THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

 

By the way:

The origins of this idiom can be traced back to the music industry of the 1960s. During this time, there was a surge in popularity for rock and roll music, which led to an influx of new artists trying to make it big. Many of these artists were able to achieve success with one hit song but struggled to maintain their momentum.

The term “one-hit wonder” was first coined by American journalist Steven Rosen in a 1966 article for Billboard magazine. In his article, Rosen referred to bands like The Knickerbockers and The Seeds as “one-shot phenomena,” which later evolved into the more commonly used

Since its inception, the term “one-hit wonder” has become deeply ingrained in popular culture. It is often used not only within the music industry but also in other areas such as film, television, and sports.

ONE HIT WONDERS

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A one-hit wonder is any entity that achieves mainstream popularity, often for only one piece of work, and becomes known among the general public solely for that momentary success. The term is most commonly used in regard to music performers with only one hit single that overshadows their other work.

- Wikipedia

The strange thing about One Hit Wonders is how brightly they shone with their one hit at the time and then fizzled out, largely dropping from view.

Here are some.

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(I Just) Died in Your Arms Tonight

Artist:

Cutting Crew

Year:

1986

Video link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dOwHzCHfgA

About:

"(I Just) Died in Your Arms" was the debut single by the English pop rock band Cutting Crew, released on 25 July 1986 as a single from their debut studio album, Broadcast.

The song was written by frontman Nick Van Eede,

According to Nick Van Eede, he wrote down a lot of song titles and ideas on a sheet of wallpaper, and one of the lines written there was "I just died in your arms tonight". The line came to Van Eede while he was having sex with his girlfriend; Van Eede said: "I actually remember saying that", and wrote it down. He woke up in the morning, wrote the song, and recorded a demo in three days.

He first added some chords to the line, singing it phonetically, before adding other lines from the wallpaper to construct a song. He wrote for three or four hours before realising what he was singing about. He said: "We got back together for one night after a year apart, and I guess there were some fireworks but all the time tinged with a feeling of, 'Should I really be doing this?' ”

When the song was released, the record label questioned the use of brackets for "I Just" in the title, but relented when it was pointed out such similar use in "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" by the Rolling Stones.

First released in Britain, the song peaked at No. 4 on the UK charts. Upon its release in the United States, the previously-unknown band's debut single shot to No. 1 and stayed there for two weeks. The song spent three weeks at number one in Canada.

With success came pressure. Cracks began to surface when none of their follow-up singles met commercial expectations. A battle with management kept the band’s follow up album from coming out until 1989. It bombed, and by 1993 the group had disbanded.

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Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye

Artists:

Written and recorded by Paul Leka, Gary DeCarlo and Dale Frashuer, attributed to the fictitious band ‘Steam’

Year:

1969

Video link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PxanXM48gI

About:

Studio musicians Gary DeCarlo, Dale Frashuer and Paul Leka had worked together on various projects for a few years. In 1969, DeCarlo was recording songs with Leka producing when they decided to revisit an old idea. "I started writing while I was sitting at the piano going 'Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na.' ... Everything was 'na na' when you didn't have a lyric,” Leka recalled.

The result was "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye," which they planned to use as a B-side to DeCarlo’s next single, but the record label loved it so much they wanted to make it the favored track.

Due to contractual obligations, the single was released under the band name Steam, even though there wasn't a real group at the time.

"Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye" reached number one in the United States for two weeks, on December 6 1969, displacing "Come Together" by the Beatles.

With the success of the single, there were demands for Steam to perform live and make TV appearances to support the hit single. But since “Steam” was a fictional group at that time, Leka put together a touring group which toured for much of 1970.

A debut album and a handful of other Steam singles followed, none of which made the same commercial impact as “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye.”

To date, the now oldies classic single has sold a total of over six million.

In 1977, Chicago White Sox organist Nancy Faust began playing the song. It had previously been sung spontaneously by fans in the stands, possibly beginning in a series with the Minnesota Twins July 1–3, 1977, a four-game series swept by the White Sox. The fan version went "Minnesota, Minnesota, Hey Hey Good Bye". Nancy Faust began playing it regularly on the organ later that month. It is generally directed at the losing side in an elimination contest when the outcome is all but certain or when an individual player is ejected, disqualified, or more often in baseball games, a pitching change is made during an inning (which is when Faust would play it). It has also been sung by crowds in political rallies, to taunt political opponents or to drown out and mock disruptive counter-protesters.

Jubilant Biden supporters sang this in the streets when Biden defeated Trump in the US election. I imagine Trump supporters sang it to say goodbye to Biden,  Harris and their suppporters.

