Today, we have a record from near the very end of Sandy Stanton's Film City empire. Label numbers for Film City's known releases barely extend another 100 numbers beyond this one's #4032 A/B.
And what an A-side! Over a bouncy Chamberlin track (very likely a Rodd Keith production, based on its quality), Patty Stanton sings a ridiculous little song called "Beer Can Drag", the wonders of which I'll let you discover on your own, aside from calling your attention to the way Patty manages to pull three syllables out of the word "suppress" (which is such a musical, lyric-worthy word to begin with).
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As fun and contagious as that song and performance are, the song poet for the b-side, "Love Me Darling", saw greatness in the future of that song, rather than "Beer Can Drag", going so far as to inscribe the 45 sleeve with the following question and request:
One listen to "Love Me Darling", however, strongly indicates that such a thought was somewhere between wishful thinking and delusion, as "Love Me Darling", sung by Jim Wheeler, is a terrible song, with a melody that would be a challenge for anyone to remember or follow, let alone sing along with. The tune meanders here and there, and there's a stultifying instrumental break, and in a more general sense, the backing and the vocal are turgid.
My first thought was that the writers of "Love Me Darling" should have heard the flip side and said "well, that's a much better song and performance - why didn't they work that hard on our song?" However, a peek at the label shows that the team that wrote "Love Me Darling", also wrote "Beer Can Drag". Not that either of these songs would have been a "new sensation" in 1968 or any other year, but still...the logical assumption is that they thought "Love Me Darling" was the better, and more commercial of the pairing. Uh, no.
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7 comments:
Linky no worky for Beer Can Drag.
I love this blog, by the way. Thanks for doing what you do!
Thanks for the nice words, and for brining my attention to the broken link. It has been fixed!
Bob
The sensation is nausea.
Thank you for posting these!
Both sides are winners, of course "Beer Can" is far superior.
Five middle fingers up!
I gotta give respect to Love Me Darling. The whole things just sort of wobbles along on that stream of consciousness chord progression. Maybe nausea, a little bit of bad trip, but I can't get it out of my head. Thanks again!
Interesting. If this track is late 1967 (presumably), then "Little Rug Bug" - which is the very next entry in the Film City discography - dates from at least late 1967, later than I had originally thought. Very cool to know. Thanks for posting this!
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