Steve Earle, no stranger to taking on social justice and political issues in his songs, recently performed a new song about Mississippi’s flag and the Confederate flag controversy. In “Mississippi, It’s Time,” he tells the Magnolia state it is time to take the Confederate battle flag out of the state’s flag (pictured above).
Below is his first public performance of the song at the New Glasgow Riverfront Jubilee in August 2015. “You can’t move ahead if you’re looking behind.”
September 10, 2015 Update: Steve Earle is officially releasing “Mississippi, It’s Time,” with the track hitting stores on September 11. Proceeds from the sale of the song will go to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Listen to the official recording of “Mississippi, It’s Time” by Steve Earle & The Dukes below.
Two hit songs from 1974 were story songs with an unusual connection: Paper Lace’s “The Night Chicago Died” and “Billy Don’t Be a Hero” by Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods.
The year 1974 was an odd year for music, with a number of unusual hit pop songs that you rarely hear today. The year featured acts like Bob Dylan returning to touring for the first time in eight years. Queen played its first North American concert. And the Ramones made their first appearance at CBGB. Yet, some of the biggest hit songs of the year were Carl Douglas’s “Kung Fu Fighting” and Blue Suede’s reworking of BJ Thomas’s 1968 release “Hooked on a Feeling,” adding ooga-chaka’s.
And two odd 1974 pop hits featured an unusual connection to each other: Bo Donaldson and The Heywoods’ “Billy Don’t Be a Hero” and Paper Lace‘s “The Night Chicago Died.”
“The Night Chicago Died”
“The Night Chicago Died” hit number one on the charts for Paper Lace on August 17, 1974. If you were around in those days, you probably can sing along to “The Night Chicago Died.” But if you were born after that date, it is quite possible you have never heard of the song.
“The Night Chicago Died” is a story song about a 1930s battle between Al Copone’s men and the Chicago police. Songwriters Peter Callander and Mitch Murray tell a Prohibition-era story that is largely inaccurate in both historical events and city geography.
But perhaps what made the song a hit was the part about the songwriter watching his momma cry while waiting to see if her policeman husband would come home alive. Spoiler alert: The father-husband returns safely.
At the end, the singer recalls that the door opened wide “And my daddy stepped inside,/ And he kissed my mama’s face, And he brushed her tears away.”
“The Night Chicago Died” was a huge hit. It sold more than three million copies.
The British band Paper Lace consisted of Philip Wright (drummer and lead singer on “The Night Chicago Died”), Cliff Fish, Phil Hendriks, and Dave Major. While Paper Lace had a number one hit with “The Night Chicago Died” in the U.S., the song only went to number two on the U.K. charts.
“Billy Don’t Be a Hero”
Paper Lace, who still tour, did have a number one hit in the U.K. prior to “The Night Chicago Died.” The band’s version of “Billy Don’t Be a Hero” — a story song about a woman telling her love not to get killed in the war — went to number one in the U.K earlier in 1974.
But before Paper Lace could release their version of “Billy Don’t Be a Hero” in the U.S., Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods claimed their one-hit-wonder status by releasing their version. The Bo Donaldson song went to number one in the U.S. in June 1974.
Like “The Night Chicago Died,” the song “Billy Don’t Be a Hero” was written by Callander and Murray. “Billy,” however, has a sadder ending, with the heroic Billy getting killed.
Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods reformed in the mid-1990s and still toured as of 2015. Mike Gibbons, the lead singer on “Billy Don’t Be a Hero,” did not tour with the band on the oldies circuit. And he passed away on April 2, 2016.
The song does not name the war where Billy is killed. From the lyrics (“the soldier blues”) most assume the song is set during the Civil War. But in 1974 any song mentioning war made one think of the Vietnam War.
I have barely heard “Billy Don’t Be a Hero” since the year it was released. It does make a delightful brief appearance in the background music in Walk Hard: The Dewy Cox Story (2007).
Yet, like “The Night Chicago Died,” I can still sing every word. That’s the power of pop.
Rodger Penzabene, suffering his own broken heart, co-wrote two of the greatest heartbreak songs of all time, including the Temptations’ “I Could Never Love Another.”
In the Temptations classic “I Could Never Love Another (After Loving You),” the singer’s lover has just told him that she is leaving and he begs her to stay, pleading he could never love another. Many sources explain that the song, and in particular the line, “You’ve taken away my reason for livin’,” were based on a true story.
The story behind the song involves young Motown songwriter Rodger Penzabene, who co-wrote “I Could Never Love Another.” He also co-wrote the similarly themed “I Wish It Would Rain” from the same album. On those songs, his co-writers were Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong. Penzabene also wrote other songs of heartbreak, including co-writing “Save Me From This Misery” for the Isley Brothers.
