It was the decade that began with rock and roll evolving from a fringe cultural movement to a staple of the American mainstream as bands began to pen more songs for pop consumption than political idealism; think Journey playing in huge outdoor stadiums to a bunch of wasted kids out of Dazed and Confused.
The hippie movement had petered out, as all movements that are based on paper thin reasoning due, and arena rock partying took control. By the end of the decade, rock music had lost its revolutionary edge, exemplified by Mic Jagger deciding it was more important to be famous than authentic.
So a decade that started with such great potential for rock and roll had become a bloated corpse perpetuated by corporate radio stations and savvy concert promoters (see Frampton Comes Alive.). So with these circumstances it is natural that the 1970’s ended with the punk rock revolution hell bent on stripping away the pretense and egoism that had grown ever present in the music industry.
But the 1970’s, despite some large and glaring failures (see: Styx) produced some of the greatest rock music ever. Numerous bands created numerous albums that remain the template in which all other music is judged against. It was the decade that gave us the best of the Stones, Zeppelin, and the Who, it was also the decade the album reached its zenith in impact and importance. Unlike today’s LP’s that are produced with one big single packaged around demonstrably lesser songs- in quality, ideas, and creativity- the best albums of the 1970’s are compromised of great songs, because even ones that aren’t singles are classic.
Alas pop history has often forgotten some of these songs, mainly because classic rock radio stations have refused to deviate from playing the exact same playlists they were spinning 35 years ago; seriously does anybody else ever really want to hear “Stairway to Heaven” again? But the key difference between the average album today and best of yesteryear was that there was no filler on many of the epic cuts of the 1970’s.
But now in order to really find “deep” tracks or lost gems for some bands you have to become a collector, which the casual individual has neither time nor interest in doing. So the following is a list of the best b-sides- songs that are on an album and not designed to be a radio singles – from the 1970’s prepared with the support of my father’s record collection. (I throw the best lines from the songs in quotes in case anyone gets the urge to drop it in random conversation)
10. Fleetwood Mac “Second Hand News,” Rumours.
Wow. I know it is an odd pick after my introduction. But wait I have several reasons why this song deserves to be on this list and it starts and ends with Lindsay Buckingham. “Second Hand News” is part Paul Simon, part Elvis Costello (but imagine an excellent guitar player), part would work great in an independent movie montage and 100% completely unique compared to the rest of this bands catalog. When Sheryl Crow makes constant comments about the internal personal dynamics in the band during this time period; this song represents Buckingham’s “I am a dude ‘let me go down and due my stuff’ and leave me the fuck alone” mentality.
This album is also the best to emerge from the entire California pop scene on the late 1960’s and 1970’s. And nobody better say the Eagles are better because, like the Big Lebowski, “I fucking hate the Eagles.”
9. David Bowie “Be My Wife” Low
He had lost the edge, the creative juices weren’t flowing, Young Americans was tired and cheesy and he knew it. Was his career one that would always be remembered as more camp than rock and roll; a successful spectacle, but without the recognition as an artist with a capital “A”? So Bowie moves to Berlin, “I lived all over the world. I lived everyplace”, and teams up with young Brian Eno and produces a spacey yet frank and forward looking album. “Be My Wife”, a torn and somber love song about aging and fear, is the secret gem in the middle of the LP. The soaring ambient guitar solos and excellent piano playing recalls the better moments of OK Computer.
Bowie would go on to release one of his biggest singles, “Heroes”, the following year in Berlin. He would also produce Iggy Pop’s best album (more later) and Lou Reed’s Transformer while in the heart of the great European standoff of the 20th Century and the music produced in these stark and divided times in the worlds most stark and divided city, would survive as his best.
8. Dire Straits “Lady Writer” Communique
With a delivery that is as casually off-hand as the random street wisdom dropped daily throughout urban America, Mark Knopfler and Dire Straits brought Scotchish rock and roll to the forefront. Communique’s “Lady Writer” personifies the best qualities of the band; sharp and fast lyrics with a clean and tasteful guitar rhythm and the proper judgment not to indulge in long jam outs. This song is about reflection, responsibility, consequence, and “Another time, another place……”
7. Led Zeppelin “The Song Remains the Same” Houses of the Holy
They were properly the biggest band of the 1970’s, all things considered. With big albums, big rock shows, big planes, big guitar jams, and big personalities. Their motto was “Anything I wanted to know, any place I needed to go,” and Zep. was without a powerful force.
“The Song Remains the Same” opens up the album after the biggest rock album ever, not an easy task, but it delivers. “The Song Remains the Same,” a song that could have been on their first LP reminded everyone that Led Zeppelin without a doubt they would still deliver the heavy, even after becoming millionaires many times over.
This song has everything for anybody, even if one marginally loves this band, but hates the same 8 songs that are always played on commercials and the radio. And that is why it is properly the definition of a “b-side classic”.
6. Iggy Pop “Some Weird Sin” Lust for Life
Bowie was in Berlin and feeling prolific so he decides to produce and record a friend and drug partner, Iggy Pop. The genius in these sessions was Bowie’s ability to enhance Iggy’s natural energy while keeping the production value high and the instrument playing tight, something that had never happened with The Stooges.
“Lust for Life” and “Passenger” are probably Iggy’s two best songs, but “Some Weird Sin” is the highlight of the album and it’s all Bowie, who gets the music writing credit on the LP. “Some Weird Sin” is punch you in the face rock and roll from go. Bowie’s guitar playing is some of his finest and Iggy’s vocals are strained and dangerous. “When it gets like this I need… some weird sin.” Trust me you will find yourself saying this to yourself over and over again as you walk into a bar or get out of a particularly frustrating day of work, not necessarily in that order.
5. Bruce Springsteen “Night” Born to Run
“Night” is maybe the least popular song off Born to Run, but it sheds the most light on Springsteen’s early populist sentiment that would dominate his work through the late 70’s and come to its natural culmination with a jarring mix of Nebraska’s desperation and Born in the USA’s relentless optimism in the face of great challenges.
“Night” is about ambivalence toward the 9 to 5 and celebrating the potential to escape, the possibilities that the darkness and mystery of the night possesses. It is why you get in your car and leave “the rat traps filled with soul crusaders, the circuits lined with chromed invaders.”
4. The Clash “Lost in the Supermarket” London Calling
Punk rock was a breath of fresh air, the manifestation of a natural revulsion to mainstream rock and roll’s decadence, but none of the groups could really play until The Clash. London Calling was the moment when The Clash moved beyond their peers and became real artists.
By infusing jazz, standard rock, American folk, and reggae they broadened the scope of what punk rock could be; it isn’t just about anger it can also be about reflection. A mature philosophical outlook of punk shows that its mentality is essentially routed in hatred for the disconnecting emptiness of the modern world, which ultimately is more of a melancholy than a frustrating proposition. The Clash captured the essence of this mindset in “Lost in the Supermarket,” a song about eternal conflicts set in a vapid modern times; introspectively musing that “long distance callers make long distance calls and the silence makes me lonely,” as one walks around the sterile and contemporary supermarket surrounded by strangers living in their own isolated worlds.
3. The Who “The Real Me” Quadrophenia
It is the first real song on the Who’s greatest record, which is an epic two album story of a young “mod” Jimmy set in post World War II London. It is an adolescent tale about drugs and sex and rock and roll and consequence, but it was, also, the story of the quest for personal identity and escaping the limitations of genetics.
“The Real Me” comes after the sweeping and ambient opening and it is a rousing fast rhythm and blues banger. A young Jimmy is going through a personal crisis and believes he is losing his mind, a trait inherited from his mother. Everything in his young life is falling apart and the only thing he enjoys is the art of getting fucked up on pills and booze. He is wandering around the street early, drunk and sympathetic to his own plight contemplating love – “the girl I used to love lives in this yellow house, yesterday she passed me buy she doesn’t want to know me now!”- and loss.
