Randy Bachman started writing this song when he was waiting in the living room at the house of his date, Lorayne Stevenson. She was taking a long time getting ready so Bachman sat at the piano and wrote the beginning of this song. Lorayne – the girl he was waiting for – he later married (they were married for about 10 years and had six children together).

Bachman claims the song took him just 15 minutes to write once he sat down with his bandmate Burton Cummings to put it together. Cummings, a trained Royal Conservatory Of Music pianist, later complimented Randy for devising riffs that were technically wrong but sonically right for the emerging song. With an original title of “These Arms”, Burton Cummings changed the title to “These Eyes” and added the middle eight.

When they weren’t touring, Randy Bachman and Burton Cummings would meet for songwriting sessions on Saturday mornings, and it was at one of these sessions that they completed the song. The band was still struggling at the time, and Cummings was still living with his mother, where these songwriting sessions took place. It turned out to be an enlivening songwriting environment, as the pair composed many of their early songs at Cummings’ mother’s piano.

The Guess Who is one of several bands that had members come and go over the years. The band using that name has had multiple artists, but most notably Burton Cummings and Randy Bachman (who went on to form Bachman–Turner Overdrive).

The Guess Who formed in Winnipeg in 1965. Initially gaining recognition in Canada, the group found international success from the late 1960s through the mid-1970s with many hit singles, including “No Time”, “American Woman”, “Laughing”, “These Eyes”, “Undun” and “Share the Land”. A band using the name has continued to perform and record to the present day.

They started out as a local Winnipeg band formed by singer/guitarist Chad Allan (real name: Allan Kowbel) in 1958 and initially called Allan and the Silvertones. This was changed to Chad Allan and the Reflections in 1962, by which point the band consisted of five Winnipeg-born musicians: Chad Allan (lead vocals/guitar), Bob Ashley (keyboards), Randy Bachman (guitars, backing vocals), Jim Kale (bass, backing vocals), and Garry Peterson (drums, backing vocals). In 1965, the group changed their name to Chad Allan & the Expressions, and later changed to Guess Who? in an attempt to build a mystique. After Quality Records revealed the band to be Chad Allan & The Expressions, disc jockeys continued to announce the group as Guess Who?, effectively forcing the band to accept the new name. The question mark would finally be dropped in 1968.

Burton Cummings (from the Winnipeg group The Deverons) joined the band as keyboardist in early January 1966 and shared lead vocal work with Chad Allan. Chad Allan left in May 1966 to enroll in college, leaving Burton Cummings the full-time lead singer.

Differences between Bachman and Cummings (mainly due to Bachman’s conversion to Mormonism) led Bachman to leave the group after playing a final show at the Fillmore East in New York City on May 16, 1970. Recent studio recordings (eventually released in 1976 as The Way They Were) were sidelined. Bachman returned to Winnipeg and in 1971 formed Brave Belt which evolved into Bachman-Turner Overdrive.

Burton Cummings performing a live version:

Hits: 55

The Everly Brothers were a country-influenced duo, known for steel-string acoustic guitar playing and close harmony singing. They were professionals way before their teens, schooled by their accomplished guitarist father Isaac Milford “Ike” Everly, Jr, and singing with their family on radio broadcasts in Iowa.  Ike Everly had a show on KMA and KFNF in Shenandoah in the mid-1940s, first with his wife and then with their sons. The brothers sang on the radio as “Little Donnie and Baby Boy Phil.” In the mid-’50s, they made a brief stab at conventional Nashville country.

The brothers toured with Buddy Holly in 1957 and 1958. According to Holly’s biographer Philip Norman, they were responsible for persuading Holly and the Crickets to change their outfits from Levi’s and T-shirts to the Everlys’ Ivy League suits. Don said Holly wrote and composed “Wishing” for them. “We were all from the South,” Phil observed of their commonalities. “We’d started in country music.”

