About This Time 60 Years Ago:

It’s The Hits Of June-ish 1965!

The Hottest Hit On The Planet:

Keith Richards:

(At that point known as Keith Richard, with no “s;” The Rolling Stones’ manager, Andrew Loog Oldham, convinced Keith to change it, thinking that it would be a good idea to remind people of Cliff Richard. And yet he never thought it a good idea to stop admitting that his middle name was “Loog…”)

… wrote the riff to “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” in his sleep.

This appears to happen far more often than you might think.

• Prince is said to have written “Little Red Corvette” whilst having a nap in a… 1964 pink Mercury Montclair Marauder.
• Paul McCartney wrote “Yesterday” in his sleep. And “Let It Be.”
• Jimi Hendrix dreamt “Purple Haze.”

And I’m sure I read somewhere once that “Addicted To Love” was also written in a dream.

So the legend goes that Keith was sleeping with his guitar – which feels a little odd, but let’s not judge – and he woke up with that riff stuck in his head.

He rolls over, presses record on the Phillips cassette player that he also liked to sleep with…

… and fumbles his way through the riff and then drifts off back to sleep.

In the morning, when he wakes, he finds that he has recorded one catchy-ass riff, followed by 40 minutes of himself snoring. Incredibly, in this day and age, the tape still hasn’t appeared on YouTube. Maybe Keith accidently taped over it.

In his head, Keith figured the guitar riff would be played by a horn section. That’s why he plugged it into a Fuzzbox. Specifically:

To make this horny song sound like it had horns. As in, trumpets and saxophones, and maybe a trombone – which it doesn’t – and not as in metaphorical horns, which it inarguably does.

Keith wanted to give the horn section an idea of how they should sound, but instead he sounded like a horn section himself.

I’d ridicule him for the error if it wasn’t such a completely valid mistake to make.

Keith fully expected that they would go back into the studio one day to record “Satisfaction” properly.

He thought the version of “Satisfaction” that we know and love was just a demo. He was gobsmacked when he started hearing it on the radio. But everyone knows this stuff about “Satisfaction.”

I’m not really adding value here, am I?

Let’s see if we can dive a bit deeper.

“Satisfaction” wasn’t the first song that Mick and Keith wrote together.

The Rolling Stones didn’t really need to write songs; the undeniable surly charisma of Mick Jagger and his lips, the “bad boy” marketing,

…was enough to make them the Biggest Band In Britain Not To Be Called The Beatles – even when all they were doing was playing blues covers.

But Loogie, presumedly figuring they’d never be able to beat the Beatles if they didn’t start writing their own “groovies and fancy words”, locked Mick and Keith in the kitchen, refusing to let them out until they’d writing a song with “brick walls all around it, high windows and no sex.” Honestly, how did they ever understand what Loogie was talking about?

Mick and Keith came up with “As Tears Go By.”

Which Loogie gave to another of his minions: ultimate English It-Girl, coffee house folk singer, and quite possibly the cutest sad girl in the world, Marianne Faithful:

Mick and Keith got the hand of hit-writing pretty much straight away. They’d even written a UK Number One for themselves, with “The Last Time”, a simple little drawl of a tune, in which Mick complains that his lady-friend isn’t giving him good lovin’, and so, Mick, chivalrous gentleman that he is, threatens to dump her (“The Last Time” is a 9.)

And then, taking a great big, giant leap up the learning curve: wrote “Satisfaction.”

The song that defined a generation. Or maybe it’s just a list of a few of Mick’s least favourite things.

When I’m driving in my car
And a man talks on the radio
He’s telling me more and more
About some useless information
Supposed to fire my imagination

On a surface level, the first verse of “Satisfaction” is merely about annoying radio DJs nattering on.

But, if you want to look below the surface, you can easily convince yourself that it’s about the shallowness of the mass media, and the unsatisfactory nature of popular culture.

When I’m watching my TV
And a man comes on and tells me
How white my shirts can be
But he can’t be a man ’cause he doesn’t smoke
The same cigarettes as me

Poetry!