But instead of keeping the song simple and banal, the Who continue to push it getting faster, angrier, and ending with a full horn section as Townsend attacks the guitar and Daltry emphatically yells “Can you see The Real Me! Preacher!”
2. The Rolling Stones “Sway” Sticky Fingers
I know it is hard to believe, but there was once a time when The Rolling Stones were “The Stones” and they were the most dangerous and rebellious bad boy artists in town. The self-proclaimed “greatest rock and roll band in the world” used to deliver more than costume changes and over priced seats on tours funded by investment banks. Sticky Fingers is one of their landmark LP’s, a piece of rock and roll iconography that includes everything from “Brown Sugar” to “Wild Horses” and that is just the 1st side.
“Sway” is a straight up rock and blues song about the uglier side of the human condition; the side of alienation, dependence and wasted promise. Keith Richards’ guitar playing is aggressive and driving, while Jagger was still intent on fronting a rock band and not concerned with fashion statements, disco, cocaine, and David Bowie. The chorus summarizes the bold ethos that we were not interested in being apologetic for our sins because “it’s just that demon life has got me in its sway.”
1. Neil Young “A Man Needs a Maid” Harvest
Harvest was the top selling album of 1972 -that should tell you a lot about the mindset of Nixonian America. I also believe that it marks a high water mark for rock and roll cultural cross-over. Of all the singer song writers who became famous during this time period- James Taylor, Cat Stevens, Paul Simon- nobody was as talented, as deep or as heartbreakingly honest as Neil Young.
Neil Young would often say that his album had put him in the middle of the road and then he decided to drive himself of into the ditch- referring to his decision to forgo making standard radio friendly songs and relying on jamming with Crazy Horse for the rest of the 1970’s. But Harvest is his masterpiece pop record, one that appeals to anybody who enjoys melody. Harvest is also an Americana album by a Canadian; an album which hints at the best spirit of folk mixed with a detached and humbling sorrow all backed up by beauty.
If ever a song had the feeling of a time of year it would be “A Man Needs a Maid”. It is for one of those reflective days, when the air changes and the leaves turn during their annual production before death.
“A Man Needs a Maid” represents Young at his reflective and vulnerable peak, hanging out in Nashville trying to sing songs people could sign along to, but keeping the content honest. It was right before he drowned out his lyrics with guitars and feedback. But what is best about this song is that it strikes at the basic chords of humanity and our implicit anxieties about love, loss, companionship, sympathy, and regret.
I have included the lyrics below:
“A Man Needs A Maid”
My life is changing
in so many ways
I don’t know who
to trust anymore
There’s a shadow running
thru my days
Like a beggar going
from door to door.
I was thinking that
maybe I’d get a maid
Find a place nearby
for her to stay.
Just someone
to keep my house clean,
Fix my meals and go away.
A maid. A man needs a maid.
A maid.
It’s hard to make that change
When life and love
turns strange.
And old.
To give a love,
you gotta live a love.
To live a love,
you gotta be “part of”
When will I see you again?
A while ago somewhere
I don’t know when
I was watching
a movie with a friend.
I fell in love with the actress.
She was playing a part
that I could understand.
A maid. A man needs a maid.
A maid.
When will I see you again?
Please leave other B-sides suggestions in the comments section.
3 Comments
September 17, 2008 at 3:21 pm
i didnt even read this yet but it is epic
September 17, 2008 at 3:34 pm
ok I read it, and I would like us to start a petition for neil young to change the name of the song to “a man needs a bang-maid” and yes, i have been watching a lot of always sunny season 3 on dvd. ok back to writing peoples divorces and not anything for this website. hollaaa
September 17, 2008 at 6:00 pm
hahaahaha, bang maid is a genius “always sunny” episode