In 1966 they recorded an album with the Hollies (who were probably more blatantly influenced by the Everlys than any other British band of the time). The album, “Two Yanks in England“, is  by The Everly Brothers while the backing band on most of the recordings is actually The Hollies, and eight of the twelve songs featured are credited to L. Ransford, the songwriting pseudonym of The Hollies’ Allan Clarke, Tony Hicks and Graham Nash. Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones are also purported to play on the record as session musicians. Also, in a recent interview with Nash on David Dye’s World Cafe, it is claimed Reggie Dwight (a.k.a. Elton John) played on the album.

In the late ’60s, they helped pioneer country-rock with the 1968 album Roots, their most sophisticated and unified full-length statement.

The decades of enforced professional togetherness finally took their toll on the pair in the early ’70s, which saw a few dispirited albums and, finally, an acrimonious breakup in 1973. They spent the next decade performing solo, which only proved — as is so often the case in close-knit artistic partnerships — how much each brother needed the other to sound his best. In 1983, enough water had flowed under the bridge for the two to resume performing and recording together. The tours, with a backup band led by guitarist Albert Lee, proved they could still sing well. The records (both live and studio) were fair efforts that, in the final estimation, were not in nearly the same league as their ’50s and ’60s classics.

Don Everly admitted that he had lived “a very difficult life” with his brother and that he and Phil had become estranged once again in later years, something which was mainly attributed to “their vastly different views on politics and life,” with the music being the one thing they shared closely, saying, “it’s almost like we could read each other’s minds when we sang.”

On January 3, 2014, Phil Everly died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Chet Atkins, a friend of their father Ike, played guitar on this. Atkins, who died of cancer in 2001, was a world-famous musician who created a distinctive sound using a 3-fingered picking technique.

Some Boston radio stations banned this song because of the lyrics, which imply that the young couple spent the night together. At the time, staying out late with a girl was a little controversial.

The song was ranked at #318 on the Rolling Stone magazine’s list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

This was written by the husband and wife team of Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, who wrote most of The Everly Brothers songs in the ’50s. This was a labor of love for the songwriting duo.

“We persevered with ‘Wake Up Little Susie’ for many hours,” Boudleaux recalled to Country Music People. “I started writing one night, kept trying to get my ideas down, but it just wouldn’t happen. Finally I woke Felice, who took one listen to what I had so far achieved and came up with the final touches that I couldn’t get.

“The Everlys liked the song, but like me had problems with getting it right in the studio. They worked a whole three-hour session on that one song and had to give up, they just couldn’t get it right. We all trooped back to the studio the next day and got it down first take. That’s the way it happens sometimes.”

The story of the Bryants began at an elevator in Milwaukee’s Schroeder Hotel. It was the spring of 1945 and the elevator operator was 19-year-old Matilda Genevieve Scaduto. While working, she struck up a conversation with a visiting musician from Georgia named Boudleaux Bryant. After five days, Boudleaux and Matilda ran off together.

For the next 30 years, as the husband and wife team of Boudleaux and Felice Bryant, they went on to become one of the most successful songwriting teams ever. They produced hits for Tony Bennett, Eddy Arnold, Ruth Brown, Roy Orbison, Carl Smith, Charley Pride, Buddy Holly, Jim Reeves, Leo Sayer, Christy Lane, Joe Stampley and Moe Bandy and -- most memorably -- the Everly Brothers. They wrote “Let’s Think About Lovin'” for Bob Luman, and Boudleaux co-wrote “My Last Date” with Skeeter Davis. Boudleaux had an instrumental hit called “Mexico.” There was “Rocky Top” for Buck Owens, “Raining In My Heart” for Buddy Holly and “Love Hurts” for Roy Orbison.

They wrote the songs “Bye Bye Love”,  “All I Have To Do Is Dream,” “Problems,” “Bird Dog,” “Poor Jenny” and “Like Strangers”  for the Everlys as well.

Altogether it’s estimated that the songs of Boudleaux and Felice Bryant have sold 300 million records. The couple has been inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, the National Songwriter’s Hall of Fame and the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.

