After last week’s trip to the Moon I thought I’d go back to the list I have compiled of songs about summer, sunshine etc. Only this time there is a bit of a difference: all of today’s tunes have hot in their title, but none of them is about the weather! You’ll soon get the idea, I’m sure.

There are some big names in this week’s selection, and they don’t come much bigger than the guys opening the set, with a minute or so of spoken intro:

That concert performance by Led Zeppelin of Hot Dog was in August 1979, as the album to which Robert Plant refers, In Through The Out Door, was released that month. It was their eighth album, and the last one before the death of drummer John Bonham in September 1980, after which they disbanded. It got to #1 in the UK, the US and Canada, going Platinum in the UK and 6x Platinum in the US, as well as 2x Platinum in Australia, where it peaked at #3. Hot Dog was worked up in the band’s pre-production rehearsals, where they warmed up by playing a series of old Elvis Presley and Ricky Nelson covers. In his book about the band, the author Dave Lewis calls it a “rockabilly country hoe-down” that “owes much to the state of Texas and to the state of a particular female in Texas.” Sounds fair to me, and they seemed to be enjoying themselves playing it.

Another of my usual suspects is up next, another long time favourite. I’m going with the audio version, as there are only a few live videos on YouTube and their sound quality is appalling:

John Mellencamp released Hot Dogs And Hamburgers on his ninth album, The Lonesome Jubilee, in August 1987. The album made #1 in Canada, #2 in Australia, #3 in New Zealand, #6 in the US, and #31 in the UK: I was among the select group of Brits who bought it! Four singles were taken from it, two of which made the US top ten and another reached the top twenty, but this track wasn’t one of them. The album sold well, and has earned 3x Platinum status in the US for 3m sales, and 6x Platinum in Canada for 600k. Like everything he has done I loved the album, and never understood why he wasn’t the success here that he was elsewhere. No accounting for taste, is there!

This next one is a cover version, by the guy who recorded the song in the first place:

John Fogerty first released Hot Rod Heart in May 1997 on his fifth solo album, Blue Moon Swamp. It was a huge success in Scandinavia, reaching #1 in Finland and Sweden, and #3 in Norway, but fared less well in bigger markets. It peaked at #37 in the US – still good enough for a Gold Disc for 500k sales, but only got to #182 here in the UK. The version I am playing dates back to the pandemic days of 2020 when John ran a series of videos revisiting his back catalogue with his children, Shane, Tyler and Kelsy. These were compiled into an album under the name he used for the videos – Fogerty’s Factory – and released in November 2020, getting to #63 in the US. To be honest, the beauty of these was really in the videos, though, as you’ll have seen from this one. They were fun, and eagerly awaited each week by many like me, who needed some musical distractions from the horror of those times.

My penultimate tune for today goes back a bit further – to 1978, in fact:

That was, of course, Foreigner with Hot Blooded, which was released both as a single and the opening track on their second album, Double Vision, in June 1978. The album made #3 in both the US and Canada, and #31 in the UK, and has sold more than 7m copies in the US, earning 7x Platinum status. The single also reached #3 in the US, and a rather lowly #42 in the UK. Considering that the band comprised three members each from the US and the UK we took our time getting into them! This song was co-written by Lou Gramm, the lead singer, and Mick Jones, lead guitarist – that’s one from each side of the pond. Wikipedia quotes Lou as saying

“We used to work at Mick’s apartment and he would just keep playing one guitar riff after another. Just playing whatever came into his mind. When he started playing that riff, I remember saying, “Wait! Stop! What’s that?” Mick said it was just another riff. So, I started singing along to it. We eventually got the idea of what the chorus would be and then started working on the verse lyrics. Once they were put together it naturally led to the Hot Blooded verbal line. I remember we were jumping off the walls when we cracked the title of the song.”

So that’s how a hit record comes about, though other songwriting methods are available.

I’m closing today with a real gem of a video, and the song isn’t half bad either:

The Rolling Stones with She Was Hot, which was a track on their November 1983 album Undercover, and then became a single in January 1984. The album got to #1 in Sweden and The Netherlands, #2 in Canada, #3 in the UK and #4 in the US: it sold a million in the US and 100k here. The single wasn’t a huge success, only making #42 in the UK and #44 in the US, but I still love the video. The role of the temptress was played by Anita Morris, an actor who had risen to fame in Broadway musicals. I think she was a very good choice for it!

That’s all for today: a distinctly louder and rockier set than sometimes, fitting my current mood, and I hope you’ve enjoyed them. I’ll see you again in a couple of days with my monthly review – this time I’m trying out a new format, so I hope you drop in on it. Until then, take care and have fun 😊