That one line “he can’t be a man ‘cause he doesn’t smoke, the same cigarettes as me”… you could write your thesis on that!

All of a sudden, not only is “Satisfaction” about the shallowness of the mass media and middle-era capitalism, now it’s also about outdated gender roles, and what it means to be a man in post-Kennedy America.

Unless of course, “a man”, is really “the man”, the omnipresent oppressive power that forces us into conformity… but Mick sees through it all…

Then comes the one line that simply ruins it for me. And like all of the little things that bug me about the world, I’m probably being completely unfair.

Okay, now it’s just descended into another self-obsessed rock star complaining about the mundanity of their rock star lives. How are we, the proletariat, supposed to relate to this? Relate to the hassles of having to sign… what… recording contracts? Autographs?

Maybe we are supposed to hear this line and think of our own work-related hassles. A bus driver could hear it as “when I’m riding down the road, and I’m driving the bus, and I’m stopping the bus.” Or a fishermen could hear it as “when I’m floating in my boat, and I’m catching eel and I’m catching bass.”

Anyway, let’s move on….

And I’m trying to make some girl who tell me
“Baby better come back maybe next week
‘Cause you see I’m on a losing streak”

So, obviously: all this concern about the hollowness of popular culture and consumer society all comes back to one thing: Girl Reaction. Or possibly – and characteristically crudely – ‘Girlie Action.’

Mick hates it when his chances of getting with some girl is inconvenienced by her having her period. This, so it turns out, is what “losing streak” is a reference to, although I’m pretty sure that no-one other than Mick – or, I guess, the girl herself, since she’s the one saying it – has ever referred to menstruation as such.

There’s a theory that Loogie buried that third verse, as far as he could, down in the mix, so that no one would be able to understand what Mick was singing about (does anyone ever understand what Mick is singing about?). Just in case that line offended people…

…just in case it got them banned.

Perhaps. Although: all the verses are blurred, not just the third.

Maybe Loogie was also worried about the Mick’s critique of capitalism and the American Way Of Life. It is a bit weird how the bits where Mick is having his tantrums are muffled, and the bits where he seductively purrs into the microphone are practically surround-sound.

Presumedly – hopefully – when Mick sings “make some girl”, he means “make it with some girl” Because although Mick may not be the perfect gentleman, prone to dropping casual misogyny into his commentary on the human condition, he wasn’t some sort of Brian Jones’ style asshole… Brian, who, at the same hotel, on the same night, at quite possibly exactly the same time that Mick was scribbling down his hate-list, was literally trying to “make some girl,” and I don’t want this to suddenly go to a dark place, but the girl turned up at the hotel pool with black eyes.

This may be why, although Brian Jones was originally the leader of The Rolling Stones, Loogie decided that Mick and Keith should take over.

Loogie envisioned The Rolling Stones as The Bad Boys Of Rock, not the Evil Sadists of Rock. They still didn’t report him to the police or anything, though.

To give you an idea of where Mick’s head was at, as he scribbled down the lyrics to “Satisfaction:

And why he was in such a bad mood and hating on everything – he was sitting beside a hotel pool in Florida.

These are the digs that Mick Jagger found so unsatisfactory.

Mick was beside a hotel pool, in Florida, on the cusp of unimaginable fame and royalties, and still all he could do was bitch about radio DJs and television commercials.

So, yeah, “Satisfaction” is basically just Mick whinging about things that get his goat:

Top 40 radio stations, laundry detergent ads, girls on their monthlies – whilst he’s lounging around the hotel pool. Mick didn’t sit down to write a generation-defining anthem. Mick Jagger wasn’t bleedin’ Bob Dylan.

Dylan agreed.

To which Mick – or was it Keith; I’ve heard both versions – replied, “Yeah, but you couldn’t sing it.”

Fair enough. After all, Bob Dylan only ever claimed to be “like” a Rolling Stone (A “Like A Rolling Stone” entry will be coming up in a couple of months.)

“(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” is a 9.