The Everly Brothers had 35 Billboard Top-100 singles, 26 in the top 40 and hold the record for the most Top-100 singles by any duo. In 1986, the Everly Brothers were among the first 10 artists inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. They were introduced by Neil Young, who observed that every musical group he had ever belonged to had tried, and failed, to copy the Everly Brothers’ harmonies. The brothers were inducted into the Iowa Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame in 2003. In 1997, they were awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2001 and the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2004.

Ed Note: The Grateful Dead did a version of this song, as well.

Hits: 31

“Happy Together” is a 1967 song from the Turtles’ album of the same name.  Despite what the title implies, this is not a song about a couple in love. According to Gary Bonner, who wrote the song with Alan Gordon, the song is about unrequited love. Our desperate singer wants the girl to “Imagine how the world could be so very fine,” proposing what would happen “If I should call you up.” The line in the fadeout, “How is the weather?” is when he realizes they will never be more than passing acquaintances, and he resorts to small talk to keep from bursting into tears.

The Turtles were formed by Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan in 1965 in Westchester, Los Angeles, originally a surf-rock group called the Crossfires. Adhering to the prevailing musical trend, they rebranded themselves as a folk rock group under the name The Tyrtles. Volman and Kaylan were saxophone players who did whatever was trendy in order to make a living as musicians. They played surf-rock, acoustic folk, whatever was big at the time, and in addition to their own bands, played backup for The Coasters, Sonny And Cher, and The Righteous Brothers. After a while, they gave up sax and became singers, signing a deal with White Whale Records as The Crosswind Singers, which included Al Nichol, Chuck Portz, Don Murray, and Jim Tucker.

When British groups like The Beatles took over America, they tried to pass themselves off as British singers and renamed themselves The Tyrtles. The record company made them change the name to The Turtles, and tried to make them sound like The Byrds, who were leaders of the folk-rock trend. Like The Byrds had done before, The Turtles recorded a Bob Dylan song for their first single – “It Ain’t Be Babe.” They had a few more minor hits, and recorded the original version of “Eve Of Destruction,” which became a #1 hit for Barry McGuire.

They recorded some gloomy songs that completely flopped, so they decided to try some happier songs. After many other artists passed on “Happy Together,” The Turtles decided to record it in an effort to change their image once again. The song had been rejected a dozen times before it was offered to the Turtles, and the demo acetate was worn out.

The song’s composers Gary (sometimes spelled Garry) Bonner and Alan Gordon were the bass player and drummer of the Boston area group The Magicians. Gordon, who died in 2008 at the age of 64, had songs recorded by Alice Cooper, Frank Zappa and The Lovin’ Spoonful. Bonner and Gordon also wrote other Turtles hits like “She’d Rather Be With Me” as well as “Celebrate” by Three Dog Night.

Talking about how the song came together, Alan Gordon said:

“I had nearly half a song already written, mostly lyric ideas, but couldn’t find the right melodic concept. The Magicians were in the middle of a week-long engagement at the Unicorn Club in Boston, and one early morning I was visiting my divorced father in nearby Ayer, Massachusetts after being up all night. I had stopped to have breakfast at the Park Street Diner in the town and was miserable with no sleep, the endless dumb gigs we were playing and having a songwriter’s block. About the only melody that was throbbing in my tired, fried brain at that hour was the time-immemorial repeated open string pattern that Allen (Jake) Jacobs, the Magician’s lead guitarist, would use as he incessantly tuned and retuned after, before, and frequently during each piece we played. Suddenly, some words began to fit and literally minutes later music and lyrics started to take shape. I excitedly and in fairness asked Jake to complete the song with me as co-writer, but he refused, saying it was all ‘too simple’ for him to be involved, so my regular partner Gary then helped me with the finishing touches. When Gary Klein at the Koppleman/Rubin office heard the result, he immediately knew the song would be perfect for the new and upbeat image being created for The Turtles, and it was his continued enthusiasm that convinced the group to record it.”