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Black Betty

Artists:

Ram Jam

Year:

1977

Video link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_2D8Eo15wE

About:

"Black Betty" is a 20th-century African-American work song often credited to Huddie "Lead Belly" Ledbetter as the author, though the earliest recordings are not by him. Some sources say it is one of Lead Belly's many adaptations of earlier folk material.

There are numerous recorded versions, including a cappella and folk. The song was eventually, with modified lyrics, remade as a rock song by the American band Ram Jam in 1977. Subsequent recordings, including hits by Tom Jones and Spiderbait, retain the structure of this version.

Historically, the "Black Betty" of the title may refer to the nickname given to a number of objects: a bottle of whiskey, a whip, or a penitentiary transfer wagon. "Black Betty" was a common term for a bottle of whisky in the borderlands between northern England and southern Scotland; it later became a euphemism in the backcountry areas of the eastern United States. However, in more modern song references, the term "Black Betty" alludes to a fast car or motorcycle.

Bill Bartlett had been in the Lemon Pipers and then formed a group called Starstruck. While in Starstruck, Bartlett took Lead Belly's 59-second long "Black Betty" and arranged, recorded and released it on the group's own TruckStar label. "Black Betty" became a regional hit. Producers in New York formed a group around Bartlett called Ram Jam. They re-released the song, and it became a hit nationally. The song became an instant hit and reached number 18 on the singles charts in the United States; in the UK and Australia reaching the top ten.

Ram Jam wasn’t able to keep the momentum rolling, as band turmoil quickly brought the group to an end. They broke up in 1978, roughly a year after “Black Betty” was released. Their follow up album "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Ram" had achieved little success,

In 2004, Australian alternative rock band Spiderbait released their version, video link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nU1VfYYKMDk

Worth looking at.

QUOTE FOR THE DAY

 

FUNNY FRIDAY

 

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So here we are in 2025. In the words of John Lennon, the new year just begun, let’s hope it’s a good one, and that it has lots of Friday fun. No, that’s not true, I added the last bit, but the sentiment holds true, so here is the weekly Funny Friday.

Some belated New Year jokes included, as well as a couple of Scottish ones for Dave. Happy New Year laddie.

Enjoy.

Caution: risqué content ahead.

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SOME HUMOUR:

__________

Did you hear that NYC paid Hillary Clinton $2,000,000 as a consultant for New Year’s Eve?

They wanted an expert on dropping the ball at the last second.

_________

A guy walks into a bar on New Year's Eve and orders a glass of champagne. "Happy New Year!" he shouts. 

"Calm down," the bartender reprimands him. "It's still hours away." 

"Sorry," the guy apologises. "My doctor told me I sometimes suffer from premature congratulations."

__________

Two drunken Irishmen in a graveyard.

Paddy starts reading the gravestones.

"Mick" he says;

Would you look at this, a feller here who was 90 when he died!"

"Who's that?" says Mick.

"Somebody called O'Toole from Kerry," he replies.

Mick says, "Never mind him, there's a feller here called Murphy, was 99 when he died! From Castletown of all places!

"Well that’s nothing!" says Paddy.

"What about what written on this feller's stone, here right beside the gate!"

"The stone says 147!"

"147? That’s amazing!" says Mick.

"Who was he?"

"Well according to the stone, its somebody called Miles from Dublin.”

__________

Two Scottish nuns had just arrived to the US by boat when one said to the other, "I heard that the occupants of this country actually eat dogs!"

"Odd," her companion replied, "But if we shall live in America, we might as well do as the Americans do."

Nodding emphatically, the mother superior pointed to a hot dog vendor and they both walked towards it. "Two dogs, please," said one.

The vendor was only too pleased to oblige and he wrapped both hot dogs in foil. Excited, the nuns hurried over to a bench and began to unwrap their 'dogs'.

The mother superior was first to open hers, stared at it for a moment, then leaned over to the other nun and whispered cautiously, "What part did you get?"

__________

A helicopter loses power over a remote Scottish island and makes an emergency landing.

Luckily, there's a cottage nearby, so the pilot knocks on the door. "Is there a mechanic in the area?" he asks the woman who answers.

She thinks for a minute. "No, but we do have a McArdle and a McKay."

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The New York City Public Schools have officially declared Jewish English, now dubbed Hebronics, as a second language. Backers of the move say the city schools are the first in the nation to recognise Hebronics as a valid language and a significant attribute of American culture. According to Howard Ashland, linguistics professor at Brooklyn College and renowned Hebronics scholar, the sentence structure of Hebonics derives from middle and eastern European language patterns, as well as Yiddish.

