Bobby's Back!

Good morning and happy weekending to all! As it's a hair past noon here, a tiny part of me actually misses the familiar sounds of Jonathan Schwartz's self-indulgent voice and song choices which err a bit on the side of treacle. But I'm quite happy here with Sam Cooke's Night Beat instead, and thoroughly appreciate the irony that it was on Schwartz's Saturday Show where I first heard a track from it — the sparse and transfixing "Lost And Lookin'." Godly. I've been listening to a ton of Sam lately, and the more I listen the more I love...

I was taking a shower yesterday evening and the radio in the bathroom was tuned to Hamburg's oldies station — probably the only tolerable station around here. Standard fare for what Germans consider "oldies" continued for a while (ie. just about anything American recorded between the 50s and 80s) and then the familiar strains of "Bobby Brown Goes Down" crept past the curtain. Now, the first time I heard this raunchy Frank Zappa anthem over the public airwaves in Germany, I was both shocked and seriously amused, especially given the context of a Frankfurt department store (remember??). This time around it didn't have quite the sting, but still elicited a chuckle, smirk, and shake of the head.


At this point, it would take a real banger to shock me here. Something like another one of Zappa's classics off the same album, "Broken Hearts Are For Assholes." (Children and schoolmarms, please be advised: do NOT follow that last link.) Wrist-watch, crisco. Yeah. But I think even these folks have the taste to realize how absolutely wrong it would be to expose innocent women, children, old folks, and Christians to that one. We'll see. One week left...