After the song was turned down by a number of groups, Bonner and Gordon recorded a demo at Regent Sound Studio with some session musicians, including guitarist Ralph Casale and bassist Dick Romoff. It was Casale who came up with the main figure which set the groove for the song:

“A chord sheet was placed in front of the musicians and we immediately proceeded to put this song together. I came up with what I considered and called a Lovin’ Spoonful feel. I created the figure and all the other musicians including Bonner and Gordon immediately understood the direction. The vocal arrangements fell into place very nicely. Regent Sound was an excellent studio so the demo sounded like a finished product. I later told everybody, ‘I just heard a hit record.’ As Aunt Flo put it, the original demo was phenomenal. In fact the Turtles’ recording sounds as though they used the basic demo track and overdubbed horns. The Bonner/Gordon vocal arrangement sounded a lot like the hit record also.”

Released as a single in February 1967 by The Turtles, the song knocked The Beatles’ “Penny Lane” out of the number one slot for three weeks on the Billboard Hot 100.

In the three years after The Turtles recorded this, they had several other hits, but disbanded in 1970. Volman and Kaylan joined Frank Zappa And The Mothers Of Invention as “Phlorescent Leech and Eddie.” After a few years with Zappa, they started recording as Flo And Eddie. They wrote music for the animated movies Dirty Duck, Strawberry Shortcake and The Care Bears, and hosted their own nationally syndicated radio show. They also played on many famous songs by John Lennon, Roger McGuinn, Hoyt Axton, Alice Cooper, Blondie, Bruce Springsteen, The Psychedelic Furs, Sammy Hagar, Duran Duran, and The Ramones. In 1984, they went on their “Happy Together Tour” as The Turtles Featuring Flo And Eddie.

Ed Note: I actually thought this was a Beatles song! Oops!

Hits: 77

The Yardbirds formed in London in 1963. The band’s core lineup featured vocalist and harmonica player Keith Relf, drummer Jim McCarty, rhythm guitarist/bassist Chris Dreja and bassist/producer Paul Samwell-Smith. The band is known for starting the careers of three of rock’s most famous guitarists, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck.

Original lead guitarist Anthony “Top” Topham had left the group and was replaced by Eric Clapton in October 1963, who played on this record.

Shortly after its release by Columbia, it became a hit in the UK. When it was released a month later by Epic Records in the US, it became the group’s first charting single.

The song was a departure from the group’s blues roots in favour of a commercial pop rock sound. Guitarist Eric Clapton disapproved of the change and it influenced him to leave the group. Frustrated by the commercial approach, Clapton abruptly left the band on 25 March 1965, the day the single was released in the US. Soon Clapton joined John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, but not before he recommended Jimmy Page, a prominent young session guitarist, to replace him.

Jimmy Page had already turned down the Yardbirds … twice. The first time was in 1964, when Yardbirds manager Giorgio Gomelsky had asked Page to temporarily replace guitarist Eric Clapton because he was going on holiday. Page, who was friends with Clapton, refused out of loyalty to his friend, who was not looking to leave the band yet.

The second occasion came in 1965, when Clapton did want to leave the band to pursue more pure blues music. At that point, Page was enjoying his work as a studio musician too much to join the Yardbirds. He also had concerns about the British blues-rockers’ rigorous touring schedule, which he thought might affect his health. So instead he suggested another friend, Jeff Beck, to fill Clapton’s shoes.

One more year meant one more change in the Yardbirds’ lineup. This time, it was bass player Paul Samwell-Smith, who was done with touring (and with singer Keith Relf’s antics). Page, who often attended Yarbirds shows because of his friendship with Beck, was backstage at a gig in Oxford when Samwell-Smith declared his immediate intentions to leave the band.

“Jeff had brought me to the gig in his car, and on the way back I told him I’d sit in for a few months until they got things sorted out,” Page explained to Trouser Press in a 1977 interview. “Beck had often said to me, ‘It would be really great if you could join the band.’ But I just didn’t think it was a possibility in any way. In addition, since I’d turned the offer down a couple of times already, I didn’t know how the rest of them would feel about me joining.”

