THE RASPBERRIES' "GO ALL THE WAY"

Wherein I use facebook to pretend I write for Rolling Stone. First the status update, followed by the link:

Monday is 70s pop day. Believe it or not this is what Eric Carmen ("All By Myself") was doing before he went solo. Turn up the volume for full effect.



And here's the comment thread the post got:

Lynn never play that song again please.

Lynn I will torture you buddy! Ready for a war of bad music?

Ron I gotta disagree with you, Lynn. Trashy, gnarly biker rock juxtaposed against three part harmonies overlaying smoothly crafted pop mechanics, all as the backdrop to a heavy lyrical dosage of teenaged male sexual angst make this a near perfect song. It was a delightful surprise when I first heard this only a few years ago, well into adult life, and decades after it was on the charts. I was like "where the hell has this been all my life?!?"

Matt I couldn't agree with you more, Ron. For more of the best power pop ever made, check out the Poptopia compilations, which I believe are available on iTunes. There are three discs, spanning the 70s, 80s and 90s. "Go All the Way" is disc 1 track 1. A must have if you're a power pop fan (like me!).

Kim For me, this is a Beach Song :). It's one of those songs I loved and KNEW that we would hear it on AM radio on our way to Huntington Beach :). Good times. I can't believe you just recently found it.

Kimberly I adore this song. Didn't know it was Eric Carmen.

Jennifer I like the sentiment but the song sucks balls....deep.

Ron For you guys who hate the song, I kind of understand, if you hate it for the same reasons you might hate 80s hair bands. And "Go All the Way" kind of comes off like that at first glance. But if you dig a bit deeper, there's some really sophisticated nuance going on. That is, if you take the lyrics at face value, some hot chick begging a rock star to bang her, then sure, it might as well be "She's My Cherry Pie" or whatever. But Carmen's vocal performance belies a face value interpretation of the lyrics. He so throws himself into the role here that it is as though he's the one begging for sex. It's like "Dude, she totally wants me" actually means "Dude, I totally want her." He really does sing "please"; he really does beg in the most desperate way, revealing the same kind of emotional vulnerability that is more fully realized later with his solo hit "All By Myself." So we have this typical rock music cock-strutting going back and forth with this deep hormone driven absolute need for sex driving the narrative voice into pathetic rock bottom desperation. It's like he's trying to be a man but doesn't quite know what that means, like he's in the grip of forces he doesn't understand and it fucking HURTS. In short, this captures what it's like to be a teenaged boy in ways that are only matched by "Rebel without a Cause" and "Romeo and Juliet." At least, it reminds me of how I felt when I was sixteen in a really haunting way.

Kim Damn, Ron. Now I need a cold shower.

Kimberly What's wrong with begging a rock star for a good bang?

Jennifer Bullshit, if you want angst and sex listen to Since I've Been Lovin You by Zepplin....I'm begging for it when I hear that! I think it's more important for a song to make you want to go all the way. Music affects people differently but it's about the emotion that is evoked by listening to a song, to me. This song has the opposite effect of what it's trying to say...to me, that is.

Ron Well, in the end, everybody's an individual. That's just where I'm coming from, and I think that's also why the song has stood the test of time with the critics, who hated it back in the day but love it now. And just to clarify, I don't think it's a sexy song as much as it's an awkward and painful song in as much as the feelings it evokes in me. Also, "Since I've Been Loving You" is great, indeed, but it's a much more mature sexuality, definitely about adult lust rather than the clumsy lust of adolescence.

Also, the Boss loves the Raspberries.

You know, I don't think I would be enjoying facebook as much as I do if I hadn't been blogging for so long before I took the fb plunge.

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