Penzabene and his wife had met as youths at Mumford High School. But sometimes love does not last forever.
Reportedly Penzabene had taken his wife back after she had an affair, but she ended up leaving him after all. As the album with “I Could Never Love Another” climbed the charts, Penzabene killed himself by gunshot on New Year’s Eve in 1967. He was 22.
Nothing makes the story more convincing than the anguished lead vocals on “I Could Never Love Another” by the great David Ruffin on his final lead vocal on a Temptations single (and who also died too soon from a tragic death). The way Ruffin sings the word “believe” in the first line immediately conveys the heartbreak and pain that permeates the entire song.
To the degree the song’s suicide backstory is true, though, we can never really know. Penzabene wrote the great song, and it seems he felt that heartbreak and loss. But suicide is a complicated act. If everyone who is deeply heartbroken killed herself or himself, our species would have died out long ago.
Penzabene also wrote lyrics for happy songs, such as “You’re My Everything.” He wrote that Temptations song with his friend Cornelius Grant. The two men were so close that before Penzabene killed himself, he sent Grant a telegram stating, “Rodger Penzabene is dead.” The songwriter also wrote a letter to his family and friends apologizing for the grief that would come from his death.
Of course, Penzabene’s feelings about his lost love likely contributed to his depression. But one could probably point to other factors too that might have contributed to the final act of the young father. At age 22, he was still almost a kid, trying to make some sense of the world and his success. And, at the time of his death, reportedly he was losing his sight due to a head injury. Who knows what role the holiday of New Year’s Eve contributed to his feelings? Who knows what frustrations he faced in the music industry? One of his sons later noted in an online comment that Penzabene’s songs were not about heartbreak over a woman but about frustrations with the music industry and Motown in particular.
So, even if a simplified tragic love story fits with our perception of the song, there is more to the tale than that someone was heartbroken, wrote a brilliant sad song about that heartbreak, and then killed himself as the song climbed the charts.
Rodger and Helga Penzabene (both seated) at their wedding
At the time of the songwriter’s death, Penzabene’s wife Helga Penzabene was very young herself, caring for the couple’s two young sons, Rodger Jr. and 10-month-old Carl. After Penzabene’s death, she tried to set the record straight by clarifying that Rodger did not kill himself over her. In 2012, she wrote in the comments to a post on Elvis Needs Boats that she was alive and well, living in Mount Clemens, Michigan. She had remarried twice, most recently divorced, and she still sang. She reported that she was working on a book about her life with Rodger.
That book was never written. Helga passed away in 2016 from cancer.
I suspect, though, that whatever words might have been written in a book, many would still choose to believe the less complex heartbroken suicide version. We need tragic heroes, and the song is too great, the Temptations too awesome, and our own experiences of heartbreak so painful, that maybe we just want to believe that the songwriter killed himself after losing his reason for living.
Check out other posts in our series “The Story Behind the Song.” What is your favorite heartbreak song? Leave your two cents in the comments.
There are many great scenes in Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas (1990). The club entrance scene is probably the most discussed and copied in a variety of places, including a spoof on Jon Stewart’s final Daily Show. But there is also a lot going on with Scorsese’s direction in the final segment following Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) on the day leading to his arrest. In a new video essay, Julian Palmer breaks down the details of those ending scenes.
Palmer, Creative Director and Founder at 1848 Media, discusses Scorsese’s editing and use of techniques. He explains, for example, how the director uses hand-held cameras to reflect Hill’s paranoia.
Palmer does an excellent job of referencing other films, like The Godfather (1972). And he even explains the significance of the shots of food.
Check out his video essay, “Last Day of a Wiseguy.”
You might remember that great attempt to combine science fiction and Western categories into the classic 1973 film, Westworld. That movie was written and directed by Michael Crichton, and it starred Yul Brynner as the robot gunslinger at an amusement park where everything goes wrong. Even if you have never seen the movie, you might be a little excited seeing the new teaser trailer for the upcoming HBO series Westworld.
The teaser trailer does not reveal much about the HBO series, but we get a glimpse of Anthony Hopkins and Evan Rachel Wood in a series that looks updated for the current century. Some folks think that Westworld will be HBO’s next great show. But we will have to wait until 2016 to find out.
What do you think of the teaser trailer for “Westworld”? Leave your two cents in the comments.
The year 1974 was an odd year for music, with a number of unusual hit pop songs that you rarely hear today. The year featured acts like Bob Dylan returning to touring for the first time in eight years. Queen played its first North American concert. And the Ramones made their first appearance at CBGB. Yet, some of the biggest hit songs of the year were Carl Douglas’s “Kung Fu Fighting” and Blue Suede’s reworking of BJ Thomas’s 1968 release “Hooked on a Feeling,” adding ooga-chaka’s.