Seeing as they were stuck, the Yardbirds didn’t seem to have a problem with Page coming aboard. For his part, Page was (finally) excited to join the band. He had grown tired of playing as a studio guy, especially when he had to contribute to muzak recordings. “[Yardbirds Drummer] Jim McCarty says I was so desperate to get out of the studio that I’d have played drums,” Page later told Rolling Stone.

Instead, for the short term, Page would play bass. On June 21, 1966, at London’s Marquee Club, the Yardbirds took the stage for the first time with Page as a member. After that, rhythm guitarist Chris Dreja learned the bass guitar and Page played second guitar to his buddy Beck.

Sadly, the Page-Beck lineup was short-lived, with only a few recordings featuring their twin guitar style (including “Stroll On” and the psychedelic “Happening Ten Years Time Ago”). Beck was booted from the band later in 1966. Page remained the band’s lead guitarist until the Yardbirds took on new members and morphed into Led Zeppelin a couple of years later.

Here’s Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page with the Yardbirds in the movie “Blow Up” doing an alternate version of “Train Kept A’Rolling” they called “Stroll On”.

And a studio version:

As for “For Your Love”, Graham Gouldman wrote the song at the age of 19 while working by day in a gentlemen’s outfitters near Salford Docks and playing by night with the semi-professional Manchester band The Mockingbirds. He played in a number of Manchester bands from 1963, including the High Spots, the Crevattes, the Planets and the Whirlwinds. He was also a songwriter and wrote a string of hit songs, many of them million sellers. Between 1965 and 1967 alone he wrote “For Your Love”, “Heart Full of Soul” and “Evil Hearted You” for the Yardbirds, “Look Through Any Window” (with Charles Silverman) and “Bus Stop” for the Hollies, “Listen People”, “No Milk Today” and “East West” for Herman’s Hermits, “Pamela, Pamela” for Wayne Fontana, “Behind the Door” for St. Louis Union (covered by Cher), “Tallyman” for Jeff Beck and “Going Home”, which was a 1967 Australian hit for Normie Rowe (not the song “I’m Going Home”,  a blues classic later recorded by Alvin Lee and Ten Years After, among many others).

He explained: “I was sleeping most of the time because I’d been gigging with the Mockingbirds the night before, and then during the day when I’d got any spare time I’d write in the shop. I used to shut up the shop at lunch time and sit in the back writing.”

Gouldman cited the Beatles as his influence, “We went down to Denmark Street and went round all the publishers trying to find a song … we didn’t get any songs that we liked or we weren’t given any songs period and the Beatles had started and I thought ‘well, I’m gonna really have a crack at song-writing.’ I had dabbled a bit, but they were really my inspiration and gave me and I think a lot of other people the courage to actually do it. We all wanted to be like the Beatles. I wrote two songs and the record company we were with turned down one of the songs. The song they turned down was ‘For Your Love’, which eventually found its way to the Yardbirds.”

Gouldman’s manager, Harvey Lisberg, was so impressed by the song he told Gouldman they should offer it to the Beatles. “I said, ‘I think they’re doing alright in the songwriting department, actually”, Gouldman recalled. Undeterred, Lisberg gave a demo of the song to publisher Ronnie Beck of Feldman’s, who took it to the Hammersmith Odeon, where the Beatles were performing. By coincidence the Yardbirds were also performing on a Christmas show at the venue and Jeff Beck played the song to their manager, Giorgio Gomelsky, and the band.

In 1965, the Mockingbirds began a regular warm-up spot for BBC TV’s Top of the Pops, transmitted from Manchester. Gouldman recalled:

“There was one strange moment when the Yardbirds appeared on the show doing ‘For Your Love’. Everyone clamoured around them – and there I was just part of an anonymous group. I felt strange that night, hearing them play my song.”

The Yardbirds recorded “For Your Love” at the IBC Studios in London on 1 February 1965. The majority of the song was recorded with singer Keith Relf and drummer Jim McCarty backed by session musician Ron Prentice on bowed bass, Denny Piercy on bongos, and organist Brian Auger on harpsichord. Guitarists Eric Clapton and Chris Dreja only perform during the song’s double-time middle break section. Bassist Paul Samwell-Smith assumed the production duties and is listed as musical director on the 45. At the conclusion of the session, Auger wondered, “Who, in their right mind, is going to buy a pop single with harpsichord on it?”

