “Down The Road Tonight” was about a hometown whorehouse. “Walk In The Sun” was about a bouncer at a strip bar who was in love with one of the dancers. So, why shouldn’t Bruce take a stab at writing another song of that ilk, disguising it with lyrics that might appeal to children because of the endless references to candy.

With this in mind, I scoured the internet for information about this. As you all know, everything that you see on the internet is 100% true, and should be believed without question.

And I found it! There was a site (whose url I have accidentally on purpose forgotten) that was originally dedicated to misheard lyrics but then got carried away and delved into the fascinating realm of obscure rock music trivia. At this site, I learned wonderous things I had never known before. For instance, the Beatles song “Helter Skelter” was an olbique reference to the WWII bombing attacks on the UK by the Germans. I also learned that the first band to record the song, “Video Killed The Radio Star” was Bruce Woolley & The Camera Club. Did you know that Boy George was actually not a boy at all, but rather a female Elvis impersonator named Louise who was trying to get a movie gig in Hollywood? Milli Vanilli was, in fact, not a hoax. Their records did exist.

Then, I found this little nugget….

In the late 90s, there was a project that was being put together by the famous conductor and composer, John Williams (among other thigns, he wrote the music for the “Star Wars” movies and the theme song for the television show, “The Monkees”). This project, similar to the now famous “Shadow Hands” project, was called “Theme Songs For Movies That Were Never Made.” Various famous musicians and songwriters were asked to go through all of the books, magazine articles, sports reports, urban legends web sites, and personal flights of fancy, all with the aim of coming up with an idea for a movie that has never been made, and then to write and record a theme song for that “film.” Needless to say, this project was never completed. There were several recordings that did make it out to the public in slightly different form. The least famous of these was an attempt by So What (a band that has never successfully recorded anything) to write a theme song in the off-chance that anyone would make a movie about the Robert Heinlein novel, “Time Enough For Love” – the memoirs of a character named Lazarus Long, who apparently was unable to die. When this recording project was abandoned, the song (titled “You Can Live Forever”) was picked up by an upcoming Contemporary Christian artist, “Not Papists.”

Down on the list of projects was a Bruce Hornsby effort to write a theme song for an adult film about a track and field team made up entirely of porn stars, titled “Cunning Runts.” The lead character in this film was to be a rather buxom young lass whose stage name is Candi Mountains, whose goal was to come in first (sic) in Atlanta, even if the Olympics held there were long over.

Always the wordsmith an master of double-entendre, Bruce’s song was full of cute references to the song, “Rock Candy Mountain,” a favorite with children. The idea of a “children’s song” type of lyrics structure was brought about by a comment from one of his band members, who looked at a picture of the intended lead actress, and said something to the effect of “just watching her makes small kids instinctively get hungry.”

When the project was abandoned, Bruce chose to put this song on the shelf, only to revive it in somewhat modified form when he was recoding his “Halcyon Days” CD.

OK…. that’s one possibility. I’ve got a few other ideas, all equally unlikely and absurd.

Re:

Have you heard the recording where they use the words to “Gilligan’s Island” and sing them to the tune of “Stairway To Heaven”? A classic. Almost as good as Weird Al’s singing the words to “The Brady Bunch” with the tune of “The Safety Dance.”

I have to agree. This looks like a must-get CD. The only bummer on it is that they had to use an already-released version of “Ain’t That A Shame,” even though John Lennon really did a whale of a job belting that one out. Surely Yoko could have found soemthing in the Lennon vault that hadn’t been released yet. None of the Beatles made their admiration fo Fats Domino and his m usic much of a secret.

Come to think of it, a Ringo Starr rendition of “Blueberry Hill” might kill.

Rich

[quote quote=”treahI was such a band geek I saw Maynard Ferguson in concert-twice![/quote]

Yeah… me, too. Once in Norfolk, and once in Richmond. Fast forward many years later to the mid 90s when I was at the “Friendship Festival” at Lafayette Park in Buffalo. Since Canada Day is July 1, and US Independence Day is July 4, the folks in Buffalo and Fort Erie, Ontario (just across the river) have a nice little 3-day to-do that is quite cool (fireworks every night!). So, I’m laying on a blanket under a tree so as to avoid the heat, and I’m digging on a free outdoor concert by Crash Test Dummies. Who should show up next? Maynard and whatever band he had at the time. It was odd not hearing him playing any of the Jay Chattaway charts that made him big in the 70s, but there was no mistaking the squealing trumpet. At least Buffalo’s Bobby Militello, sax player in Maynard more popular bands, showed up to jam with his old boss. I was sad when I heard Maynard Ferguson passed away.