Tag: 30-day Song Challenge

30 Day Song Challenge Day 8 – “I Drove All Night” by Cyndi Lauper

On By EclecticMusicLoverIn Reviews15 Comments

The subject for Day 8 of my 30 Day Song Challenge is “A song to drive to late at night“, and the first song I thought of was “I Drove All Night” by Cyndi Lauper. (A runner-up was the beautiful Cars song “Drive”, but Cyndi Lauper’s 1989 hit is a no-brainer for this subject.) The song was a sizable hit for Lauper, reaching #6 on the Billboard Hot 100, #7 in the UK and #8 in Canada. She had a string of hits from 1984-89, beginning with “Girls Just Want to Have Fun”, and two of them – “Time After Time” and “True Colors” went all the way to #1. “I Drove All Night” was her last single to reach the top 10 in the U.S.

The song was originally written by Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly for Roy Orbison, who recorded it in 1987, a year before his death, but his version was not released until 1992. Lauper recorded the song and released it as a single in April 1989. She liked the song and wanted to record her version because she liked the idea “of a woman driving, of a woman in control.” I love the strong propulsive rhythms, blasting drumbeats and edgy strings that powerfully convey the passion and urgency of a woman driving all night to get to her lover. And I really like Lauper’s vocals, which have a somewhat more mature quality than on some of her earlier songs.

The song was included on her third studio album A Night to Remember, and considered by nearly everyone to be the highlight of an otherwise disappointing album. A Night to Remember received mixed-to-poor reviews and less commercial success than her two previous albums. Because of its poor reviews and disappointing sales, as well as the problems she experienced with producer and boyfriend David Wolf⁠ during the production of the album, Lauper referred to it as “A Night to Forget”. Despite the album’s poor performance, “I Drove All Night” was nominated for a Grammy for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance.

The song was also later covered by Celine Dion in 2003, whose version topped the Canadian Singles Chart and reached #7 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart.

Here’s Roy Orbison’s original version, which is also pretty good. The song’s official video features the young and very beautiful actors Jennifer Connelly and Jason Priestly.

30 Day Song Challenge Day 7 – “Born to Be Wild” by Steppenwolf

On By EclecticMusicLoverIn Reviews11 Comments

The subject for Day 7 of my 30 Day Song Challenge is “A song to drive to in the morning“. I think it’s a rather odd subject, but my interpretation is that it’s a song that gets you going in the morning, and the one that immediately comes to my mind is “Born to Be Wild” by Steppenwolf. If that adrenaline-inducing rocker – perfectly described by Hal Horowitz of AllMusic as “a roaring anthem of turbo-charged riff rock” – doesn’t charge your engines first thing in the morning, then nothing will!

“Born to Be Wild” was originally written as a ballad by Canadian rock musician Mars Bonfire (aka Dennis Edmonton), who was previously a member of the Sparrows, the predecessor band to Steppenwolf, and whose brother Jerry became Steppenwolf’s drummer. The other founding members of Steppenwolf included John Kay (born Joachim Fritz Krauledat in Germany) on lead vocals and rhythm guitar, Michael Monarch on lead guitar, Rushton Moreve on bass, and Goldy McJohn on keyboards. Bonfire initially offered the song to a few other bands, but “Born to Be Wild” was eventually recorded by Steppenwolf in a sped-up and rearranged version that came to define their signature hard rock sound. Those raging riffs of shredded guitars, chugging rhythms and thunderous percussion, accompanied by fantastic psychedelic keyboards and Kay’s powerful gritty vocals, made the song a classic that beautifully captured the rebelliousness of the late 60s.

The song is often invoked in both popular and counter culture to symbolize a biker appearance or attitude, partly due to being featured in the 1969 film Easy Rider. It’s also been described by many as the first heavy metal song, and the second verse lyric “heavy metal thunder” was the first use of this term in rock music. According to Robert Walser in his 1993 book Running with the Devil: Power, Gender, and Madness in Heavy Metal Music, the words “heavy metal thunder” describe a motorcycle, not a musical style.