Hits: 56

The Searchers emerged as part of the 1960s Merseybeat scene along with the Beatles, the Hollies, the Fourmost, the Merseybeats, the Swinging Blue Jeans, and Gerry and the Pacemakers. Founded as a skiffle group in Liverpool in 1959 by John McNally and Mike Pender, the band took their name from the classic 1956 John Ford western The Searchers. With  Tony Jackson (with his home-made bass guitar and amplifier) recruited as a lead singer, but took a back seat at first in order to learn the bass. Norman McGarry played drums, and these four are usually cited as the original foursome.

Over the years, this band name was used by many members who came and went while being mostly recognised in the UK with hits such as Needles and Pins, What Have They Done To The Rain, and Sugar and Spice.

The song (written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller) describes a man seeking help to find love, so he talks to a Gypsy who determines, by means of palmistry, that he needs “love potion number 9”. The potion, an aphrodisiac, causes him to fall in love with everything he sees, kissing whatever is in front of him, eventually kissing a policeman on the street-corner, who breaks his bottle of love potion.

Love Potion No. 9 was originally recorded by an American rhythm and blues/doo-wop vocal group, The Clovers, who became one of the biggest selling acts of the 1950s. In one recorded version of the ending of the song, The Clovers used the alternative lyrics:

“I had so much fun that I’m going back again,
I wonder what’ll happen with Love Potion Number Ten?”

The “kissing a cop” lyric led to the song being banned by some radio stations. The lyrics also have the narrator describe himself as being “a flop with chicks since 1956”; later recordings of the song have often changed the year to suit the year of recording or the age of the performer.

Hits: 91

“Lola” is a song written by Ray Davies and ranked number 422 on “Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time” as well as number 473 on the “NME’s 500 Greatest Songs Of All Time” list.

Ray Davies has claimed that he was inspired to write “Lola” after Kinks manager Robert Wace spent a night in Paris dancing with a transgender woman. Davies said of the incident, “In his apartment, Robert had been dancing with this black woman, and he said, ‘I’m really onto a thing here.’ And it was okay until we left at six in the morning and then I said, ‘Have you seen the stubble?’ He said ‘Yeah’, but he was too pissed [intoxicated] to care, I think”.

Drummer Mick Avory has offered an alternate explanation for the song’s lyrics, claiming that “Lola” was partially inspired by Avory’s frequenting of trans bars in west London. Avory said, “We used to know this character called Michael McGrath. He used to hound the group a bit, because being called The Kinks did attract these sorts of people. He used to come down to Top of the Pops, and he was publicist for John Stephen’s shop in Carnaby Street. He used to have this place in Earl’s Court, and he used to invite me to all these drag queen acts and transsexual pubs. They were like secret clubs. And that’s where Ray [Davies] got the idea for ‘Lola’. When he was invited too, he wrote it while I was getting drunk”.

Despite claims that the song was written about a supposed date between Ray Davies and Candy Darling, Davies has since claimed this rumour to be false, saying that the two only went out to dinner together and that he had known the whole time of Darling’s gender identity.

In his autobiography, Dave Davies said that he came up with the music for what would become “Lola”, noting that brother Ray added the lyrics after hearing it. In a 1990 interview, Dave Davies stated that “Lola” was written in a similar fashion to “You Really Got Me” in that the two worked on Ray’s basic skeleton of the song, saying that the song was more of a collaborative effort than many believed.

Initial recordings of the song began in April 1970, but, as the band’s bassist John Dalton remembered, recording for “Lola” took particularly long, stretching into the next month. During April, four to five versions were attempted, utilizing different keys as well as varying beginnings and styles.

In May, new piano parts were added to the backing track by John Gosling, the band’s new piano player that had just been auditioned. Vocals were also added at this time. The song was then mixed during that month. Mick Avory remembered the recording sessions for the song positively, saying that it “was fun, as it was the Baptist’s [John Gosling’s] first recording with us”.

The guitar opening on the song was produced as a result of combining the sound of a Martin guitar and a vintage Dobro resonating guitar. Ray Davies cited this blend of guitar sounds for the song’s unique guitar sound.

Hits: 61

In an interview, SRV said it was “A Prayer” and on an Austin City Limits performance, Stevie introduced this by saying it was “This one goes out for all the people still suffering out there tonight”.

ACL live version:

Done in one magic take, the recording session was the stuff of legends.

“Stevie told me he had an instrumental he wanted to try, and I said that I only had nine minutes of tape left,” producer Jim Gaines recalls. “He said, ‘Don’t worry, it’s only four minutes long.’

We dimmed the lights and the band started playing this gorgeous song, which went on to six minutes, seven minutes, seven-and-a-half… The performance was absolutely incredible, totally inspired, dripping with emotion—and here we were, about to run out of tape.

“I was jumping up and down, waving my arms, but everyone was so wrapped up in their playing that no one was paying me any mind. I finally got Chris’ attention and emphatically gave him the cut sign. He started trying to flag down Stevie, but he was hunched over his guitar with his head bent down.

:Finally, he looked up, and they brought the song down just in time. It ended, and a few seconds later the tape finished and the studio was silent, except for the sound of the empty reel spinning around.”

It has been said by those who knew Stevie best that he considered this to be his masterpiece, as it is his soul that your hearing not just notes and chords. It was the last song he played at what would be his last show, a show that he opened up for Eric Clapton.

After his performance he received a standing ovation that lasted for what seemed like an extended period of time going much longer than what would be considered normal. As he was finishing his bows of gratitude to the crowd you can see Clapton also giving a standing ovation near the back of the stage.

He greeted Stevie as he was leaving the stage and told him that his song was beautiful, powerful, something special. The song pulled him (Clapton) out of his dressing room, that he had to come see this being played, that he was just like the people in the crowd, he was blown away by it.

When Clapton took the stage he even told the crowd he was taken by the song and it was the first time in a very long time that he didn’t know what to open with saying how do you even follow that performance.

Stevie took Clapton’s seat on the flight out, he was trying to beat the bad weather said to be coming and there wasn’t room for the two of them, Clapton was being nice and trying to help when he offered up his seat to Stevie.

Before Stevie left he told the members of his crew/band that he received what he considered to be the greatest compliment in the history of his life tonight from someone he looked up to since he was a child. It meant so much to him to hear that from Eric Clapton, someone he considered to be one of the all time greatest guitarist in the world.

That flight crashed, killing everyone onboard.

Clapton was devastated when he learned of the crash and Stevie’s untimely death, he later again talked about Stevie’s performance that night and how he (Clapton) was just like the people in the crowd and was so taken by that beautiful, powerful piece of music, calling it a masterpiece by anyone’s standards and like the artist something special that should be remembered for eternity.

Hits: 50

I’ll be the first to say it about Jim Morrison – “There was something deeply wrong with that boy”:

“The killer awoke before dawn, he put his boots on
He took a face from the ancient gallery
And he walked on down the hall

He went into the room where his sister lived, and then he
Paid a visit to his brother, and then he
He walked on down the hall, and
He came to a door, and he looked inside
Father, yes son, I want to kill you
Mother, I want to fuck you”

But somewhere in that troubled mind sprung some of the most poetic, immersive musical landscapes in rock. Just remember kids that “Drugs and alcohol are bad, mmkay”.

In John Densmore’s autobiography Riders on the Storm, he recalls when Morrison explained the meaning:

“At one point Jim said to me during the recording session, and he was tearful, and he shouted in the studio, ‘Does anybody understand me?’ And I said yes, I do, and right then and there we got into a long discussion and Jim just kept saying over and over kill the father, fuck the mother, and essentially boils down to this, kill all those things in yourself which are instilled in you and are not of yourself, they are alien concepts which are not yours, they must die.

