Yesterday, my song "Spoiled Generation" finally made it to YouTube, with the help of a FB friend. See here for the MF Blog, the Sequel post about it. Now, having been taught how to do it, this morning, I uploaded the then-A side of the single from the band I created, Men Without Work, which song is "Ron Reagan is a Menace."
It's funny how my memory came roaring back as I uploaded this particular song. I distinctly remember writing this anti-Reagan song in 1983. Then, after playing it as a joke among drunken revelers on a piano near the end of an office Christmas party that year, my then and still revered late boss, a rock-ribbed Robert Taft Republican, said I should record it. So, in 1984, I decided to record it, costing me a bit over $1,500, not easy to pay in my still young days as a lawyer.
For the single, I played the keyboards and did the vocals. For the drums, I retained a friend's younger brother, who was then still in high school. He was a great drummer. He followed my directions for the drumming beats and drum-melodies. To prepare him, I had him listen to Bill Bruford's drumming on Yes' "Heart of the Sunrise" and Phil Collins' background work on Genesis' "Battle of Epping Forest." I came up with the band name as a parody of two bands of the time, Men Without Hats and Men at Work. I had lined up a guitarist, but he canceled at the last minute because his Dad, an FBI agent, warned him away, saying his being on the project would ruin his life. It was Orange County, CA in the early 1980s, after all.
The single, upon its 1984 release, received very limited airplay on KROQ-FM in Los Angeles (Thank you, Swedish Egil and especially Rodney on the ROQ), KPFK-FM (Andrea Enthrall, thank you!) , and KNAC-FM in Long Beach, CA (a station that played indie pop and rock at the time). At KNAC, the program director quit in protest against the station manager, who refused to let the Reagan song air after an initial airplay. This caused the Los Angeles Times to write a short blurb article on us and the imbroglio. Also, scattered across America and Canada, some college radio stations played it from time to time during that election year. A few weeks after the KNAC issue, the now late Wally George called the office to invite me on his show. My boss and my parents pleaded with me, Please don't do this, and, more for him than even my parents at the time, I reluctantly relented. I don't know what would have happened if I went on that show, and if it may have changed my life. On the other hand, it may have done nothing but force the firm to fire me, and then, when my heart went bad on me a few years later, I may have had poor or no insurance coverage that would have left me...well, let's not focus on that. Anyway, the song then disappeared. In the last five years, two different professional record collectors tracked me down to get a copy of the single (I still have maybe 100 copies out of 1,000 left), saying it was highly coveted among that set. I do say that, had there had been an Internet and social media back then, the song may have had a better chance of notoriety, at least, and I may have more easily found a guitarist and bassist to make it sound much better than this. I still wince at the Farfisa keyboard sound, though I admit it works much better on "Spoiled Generation."
I have uploaded this song more for historical interest than anything in particular. As we look back at Reagan and his successors, and the way my generation and older generations have generally voted, I think this song remains prescient, and shows why neither my Boomer generation nor the older generations still alive should be left off the hook. We knew. And a majority of us still voted the way they did, and continue to vote badly. Sorry, kids. I'm really, really sorry. I tried to warn us, too. It is why I also wrote this short story, "Boomerang."
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As stated in the previous post about "Spoiled Generation," nothing would make me happier than to see some young people re-record this song with guitars and bass and completely rock it out. All I ask for my permission to use it and we can discuss what you want to do with it commercially.
