Category: Time To Play B-Sides

Over the last decade of listening to AT40s from the 70s, I’ve learned (or re-learned) how a few hit songs originally started off as the B-side of a single release. In 1971, Rod Stewart’s “Maggie May” quickly overtook “Reason to Believe” on radio stations; nearly eight years later, it was NYC discos that helped launch “I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor over original A-side “Substitute.” In between those hits, there was Carl Douglas, whose story has one striking similarity to that of Gaynor’s–both supposedly had little time to record a second tune to go with the putative A-side. That time, though, it was a record exec who did the flipping, as once he heard “Kung Fu Fighting,” he pronounced it would be the featured song. (The links are to Wikipedia articles–they align, at least in broad strokes, with what I think I remember Casey saying about all three.)

“Black Water” took a more circuitous route from one-time B-side to hit for the Doobie Brothers. It originally appeared on the flip of “Another Park, Another Sunday,” the first single from What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits. “Another Park” peaked at #32 in June of 1974 and quickly disappeared from the chart. (Like the recently-mentioned “Chattanooga Choo Choo,” it spent only two weeks in the Top 40. Must get on that research…) Three months later, a station in Virginia began spinning “Black Water,” and the suits at Warner Bros. quickly realized they might have something hot; a different song from Vices was used as its B.

I got to thinking about these letter changes after hearing “Hot Love, Cold World” by Bob Welch on the recently rebroadcast 7/15/78 show, because it had also started life as a B-side. My sister had bought the 45 for “Sentimental Lady” in the waning months of 1977, a period when I was still actively flipping our singles over on my semi-portable turntable. “Hot Love, Cold World” was one of the standouts, meriting repeated play. I am unable to find any details now as to how this jam graduated to A-side status, but I wouldn’t be surprised if play on AOR stations gave someone at Capitol an idea. Unlike the four songs discussed above, “HL,CW” didn’t shoot to #1, topping out only at #31 in a three-week run on the show.

The lyric that’s stuck with me most comes right at the end of the first verse: “We both can’t be wrong–I must be right.” You should have taken a logic class, Bob!

I’d be glad to learn about other 70s hits that went the B-to-A route–comments are always welcome.

For a big chunk of the second half of the 70s, you could count me among those enraptured by singles from ABBA. It began with “SOS” in the fall of 1975 (I don’t have specific recollections of hearing “Waterloo” on the radio a year earlier, though it may have gotten play in Cincinnati); the piano introduction, the melody, and the harmonies in the chorus are all fantastic, but it might be the part starting with “When you’re gone/How can I even try to go on?” that most charmed 11-year-old me. It’s still among my very favorites of theirs.

While follow-up “I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do” was fine enough, the next four singles, charting in the U.S. between June 1976 and August 1977–“Mamma Mia,” “Fernando,” “Dancing Queen,” and “Knowing Me, Knowing You”–all completely blew me away. My sister bought Arrival, which allowed me to discover the magnificent “My Love, My Life.” “The Name of the Game” was another huge winner in early 1978, while “Take a Chance on Me” was maybe a notch below. By the time Voulez-Vous was released in the middle of 1979, my ardor for ABBA’s craft was beginning to cool, and truth be told, maybe the middle-teen I was began to think he was too cool for them (I don’t believe I was the only one, either). Their last two U.S. Top 40 hits, “The Winner Takes It All” and “When All Is Said and Done,” don’t do much for me now.

I didn’t leave ABBA completely behind, though. I had college friends who had never wavered as fans, and I learned from them about lesser singles or album cuts (“Angeleyes,” “Eagle”) they greatly enjoyed. Somewhere in the mid-80s I picked up a drill-hole copy of the cassette I Love ABBA, which I listened to occasionally in the car between Illinois and Kentucky during the grad school years (seemingly always while driving the I-465 beltway around Indianapolis). Probably purchased it for “My Love, My Life,” but I remember it most now for introducing me to the infernal “Slipping Through My Fingers.” More recently, I was more than happy to purchase the 2-CD ABBA Forever Gold when I was assembling my Ten Years of AT40 Songs collection about a decade ago. Like many others, I’ve come to embrace my ABBA fandom of the 70s; I’ve got a CD copy of Voyage on my Christmas wish list.

