The track can be considered as an important milestone in the early history of The Smiths. “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now” was the band’s first single to reach the 10th position in the UK Singles Chart. It also marked the beginning of Stephen Street’s work with the band as producer and engineer. The title, lyrics and morose atmosphere of the song helped to seal The Smiths‘ image as that of a camp, lugubrious band. “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now” was first composed by Johnny Marr in the Iroquois Hotel in New York,
Category Archives: 4Ever Songs
4Ever Songs: The Sugarhill Gang “Rapper’s Delight”
“Rapper’s Delight” is perhaps the longest hip-hop track ever made but is also the first commercially successful single in the hip-hop world. Sung by the Sugarhill Gang, a hip-hop group from New Jersey consisting of three men: Michael “Wonder Mike” Wright, Guy “Master Gee” O’Brien and Henry “Hen Dogg” Williams.
The track lasts for 14 minutes and 34 seconds long. It samples the beat from 70’s group “CHIC”’s infamous track “Good Times”. CHIC’s Nile Rodgers actually threatened legal action when he heard an early version of “Rapper’s Delight” (which consisted of bassist Bernard Edwards bass line in “Good Times”) in a nightclub in New York, the DJ telling him that he had bought the record that day. Both Rodgers and Edwards are now marked as co-writers in the track. A large portion of the track also uses stanzas from Grandmaster Caz (Curtis Fisher), who didn’t get any credit or money for the song’s success at the time, and Caz admits to the song sending him to sleep the first time he heard it.
4Ever Songs: The Crusaders “Street Life”
The Crusaders are a group of musicians who are distinctively versatile — having their roots in jazz, they eventually embraced other genres such as soul and funk. Originally as the Jazz Crusaders, in 1971, they changed their name to just The Crusaders.
The Crusaders attained crossover appeal as some of their singles began to creep into the pop charts. In 1975 founding member Henderson left the band to become a full-time producer, marking a large void in the band’s overall sound. Their most successful single they’ve ever scored was 1979’s “Street Life,” which took a spot on the Top 40, but it was also their last successful output.
4Ever Songs: Depeche Mode ‘Enjoy The Silence’
In 1990 Depeche Mode released Violator, the album that definitively consecrated them to international success. The record contained some of the group’s most celebrated songs, such as World In My Eyes, Policy Of Truth, Personal Jesus and Enjoy The Silence.
The latter was used as the second single of the album and the clip was given to Dutch director Anton Corbijn, who immediately proposed his vision on how to transport Enjoy The Silence on video. The idea was to film Dave Gahan dressed as a Little Prince, with crown and cloak, as he passes through desolate landscapes, dragging a deckchair behind him.
4Ever Songs: Aretha Franklin ‘Think’
With its defiant lyrics and fervent vocals, this No. 1 R&B hit is a cousin of “Respect,” Franklin’s rallying cry for any woman who has felt mistreated. Franklin co-wrote “Think” — one of the only hits she penned herself — with then-husband Ted White. The song got a second life 12 years later when she recorded another version for “The Blues Brothers,” the Dan Ackroyd-John Belushi movie.
4Ever Songs: Plastic Bertrand “Ça plane pour moi”
By the summer of 1978, British music fans had been subjected to two years’ worth of homegrown punk: disdainful, nihilistic and definitely not Belgian. Then wham, bam! Along came Plastic Bertrand.
His music was something like punk. But from the moment he bounced into the Top of the Pops studio, with his too-bouffant hair, his barrage of French-English lyrics, and cavorting with the BBC’s dance troupe this upstart foreigner seemed to have misread pop’s angriest moment in spectacular fashion. Worse, he was smiling.
In fact, the track was intended as a prank. And while Bertrand was not taken seriously, “Ça plane pour moi” never left us. More than 40 years later this pumping two minutes, 57 seconds of three-chord doggerel is used by DJs, film-makers and advertisers as shorthand for the joy of being alive.
4Ever Songs: The Clash ‘London Calling’
The Clash’s ‘London Calling’ is one of the most definitive songs of the 1970s. It changed the course of the band’s career as they went from underground sensations to bringing punk to the masses.
The track is an apocalyptic anthem in which lead singer Joe Strummer details the many ways the world could end which, during the current climate, feels more relevant than ever. It is arguably The Clash’s definitive song,
‘London Calling‘ would see the band gain notoriety in the US with the eponymous album being universally loved by critics across the globe despite its Britain-centric direction. Released around the time that Margaret Thatcher was elected Prime Minister of Britain, with their snarling intellectualism, The Clash soon became the voice of the disillusioned youth on both sides of the Atlantic.
