The calendar moves inexorably on, and this is the last Tuesday Tunes before December hits us. For the past couple of years I have run my Advent Calendar, which involved posting every day up to and including Christmas Day, but I’ve decided not to do that again this year: too much strain on me to keep it going, and on you to read them all! I will be posting lots of Christmas-themed music through the month, though, including on Tuesdays, but this way also leaves me free to keep taking part in Song Lyric Sunday, which I enjoy very much. So what should I do with this one, then? I thought about honouring our current weather with a theme of ‘cold,’ but I’ve done that before. I did however have a lot of fun through October running songs with great intros, and as there are so many of them I thought I’d bring that theme back for a fourth time. Trust me, I don’t think I could ever run out of these!

For the most part, this is a fairly loud set, so don’t say I didn’t warn you! I’ve played a couple of them before, but only one of them in this series. Around this time last year the theme for Song Lyric Sunday was ‘songs with recognisable intros,’ and as I haven’t played it in this series I thought I’d start today with the one I chose for that:

They don’t really come much better than that, do they? How I’ve managed to keep that one back until the fourth set I’ll never know! This is what I said last year (with a small edit): Five minutes of the most incredible, high octane rock music that have ever been created. That song and its album came out forty eight years ago and I never tire of hearing it, and I never will. The basic facts are that the Born To Run album and single were both released on 25 August 1975. The album was Bruce’s third, and was packed full of great tracks, so much so that this wasn’t even the opener, as you might have expected: it started up side two, back in those days when we all bought our music on vinyl. It was very much Bruce’s breakthrough album in the US, where it got to #3 and has gone on to sell more than 7m copies. It fared less well here in the UK, reaching only #36 on its original release, though it has since peaked at #17 on a re-release. To my mind, that is still criminally low for such an iconic record. Cumulative sales over the years have qualified it for a Platinum Disc, though, so at least we haven’t failed him completely. By comparison it has achieved 7xPlatinum status in the US! The single got to #23 in the US and #56 in the UK, though a live version did better here, making #16 in 1987. 

This next one has been deemed to be both racist and sexist in our current times, and with its reference to slavery the band have stopped playing it in their live shows. I still think it is a great rock record, though, so as I don’t have to worry about not being paid for playing it I’m going with it anyway:

Brown Sugar was released in April 1971, as the lead single for the Rolling Stones’ Sticky Fingers album – the one with the zip on the album sleeve. Yes, it did work (but you only got to see some underwear!). This was a US #1, but only got to #2 in the UK, where it spent three weeks behind Dawn’s Knock Three Times. Sometimes I despair of the British record buying public – how could we! The album went to #1 in both the US and the UK – the first time they had achieved that – and in many other countries as well. It has sold more than 3m copies in the US and 300k in the UK, and for my money is one of the greatest rock albums ever made.

I’m slowing things down a bit for my next one. It is an album track but is still, I think, one of the most recognisable intros ever:

That is the latest remaster, from the newly re-released 1962-1966 album (aka the Red Album). The clarity in this latest version is stunning, and as others have commented on YouTube it makes you feel like you are there with them while they record it. For the record (ahem) The Beatles released Norwegian Wood on their Rubber Soul album in December 1965, and it duly got to #1 in both the UK and the US, as well as in several other countries, and has sold over 7m copies worldwide. This was during the days when the American record company mucked around with the track listings: we got fourteen tracks here, whereas over there they only got twelve – four were omitted, and two came off the substitutes’ bench. I’ve always thought this was disrespectful to the band – and it happened to the Stones too. I don’t think it was ever released on a single anywhere in the world, nor does it seem to have appeared on any of the many EPs the record companies issued to boost their profits, so it stands as one of their best known album tracks. George’s sitar playing is what makes it for me.

I’m going back into loud mode for today’s two closing songs. I think both will be familiar to you, and they definitely have recognisable intros. Here’s the first of them, which comes with a little bit of tuning at the beginning:

Purple Haze was the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s second single, though its releases varied: March 1966 in the UK and June 1966 in the US. It reached #3 here, but only #65 in the US – despite the fact that Jimi was from over there his career took off more rapidly here. It was later included on the band’s first album, Are You Experienced, in June 1967 in the US, but was left off the UK version: we didn’t get it until a deluxe CD reissue in 1996! That didn’t seem to do its chart chances any harm, though, as it peaked at #2 in the UK and #5 in the US. It has sold more than 5m copies in the US, going 5x Platinum, and has been awarded a Gold Disc here in the UK for 100k sales since that CD reissue.

Whilst Jimi brought his volume over to us from the States, we also knew how to create our own. Today’s final tune needs to be played with the dial at 11:

In case you didn’t recognise it, that was Black Sabbath with Paranoid. If you think you’ve seen it here before, well remembered: I did say that one of today’s tunes was making a return visit – its second return, actually. It may not come as a surprise to you that after I bought the album for which that was the title track, I only managed to play it in the lounge once, before a maternal decree decided that any future listening was to be undertaken by removing the record player to my bedroom until the horror was over! Still, Mum liked Jim Reeves so I guess this shouldn’t have come as any shock to me. As a single, that was released in August 1970, and reached #4 here and #61 in the US. The album followed the next month, and was a UK #1, peaking at #12 in the US. Black Sabbath – and this album in particular – are often cited as being influential in initiating the heavy metal genre of music. Hardly surprising, really.

That’s all for this week. I’ll be back in a couple of days with the first of this year’s Advent selections, and hope to see you then. Wrap up warm if you’re in the UK and going out – it’s a bit chilly out there! Take care 😊