derekl_1963

Heard this over the weekend and it spurred some memories and the foundation for this weeks episode of Musical Monday:

Jim Croce's Bad, Bad, Leroy Brown.

I remember learning this song in 4th grade, and being taught a censored set of lyrics (and being aware at the time of the censorship). This morning I actually had to read the lyrics several times over before I could remember which word was censored... (For the record "damm" in the line "The baddest man in the whole damn town".)

1973 was really the last year of the 60's and the first year of the 70's. The launch of Skylab represented the last hurrah of the Apollo Program, and we were pulling out of Vietnam, wrapping up the 60's. But 1973 also saw the Arab Oil Embargo and Watergate. Of course, as a kid, most of these passed me by pretty blissfully. (Though I do recall being annoyed when the Watergate hearings preempted my afternoon TV shows.)

Also from 1973 is a classic piece of cheese: Tony Orlando and Dawn's Tie a Yellow Ribbon

Tie a Yellow Ribbon is probably better remembered today because of it's association with the Iran Hostage Crisis of 1979-1981, but that's a topic for another time.

Speaking of music and disasters, 1973 also saw the release of Maureen McGovern's There's Got To Be A Morning After (a song for the 60's released late? or a song for the 'national malaise' of the late 1970's released early?). At any rate, There's Got To Be A Morning After was used as part of the soundtrack for another icon of the 70's - the disaster movie... Here the trailer for the original Poseidon Adventure:

I never realized before the Leslie Nielsen starred in that picture - like many others I often forget that he was a well known dramatic leading man before reinventing himself as a comedic actor just a few years later. (Looking at the cast list, there's a lot of actors on the downhill side of their careers there...)

OK, enough looking back for today. Time to deal with today, stuffed up head and all.