Saturday, January 25, 2014

Song of the Day # 7 - The Real Kids

'Baby, I'm happy just to be alive.'
 
A band with bad haircuts but a good record! Also a bad name. What was it about band names at the end of the '70s? The Records, The Chords, The Shirts, The Shoes. Make an effort. But this song is  a great innocent pleasure. The misspelling in the title is not insignificant. It marks it out as Rock and Roll.  I suppose it's also Power Pop though that's a much maligned term. Lou Reed gave the song his seal of approval. He was a great fan of simplicity. Guitarist singer and songwriter John Felice was a childhood neighbour of Jonathan Richman and was in the early incarnation of The Modern Lovers.  Reputably he was the subject for 'Hippie Johnny' of Richman's song 'I'm Straight'. 'He's always stoned. He's never straight'.They used to ride around Boston in the car trips that inspired the writing of Roadrunner. But as often with adolescent friendships they were bound for different roads. "Me and Jonathan, as close as we were, you know, I was like a punk, I was a wise-ass kid. I liked to do a lot of drugs, I liked to drink, and Jonathan was like this wide-eyed, no-drugs, ate nothing but health food...".[

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