“Born to Be Wild” became Steppenwolf’s most successful single, reaching #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles charts. (It was kept from the #1 spot by the Rascals’ “People Got to Be Free”.) Rolling Stone ranked “Born to Be Wild” at #129 on their 2004 list of 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, and in the same year, the song was ranked #29 on AFI‘s 100 Years…100 Songs survey of top tunes in American cinema. VH1 ranked it #40 in their list of the 100 Greatest Songs of Rock and Roll in 2000, and the 53rd best hard rock song of all time in 2009. In 2018, the song was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in a new category for singles. (Wikipedia)

Here’s the iconic scene from Easy Rider in which “Born to Be Wild” is featured

30 Day Song Challenge, Day 6 – “Finally” by CeCe Peniston

On By EclecticMusicLoverIn Reviews12 Comments

The subject for Day 6 of my 30 Day Song Challenge is “A song that makes you want to dance.” This was a tough one for me, as there are literally hundreds upon hundreds of songs that make me want to dance. I considered some great dance songs by the likes of Donna Summer, Madonna, Janet Jackson and Dua Lipa, among others, but when I walked into my local Trader Joe’s last evening and heard the CeCe Peniston classic “Finally” playing on their sound system, I immediately had my song pick for Day 6. I’ve always loved the song, with its infectious throbbing bass drum-driven dance groove and her euphoric soulful and sexy vocals.

First, a bit of background on CeCe: Born Cecilia Veronica “CeCe” Peniston in Dayton, Ohio in 1969, she moved with her family to Phoenix at the age of nine. She attended high school there, and sang at church and performed in plays and musicals in middle and high school, as well as local theater groups. After graduating from high school, she studied liberal arts at Phoenix College, where she got involved in athletics, and entered beauty pageants. She was crowned Miss Black Arizona in 1989.

Her music career began in January 1991, when Felipe “DJ Wax Dawg” Delgado, a record producer and friend also based in Phoenix, asked Peniston to record back-up vocals for Tonya Davis, a rapper known as Overweight Pooch. Though Overweight Pooch’s album was a commercial flop, another DJ and producer Manny Lehman had taken notice of Peniston’s powerful backing vocals. He offered Delgado a chance to produce a track for Peniston to cultivate her potential as a solo artist. Delgado called hometown friend and music producer, Rodney K. Jackson, to help co-produce Peniston’s first single, which would become “Finally”.

Peniston began writing pop songs while in school, and initially wrote the words to “Finally” as a poem during a chemistry class, while thinking about dating and how she hadn’t yet found her Mr. Right. She was 21 years old when “Finally” was released in September 1991, and it became an instant dance hit, reaching #1 only a month later on the Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart. The song went on to peak at #5 on the Hot 100 in January 1992, and #2 in the UK that March.

It’s major impact on the dance music genre has been recognized by numerous publications. VH1 ranked “Finally” at #29 in their list of the “100 Greatest Dance Songs” in 2000. MTV Dance ranked it #28 in their list of “The 100 Biggest ’90s Dance Anthems of All Time” in 2011. Heart TV ranked it #3 in their list of “55 Biggest ’90s Club Classics” in March 2017. Also in 2017, BuzzFeed placed it at #1 in their list of “The 101 Greatest Dance Songs of the ’90s”, noting “When it comes to ‘90s dance songs, you’d be hard-pressed to find another song that so perfectly incorporates other music genres that made the decade so great — i.e., R&B, house, and pop — which is what makes “Finally” the quintessential ‘90s dance song.” And last, but not least, Slant Magazine ranked it #37 in their list of “The 100 Best Dance Songs of All Time” in 2020. (Wikipedia)

“Finally” was featured in the 1994 Australian film The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, a hilarious road comedy written and directed by Stephan Elliott. The film portrays the misadventures of two drag queens, played by Hugo Weaving and Guy Pearce, and a transgender woman, brilliantly played by Terence Stamp, as they journey across the Australian Outback from Sydney to Alice Springs in a tour bus that they’ve named “Priscilla”, encountering various groups and colorful individuals along the way. Here’s a clip of the trio’s over the top drag performance to the song: