This week in 1977 Jim Steinman’s play Neverland, a futuristic rock version of Peter Pan opened at the Kennedy Center for the performing arts in Washington, DC. It’s run lasted only six days. However, just five months later, three of the songs Steinman wrote for the production, All Revved Up With No Place to Go, Bat Out of Hell and Heaven Can Wait, appeared on Meat Loaf’s album Bat Out Of Hell.
Bat Out of Hell was initially rejected by many record companies but today it is still one of the 10 best-selling albums of all time.
Dutch band “Pussycat” was formed in 1973 by three sisters. Prior to forming the band the three sisters all worked as telephone operators, while three of the four male band members were in a band called “Scum.” In 1975/1976 Pussycat scored a big world-wide hit with Mississippi.
The song, written in 1969 by the sisters’ guitar teacher, was inspired by the “Bee Gees” song Massachusetts. By December 1975 Mississippi topped the chart in the Netherlands. Its international success came in 1976, when it reached number one in Belgium, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and a number of others.
This week in 2016 classic rocker Steve Miller was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame but he didn’t enjoy the experience. In his acceptance speech, which was in part critical, he encouraged the Hall of Fame to keep expanding its vision, to be more inclusive of women and to do more to support music education in schools. After his performance, which included his hits Fly Like an Eagle, Rock’n Me, and The Joker, Miller really ripped into the institution during a press room interview for the way it treated him throughout the process.
“When they told me I was inducted they said, ‘You have two tickets—one for your wife and one for yourself. Want another one? It’s $10,000. Sorry, that’s the way it goes.’ What about my band? What about their wives?”
Miller wasn’t the first to have criticized the Hall of Fame, whose limited selection process has drawn much heat from skeptics over the years.
This week in 1970 Let It Be, the final Beatles single before Paul McCartney announced his departure from the band, was the number one song in Australia and the USA. The song also topped the charts in Canada, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland.
McCartney said he had the idea of Let It Be in 1968 when the Beatles as a group were having a tough time and he had a dream in which his deceased mother, Mary Patricia McCartney, reassured him: “It’s gonna be OK. Just let it be.” Paul’s mother had died when he was 14 years old.
When asked if the phrase “Mother Mary” in the song referred to Mary, mother of Jesus, McCartney has typically replied that listeners can interpret the song however they like.
This week in 1983 Cyndi Lauper’s Girls Just Wanna Have Fun was the number 1 song in Canada and Australia. The song was actually written, and first recorded, in 1979 by American musician Robert Hazard.
Cyndi’s album, She’s So Unusual, was the first debut album by a female artist to achieve four top-five hits on the American Billboard Hot 100 – Girls Just Want to Have Fun, Time After Time, She Bop, and All Through the Night – and earned her the “Best New Artist award” at the 27th Grammy Awards in 1985.
This week in 1986 Rock Me Amadeus, a tribute to the famous composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart by Austrian musician “Falco,” hit number 1 in America. It was the first, and so far the only, German language song to peak at number one on the Billboard Hot 100. Prior to this, 99 Luftballons by “Nena” had peaked at number two.
Achy Breaky Heart by “Billy Ray Cyrus” was released this week in 1992. It would become Cyrus’ signature song and his biggest hit. The music video led to the explosion of the “line dance” into the mainstream.
Even though the song topped the charts in New Zealand and Australia, and was a top 10 hit in a number of other countries, it is also considered by some as one of the worst songs of all time and featured at number 2 on VH1’s list of the “50 Most Awesomely Bad Songs Ever”. However, considering The Heart of Rock & Roll by “Huey Lewis & The News” was number 10 on that same list we suggest this can’t be taken at all seriously.
On the 20th of March 1990 Sinead O’Connor released her second album, I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got. The album’s second single, “Nothing Compares 2 U,” written by Prince, became a worldwide hit and propelled her to stardom. The song topped charts in O’Connor’s native Ireland, Australia, Austria, Canada, Germany, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States.
In 1963 “Peter, Paul and Mary” released the single, Puff The Magic Dragon. The song was written by Peter (Yarrow) based on a 1959 poem by Leonard Lipton. The lyrics tell the story of an ageless dragon named Puff and his friend, a young boy named Jackie Paper. Sadly, as Jackie grows up, he loses interest in Puff, leaving him to be alone.
Through the years, controversy has surrounded this song. It was banned by a number of radio stations whose management thought that the song was about smoking marijuana. The American folk trio denied this . Yarrow has frequently explained that the song is about the hardships of growing older and has no relationship to drug-taking. He has also said that the song has “never had any meaning other than the obvious one” and is about the “loss of innocence in children.” Mary Travers, who along with Yarrow and Paul Stookey made the song famous, said, “Believe me, if he (Yarrow) wanted to write a song about marijuana, he would have written a song about marijuana.”
Peter, Paul and Mary recorded a dozen hits that charted between 1962 and 1969. Other hits included their versions of Bob Dylan’s Blowin’ in the Wind and, their biggest hit, John Denver’s Leaving on a Jet Plane.
This week in 1984 Jump by “Van Halen” was the number one song in the USA.
Although “Jump” is a fairly lighthearted rock single, in January 2010 a DJ who played it at an “inappropriate time” found himself in hot water. The song was requested by a driver stuck in traffic on the M60 motorway, and played by the DJ, who came under fire because the delay in traffic had been caused by police closing several lanes of the motorway while attempting to talk down a woman who was threatening to jump from a bridge. After nearly nine hours, she did indeed jump, shortly after the song was played. Amazingly she survived, albeit with serious leg injuries.