My next featured song by The Smiths again comes courtesy of my younger daughter, Fiona. ‘This Night Has Opened My Eyes’ was recorded in September of 1983 for a BBC Radio program hosted by John Peel. Several songs from that appearance were released on compilation albums.
This is a good example of my daughters’ interest in The Smiths leading to a better appreciation and understanding of the band by me.
Way back in July of 2009, before this Song of the Day blog was even a year old, I posted a week’s worth of songs by The Smiths.
The reaction was swift and ugly: “Ugh!” “I can’t stand it!” “Grating!” “I can’t believe you are doing a whole theme week on the Smiths.”
Even my wife, largely a stranger to the blog’s comment section, chimed in to register her disgust.
Throwing back to the week of January 18, 1964, we find one of history’s greatest rock-n-roll songs tucked away at #2 behind Bobby Vinton’s ‘There! I’ve Said it Again..’
The Kingsmen’s ‘Louie Louie’ never made it to #1 but it is one of the best-known rock songs of all time, one of the most covered, and one of the most misunderstood. It’s an unintelligible three-chord masterpiece.
Throwing back to the week of January 16, 1954, we find Eddie Fisher’s ‘Oh My Papa’ with a stranglehold on Billboard’s Weekly Singles chart. The song, which I featured a few weeks back, clung to #1 from the beginning of the year through mid-February.
For a few of those weeks, including this one, it prevented a much better song from reaching #1. Dean Martin’s classic charmer ‘That’s Amore’ peaked at #2.
The last song I’ll feature as part of this year-end ‘What the Kids are Listening To’ installment is the 28th most popular song of last year, ‘Just Wanna Rock’ by Lil Uzi Vert.
Before I get to the song, I have to marvel at the fact that I somehow didn’t blog about 13 of the top 28 songs on the year-end Hot 100. When I did this exercise a year ago, I made it all the way to #27 before I got to a song I hadn’t featured.
Meet Me In Montauk 