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The three ABBA 45s I bought way back when were “Fernando,” “Dancing Queen,” and “The Name of the Game.” I’m pretty sure that “Dancing Queen” came first, with “Fernando” getting picked up several months after it had charted. 1977 was the year I did most of my checking out of flip sides, and both of these had memorable songs on the back. For “Fernando,” it was “Rock Me,” from ABBA. Björn sings a rough, almost lascivious lead; the tune has the feel of a cabaret number. It wasn’t the ABBA I was used to, but I liked it anyway.

“That’s Me,” the other side of “Dancing Queen,” remains one of the great discoveries I made flipping my 45s over. I’ve wondered over the years what makes our narrator “not the kind of girl you’d marry”–a closer read of the lyrics makes me wonder if Carrie isn’t really meaning that he’s not the kind of guy she’d marry?

Maybe it’s just me, but I would have chosen “That’s Me” as third single from Arrival over “Money, Money, Money.”

Even if it was just a year later, I was already investigating B-sides much less often by the time “The Name of the Game” got added to my burgeoning collection of 7″ vinyl. Thus it wasn’t until I Love ABBA that I regularly listened to “I Wonder (Departure).” While this one is not nearly as much my style, in looking through the comments on the video embedded below I was struck time and again how the song has spoke to people across the years as they embarked on new adventures. “But who the hell am I if I don’t even try?” I see the appeal, and understand the sentiment.

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It’s been fun watching, reading, and listening as ABBA has returned to style over the last 25+ years. I rented Muriel’s Wedding from Blockbuster in the 90s, saw Mamma Mia! when it was the high school musical during my son’s senior year. I can’t foresee ever checking out the upcoming hologram show in London, but the memories and CDs will suffice–they can do magic, after all.

I’ve mentioned before that a few of my father’s 45s migrated over to my collection in the 76-78 period, soon after I started buying my own. The reasons for which ones got picked are certainly lost to me now, but they included “Come and Get It,” “Spirit in the Sky,” and “Surfin’ U.S.A.” (with its awesome orange-and-yellow Capitol label).

The flip to that Beach Boys single is “Shut Down,” a not-quite-complete story about a drag race between a “fuel-injected Stingray” (a Corvette) and a “413” (a Dodge Dart, according to Wikipedia—the # refers to the size of the engine, in cubic inches). While it’s plenty slight and the lyrics are full of inside references to cars and racing, it’s also a darn catchy little number, one I played and sang along to on my little turntable many a time. I was pleased and a little surprised to hear it as part of “The Beach Boys Medley” that made it to #12 around this time of year in 81. It took a long time for me to realize I’d been holding a double-sided hit in my hands (“Shut Down” reached #23 on the 6/22/63 Hot 100).

There probably isn’t another 45 from the 60s whose two sides I know better than this one (though I’m not finding it amongst my stacks of singles at the moment). I’ll be saying more about the song on the A side in a couple of days.

The song ends before the race is over; the Dodge is ahead but the Stingray is gaining. I know very little about cars in general, much less those of the early 60s, but the commenters in the video below are pretty much exclusively saying the Dodge would win.

My mention of “Burnin’ for You” in Sunday’s post reminded me that several weeks ago I’d picked out one of its lines for the title of my occasional series on flip sides from the late 70s that I came to enjoy.  Today, it’s the B to Boston’s “Long Time” in the spotlight.

During the long, cold winter of 77 I’d gained familiarity with and admiration for “Smokin’” after I had purchased “More Than a Feeling” in late 76. Thus, there was no hesitation in giving “Let Me Take You Home Tonight” a listen after ponying up the cash for “Long Time.”  I wasn’t disappointed (and in knowing what I know about Boston now, how could I have been?).

Sometime that spring the junior high students at Walton-Verona were given the opportunity to hold a dance in the “old gym” (a newer facility having been built about four years earlier–I wonder how many years passed before they stopped calling where basketball games were now being played the “new gym”). It was to be DJ-ed in-house, so you can well imagine who might have been anxious to sign up for a shift. That evening, I lugged a number of my 45s over to the stage of the old gym, primed to give my classmates a chance to boogie down.

I managed to be hovering around the stereo at the end of the festivities–I guess I’d drawn the last shift? Wanna take a guess as to the final song of the night?  I’m certain that, as a 13-year-old, I wasn’t thinking through (or likely even fully aware of) the meaning of the lyrics.