Fuck the mother is very basic, and it means get back to essence, what is reality, what is, fuck the mother is very basically mother, mother-birth, real, you can touch it, it’s nature, it can’t lie to you. So what Jim says at the end of the Oedipus section, which is essentially the same thing that the classic says, kill the alien concepts, get back reality, the end of alien concepts, the beginning of personal concepts.”

Hits: 53

The inspiration for and influences affecting the composition of “The Weight” came from the music of the American South, the life experiences of band members, particularly Levon Helm, and movies of Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel.

The original members of The Band performed “The Weight” as an American Southern folk song with country music (vocals, guitars and drums) and gospel music (piano and organ) elements. The lyrics, written in the first-person, are about a traveler’s experiences arriving, visiting, and departing a town called Nazareth. According to Robertson, this is based on Nazareth, Pennsylvania because it was the home of Martin Guitars. He wrote the guitar parts on a 1951 Martin.

The singers, led by Helm, vocalize the traveler’s encounters with people in the town from the perspective of a Bible Belt American Southerner, like Helm himself, a native of rural Arkansas. After Helm’s death in 2012, Robertson, who was raised in Canada, described how visits to the Memphis, Tennessee area, around which Helm grew up, affected him and influenced his songwriting:

“To me … going there was like going to the source. Because I was at such a vulnerable age then, it made a really big impact on me. Just that I had the honor joining up with this group and then even going to this place, which was close to a religious experience – even being able to put my feet on the ground there, because I was from Canada, right?

“So it was like, ‘Woah, this is where this music grows in the ground, and [flows from] the Mississippi river. My goodness.’ It very much affected my songwriting and, because I knew Levon’s musicality so well, I wanted to write songs that I thought he could sing better than anybody in the world.

“While I was there, I was just gathering images and names, and ideas and rhythms, and I was storing all of these things … in my mind somewhere. And when it was time to sit down and write songs, when I reached into the attic to see what I was gonna write about, that’s what was there.

“I just felt a strong passion toward the discovery of going there, and it opened my eyes, and all my senses were overwhelmed by the feeling of that place. When I sat down to write songs, that’s all I could think of at the time.”

The colorful characters in “The Weight” were based on real people members of The Band knew, as Levon Helm explained in his autobiography, This Wheel’s on Fire. In particular, “young Anna Lee” mentioned in the third verse is Helm’s longtime friend Anna Lee Amsden, and, according to her, “Carmen” was from Helm’s hometown, Turkey Scratch, Arkansas. “Crazy Chester” was an eccentric resident of Fayetteville, Arkansas, who carried a cap gun. Ronnie Hawkins would tell him to “keep the peace” at his Rockwood Club when Chester arrived.

According to Robertson, “The Weight” was inspired by the movies of Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel. Buñuel’s films are known for their surreal imagery and criticism of organized religion, particularly Catholicism.

The song’s lyrics and music invoke vivid imagery, the main character’s perspective is influenced by the Bible, and the episodic story was inspired by the predicaments Buñuel’s film characters faced that undermined their goals for maintaining or improving their moral character. Of this, Robertson once stated:

“(Buñuel) did so many films on the impossibility of sainthood. People trying to be good in Viridiana and Nazarin, people trying to do their thing. In ‘The Weight’ it’s the same thing.

“People like Buñuel would make films that had these religious connotations to them but it wasn’t necessarily a religious meaning. In Buñuel there were these people trying to be good and it’s impossible to be good. In ‘The Weight’ it was this very simple thing.

“Someone says, ‘Listen, would you do me this favour? When you get there will you say “hello” to somebody or will you give somebody this or will you pick up one of these for me? Oh? You’re going to Nazareth, that’s where the Martin guitar factory is. Do me a favour when you’re there.’

“This is what it’s all about. So the guy goes and one thing leads to another and it’s like ‘Holy shit, what’s this turned into? I’ve only come here to say “hello” for somebody and I’ve got myself in this incredible predicament.’ It was very Buñuelish to me at the time.”

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