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Meanwhile, in Frat-Rock Land…

They dressed up as Pharaohs.

Sort of. Or at least, someone from that general vicinity of the world. A real Pharaoh would have worn a far fancier headdress.

But Sam The Sham And The Pharaohs were a small-time party band. They were operating under tight-budgetary limitations. They certainly didn’t have the budget of a Hollywood blockbuster like The Ten Commandments, which had inspired their name.

Sam The Sham himself was not a Pharaoh. Sam The Sham wore a turban, the traditional headwear of the ancient Shams people of Upper Shamistan.

Sam The Sham’s birth name was Domingo Samudio, and he was of Mexican descent.

(Also possibly part Apache). Maybe that’s why he kind of sounds like Speedy Gonzales as performed by Pat Boone? (“Speedy Gonzales” is a 1.)

I won’t disagree.

Sam The Sham has also claimed that the word “sham” is rock’n’roll slang for jumping around and performing.

Like Mick and his “losing streak”, rock stars in 1965 were just making words up.

Dressing in Middle Eastern/Southern Asian get-up wasn’t Sam The Sham And The Pharaohs’ only gimmick, though.

They also travelled around in a hearse.

The hearse at least may not actually have started as a gimmick.

Travelling around in a hearse wasn’t entirely unheard of in the world of 60s garage bands. After all, a hearse offers the perfect solution for transporting musical equipment, whilst travelling in style. Also vans – although invented – were not in widespread use yet.

When asked such questions as “why?” or “what were you thinking?” Sam The Sham usually answers that he was bored on the road.

He likes to tell a story about how, before The Pharaohs…

…he had a gig at an officer’s club at Fort Polk in Louisiana. He turned up, dressed as Fidel Castro, complete with cigar. Just for laughs. Since Sam The Sham, even without a cigar, doesn’t not look like Fidel Castro – although he’d probably make an even more convincing Che – they had some trouble getting into the barracks for the show that night.

For one thing, prior to becoming a rock star, Sam The Sham had worked in a carnival, a fact which I feel explains a lot. Also, Sam The Sham And The Pharaohs basically made sock-hop dance-craze music with the craziness dialed all the way up; in short they were a Tex-Mex party band.

The other major Tex-Mex party band was the Sir Douglas Quintet:

…whose hit about the same time “She’s About A Mover” is the missing link between “Wooly Bully” and Ray Charles’ “What I Say.”

Not only did the Sir Douglas Quintet have much the same sound – jabbing organ hooks, largely incomprehensible lyrics – in this clip at least, they performed in a toy castle! Sadly, however they didn’t dress up as medieval knights. A missed opportunity.

A missed opportunity because the mid-60s were a golden era for bands dressing up.

• There was Paul Revere and The Raiders:

• There were The Strangeloves. Who told everyone they were shepherds from the tiny farming community of Armstrong, Australia, and that they had made a fortune by inventing a way to clone sheep.

And this is how they thought Australian sheep farmers dressed:

But they also wrote “I Want Candy,” so I can’t stay too mad at them.

And THEN, a few years later, there was The Beatles during their Sgt Pepper phase:

I am sad to report that the similar sounding fellow Mexican-Americans, Cannibal & The Headhunters – who also had a hit in 1965, with their version of “Land Of 1,000 Dances”, they were the ones who came up with the “na-na-na-na” bits – did not dress up as either cannibals or headhunters… another missed opportunity!

But even in the midst of all these party bands in wacky party costumes playing zany party songs, Sam The Sham And The Pharaohs stood out.

And the reason they stood out, was because of “Wooly Bully:” a glorious piece of nonsense, the song of the summer, and the party song of the year.

The lyrics to “Wooly Bully” were infamously difficult to understand. Although it’s not impossible that part of the reason they were hard to understand was that people simply couldn’t believe that what they thought were the words, were actually the words. Because the words were soooo stupid:

“Matty told Hatty
About a thing she saw
Had two big horns
And a woolly jaw”

It’s here, I guess, that I’m supposed to mention that because nobody could figure out the lyrics, radio stations presumed they were dirty and refused to play the record.

