William's Song a Day Blog - est. September 2007

I have been listening to this band a lot lately, and this song has been a one of the standouts. This song is basically 70's Funk with a Latin Jazz-Rock flavouring. For those who do not know, the band came out of Santana with the brothers Coke and Pete Escovedo, (Pete Escovedo is actually the father of musician Sheila E), along with others from that band as well including Neal Schon. Some really upbeat music for this dreary day out there. Here is the studio version on YouTube. +

I needed some Rammstein today, this is one of my more favoured of their songs. It is a bit lighter when compared to their other popular songs and in my opinion is quite a beautiful song. The dynamics are excellent and add so much to the song when changing between the chorus and verses; light and airy to full and surrounding sound. Of course Till's vocals really shine in this one as well. Here is a recording with German and English subtitles on YouTube. +

This is kind of a leftover from my theme week. I almost chose it, but it technically is not a car crash song, however it technically is because of the best-known lyric contained in the song: "Indians scattered on dawn's highway bleeding, ghosts crowd the young child's fragile egg-shell mind." The song was recorded seven years after Jim Morrison's death using recordings of him reciting his poetry. Ever since I heard it I immediately loved this song, there is something about the 70's funk-inspired music combined with his poetry that really makes this song simply awesome in my opinion. From what I understand this poetry was inspired by an accident that Jim Morrison witnessed as a child; he believed that the spirits of the dead Native Americans in the crash entered his body at that time. Here is the music video on YouTube. +

I have noticed that I have woefully neglected choosing songs this week from what is thought of as the "golden era" of car crash songs. I figured that choosing the song that most would probably view as one of the quintessential car crash songs would be an excellent choice to end my theme week of vehicle wreck songs. The song was originally written and recorded by Wayne Cochran and the C.C. Riders, but when most think of this song it is probably the J. Frank Wilson version, who made the song famous. From what I have read this song was inspired by an actual car wreck in 1962 Barnesville, Georgia where a car load of teens collided with a flatbed truck and most were killed; this song was dedicated by Wayne Cochran to the memory of one of the victims of the crash. Here is a recording of the song on YouTube. Here is the Wayne Cochran and the C.C. Riders original on YouTube. +

I figured that this would be an excellent addition to my vehicle crash song theme week. This is the climax song in the pseudo rock opera that the album consists of. The songs on the album were supposed to be part of a musical sung by Adam Faith; they were written by Ian Anderson and David Palmer. After it did not come to fruition and was scrapped, Ian Anderson then decided to go ahead and make the already-written music into the next 'Tull album. In this one the main character, Ray Lomas is a '50s-'60s Rocker/Greaser that refuses to change his image or his lifestyle with the times and finds himself as a relic. All of his friends have "sold their souls" and moved on with their lives and have families and respectable jobs, which makes him quite despondent. He ends up going on a wild bike ride down the A1 Motorway and ends up crashing. This song has a happy ending, however. After he wakes up in the hospital he finds out that his fashion has come back into style and i...

Not all car crash songs are based on fictional stories, sometimes they are inspired by actual events. Apparently members of the band were into heavy drug use and were trying to clean themselves up at the time and Gary Rossington "fell off the wagon" and crashed his car into a tree. This song was written about the incident and the consequences of alcohol and drug abuse. Here is a recording on YouTube. Here is a live performance from '77 on YouTube. Here is a live performance from '96 on YouTube. +

I figured for the hump day of my theme week I should choose what some refer to as "The Ultimate Wreck Song." This song features a star-studded cast of musicians from both The E-Street Band and Todd Rundgren's Utopia. It was written by Jim Steinman, who grew up with and liked a lot of the epic wreck songs from the 50's and 60's, which is when these crash songs were being made in the greatest quantity. He ended up creating a "magnum opus" in the same vein as those songs that almost lasts ten minutes. Here is a recording of the song on YouTube. Here is a live performance on YouTube. +