What is THE tune that changed everything for you ?

My early musical obsessions have run from The Beatles to Black Sabbath to Rush to everything prog. Many of those obsessions changed my perceptions of the way music could be. It didn't have to be love songs or songs about parties. It didn't even need to make sense. I still listen to a lot of that, but the one song that changed my musical course was on a mixtape that I listened to endlessly in my car stereo while delivering pizzas in 1989. First Aid by Skinny Puppy. No guitars, all electronics. I went full no-guitars for a few years, and discovered a lot of non-mainstream bands in the aftermath while still holding true to what turned me on to my earlier loves. I've always had a penchant for the weird and uncomfortable so I may be the odd-man-out here, but there you go.
 
Tony M. said:
No single song.
The stuff that came out of the West Coast in 67-68.

QMS
Doors
'plane
Butterfly
Etc.
Click to expand...

I'm with you, bro'... Damn, how I wish I was actually around for the start of it...
But THE moment for me was aged 16 listening to all kinds of stuff at a friends house while partying on with the help of various chemical compounds, alcohol and herbage... I heard the intro to "Strange Days" by the Doors... Man... I think any semblance of normalcy left me there and then! Manzareks organ intro and Densmore's drumming took me to somewhere more primal, and it affected my very being.
I sat for the rest of the night, and half the next day looking at the album cover, and listening to the title song on loop... Then the obsession with all things "the doors" began... Then the Dead, the Airplane, QMS... The list is eternal...
 
Last edited:
BGood said:
There is one tune in your teenage years, that turned your world upside down. What is it ?

For me it's FOXEY LADY. First time I heard it was at a band practice in 67. The other guitarist had just bought the Are You Experienced album and asked us if we thought we could play stuff like that.
What the hell was THAT ? We thought Jimi played all partitions at once, couldn't grasp the concept. Didn't even know what a fuzz was.

After that, nothing was ever the same. Girls got foxier. My hair just spontaneously started to grow. Sweet dope was readily available. Amps got louder. Everything was now sexier. Being in a band was everything.

The band, a few years later. By then I had switched to bass.

full

​
Click to expand...

OK I am being lazy, as I seem to remember seeing a thread like this the other night but did 2 searches and after the first came up dead ends, this one from the 2nd try is almost on target. The way DrB states it made me have to ponder hard as to what was the HOOK band that got me.

I know I have posted a range of influences from back in my youth before I actually got to hear music over what is called a Stereo and actually played LP vinyl albums. Since like I said, I had to think of what the actual song might have been that got me hooked on R n R, it finally dawned on me that it pre-dates even my 9th birthday when I happened to see a TV ad for a compilation album of some pretty cool songs. The song I think I remember most hearing and having it stick with me happened somewhere around 1972 when I was 8 years old. I can still remember hearing it while sitting in a barber chair getting a haircut. The barber must have had his radio on, and this is the only song I remember hearing that day. So, I guess if I can pick one song it has to be Deep Purple's Smoke on the Water.

Just a little sample of a future tune I'd hear from Purple. They sure could rock.

However, If my memory is accurate, I did not immediately become a headbanger and gravitate to absorb as much rock music as possible just because I heard that song. It would be a bit by bit feeding of all manner of songs I got exposed to while in elementary school. These were songs like A Hard Day's night, Philadelphia Freedom, Tom Jones What's New Pussycat, Three Dog Night Joy To The World, Randy Newman's Short People, Louden Wainwright III Dead Skunk, Jesus Christ Superstar album, and many other hits as I got exposed to popular music in the early 70's. Take this collection I purchased off a TV ad. It was like $1.74 plus postage and handling and I had to ask my mom's aunt if I could do it. HAHA. It was called The Sound Effects Autumn '73 and here is the song list.


A1 Bad, Bad Leroy Brown
A2 Shambala
A3 Yesterday Once More
A4 Get Down
A5 Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting
B1 Brother Louie
B2 Has Anyone Seen My Sweet Gypsy Rose
B3 My Maria
B4 Uneasy Rider
B5 Will It Go Round In Circles
C1 Delta Dawn
C2 The Morning After
C3 Daniel
C4 Reeling In The Years
C5 Natural High
D1 Are You Man Enough
D2 Here I Am (Come And Take Me)
D3 Playground In My Mind
D4 Diamond Girl
D5 I Believe In You

Not a bad selection for a 9 year old HAHA
 
Last edited:
Here is a picture of the album cover.

R-3584179-1336242369.jpeg.jpg


Next came my true awakening to my soul on how I would never be the same and would feel like the POWER of loud live guitar music would pump through my veins right alongside the blood I came with does.

I can still remember when a fella in our middle school somehow was jamming to some stuff I had never before. I asked him what the heck it was. He said Van Halen and I asked if I could hear some more. From the first note on, I was then hooked. This happened to be Running With the Devil. I immediately bought the VH1 album, recorded it off the album with a cassette deck which I then carried to school with me. I'd listen with one of those single earphones you stuck into one ear. I can't even imagine how I'd get away with jamming to Runnin... Eruption ( OMG) , Jamie's Cryin, Ice Cream Man, I'm The One, Atomic Punk, but somehow I did.

The rest is History

 
eSGEe said:
Click to expand...

Those guys came a bit later when I'd go hang out at my friend Steve's house. He had a few of their albums. I always dug 100000 years.

Oh boy I sure loved my Van Halen Days. VH1, VH2, and even a little MEAN Streets, YEAH Boy, even their covers of songs blew away the originals if you ask me, freaking You're No Good flat out kicks the azz off the original.


 
Last edited:
As I recal---I couldnt have been more than 8 or 9 -- some relative gave me a kiss record for a gift -- probably just asked the guy at the RECORD STORE what "kids are into these days" --- and the rest is complete destruction of youth -- a failed adulthood and now a crotchety old stinker who wants ALL the LEs Pauls, and for everyone to get off his lawn--- and stop interrupting the SHOCK ME SOLO! --
 
The year was 1966, I was 8 years old, my father had just purchased a portable record player for me and the Beatles had just released Paperback Writer, my first 45 RPM record. This is what opened my ears to music.

 
Edit: I had to go back and rethink my original response, since the question asks about which "tune," rather than which album.

I'm going to say The Stones "Miss You." Once I heard that tune for the first time in '78, I instantly dug it and would walk the
hallways at school singing, "Oooh oooh oooh oooh oooh oooh oooh, Oooh oooh oooh oooh oooh oooh oooh, Oooh oooh oooh."
Also was a major influence in my song writing style back in my first band, "Greg Brady's Nightmare."

The_rolling_stones-miss_you_s_7.jpg
 
Last edited:
Easy one. I already liked rock music instinctively as a kid and kind of just dug whatever Hard Rock/RnR was on the radio. Had a couple of albums but wasn't "into" music yet. That all changed the first time I heard this:

 
I got to thinking about my Van Halen statement about them doing some covers better than the originals. Then I couldn't remember who actually did the You're No Good song. Of course, Linda Ronstadt, duh.

 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top