That’s a shame, but at least it never went as far as being investigated by J Edgar Hoover and the FBI, as happened to fellow garage-party-poppers, The Kingsmen, and their hit “Louie Louie.”

(Although the “W.ooly Bully” being banned story is repeated all over the Internet, I’m not actually 100% convinced people aren’t confusing it with the “Louie Louie” story.)

Presumedly, Sam The Sham’s cat, after whom the song may-or-may-not be named, does not possess two big horns (although its jaw may very well be woolly).

They had to name “Wooly Bully” after Sam’s cat – either that or it was local slang for, as best as I can figure out, “big whoop” – to differentiate it from the song they were basing it on. That song, by another band with a wacky band-name – Big Bo & The Arrows – “Hully Gully Now:”

As best as I can tell, Big Bo & The Arrows did not perform with bows and arrows. Given the temper of the times, this feels like another missed opportunity. But what a groove.

Sam The Sham And The Pharaohs took the chorus melody of “Hully Gully Now”, and even the “watch it now” adlibs. They’d probably have stolen the verses, but they barely exist.

Despite basically being a cover – although nobody involved in “Hully Gully Now” is mentioned in the credits – MGM wouldn’t let Sam and co record a song called “Hully Gully Now.”

I’m not sure what’s going on here.

“Hully Gully Now” was just one of many songs about the “Hully Gully” dance-craze:

The biggest of which had been “Hully Gully” by The Olympics:

Although most sources describe the Hully Gully as a line dance, the way The Olympics do it – “you shake your shoulders, and you wiggle your knees” – it’s just an extreme shimmy. Maybe there are two dances called the Hully Gully?

A few years after “Wooly Bully” took over the world, Sam The Sham And The Pharaohs would be back, having dropped the gimmick of dressing up as… whatever they were supposed to be, and embraced instead the gimmick of singing about “Little Red Riding Hood” complete with wolf howls (“Little Red Riding Hood” is a 4.)

The follow up singles to that one included “Not On The Hair Of My Chinny Chin Chin” and “Old MacDonald Had A Boogaloo Farm.”

Having clearly run out of ideas, Sam The Sham decided to retire from the novelty rock’n’roll game and got a job as a deck hand on fishing and supply boats in the Gulf Of Mexico. So completely did Sam The Sham disappear, that a rumour got out that he died in same plane crash as Otis Redding.

The one exception to this disappearing act was when Sam The Sham reemerged to record a Star Wars bandwagon jumping disco track in 1977 titled “The Wookie.”

Sometime in the last decade or so, he was interviewed and admitted that he’d recorded three unreleased albums, for his ears alone. Let’s hope they remain that way.

“Wooly Bully” is a 9.

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Meanwhile, in Funky Land…

So now ladies and gentlemen, it is Star Time!

It is indeed a great pleasure to present to you at this particular time… nationally, and inter-nationally, known, as :

• “The Hardest Working Man In Show Business”
• “Mr Dynamite”
• “The Amazing ‘Mr. Please Please’ “Himself”

… by the mid-60s James Brown had collected himself a lot of nicknames.

And had earnt himself a lot of titles. That little list – from the introduction to Live At The Apollo – a live album in which the loudest sound is that of grown women screaming – was just the start. Which makes sense, that was only in 1962.

Some publication – I know not which – voted James “Mr. Show Business Of 1963”. Some other publication obviously voted him “No.1 R&B Star Of 1962”, because it’s right there on the cover of Live At The Apollo.

Even Queen Victoria never had as many titles as James Brown.

He may have had even more titles that those Habsburg emperors whose titles ran so long that they officially ended with “etc etc” just in case they missed something .

That wouldn’t happen until 1973, after the first “Godfather” movie. He wasn’t even “Soul Brother #1” yet… people wouldn’t start calling him that until 1966…

At this point however, for all of the nicknames and titles named above, James mostly went by Mr. Dynamite.

Not bad for a guy who grew up in poverty.

