Before I started this blog, I posted about songs from old AT40s on Facebook, January-July 2017. I’ll be moving them here over time. This entry has been edited slightly from the original.
There are quite a few disks from 95 that I still enjoy to this day: chief among them are Relish by Joan Osborne, 100% Fun by Matthew Sweet, self-titled debuts from Elastica and Ben Folds Five, and the jumping-off point for this note, Tomorrow the Green Grass by the Jayhawks. Released on Valentine’s Day, TtGG found its way into my hands sometime that spring after hearing/seeing “Blue” on VH-1. I had met my wife-to-be a few months earlier, and I think my first listens came in Martha’s apartment; it was fantastic from first track to last. One of the most enjoyable concerts I’ve ever seen was the Wilco/Jayhawks show I caught at the Kentucky Theater that summer.
Track 7 is “Bad Time,” a cover of Grand Funk’s last Top 40 hit, which reached #4 (#6 here). I’ve been quite familiar with GF’s big hits “We’re an American Band,” “The Loco-Motion,” and “Some Kind of Wonderful” since I was 10 or 11, but “Bad Time” didn’t ring the slightest bell as I listened to the Jayhawks over and over that spring and summer. I’ve since gotten to know the original, but probably still prefer the cover. What I can say for sure is that, contra Mark Farner, GF’s leader and the songwriter here, when I first encountered this song I must have picked a good, great, fantastic time to be in love.
The Music of My Life 
Meanwhile, my favorite GFR track (although a staple of classic rawk radio) is “I’m Your Captain/Closer to Home.” ALways makes me think of feeding quarters into video games at the Erlanger Super Bowl.
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Before you moved to NKY, it was known as the Roll ‘n’ Bowl–they had a skating rink on one of the levels. I bowled quite a bit the last couple of years in high school, as often in Florence as Erlanger.
Trying to remember where I gamed while in HS. Probably a variety of places in Florence, Walton, and Crittenden.
I like “Closer to Home” well enough; I’d probably pick “Loco-Motion” as my favorite–guess it’s a spring of 74 thing.
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