The Hottest Hit On The Planet:
“Waterloo” by ABBA
“Waterloo” by ABBA was a fundamental game-changing moment in the history of Europop. It’s appropriate then that it’s all about a fundamental game-changing moment in the history of European history!
The fundamental game-changing historical moment was of course, The Battle Of Waterloo.
The moment that Napoleon’s project of riding the continent of monarchy and feudalism and replacing it with… well, himself… came completely unstuck thereby leading him to surrender, not at Waterloo itself, but about a month later.
Napoleon’s European-domination plans had gotten totally unstuck before, and he’d been sent off to exile on the island of Elba at a result. But then, just when Europe had thought they’d seen the back of him, just as they were all arguing amongst themselves as to how the new Europe would look at the Congress Of Vienna, Napoleon escaped from exile, turned up in France, overthrew the King, and suddenly the country fell into his hands again! It was like at the end of a horror movie when the monster you thought you’d killed suddenly comes back to attack you, one final time.
Or like when Kanye somehow has a Billboard Hot 100 Number One in 2024.
ABBA doesn’t really deal with all of that. Instead “Waterloo” is about… or at least I have heard it being suggested that “Waterloo” is about… date rape?
“I tried to hold you back, but you were stronger, and now it seems my only chance is giving up the fight”
Now that’s probably a bit too much of a literal interpretation of “Waterloo,” although once you hear it that way, it’s hard to hear it any other. Right from the very beginning, ABBA was investigating the nastier side of human relationships.
Possibly problematic plot aside, “Waterloo” was – unlike this rare case in Napoleon’s military career that inspired it – a strategic masterstroke. A song intentionally written to slay the competition at the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest.
Singing in English – a language most viewers might have at least a passing familiarity with – about a famous European battle… what else might bring the nations of Europe together like the Seventh Coalition?
Particularly when combined with great big secret weapons such as a big stomping glam-pop beat, a honking saxophone hook and a great big cascading piano! The latter of which they would turn out to be big fans of!
And the biggest secret weapon of all? The mere sight of Bjorn with a star guitar, a ridiculous looking contraption even during the giddy heights of glam-pop!
How could they ever lose?
Oh shut up Terry Wogan. You got Benny and Bjorn mixed up.
Eurovision had gifted the world immortal pop classics before – “Volare” for example, even though it didn’t win, France Gall with Serge Gainsborough’s typically inappropriate “”Poupée de cire, poupée de son” and Sandy Shaw’s “Puppet On A String” – but “Waterloo” was different. “Waterloo” took things to a whole new level!
Soon it would be Number One in the UK. A bit of a surprise perhaps given that the UK had given it zero points, preferring instead the Italian entry, “Si.”
Seriously, Eurovision voters of Great Britain; what were you thinking?
The B-side – the irresistible bubble-gum of “Honey, Honey” – was almost as much of a classic, featuring as it does such immortal lyrics as “now I know what they mean, you’re a love machiiiiine, ohyoumakemedizzy!” Lyrics that it is inconceivable that Agnetha and Anni-Frid could possibly be directing to either Benny or Bjorn, even though it was they who wrote it.
And even though Bjorn does sing a few lines in a mousey voice that makes you wonder how the Bs ever thought that they should be the lead vocalists of the group… because, hard as it is to believe, initially, they were. ABBA originally recorded as Benny & Bjorn with the girls regulated to backing vocals. This was not a good system. Those songs… erm, they’re not great.
“Honey Honey” is an 8.
“Waterloo” is a 10.
Whilst they were counting the votes, Eurovision needed an “interval act.” And who was that interval act? None other than The Wombles!
Everyone reading this from a non-Commonwealth nation: “What the hell did I just watch?”
“The Wombling Song” peaked at No.4 on the UK charts. It’s a 10. But that might just be my childhood – or more accurately my toddlerhood – speaking. “The Wombling Song” would not be The Wombles only UK Top Ten hit.
*Honestly, I always thought the lyrics were “almost defeated, you won the war” as though Napolean made yet another surprise comeback at the last minute. I feel this speaks volumes for the inadequacy of the teaching of history in Australian public schools.
Meanwhile, in Rock Chick Land:
“Devil Gate Drive” by Suzi Quatro
(Deep creepy voice that wouldn’t sound out of place in The Rocky Horror Picture Show which was also becoming a thing about this time, perhaps there was something in the air?) “Welcome… To The Dive.”
And let’s give a big tnocs welcome to the self-proclaimed original quintessential girl rocker. The girl rocker from whom all other girl rockers are cut – maybe, at least she seems to think so – Suzi Quatro!
There had been female rock singers before of course, but Suzi also played bass. And she pulled rock star poses, straddling the stage with her legs apart. She was, in her own way, just as much of a gender bender as Bowie.
Suzi was tough.
She wore leather and the tightest of tight pants. Her backing band – all dudes –towered over her, arms crossed threateningly, wearing wife-beaters.
But it was Suzi that was indubitably the boss. They were just her gang of toughs. I’m not sure which I’d be more intimidated by.
Suzi Quatro came from Detroit. Aka Rock City.A city that rocked so hard that nobody had ever heard of poor Suzi until she was discovered by big-time UK pop Svengali Mickie Most and whisked away to London to join his cast of glam-pop cartoon characters.
A cast which included Mud – of “Tiger Feet” “fame” – and the hit writing-production team of Nick Chinn and Mike Chapman, the definers of a shameless sound halfway between glam-rock and bubblegum pop.
Nick and Mike also wrote songs for The Sweet – they wrote “Ballroom Blitz!”– who weren’t signed to Rak but who were still part of the whole glam-pop scene that Suzi suddenly found herself in the middle of.
So there you have the conundrum of Suzi Quatro. In some ways, she was a seminal figure in the history of Women In Rock. In other ways she was the singer of some of the dumbest party songs of her era, an era not lacking in dumb party songs. One of those dumb party songs was the immortal “Devil Gate Drive.”
“Devil Gate Drive” is a kind of origin story for little Suzi, describing the kind of Detroit dive bar environment that you could totally imagine her growing up in. The kind of bar where everyone wears leather.
The kind of bar where, at the age of 16, Suzi might be the jukebox queen. Although the way Suzi tells it, she may have been a late bloomer. Other kids seem to have been able to do the jive at the age of five (!) thereby begging the question: just what is Devil Gate Drive exactly?
A rock’n’roll kindergarten? Whatever it is, it sounds like a hoot – and not just a little bit naughty – training kids to be rock’n’roll goddess by the time they leave high school!
It makes sense that Suzi might have gone to an imaginary rock’n’roll kindergarten, for she was well versed in the ways of classic rock moves… that moment where she goes “Come On Boys… Let’s Do It One More Time For Suzi!!!” and then they do it one more time for Suzi… that’s what rock’n’roll is all about!
“Devil Gate Drive” is a 9.
(Can we just pretend that “Stumblin’ In” – with Neil Diamond impersonator Chris Norman and the only Suzi single that can convincingly be described as a US hit – never happened? No, apparently we can’t, because an Australian DJ called Cyril is having a hit with it… right now!)
(“Stumblin’ In” is a 4)
Meanwhile, in Funk Land:
“The Payback” by James Brown
“The Payback” has been sampled 443 times.
Incredibly, this does not make it the most sampled record of all time. In fact, it’s only at Number 22. It’s beaten by a whole lot of other James Brown tracks, plus a bunch of James Brown associates (Lyn Collins, Bobby Byrd etc). The Number One most sampled record? “Amen Brother” by The Winstons, sampled over 6,000 times according the WhoSampled!
“The Payback” has been sampled by everyone from Massive Attack to En Vogue… twice! Who Sampled also mentions Kendrick’s “King Kunta” but that’s more of a reference really isn’t it? Given all of this sampling – mostly on hip-hop records – it’s probably just as well then that James can dig rappin’.
Now obviously, when James says he can dig rappin’, he’s not referring to, y’know, “rappin.’” Kool Herc may have been holding block parties up in the Bronx, but it’s unlikely that this was on James Brown’s radar in 1973.
James Brown was a busy man. A hard-working man. He was quite famous for how hard working he was.
“The Payback” came at a critical time for the Godfather Of Soul. A time when he looked as though we may have finally funked himself out, may have finally been coming to the end of his previously unstoppable funky run. His only real hit in 1973 was the fun but not exactly essential “I Got Ants In My Pants And I Want To Dance.” With Stevie Wonder in the middle of his imperial phase, James was in danger of being of out-funked.
James Brown needed those hits!
Hell, James had even been rejected for the soundtrack to blaxploitation film, Hell Up In Harlem, possibly because his jams were simply too darn long. There Is of course the other theory that some people were starting to think that all his songs sounded the same, a not unfair observation.
