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September 12, 2008
Numerology: We Can Drive the 55 Conversation in Other Directions
Charlton Heston, Ava Gardner, and David Niven starred in 55 Days at Peking, a 1963 film about China’s Boxer Rebellion of 1900. Sammy Hagar, an avid boxer in his youth, became known for rebellion with “I Can’t Drive 55,” his flip of the bird to the double-nickels that became an MTV staple in 1984. I won’t venture a guess as to how Charlton, Ava, and David would have fared, but it’s a good thing Sammy wasn’t born in Victorian England, where the Locomotive Act—the world’s first speed limit—made it illegal to drive a car (known then as a “light locomotive”) faster than about 10 mph. My guess is that Hagar, a longtime Patti Smith fan (they jammed together when both were inducted into the Rock Hall of Fame in ’07) would have had to invent punk 100 years ahead of schedule just to express his outrage.
Sammy’s song looked like it would be one of a small handful of 55 songs, but once again, this mad quest of mine has turned up far more crooked-numbered titles than I would have ever imagined. “5:55” is the bewitching title track to Charlotte Gainsbourg’s first grown-up solo work. Cowritten by the French duo Air and Jarvis Cocker, the song is a lush and transporting blend of rolling piano chords, whispered vocals, and soaring strings. There are a more than a few songs titled simply “55”—by Echoboy, San Antonio troubadour Jack Levitt, and even the Master Musicians of Jajouka, who were to Brian Jones what Ladysmith Black Mambazo was to Paul Simon. The Perfect Disaster was an English alternative band of the late ‘80s whose song “55” has the mathematically confusing refrain of “57 miles from home,” but features a four-on-the-floor chug that harkens back to Jonathan Richman’s “Roadrunner” and by extension, the Velvet Underground’s “I’m Waiting For the Man.” (The Perfect Disaster struggled to find an audience, but bandleader Phil Parfitt went on to play with Spiritualized, while bassist Josephine Wiggs played with the Breeders, Dusty Trails, the Josephine Wiggs Experience, and has recently collaborated with Massive Attack.) Screaming Blue Messiahs also sang about the accursed speed limit in the late ‘80s. An Americana-loving trio led by the chrome-domed Bill Carter, the Messiahs offered the charged-up rockabilly stomp of “55-the Law,” which comes off as a celebration of the open road until Carter slips something in about “the wife and kids are dead”—an odd touch indeed. Before launching into “55,” Kasabian front man Tom Meighan asks the Brixton faithful if there are any punks in the house. Not surprisingly, the crowd answers in the affirmative. Possibly the best of the straight-up 55 lot is “Fifty Five” by Pink Industry (1985)—an eerie slice of synth-pop from a duo comprised of former Frankie Goes to Hollywood bassist Ambrose Reynolds and former Big in Japan vocalist Jayne Casey—which has far more icy appeal than one had any right to expect. And let’s just say that the Dave Matthews Band’s lite-pop workout “Stolen Away on 55th and Third” is two blocks and an eternity away from “53rd and Third” by the Ramones, and that “$55” by John Wesley Harding sounds more like Elvis Costello than Elvis Costello himself, which is a tad unsettling.
Fifty-Five Fact: Class of ’55, a mid-‘80s tribute to Elvis Presley by Sun Records legends Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Johnny Cash also featured Rick Nelson, in his last recording session.
To the youth of Boulder, Colorado circa 1963, the Astronauts—Rich, Stormy, Bob, Dennis, and Jim—were the biggest band around. “’55 Bird,” the band’s pleasantly goofy tribute to a well-loved vintage of Ford Thunderbird, employs a vocal arrangement reminiscent of their contemporaries the Beach Boys, who had already transcended the surf music genre in a way that bands like Astronauts and the Trashmen (proud sons of Minneapolis and the creators of the classic “Surfin’ Bird”) never would. “’55 Bird” is a fun trifle, but the band’s fever-charged instrumentals—powered by a twin rhythm guitar attack—were its strong suit. The Astronauts’ lone chart success came in 1964, with a sizzler called “Baja,” written by ace producer/songwriter-for-hire Lee Hazlewood. Hazlewood, who went on to record 20 idiosyncratic albums of his own (most of which went unappreciated until the end of his lifetime), had an enlightened rogue persona that had much in common with Tom Waits. Hazlewood even recorded a Waits song on Poet, Fool or Bum (1974), which received the one-word review: “Bum” upon its release. While Hazlewood’s grizzled, booze-soaked melancholia was getting no respect at all, his musical doppelganger over at Asylum Records had just turned out a grizzled, booze-soaked, melancholic masterpiece and kick-started a career that’s still going strong after three decades. No one said rock ‘n’ roll was fair.
Waits’s proper debut, Closing Time (1973), opened with “Ol ’55,” a love song to a car that’s hard not to feel instant kinship with. So lonely it aches, then soaring and full of hope, “Ol’ ‘55” introduced the world to a voice that one waggish writer said sounded like it was bathed in whiskey, hung in a smokehouse, and then run over. What better way to deliver poignant, wryly observed lines like these:
Well my time went so quickly, I went lickety-splickly out to my old '55As I drove away slowly, feeling so holy, God knows, I was feeling alive.
When the world-weary Waits (who was only 24 at the time) describes turning to his beat-up old car, it’s more than just a ticket out of a bad situation: it’s his hope, his refuge and salvation. A year later, his label-mates the Eagles recorded their own version, and liberally sweetened it with West Coast harmonies, which Waits, not surprisingly, found “a little antiseptic.” Still, that’s the version most people know. Sarah McLachlan covered the song as well, but the original is imbued with a rough grace that the voices of Henley, Frey or McLachlan are just too damned pretty to capture. But no matter who’s doing it, the glorious chorus feels like the musical embodiment of the sun’s rays spreading over the horizon, and the “freeway cars and trucks” perfectly capture 55’s automotive essence. Ever the innovator, Tom Waits didn’t just write the greatest 55 song ever—he also gave the world “lickety-splicky,” an adverb that should only be uttered by people whose voices have been freshly run over.
Postscript: Whether “Schfifty Five” by Group X is technically eligible to win the top spot is a question I will leave to the numerological sages on high. Thankfully, Tom Waits has made the question moot, but this strangely inflected rap goof by a Georgia band posing as an Arabian outfit has some kind of primitive magic to it.
Numerology is our pal Dave's ill advised quest to find the definitive song for every number from one to a hundred. The higher the digit, the lonelier the climb.
Previously: No. 1, 2-4, , 4 (redux), 5-7, 7 (counterpoint), 8, 9, 10/11, 12/13. 13 (counterpoint), 14/15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26/27, 28 , 29 , 30, 30 (counterpoint), 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46 , 47, 48, 49 , 50, 51, 52, 53, 54
Posted by David Klein at September 12, 2008 10:55 AM
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