Professor Shulman explains, "In Hebronics, the response to any question is usually another question with a complaint that is either implied or stated. Thus 'How are you?' may be answered, 'How should I be, with my bad feet?' Shulman says that Hebronics is a superb linguistic vehicle for expressing sarcasm or skepticism. An example is the repetition of a word with "sh" or "shm" at the beginning: "Mountains, shmountains. Stay away. You should want a nosebleed?"

Another Hebronics pattern is moving the subject of a sentence to the end, with its pronoun at the beginning: "It's beautiful, that dress."

Shulman says one also sees the Hebronics verb moved to the end of the sentence. Thus the response to a remark such as "He's slow as a turtle," could be: "Turtle, shmurtle! Like a fly in Vaseline he walks."

Shulman provided the following examples from his best-selling textbook,

Switched-On Hebronics:

Question: "What time is it?"

English answer: "Sorry, I don't know."

Hebronic response: "What am I, a clock?"

Remark: "I hope things turn out okay."

English answer: "Thanks."

Hebronic response: "I should be so lucky!"

Remark: "Hurry up. Dinner's ready."

English answer: "Be right there."

Hebronic response: "Alright already, I'm coming. What's with the 'hurry business? Is there a fire?"

Remark: "I like the tie you gave me; I wear it all the time."

English answer: "Glad you like it."

Hebronic response: "So what's the matter; you don't like the other ties I gave you?"

Remark: "Sarah and I are engaged."

English answer: "Congratulations!"

Hebronic response: "She could stand to lose a few pounds."

Question: "Would you like to go riding with us?"

English answer: "Just say when."

Hebronic response: "Riding, shmiding! Do I look like a cowboy?"

To the guest of honor at a birthday party:

English answer: "Happy birthday."

Hebronic response: "A year smarter you should become."

Remark: "A beautiful day."

English answer: "Sure is."

Hebronic response: "So the sun is out; what else is new?"

Answering a phone call from a son:

English answer: "It's been a while since you called."

Hebronic response: "You didn't wonder if I'm dead already?"

__________

A Scottish woman visiting the U.S. walks into a bar and asks the bartender for a domestic beer. The bartender asks, "Anheuser Busch?"

The woman, a bit confused replies " It's fine I guess...... Anheuser pecker?"

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LIMERICK OF THE WEEK:

There was a young lady of Gloucester

Whose friends they thought they had lost her

Till they found on the grass

The marks of her arse,

And the knees of the man who had crossed her.

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GALLERY:

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CORN CORNER:

__________

December 30 has officially been designated as New Year’s Adam.

It comes before New Year’s Eve, a disappointment she’s all too familiar with.

__________

If "womb" is pronounced "woom", "tomb" is pronounced "toom" then shouldn't "bomb" be pronounced

"BOOM"

__________

If you own a house and find one ant, you’re okay. If you see two ants, it’s still fine. Six ants? Be careful. Seven ants? Try to get rid of them. Nine ants is the true limit. Because if you find one more, you have tenants and can’t get rid of them without a court order

__________

I was told that I wouldn’t be very good at poetry due to my dyslexia.

But I think the vase and coffee mug I’ve made so far aren’t too bad.

__________

Who decided to make dyslexia such a hard word to spell?

Probably the same asshole who thought it'd be fun to add an "s" to lisp.

And who put five syllables in monosyllabic?

And why is separated all together and all together separated?

And the person who named the fear of long words

 Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia.

( It really is, see:

  https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia )

Same guy who named a speech impediment where they can't pronounce the letter r as "rhotacism".

And named the speech impediment where someone has difficulty pronouncing the letter L "lamdacism".

__________

What do Alcoholics call New Year's Eve?

Amateur night!

__________

What did the elephant say to the naked man?

"Cute, cute, but can it pick up peanuts?"

__________

I was staying in a hotel last night.

I phoned down to reception. “Hi, this is room 26. Can I have a wake up call, please?”

She said “Yes, you’re in your mid 30s, single, live with your mother and have achieved nothing in life!"

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QUOTE FOR THE DAY

Each morning sees some task begin,
Each evening sees it close;
Something attempted, something done,
Has earned a night’s repose.

Longfellow, lines from The Village Blacksmith

(And if you're wondering, I don't know why he used 'begin' instead of 'begun' in that the latter would have been a rhyme).

POETRY SPOT

Poem of English Pronunciation

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhymes with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough?
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is give it up!