I tend to think that James’ bad fortunes may also have had something to do with the unfortunate moustache he was trying to grow at the time. It certainly wasn’t because “The Payback” wasn’t badass enough for blaxploitation. From the groove – sparse and cold even by the standards of early 70s James Brown cuts – all the way down to James’ repeated claims of being MAD!, of being after REVENGE!, and boasts that although he may not know karate, he does know karazor! – and screams so out of this world that they could be used as a weapon in their own right – “The Payback” is the most badass jam in town!
James didn’t just have REVENGE! on his mind because he was writing the soundtrack to a blaxploitation flick. One of his girls was having an affair, and James was, as he repeatedly put it, MAD! “The Payback” is basically James’ freeform freestyling about how MAD! he is. Which may explain why “The Payback” is so repetitive and tends to ramble on a bit – “I’m a man… I’m a man… I’m a son of a man”… where you going with this James? – and doesn’t really hold up as a song. But as a groove though… “WAAAAAAA HAAAA-OOOHHHH!!!!”
“The Payback” is an 8.
Meanwhile, in Boogie Land:
“Jungle Boogie” by Kool & The Gang
Kool & The Gang had been told, and in no uncertain terms, that they needed to write a hit.
Multiple hits, in fact.
They’d been making records for a few years – almost half a decade.
And although they had squeezed their way into the Hot 100 a few times, they hadn’t produced anything you could really call a hit. That’s because they mostly played extended, instrumental, jazz-funk jams. Nobody wanted to hear those!
Just look at this album cover… does this look like a party band to you?
The record company simply couldn’t afford to subsidize their freeform funky jams anymore! The record company needed hits! And hits needed vocals!! Well, maybe not needed exactly – this was a golden era for funky instrumentals after all – but vocals certainly wouldn’t hurt. Unfortunately, vocals were not exactly Kool & The Gang’s strong point.
Which is why the job of the boogie-man went instead to one of their roadies.
That roadie’s name was Don Boyce.
And despite sounding like no-one else and despite boasting some of the slickest moves ever seen, he never really went anywhere.
Kool & The Gang gave him another turn on the mic with the follow-up cash-in “Spirit Of The Boogie.” And then, another for the jump-the-shark moment that was “Open Sesame”, in which he traded his boogie-woogie jungle witchdoctor character – that was basically what his character was, wasn’t it? – for being a genie (sample lyric: “get down with the genie!”)
On “Jungle Boogie,” Kool & The Gang surround Don the Roadie with a whole lot of cheesy shit; the kind of cheesy shit that you might put on a record if you are told, in no uncertain terms, that you need to produce a hit. It starts with a gong! It finishes with a Tarzan yell! The Tarzan yell, however, was not the band’s idea.
The Tarzan yells were Don the Roadie’s idea – clearly the man is the unsung hero of this story – which is how he ended up behind the microphone in the first place.
And which is how he found himself grumbling stuff like “it’s the boogie” and “feel the funk y’all” and “BRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!” and having a marvellous time!
Is it Don’s witchdoctor incantations that are “Jungle Boogie”s secret sauce? Or is it the cop-show horn cascades? Whichever it is, “Jungle Boogie” is a practically perfect party jam!
“Jungle Boogie” is a 9
Meanwhile, in Elton Land:
“Bennie & The Jets” by Elton John
In which Elton composes a disjointed, surreal, completely off kilter ditty about a rockstar from some far-off future that feels very much like 1974. Electric boots? No sure what they are – although I’m imagining platform shoes with disco lighting in the soles – but it sounds like something they’d have in the 70s. Mohair suits? They definitely had those in the 70s!
So Elton and Bernie have basically created their own Ziggy Stardust character. Except that “Bennie & It’s basically the entire Ziggy Stardust album – with a particular emphasis on “Starman” – in the one song.
The entire Ziggy Stardust album sung over the top of “Life On Mars” by a guy who really likes pounding those piano keys in drunken slow motion.
It feels unlikely that a band like Bennie & The Jets would sound anything like “Bennie & The Jets.” “Bennie & The Jets” is a lot of things, but even with the spaced-out synths at the end, it’s hardly “electric music, solid walls of sound.”
In fact, given that the instrumentation is largely limited to a plodding disjointed piano, it’s anything but a “solid wall of sound.”
Nevertheless, Elton turns Bernie’s space-age rockstar fantasy into something worthy of a band so weird and so wonderful! He creates something that could change the weather! He creates something appropriately epic! And what’s more epic than a shit-tonne of fake crowd noises?
The crowd noises may be fake, but they come in and they go wild at exactly the right times. At exactly the times you’d expect a real crowd to come in and go wild. It’s thrilling stuff. It’s just like being “there”, even though there was no “there” to be.
It’s a wonder every record doesn’t feature a fake crowd!
“Bennie & The Jets” is a 9
Meanwhile, in Nun Land:
“The Lord’s Prayer” by Sister Janet Mead
I’ve met Sister Janet Mead a couple of times. She ran a church in Adelaide. She did a soup kitchen. We delivered soup to this guy who lived in a tree in the parklands. We were advised not to ask her about her time as the world’s most famous rock star nun. She didn’t like to talk about it.
Sister Janet Mead had started caring for the poor at a young age.
Her family had been taking in refugees when she was but a child.
Upon joining the Sisters Of Mercy…
… in the aftermath of attempts by Vatican II to at least partially modernise the Catholic Church, she decided to go one step further and began holding Rock Masses, complete with a rock band.
That she – rather unoriginally – titled: ‘Rock Band.’
It’s pretty obvious that rock’n’roll stardom was not uppermost on the good Sister’s mind, otherwise she’d have come up with a better name. Also she would have made herself available for promotional engagements when the single came out. Instead she went off on a study-tour in Europe.
In a post-Jesus Christ Superstar post-Godspell landscape, a rock version of “The Lord’s Prayer” wasn’t an especially original concept. But, on the other hand, it was clearly an idea whose time had come. An idea that had come to Adelaide, The City Of Churches.
Sister Janet’s Rock Masses took place at the St Francis Xavier Cathedral in Adelaide and were so popular that she was soon asked to help out with arrangements and music at other parishes.
This is where the recording of “The Lord’s Prayer” came in. Churches that couldn’t be bothered starting rock bands of their own, could play her records instead.
It’s the distorted wah-wah – a guitar? a broken synthesizer? – at the beginning that makes “The Lord’s Prayer” a particularly odd outing. This isn’t just a toe-tapping rendition, this is some psychedelic shit. Except of course, it isn’t really.
Other than some funky drumming, “The Lord’s Prayer” soon settles down into being a Carpenters record. Still, the discombobulating experience of hearing distorted wah-wah adjacent to Sister Janet’s precise pronunciation, right down to pronouncing every single syllable of “hal-low-wed” is memorable.
You can imagine every altar boy in the Western World asking their fellow altar boys “have you heard that freaky far-out version of “The Lord’s Prayer?” It’s outta sight man,.”
Because obviously altar boys aren’t the coolest kids in school and would still be using slang half a decade after it was out of date.
Royalties went to the Sisters Of Mercy.
“The Lord’s Prayer” is a 6.
“More” is a 9.
What a freaky-far-out time to be alive!!!
To hear these, and other 90s hits, tune into DJ Professor Dan’s Twitch stream on Thursdays, 8pm Melbourne time, which is about lunch time London time, and breakfast time New York time! Tune into the DJ Professor Dan Breakfast Show!
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From The Big Payback to the Lord’s Prayer. That about sums up 1974. Love the choices of what was highlighted here! The Lord’s Prayer went to #4 US, and I heard it not only on the radio, but it was sung in church by the guitar group at Saturday night mass every week for quite some time. As someone who believes strongly in finding connections with faith and culture, Sr Janet is somewhat of a hero of mine and I consider her a pioneer on this front. I included the song in a concert of popular music with spiritual themes just a few years ago at my church. I liked that you pointed out that the freaky intro is very different than the rest of the song, something I love about it.
I didn’t grow up with The Big Payback, but heard it as an adult for the first time on an urban oldies station when I was in my 20s or so. I was hooked immediately and it’s the song that got me further into James Brown. The complaint of repetitiveness is valid, but when the grooves are hotter than hot, I can live with it. And nowadays when we can pick and choose what to listen to, you can still find plenty of variety in his catalog.
This is my first time listening to “The Big Payback.” As such, I didn’t realize that Kendrick’s “King Kunta” was so throughly referencing it.
As for the repetitiveness of funk, I can dig vamping. But vamping with a sequencer…wtf happened? *
When I first started listening to Funk, i was just coming off of my prog rock phase. I recall observing that it made for quite the juxtaposition.
One style presented perhaps dozens of complex motifs and themes within a piece, while the other got its business done by leaning into and repeating the same hook, over and over again.
It took me a while to realize that the latter was just as effective as the former, if you gave it a chance. When listening carefully, it wasn’t so much repetition, but the slightest of variation, every eight bars or so. You just had to look for it.
And there was the commonality: when it comes to both progressive rock, and Funk music, you have to pay attention.
And then there was kraut-rock: German progressive rock that took funk vamping to mind-melting extremes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dZbAFmnRVA
Sister Janet Mead passed away a couple of years ago
Some great songs – and Sister Janet Mead. Not that I’m saying The Lords Prayer isn’t a great song but I’ve never heard it and my only point of reference is the version Cliff Richard did, calling it the Millenium Prayer. That definitely wasn’t a toe tapper.
On behalf of the UK I apologise for the nul points we awarded to ABBA. In our defence it wasn’t a very democratic system back in the early 70s. Each countries vote was determined by a jury of just 10 people. As to who those 10 Brits were I can’t say and whether they were at all familiar with the concept of popular culture post 1950 is doubtful.
Bennie & The Jets is my personal favourite of these. For a long time I didn’t get its appeal at all but now it’s my Elton highpoint.
Don’t forget this classic toe tapper:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIdW_fae_ak
Never heard this before. Love this.
Some great songs – and Sister Janet Mead.
We’ll have nun of that, JJ.
He can’t help himself. It’s a habit.
Not everything is black and white.
I normally read the comments religiously but this is what happens when you turn your back for an hour; all the best puns have already been taken.
Conventional wisdom.
Get thee to a punnery!
Religiously. I see what you did there.
I think I like the idea of Suzi Quatro more than the reality. I love a tough, rockin’ woman as much as anybody, but she’s making some very specific choices that leave her stranded in the mid-70’s.
I’ve always thought of Chrissie Hynde as the alpha and omega of the female rock, ummm, goddess, but I guess we do need to give Quatro some credit. (And let’s not forget Wanda Jackson.)
https://youtu.be/pzJ3hiqsi0U?si=aIaiNAygKqwDTam-
back it up a bit further
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9JezItjWIU
Janis Martin, sometimes called “Female Elvis” was more popular than the pre-Hot 100 charts would suggest. You might know this 1956 song, later popularized by Roy Orbison:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHAlf8xBj9E
Lorrie Collins is in the Rockabilly Hall of Fame based on records she made with her brother:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bpXOx9aAo4
I recommend this site if you’re interested in learning more about the women of 50s rock & roll:
https://www.womeninrockproject.org/
1974 was an interesting time to be listening to music. But I will not be humming any of these songs for the rest of the day. No, this has been running through my head since you got to Sister Janet. That’s okay. It can stay awhile. I like it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajUNjIaN4lc
The early and mid-70s were a strange time for me, musically speaking. I was moving from childhood into my teen years and so beginning to form my own tastes in music. I was moving from the Archies to . . . well, I didn’t know.
I do know that my older brother had really shaped my tastes with daily doses of “Where the Action Is” and all of the great music of the 60s, and I was becoming aware that I wasn’t entirely sold on what my friends were listening to on the radio (because that’s what we had), but I certainly knew everything that was popular. By the time I was 16/17 I was decidedly moving away from the Top 40 and Southern Rock (very popular in my part of the world) and looking for something I could call “my” music. When I first encountered punk and post-punk, and the angry young men, it immediately felt right, because it harkened back to all that great 60s rock-n-roll–all that garage rock.
Finally, I thought, MY music, but if I went into the Record Bar (I think it was.) in my home town and asked for the Ramones or Elvis Costello they’d look at me like I had cow poo in my hair. “We don’t sell that stuff here. How about a Charlie Daniels record?” was a typical response.
I will say, though, that I was an Elton fan during that first imperial phase, and, well, James Brown: the HWMiSB.
—
As a sidebar, I do remember the first time I saw Bowie. He was on (I think) the Midnight Special (or maybe Rock Concert) and he was in his Ziggy persona. I thought it was the first time a woman’s breasts had ever been bared on American TV, and man was she flat. Live and learn. Clearly, America was not really ready for Bowie, in whatever persona/gender.
Important notes:
o This might not have reached Australia, but many folks know of Suzi Quatro because she was also Leather Tuscadero in “Happy Days”:
https://youtu.be/gosawykpqhk
o I’m not sure why, but for several years, my friends and I would sing “The Vic Tayback” as a preferred mondegreen for “The Big Payback” – I’m 99% sure that’s a better lyric.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vic_Tayback
o My youngest son was upset to find (at age nine) that “Bennie And The Jets” was not actually a live recording, and doubted every live recorded song for several years after as “faked”.