BACKSTORY: What is Considered to be the First Anti-Drug Rock Song?
Three questions answered this time...thanks for sendin' 'em in!
Q: There were so many drug songs in the 60's; what is considered to be the first anti-drug song?
A: KICKS (#4, 1966) by Paul Revere & The Raiders is thought to be the first anti-drug song. After the Animals had a hit with WE GOTTA GET OUT OF THIS PLACE (#13, 1965), Barry Mann & Cynthia Weil wrote KICKS, intending it to be recorded by the Animals. Meanwhile, Terry Melcher, who produced songs forPaul Revere & the Raiders, asked Mann & Weil for an 'Animals'-type tune. They sent him KICKS which they wrote as a kind of message to a friend who was on drugs; the friend is rumored to be Carole King's husband, songwriter Gerry Goffin.
Q: What was the first Beatle song to be used in a commercial?
A: Their song HELP! became the first in 1985 when the Ford Motor Company used it for their TV ads. Ford paid $100,000 for the right to use HELP!, even though that version was recorded by studio musicians & singers.
Q: Who's the girl who sounds like Rod Stewart that sang “it's a heartache, nothing but a heartache”?
A: The song is IT'S A HEARTACHE (#3, 1978) and the vocalist is Bonnie Tyler, who also hit #1 with TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE HEART in 1983. Bonnie developed throat nodules from singing in nightclubs in her native South Wales and had an operation in 1976 to remove them; this operation caused her raspy, “Rod Stewart-ish” voice.