“My family was so poor” James would say, making it sound as though he were about to tell a joke “when I was a kid… my underwear was made out of floursacks.”

That’s not funny. James would also walk home along the railroad tracks and pick up pieces of coal that had fallen out of the back of the trains, so his family would have something to warm themselves with at night.

Things were different by 1965.

Having previously seen even his biggest hits – “Try Me” for example, or “Night Train”– only just squeeze into the Top 40, in 1965 he hit the Top Ten… twice, with “Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag” and “I Feel Good (I Got You)”. James was even a movie star.

Of sorts. Performing “I Feel Good (I Got You)” during a cameo in “Ski Party”, a teenage beach party movie in the snow.  (“I Feel Good” is the very definition of a feel-good party anthem… and it’s a 9.)

Also in 1965, The Rolling Stones were touring with James, and Mick Jagger was watching closely. And stealing his moves.

Watch and compare the videos of “Satisfaction” and “Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag.” Mick asked people to teach him how James danced, but they claimed they couldn’t.

And that’s when James performed “Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag” at the proper speed.

Because the single version of “Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag” is slightly – ever so slightly – sped up. To make it sound subliminally more exciting. This was another thing that happened more often than you might think. I didn’t mention it last week, back in 1955, but Fats Domino’s “Ain’t That A Shame” was also sped up, just slightly.

“Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag” wasn’t the first time that James released a record so funky that it required both sides of the record, broken up into Part 1 and Part 2. “Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag” may have been the first time James released a record so funky that it required a Part 3 as well!

Like so many of James best-records, the ones where he takes great scissor-kicks forward towards new levels of funkiness, “Papa’s” brand new bag was the result of a brand-new band member.

James always seemed to have a constant supply of new band members, mostly because his old ones would quit en masse, due to pay disputes or simply because James – The Hardest Working Man In Show Business – was working them too hard.

The old guitarist – Les Buie – was simply too tired to keep going.

Jimmy had been playing funky guitar for years, mostly with Johnny Otis – yes, him again – on “Willy And The Hand Jive” in 1958.

That was pretty funky, but on “Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag”, Jimmy came up with the funkiest sound a guitar can possibly make.

On “Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag”, Jimmy Nolan invented “chicken scratch” guitar.

“Chicken scratch guitar” is one of those terms that, the first time you hear it, you’re like, what are you talking about?

“Chicken scratch guitar” is also difficult to describe without getting technical and talking about “16th notes.” But in the context of “Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag”, it’s the very sparse and sharp stabs that jerk throughout the whole song. It doesn’t refer to the bit just before James announces that Papa’s got a brand-new bag, the bit that’s just really fast strumming… although that’s also obviously the best part of the song.

“Chicken scratch” is a style that sounds as though it should be easy to play – you’re just lightly pressing on the fretboard, and then letting go – but turns out to be pretty hard when you’re scratching that same chord all night.

“Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag” isn’t one of James’ one chord songs. It’s a proper pop song, with proper pop song chord changes.

It’s a quaint little song about an old man getting down with the youngsters, dancing all the latest dances. At various points it basically turns into “Land Of 1,000 Dances”

“He’s doing the Jerk, he’s doing the Fly
Don’t play him cheap ’cause you know he ain’t shy
He’s doing the Monkey, the Mashed Potato, Jump back Jack
See you later, alligator”

And then later…

“He’s doing the Fly ev’ry day and ev’ry night
The thing like the Boomerang”

Maybe it’s my patriotism talking, but James has never sounded so cool as when singing “Boom-er-ang”

It’s honestly incredible that James was able to write a song about these dances and make it sound cool… it’s pretty much impossible to dance any of these dances in a dignified manner.

• It’s impossible to do The Jerk without looking like a jerk…

• The Mashed Potato may have been the latest and the greatest, and you could potentially do it to “Please Mr Postman.” But it also looks exhausting.

• Better keep to The Monkey:

Just wait til next year when we cover all other 997 dances of “The Land Of 1,000 Dances.” What a day that’ll be.

“Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag” is another 9.

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