CLASSIC ROCK TRACKS POLL: THE RESULTS

I thought the weight would at least be in the top 50. I had it at 6.

A Band hater wore me down over the years

http://lunaticfaith.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/b-combatting_cult.jpg

I had The Weight at Number 3. Who are these Band haters and what happened to their souls?

Or lack thereof

I think they are people who saw the Last Waltz and assumed that, since everyone in that movie looks like awful phonies or complete wastes, all the members of the band were like that all of the time instead of the reality, which is that the complete wastes could really play well and dreadful phony Robertson was never as important a part of the group as he portrayed himself to be.

It takes a Grade-A stick in the mud to resist the charms of Levon Helm

that's what his girlfriends said

"Fool" was on my ballot, quite high, till pretty late. I cut it, not for not being CR, but for not being as CR as the two Doobies cuts I had in there. I'm sure I've heard it on these stations, but would concede that a station trying to fight down a reputation as being 'soft' might purge it. Fantastic song and recording though, never gets old.

"The Weight" is great too, though I have heard it a few too many times, especially in the last decade or so, since that one cell phone commercial where the dude is driving across the country and birds, trees, whatever are gracefully aligning in cell phone bar patterns to this tune. Feel like its profile has gone up considerably, and while a solid song, it can't quite bear the, uh, burden. It also feels weirdly long for 4:34. Needs a bridge or something to mix up the verse-chorus thing.

Ugh The Weight is such a good song. I had it pretty low in my ballot and it was one of my voter's remorse placements.

The verses are all great though, and switching up the singers varies it enough for me.

I figure I'll probably 'get' the Band some day?

Do you have to deal with solo Robbie Robertson in the US?

Didn't vote for it, but should have. The harmonizing "an -- annn -- annnnndddd" in the chorus is a wonderful thing.

Love "The Weight," and I never noticed that it didn't have a bridge before, mainly because it never sounded to me like it needed one. The vocal interplay/grappling is plenty thrilling enough. Levon's "yyeah!" simultaneous with his fill after Danko's verse is one of the great moments in sound.

I had this weird dream the other day where The Band recreated the What You Want video with Helm = Ad Rock, Danko = Diamond, Manuel = MCA. Garth was spinning the records and when it was all said and done, Robbie Robertson stood under a tree, playing guitar with a loop of the main riff repeating while the credits scrolled MUSIC BY ROBBIE ROBERTSON. LYRICS BY ROBBIE ROBERTSON. PRODUCED BY ROBBIE ROBERTSON. DIRECTED BY ROBBIE ROBERTSON.

It kinda worked with those Civil War outfits.

Do you have to deal with solo Robbie Robertson in the US?

― EveningStar (Sund4r), Wednesday, July 30, 2014 9:40 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Haven't heard any on the radio since his awful first solo record came out, but in 1987 it was irritatingly inescapable.

Yeah, I think the media picked up on his s/t 1987 album because Lanois was a hot producer at the time and U2 was involved with a couple tracks. Otherwise, it was about the most UN-1987 thing one could imagine.

and Peter Gabriel!

My local station played "Somewhere Down the Crazy River" about half an hour ago. Shit is still inescapable here.

Love The Weight but voted for Up On Cripple Creek instead.

The Weight is a great song, but The Staple Singers have the definitive version imo.

the weight is a great song, but i cannot recall ever hearing it on crr

(regional differences rear their head itp etc etc)

the weight is a great song, but i cannot recall ever hearing it on crr

― resulting post (rogermexico.), Wednesday, July 30, 2014 2:06 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I believe you but I find that astounding!

I used to hear it on cr all the time in the midwest, but have never once heard it on the east coast. If cr stations out here play the Band -- and that's a big "if" -- it's "Up On Cripple Creek."

In the SE I've heard The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down/Up On Cripple Creek far more.

"What a Fool Believes" and "Dreams" were #1 Billboard hits - I believe the first of such to appear on this list. After its run on the Top 40 stations "What a Fool Believes" had a very long run on Adult Contemporary radio, which is why I associate the song with getting my hair cut or waiting for the dentist.

I'm old and tired and it's been a long ass time since I was listening exclusively to east coast classic rock stations, but I know I bought The Last Waltz on cassette in high school which suggests to me that I must have heard more than Up On Cripple Creek on the radio. But really who freaking knows.

We played The Weight and Up On Cripple Creek. Callers on the request line referred to the first song sometimes as "Pulled Into Nazareth" by CCR or "Take A Load Off, Annie" by Nazareth.

tbf, the cr stations out here have shit like "Close My Eyes Forever" in super-heavy-infinite rotation. I think my listening coincided with hair metal and 90s "alternative" pushing the likes of the Band off the playlists.

xp

There were the CR stations that I grew up with in the early 80s, the ones that had been the original FM pioneers playing Yes and It's A Beautiful Day and Two for Tuesdays and Get the Led Out. Slowly, they started playing your Lita Ford songs and Rock You Like A Hurricane, and by the time Appetite for Destruction was released, you had Zeppelin, GNR, Motley Crue, Barracuda and Stones' Bitch playing all in one rock block. A lot of these stations dived into grunge with Soundgarden and Pearl Jam.

And then came the "new" CR stations, the ones that promised they wouldn't have any caterwauling by any Marilyn Manson or Nine Inch Pumpkins or whatever. No, dammit, here are The Doors and here are The Eagles and hey, remember The Band? We even got them too.

So playlists on CR stations can be kinda weird. You wouldn't think there'd be too much of a difference between Beatles, Stones, Who, Zeppelin, but there's going to be one on one side of the dial that'll slip Stone Temple Pilots into the rotation and another one on the other side playing Sausalito Summernights by Diesel.

Back from a quick trip to Trader Vic's. You wouldn't believe what I saw.

http://i.imgur.com/FkbTrWb.jpg

57. Warren Zevon – Werewolves of London
1007 points, 19 votes

WAA-OOOOOOOOOOHHH

Typically excellent rhythm work from Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, ace piano part, Zevon at his friendliest and shaggiest.

draw blood.

Weird, never knew that was McVie and Fleetwood!

me neither!

the "his hair was perfect" line always gets me in this song

why did Tom Cruise almost ruin it

Essential track. Better than everything below it? No, but CR would be missing something without it, surely, the shaggy world of smart guys taking dumb jokes too far in the studio. Since Nilsson doesn't trouble us here, glad to have this - and thank god, some of the jokes are well-delivered enough to still be funny on the zillionth play: "His hair was perfect."

According to Wachtel, "Werewolves of London" was "the hardest song to get down in the studio I've ever worked on."[1] However, Wachtel "laid down his solo in one take, before he'd even had a chance to partake of the bump of coke and drink he'd placed in front of him."

haha, xpost to gr8080

Had no idea about the Fleetwood Mac connection either! Though obv Zevon is totally of that whole 70s LA studio milieu. I'm usually kinda oblivious to these things, but his imprint is so clear that I remember the first time I heard Linda Ronstadt's "Poor Poor Pitiful Me," I went: that sounds like a Warren Zevon song.

"What a Fool Believes" and "Dreams" were #1 Billboard hits - I believe the first of such to appear on this list. After its run on the Top 40 stations "What a Fool Believes" had a very long run on Adult Contemporary radio, which is why I associate the song with getting my hair cut or waiting for the dentist.

― Josefa, Wednesday, July 30, 2014 10:24 AM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"Frankenstein" and "My Sharona" are the other Hot 100 chart-toppers to appear so far. I'll hold my tongue on how many are still to come.

12" mix of "what a fool believes" is so necessary http://youtu.be/sbk0YnyF2lY

I love Werewolves of London, voted for it in my Top 25. Perfect lyrics, deservedly a staple.

"His hair was perfect."

Always think of this when I hear it:

What sound does a man make who trips on a catwalk over a vat of boiling sugar in a candy factory? The answer can be heard in Warren Zevon's "Werewolves of London." It sounds sort of like da!--startled and visceral, "what the fuck?!?!" compressed into a monosyllable.

Zevon's solo piano version on Learning to Flinch (his live album) is pretty good as well, though it loses some of the stomp of the original track.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WCZUBKsAzM

gr8080, these 12" mixes of CR tracks you keep providing are hitting me right in the wheel house.

"Frankenstein," that's right! Awesome to think of that crazy tune as a #1.

"Werewolves Of London" has a special place in my heart as the first song my son sang along with when it came on the radio. We can't get him to do the "awoooooo" anymore but he sings along with a lot of other songs now.